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BIZNESS! Newsletter Issue 123

BIZNESS! Newsletter

 

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Cover Story

Fresh Ideas For Your Brand (That Won’t Freak Your Clients Out)

Now, that sounds just like exactly what you need to get your business fired up and moving along! But then reality creeps in. There’s the pressure of creating a fresh, interesting and new idea. You can’t just reach into a magic hat and pull that perfect idea out. Sitting and waiting around for that genius to strike…

Continued in BIZNESS! Newsletter Issue 123 >>>

 

Top Stories From CoolBusinessIdeas.com

– BiKN Helps You Keep Track of Your Life
– Touchscreen Waiter
– Pretty FieldCandy Tents
– Coffee Joulies
– Lytro – Capture Everything Instantly
– QR Haircut for Football Fans
– Dragon Phones from Vertu

Continue reading these top stories in the BIZNESS! Newsletter >>>

 

Top Stories From GetEntrepreneurial.com

– Three Things You Gotta Believe about Your Business
– 3 Steps to Implementing Your 2012 Marketing Plan
– Entrepreneur’s Journey: Finding A Place in the World
– Entrepreneurship – The Road Less Travelled
– 5 Tips for Starting a Business on a Shoe-String Budget
– Positive Partnering for Greater Business Success
– 5 Hot Retail Sectors for Start-ups

Continue reading these top stories in the BIZNESS! Newsletter >>>

 

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Can’t stand your demanding boss anymore? Start your own business! Before that, be sure to subscribe to our free informative newsletter. BIZNESS! is jointly published by CoolBusinessIdeas.com and GetEntrepreneurial.com What you get in BIZNESS! – the latest new business ideas, small business advice, business tips and info and entrepreneur resources. Everything you need for your brand new business!

Free 23-page PDF report – “Top 50 New Business Ideas of 2010” – included with your subscription. Some of the innovations featured in this free report: Ritmo iPod for Babies, ‘You and Me’ Clock, Travel Tours for Toys, Custom Boardshorts, and more. Learn more here.

 

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Categories
People & Relationships

Teamwork and Psychology: Insights from 30+ Years of Business Coaching

Article Contributed by Gary Jordan

What does it take for 800 people to work together on a project with minimum friction? Back in 1983, that’s exactly what my partner Lynda-Ross and I aimed to figure out.

When I fist met Lynda-Ross, she was managing a very large multi-year systems development project for a major corporation, and she was searching for tools to help the people working on the project stay motivated, reduce conflict, and perform to the best of their capabilities.

Through my years of college and graduate school, I had been fascinated by theories about psychological styles—such as those posited by Carl Jung—but none of the theories I studied fit my personal experience. Beginning with my doctoral dissertation and continuing through 18 years in private practice, I had worked to create a practical, useable psychological styles theory that integrated internal experience with observable behavior.

Lynda-Ross brought me in as a consultant to the project to help the management staff learn tools and techniques to improve teamwork and optimize the talents of the existing staff.  The more we observed and worked with people, the more we discovered.

One of the things we learned was that, not only do people who perceive the world similarly get along better, but they also had many of the same skills and abilities. As we thought about it, it made sense to us that people who perceived things similarly would possess similar skills. It was the next logical step to realize that the skill and ability similarities we observed were based on a similar style of perception, and that each of the six Perceptual Styles had an innate set of natural capacities.

Together we developed processes and training that used the Perceptual Styles Theory to help build teams, diffuse unnecessary conflict, and help people to understand that seeing things differently is not wrong, just different.

More than thirty years later, the same things we observed on that first project have held true, and they remain the basis of our work as coaches. Why? Because what it took for that huge team to succeed is what it takes for any team to succeed. Here are the four main components:

1. It takes people with different Perceptual Styles filling different positions on the team. After all, skills and abilities are directly tied to the ways that we perceive the world as individuals. The person who excels at accounting is generally not the same type of person who thrives in customer service.

2. It takes all of those people learning how to communicate effectively with one another, despite the differences in their Perceptual Styles. Simple adjustments in language and message delivery can eliminate 90 percent of all communication conflicts.

