Month: April 2012

3 Reasons to Positively Take Time Away

Post author By Ethan Theo
Post date April 30, 2012

Around this time of year, we take some time away from work. At least those who have jobs…

For those of us who own the business, such time away seems elusive.

Here are some reactions I receive when I coach entrepreneur owners to positively take time away from work and my responses:

“I can’t afford to take any time away.”

You can afford it, and will benefit.

Recall the last time you tried to remember something—a customer’s name, your password, or a vendor—and failed. The harder you tried, the further it crept into your memory.

When did you remember it?

As you went on to something else and relaxed your mind.

It’s so easy for us entrepreneur owners to keep digging when we find ourselves in a hole. To assert our strong wills and work harder in the same rut…forgetting that the only difference between a rut and a grave is a few feet.

Just as we relax and remember, when you positively take time away from work and return, you come back with a renewed mental ability to see more clearly the strengths to accentuate and how to solve system problems. You Work Positive again with a recreated energy and reconnection with your emotional engagement.

“When the cat’s away, the mice will play.”

If we see ourselves as the cat and our employees as mice, we’ve set up for ourselves a predator-prey relationship. As Mark Crowley says in Lead from the Heart, this adversarial work environment is why over half of all workers hate their jobs, productivity suffers, and top talent walks out the back door.

Employees require training and development which pays significant dividends over the long term. Unless you only want employees to micromanage and control as an extension of your fragile ego, hire folks with core values like honesty, integrity, strong work ethic, etc. Constantly evaluate and be evaluated, but just as character is defined by what you do when no one is looking, so is the employees’ ability to achieve peak performance. As you take time away, you discover the strengths of your team and your training, any weaknesses, and adapt accordingly.

Also, you find some more unique relationships in which only you can invest. For instance, I recently took off a few days to celebrate my wife’s birthday. We went antiquing, spruced up some things around our home, and I had a dinner party in her honor. She’s telling all of her friends first about the days off I took to invest in her and only when they ask about the presents I bought.

How’s that for developing a relationship?

“Time is money.”

If this is true, we really bought ourselves a job, not a business and will make more money per hour and enjoy more time away working for someone else.

Is your business scalable? Train others.

How’s your production capacity? Hire others.

Time is more than money.

At our younger daughter’s track meet one year, I overheard her conversation with a fellow runner.

“Your Dad comes to all of our meets. I wish my Dad did,” her friend said.

“Yea, he does,” our daughter replied. “He says he gets one shot at being my Daddy and I’m important enough to take off work for.”

One of our strengths as entrepreneur owners is we can figure out a way to make money.

Time is more than money. Invest wisely.

Positively take some time away from work.

About the Author:

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), coach, and speaker who help professionals discover success in the silver lining of their business and achieve their dreams. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org/speaking.

Franchise

High Demand Ahead!

Post author By Ethan Theo
Post date April 28, 2012

The business idea that we would like to introduce you to is associated with a largely unsatisfied demand. You certainly noticed how much people strive to be the center of attention and to be admired by others. The same desire applies to business owners. They too want their companies and products to be noticed and appreciated. The lack of attention and admiration is equal to failure. This deficit creates unhappiness in people and makes companies go bankrupt.

There is a whole line of businesses that are highly successful just because they help to implement these strong aspirations of people. Such businesses include manufacturers of fashion apparel, accessories, and even popular social networks. But the demand in those industries is huge! The product we want to tell you about attracts a lot of attention. That product is the Dance Heads studios, where anyone can record their own funny video in 5 minutes, while completely changing their usual image. This incredible transformation, like magic, evokes a storm of positive emotions and admiration from the audience. You can watch an example of a video here: http://dh-business.com/hit-parade/2/4/t

Guests of our booths later show their Dance Heads videos to their friends and upload them on Facebook and YouTube, which multiplies the attention to them tenfold. The Dance Heads studio can be used by individual guests or a company, since we can create customized corporate videos. “For an hour, the booth was surrounded by a crowd of people and everyone wanted to record their video,” said John LeGuen, the owner of four Dance Heads studios.

Dance Heads is essentially a fully operating business that does not have analogues. It is a large, world-famous booth chain, whose product is successfully used for guests at holiday events, corporate parties, weddings, birthdays, festivals, as well as theme parks and entertainment centers.

Every Dance Heads partner receives:

Training and training manuals for the booth
Software updates
New videos and songs
Promotion materials for the business
Technical and administrative support from the professionals of the Central Dance Heads office

Our company takes good care of its partners, which is why along with technical support and educational programs you will receive information based on successful business experience, which will help you to maximize your profits. How to do business correctly? Where to use your studios? How to find loyal customers? How to choose a good location for your studios? How to make more money? All of this information and more will help you to thrive in this unique business. Want to learn more? Go to http://www.dh-business.com

Join our team!

