Six Foundational Reasons for Managing Your Time
December 31, 2009
Most of us know how to manage our time. It is pretty simple really. What most of us miss are compelling reasons to manage our time. We know the “how” but miss the “why.” Here are six foundational reasons I have that motivate me to manage my time and myself properly.
It is a matter of stewardship. I view my life as not my own. I am merely a steward of it. I am given control over it for some 70 years and I should make wise decisions with it! This is a great sense of responsibility that compels me to manage my time.
It is a matter of personal fulfillment. When I get to the end of my life I want to be able to feel a sense of pride and satisfaction that I have lived well, helped others, and achieved much. This drives me to not waste time but to use it wisely.
It is a matter of providing for and being responsible to your friends and family. I owe some of my time - serious amounts - to my friends and family. If I let myself get out of control, they suffer the loss and that is something I do not want for them. I manage myself and my time so that I can give valuable portions of it to those who matter most.
Turbo-Charge Your Rollout with ERM
December 30, 2009
Employees are the often-neglected stakeholders in the success or failure of a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) initiative. But employees don’t always resist new ways of doing business. If you factor in relationship management practices that engage people in the change process, you can circumvent significant resistance and actually speed up implementation.
Find the Sweet Spot
Embarking on any change initiative, such as a CRM implementation, requires a parallel strategy of ERM - Employee Relationship Management. In helping companies manage change, our experience repeatedly tells us that employees know what the problems to implementation are, usually have strong opinions about them, and honestly want to make their work environment successful. Nobody wants to work in continual chaos. So leaders and managers need to leverage existing employee knowledge and motivation-that sweet spot-to accelerate implementation. Finding the sweet spot will help you develop the strategy to:
Move managers and employees to quickly buy into CRM implementation and;
Productively reflect on what actions or new behaviors need to be adopted (teamwork, better communications, better problem-solving, decision-making, etc.).
Confronting Resistance
Love My Dentist
December 30, 2009
I love my dentist! When is the last time you could say that about yours?
True, dentists do tend to get a bad rap (remember Steve Martin’s sadistic character in the movie, Little Shop of Horrors?). But even real-life visits to the dentist aren’t high on the list of relaxing things to do.
So what does my dentist have to do with marketing? Everything. And the reasons why my dentist has more private pay clients than they can handle and is a referral-receiving machine, are marketing lessons we can all take to the bank.
This is not so much about how to market a dental practice, as it is an illustration of how smart marketing strategy can permeate every aspect of a busy professional service firm.
During my last appointment, Dr. Penski and I talked about her practice and approach to marketing. Here’s what I learned:
Clear Positioning:
Fresh out of Georgetown University’s Dental School, she couldn’t get funding for her vision of a practice that would cater to women. In her words, “Anger was a great motivator,” so she set out to fulfill her dream by catering to private-pay professional women and moms, two very influential forces when it comes to how families spend their dental dollars.
Seven Key Qualities of Successful Entrepreneurs
December 29, 2009
A recent poll conducted by Forbes magazine shows that majority of its readers would prefer to become a billionaire rather than a Nobel peace prize winner, a great scientist or a famous athlete. There is no secret that most of the average people dream about getting rich albeit very few makes any real effort to become one.
According to statistics, more than 100 thousand people become millionaires each year in the United States alone! Overwhelming majority out of them is self-made and owners of business. This means, if you would like to pursue your goal of becoming rich, you have to start your own venture.
Becoming an entrepreneur is not an easy task! There are certain qualities that are absolutely necessary if you would like to become successful in your business ventures. Some of these qualities are built-in parts of your inherent personality, and some of them get developed over time. Knowing these characteristics and identifying your weak ones - those, which need strengthening - will, eventually, help you become a successful entrepreneur.
1. Common Sense
Studies show that most successful businessmen consider common sense as the foundation of their success. Common sense is defined as an ability to make sound judgments on the issues, which you encounter in everyday situations.
Getting What You Want
December 28, 2009
1. Recognize that you are the source of everything that you want.
Stop waiting to inherit it, win it; marry it, or expecting it to come from any source other than you. You can have anything that you want, all it requires it working with thoughts, feelings and intentions.
2. Understand that the process of attaining what you want (the how) is more important than the end result (the what).
It’s really a matter of personal growth, changing your thinking and expanding your beliefs about what you deserve to have. Once you have mastered the how, you can have what you want when you want it. It is the old adage about teaching a man to fish in order to feed him for a lifetime.
3. Don’t underestimate the power of your thoughts, emotions and intentions.
Your thoughts are the model of what you want. Everything that was invented in this world began as a thought in someone’s mind first. Emotions energize thoughts. The more passionately you want something, the more rapidly you bring your thoughts into form. Intention acts to direct you thoughts and emotions. The clearer you are as to your purpose or intention the more likely you are to get what you want.