3. It takes all of those people feeling motivated, even though the differences in their Perceptual Styles means that they will be motivated in different ways. A range of incentives are required for optimum momentum on a project.

4. It takes leadership based on the team leader’s actual skills and abilities. There are many different ways to lead, but the only right way for any given person is the one that fits their innate Perceptual Style.

At every level of development, psychological styles are a huge factor in the success or failure of a business—because no matter what it is or what it does, people are what make your business tick.

About the Author: 

Gary Jordan, Ph.D., has over 27 years of experience in clinical psychology, behavioral assessment, individual development, and coaching. He earned his doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology – Berkeley.  He is co-creator of Perceptual Style Theory, a revolutionary psychological assessment system that teaches people how to unleash their deepest potentials for success. He’s a partner at Vega Behavioral Consulting, Ltd., a consulting firm that specializes in helping people discover their true skills and talents.  For free information on how to succeed as an entrepreneur or coach, create a thriving business and build your bottom line doing more of what you love, visit www.YourTalentAdvantage.com

Categories
Online Business

3 Tips to Internet Marketing Even If It’s Not Your Cup of Tea

On the surface, starting an internet-based business may seem like a dream come true. A business owner can start a business out of her home, selling her products and services everywhere and anywhere in the world without big marketing budgets or lots of advertising. However, once she puts up her first web site, that dream often comes crashing down – it’s not nearly as easy as it first looks.

So, she does her research. She starts learning everything she can about Internet Marketing.

But it’s still not as simple as what the “gurus” say. Maybe the business owner is still stuck at her current revenue goals and she knows she could be making more. Maybe she feels uncomfortable or “icky” around her marketing. Maybe she agonizes over every negative email and feedback she gets. And maybe she feels like there must be a better way.

Here are 3 tips to use to get more success through Internet Marketing:

1. Pull up those big girl panties and get some business training. People start businesses for all sorts of reasons that have really nothing to do with owning their own business. They want freedom, to provide for their families, to not have a boss, to get their message out into the world, to make a difference. None of those reasons started with the words, “I love business.”

So it only stands to reason they have little to no training or experience in business. If that’s the case, it’s unlikely that business will come naturally. Learning to run a business is like learning to do any skill. Learn to run an effective, profitable business, and put Internet Marketing in its proper place, which is …

2. Internet Marketing is a tool in a business owner’s marketing toolbox, it is NOT a business model. There’s a certain amount of confusion about this whole Internet Marketing thing, that this somehow is a business model rather than a collection of strategies. While it certainly CAN turn into a business model, that’s not a desirable situation. Typically, when that happens, the business has turned itself into a “launch after launch” model, which is highly stressful on a number of levels (not to mention it’s not sustainable, long-term).

When a business owner views Internet Marketing as simply another tool in her toolbox, then her mindset changes. It’s just another tool – nothing more, nothing less. Certainly nothing to agonize about. Next step: focus on using that tool correctly.

3. If there’s a part of Internet Marketing a business owner really struggles with, she should take a good hard look at it. One of two things will most likely happen – either she’ll see the reason she struggles is because she has a block around something else, and if she wants to fix it she will work on the block. Or she realizes this piece is just not going to happen – either she really hates doing it or maybe she feels like it doesn’t align with her or her business. If it’s the latter, she will have to find another way to get the same results, or she’s going to have to accept the consequences of not doing it.

But how does she know which one it is? If it’s a block or something else? And if it’s something else, how does she make the choice to do something different? And how does she know what the consequences even are, before it’s too late?

This is a problem I’ve seen over and over again – conscious entrepreneurs making a choice around Internet Marketing based on faulty or incomplete information and not realizing the consequences until it’s too late. It’s something no one else is talking about… but I am.  Stay tuned for more!