Operations

How A Simple Email Signature Can Get You More Clients

Post author By
Post date April 28, 2012

Whenever you receive an email from me you will ALWAYS see my contact information at the bottom and know exactly how you can get in touch with me. You will see:

My name
My company’s name
My telephone and fax number
My email address (with an active hyperlink)
My website address (with an active hyperlink)
And an active hyperlink to the signup page of my newsletter

But do you have all of your contact information on the bottom of all of your emails? If not, why? And why is it so important that you have an email signature? Well, because:

Your clients and potential clients know exactly how to get in touch with you
It’s a good marketing tool
You can use it to promote special offers
It can drive traffic to your website
It tells people who you are and what you do

Setting up an email signature is simple to do, and I will tell you how! As a general rule of thumb your email signature shouldn’t be more than about six or seven lines long otherwise it just becomes too big and may detract from your email. After all you don’t want your email signature to be longer than your email!

Your basic email signature should contain:

Your name
Your company’s name
Your telephone, fax number, and email address
Your Website URL with an active hyperlink
And maybe a line promoting one of your services, a special offer, a link to your newsletter, or anything else that you would want to let your target audience know about.

Set up your email signature so that it AUTOMATICALLY goes out on every single email that you send, whether it’s a new email or you’re replying or forwarding on an email.

Here’s how to set up your email signature …

Outlook

1. Go to Tools > Options > Mail Format > Signature Picker.

2. Click on New and then enter a name for your signature i.e. Business

3. Client on Next and then design your signature in the blank box. You can change the font, font size, and text color

4. Once done click on Finish and preview your signature in the preview window. If necessary, go back and edit it.

5. Once you’re happy with your new signature click on OK.

6. Ensue that the Use this signature by default box has the name of your new signature in it, and click on OK.

7. Congratulations – You’re done!

Outlook Express

1. Go To Tools > Options > Signatures Tab.

2. Tick Add signatures to all outgoing messages.

3. Deselect Don’t add signatures to all ‘Replies and Forwards’.

4. Add your signature in the Edit Signature text box

5. Once you’re happy with your new signature click on OK.

6. Congratulations – You’re done!

Gmail

1. Go To Mail Settings (looks like a cog wheel in the top right corner of your Gmail account).

2. Click on Labs.

3. Search for Signature Tweaks (this places your signature before the quoted text in a reply, and removes the “–” line that appears before signatures).

4. Click on Enable, and then scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes.

5. Now go to your General Tab and scroll down until you find Signatures.

6. Select the email address that you want to create a signature for.

7. Create your email signature.

8. Scroll down to the bottom and click on Save Changes.

9. Congratulations – You’re done!

Success Attitude

3 Delicious Qualities of a Work Positive-Solid Business

Post author By Ethan Theo
Post date April 27, 2012

My grandmother gave me a chocolate bunny every spring when I was a child. I always looked forward to getting it, but there were some chocolate bunnies I liked better than others.

Some years she gave me a hollow chocolate bunny. Now I really liked the chocolate, but when I bit into it, there was nothing but air.

Other years she gave me a marshmallow-filled chocolate bunny. It was great because it had something inside. But marshmallow does get a little old after a few bites and it’s just not chocolate.

My favorite years were those when my grandmother gave me a solid chocolate bunny. I knew exactly what to expect with each bite because they were chocolate all the way through. An unbeatable combination!

Do your customers know what to expect from your business?

What about your employees?

Do you know what to expect?

Here are 3 delicious qualities of a Work Positive-solid business you can grow and give today:

Trust

Do your customers or clients trust you?

Can they turn their back on you, i.e., trust you to do what you say you’re going to do, the way you said you’d do it?

Do they have to read the fine print, covering their backside with you, for fear of you wiggling out of the agreement?

To create a Work Positive-solid business, one that lives up to its advertising appearances, be trustworthy with your customers. When clients take a bite of your business, they know what to expect, enjoy the taste, and come back for more with their friends.

Your cash flow will hop with delight as you build trusting relationships with your customers and clients in creating a Work Positive-solid business.

Integrity

If we surveyed your employees, would they say you’re an owner of integrity? Someone who keeps promises? Who backs up talk with walk?

They’re always watching you. They can tell when business is good, and when it’s not. They fill the information vacuum with their worries when you’re not talking and walking the same.

We all want low-maintenance employees; top-talent teams who help us achieve our Work Positive dreams. Attracting and hiring them is one thing. Keeping them is another.

Talk and walk consistently. Keep your promises. Conduct yourself with integrity as you create a Work Positive-solid business. Your employees’ productivity sky-rockets as you do.

Honesty

Are you honest with yourself?

Even if you know something is false, if you repeat to yourself often enough, you believe it. But what have you really accomplished for your business?

For instance, are you honest enough with yourself to admit to a customer when you make a mistake? Or, do you roll an employee under the bus?

You gain more business when you choose to be honest—“I apologize. I blew it.”—than when you employee-toss.

Your customers will be relieved to know that you are honest and take personal responsibility for your mistakes. Your employees will defend you to the last dollar when you tell the truth.

Be honest with yourself, your clients, and your employees. Tell the truth as you create a Work Positive-solid business. Your bottom line goes supernova positive as you do!

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