Sum of Its Parts
December 27, 2009
I just spent a week at the beach with my family and, as much as I vowed not to think about work, stumbled onto a highly relevant lesson for marketing professional services.
It was actually my mother who inspired this lesson, thanks to the following beachy quote she had on the refrigerator:
“Saltwater taffy, for example, does not taste good. Seagulls are not pleasant birds. Most people look better in clothes ? a lot of clothes. But it works. The beach is the ultimate triumph in setting.” ?from the article, Sea and Be Seen
What does this have to do with marketing professional services? A lot. Just like saltwater taffy, seagulls, and under clothed people, any one thing done in isolation to market your professional services won’t work.
When you take the sum of its parts, marketing works.
Let’s take an easy example: networking. Done in a vacuum, networking is just a “part.” Without ways to sustain a new contact’s attention, build their trust, or keep in touch ? the other “parts” of your whole ? you spend far more time and energy drumming up business than if you had other aspects of your marketing “machine” doing a lot of the work for you.
Recruiting on the Web Requires Special Record Keeping for Legal Purposes
December 26, 2009
by Lesli Peterson, Business Analyst, VCGwith Phil McCutchen, Marketing Manager, VCG
With the age of the Internet upon us, recruiting methods have expanded dramatically. Staffing companies now regularly use the Web to locate qualified candidates for their open positions.
The most common methods include searching Job Boards and Corporate Websites. Job Boards, whether belonging to the staffing company or otherwise, allow recruiters to post specific positions, asking applicants to submit their resumes or follow a link to a registration page on their website. Corporate Websites are now allowing recruiters to post jobs for general or specific positions and permitting candidates to register with the Staffing Company and/or apply for a specific position.
Unfortunately, many Staffing Firms are in the dark about how to address certain recordkeeping requirements. Providing much needed light is the 1978 Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP) published by the government to resolve inconsistencies between the EEOC(1), DOL(2), DOJ(3) and OPM(4).
The UGESP, which requires that certain records be kept for reasons of measuring disparate impact, have published clarifications on the issue with regard to new technology. The following questions have been published as a three-part "test" to determine if your business should report race, gender and ethnicity information about an individual:
How To Stand A Chance In The Search Engine Optimization Maze
December 25, 2009
How To Stand A Chance In The Search Engine Optimization Maze
by: Ian Simpson
Despite all the other methods available for obtaining a decent web ranking for your website, for instance, link exchanges, search engine optimization or SEO is still regarded as the way to go to ensure that your website is listed high in the search engine rankings.
Search engine optimization is a method of analyzing your site and modifying it to allow search engines to read and index it. Search engine optimization is about building and maintaining a website that will get ranked highly on the major search engines. SEO comprises of a set of techniques used in order to attract visitors or prospective customers to your website, and the aim of a search engine is to provide high quality, relevant content to the users of the Internet. Search engines are now more particular on what they list in their databases and a content relevant site is the requirement if you are to stand any chance of getting ranked successfully.
One Simple Idea to Grow Your Business
December 25, 2009
Perhaps the most common theme I’ve heard in working with business owners or managers is that they rarely have time to plan for the future. They are so busy with day to day tasks and responsibilities, just getting through their weekly "To Do" list or fighting fires consumes all their time and energy, and then some.
Business owners often tell us that effective marketing strategies are not in place. Why? Because they are too busy selling. New products and services are not being developed. Why? Because they are involved in the delivery of existing products and services. Long-term planning is not addressed. Why? Because they are so busy working on this week’s "To Do" list.
The solution to these scenarios is to distinguish long term functions from short term functions. This doesn’t mean deciding which tasks you will do today and which you will do at some point in the future. It means knowing which functions make the business healthy in the short term, and which functions make the business healthy in the long term. It’s not that one is more important than the other ? you have to do both well.
Marketing Strategy - Whats Your System?
December 24, 2009
Where Do Most of Your Clients Come From?
Is it from your marketing and sales system?
When I meet people for the first time and they understand that I’m a marketing consultant, I’m frequently asked, “Where do most of your clients come from?” Many times I believe the question is asked innocently enough. But, quite often I feel like the person asking wants to know if I have a magic answer that might work for them.
Most small business owners are passionate about the services they provide - not the marketing it takes to consistently find more clients. Many service businesses will admit that they’re not really sure what works best or how to get going with marketing.
With that as your starting point, marketing can sure seem like a lot of work that takes too much time and energy for the return on investment.
Too often the result is a scatter gun approach. I refer to it as episodic marketing - a series of unfocused and hastily-planned, one-shot episodes (or campaigns). For example, throwing together a tri-fold brochure that you can start mailing or handing out to everyone you meet; or sending out a direct mail piece to try and stir up some interest.