Categories
Finance & Capital

Contingency Planning for a Cash-Flow Crisis: Saving Accounts and Other Savings Vehicles

As an entrepreneur it can be all too easy to focus on making money and re-investing in your business, and neglect the prudent measure of developing some savings. Saving accounts can be an essential back up when you experience cash flow problems, a challenge that your business will inevitably face at some point. If you have yet to think about opening additional saving accounts to act as reserve finance for your business the most important thing is to act now – and this process need not take up a lot of time. There are a range of saving accounts and other savings vehicles that are easily accessible through retail banking. Here we will take a snapshot of the options typically provided through retail banking by looking at the saving accounts provided by Santander, one of the major players in the market.

The Instant Access Account offered by Santander is in many ways an ideal option for the small business. The instant access descriptor could be viewed as applying in a couple of ways, as this account is managed online, and so easily accessible in a hurry. This account also offers instant access to the cash within, without incurring any penalties for withdrawal. At the time of writing, the interest rate of 3.1% on offer for the initial deal period of 12 months is not far off what more restrictive savings vehicles can offer. This all means that this type of account should be used as reserve for at least a portion of your savings, as the accessibility of the money is perfect for dealing with temporary cash flow problems.

If you expect to have significant cash to park in a savings account in the near future you can look to develop more growth on the balance by locking the money away in a bond. As is typical of the market, the Fixed Rate Bonds offered by Santander deliver superior interest when compared with the Instant Access option, provided of course that you sacrifice the ability to get your hands on the cash before the term of the bond ends. Fixed rate bonds therefore present a more long term saving strategy, delivering better growth the longer you agree to keep the cash locked away. On the flip side, the inflexibility of the deal means that fixed rate bonds are definitely not suitable as your sole savings vehicle, as you will not be able to access the money early – before the bond matures – to address cash flow problems without incurring a penalty that will pretty much wipe out any growth that has been achieved.

Those that are registered as ordinarily resident in the UK for tax purposes can also look at the tax free savings options provided by the range of ISAs (Individual Savings Accounts). This type of account was introduced by the UK government to encourage citizens to save, offering tax free growth on balances up to a specified annual limit. For more information on ISAs and who qualifies to open these accounts, try looking at: www.hmrc.gov.uk/isa/faqs.htm.

Categories
Business Trends

Green Procurement and Business: What It’s All About

Businesses are more aware of the bonuses associated with green procurement than ever before, given the vast number of benefits that it can bring. Essentially, green procurement ensures that businesses protect local environments and economies from the effects of their operations, all the while allowing a business to deliver goods, servicesand utilities. By focusing heavily on local, or at least ethically-sound national supply chains, you can do your bit for conservation.

Now, it seems that there are plenty of financial incentives to encourage manufacturers to design environmentally-friendly items, whether it’s to avoid taxes and additional costs levied against those uninterested in resource conservation, or the extra outgoings paid through utility bills because of inefficient use of energy and water.

Sourcing locally can certainly boost sales. Flyerzone, an eco-friendly supplier, works particularly hard to forge relationships with nearby clients to boost their productivity, environmental credentials and save themselves money along the way. Many other organisations are very happy to broker regional deals to save money, even if local sourcing demands is becoming a bigger public desire.

Supermarkets in particular are angling themselves towards these programs. Waitrose, Asda and Tesco are particularly proud of highlighting times when they have sourced directly from a farmer in the region, while online stores such as Farmison.com solely market around these individuals and even give you specific insights into the companies and families that sustain their sales.

Procurement policies are also beginning to heavily centre on waste regulations, for money-saving reasons as much as ethical ones. The Packaging Directive tries to minimise extraneous materials and goes on to promote energy recovery as well as the re-use of packaging; it has effectively led to EU member states introducing national policies to set a minimum level of recycling, which is steadily increasing as recovery technologies improveThe UN advocates sustainable development of products made from popular materials such as woods and metals, and the United Nations Environment Program has proposed incentives for companies to replant and recycle to limit potentially devastating deforestation and water pollution. This is limiting international companies from visiting foreign nations such as Brazil and harvesting their wares, avoiding local and national regulations through importing. When businesses demand local produce, it is becoming clearer that this approach simply isn’t acceptable.

By adopting environmentally and locally-friendly initiatives, procurement managers can reduce overall production costs, create new standards and keep a solid supply chain in their area and beyond – all the while adhering to compliance regulations..