Author: Pamela Swift

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Recommendations

Business Blogging: Keep It Simple and Informative

Article Contributed by Tami Stodghill

It’s pretty much been established that blogging is important in network marketing. To quote a popular Business Week article: “Blogs Will Change Your Business—Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up…or catch you later”. Blogs offer an abundance of information from an even bigger variety of sources. They are generally—if done well—honest and provide insights that are tougher to absorb sometimes through news articles and news reporting. The right blog can answer questions you may have in regard to any number of topics related to your business. Subscribing to blogs you find informative is a must. I do. I have perused the internet for bloggers who seem to speak to me and offer another view of things that I hadn’t thought about. And we should never stop learning or being open to receiving new information.

When I was previously in the work force putting in my 8-5 hours, blogging was part of my responsibility as a Press Relations specialist. It was also part of my freelance writing career. I was able to write about software in a way that offered easy reading and a view from a “real-world” user of that software. And now that I own my own business, I approach it from the same way. I write what I know was important for me in my learning how to be successful in my business and I want to offer it to others in the way I perceived it. I write every entry hoping what I write will change someone’s life and help them to better understand what it takes to be their own boss. I take the attitude that if I can help even one person change the level of their success, then I’ll know I’ve contributed.

I get contacted by people who ask me things such as “what do I blog about?”, or “what do I say?”, or “what if no one thinks I’m interesting?”. And overthinking and analyzing what you want to say in your blog can actually detract from its effectiveness. If you sit down and expand on one thing that happened to you, or that you learned from, you will, most certainly, have appropriate blog content. That said, however, you should also put it out there in a way that is readable, understandable and appropriate. Thus, the importance of writing skills…

No one is a perfect writer. And writing styles vary person to person. That’s why one person likes Nora Roberts and the other lives for Stephen King novels. And comments, if you receive them, should be received with the attitude that you value the input and will grow and learn from that input. The more you write, the better you will become at it. And there are many people whose blogs I read even a year ago, that I revisit now and am taken aback at how inspirational their content has become. The best writing, to me, is done in a conversational style. If you can say what you want to say the way you would to a friend through your writing, you will reach people.

Ideally, your blog subscribers or readers should feel you there talking to them, and welcome the content as offering a value in it’s information. It should also be simple and follow a clear train of thought. No matter what you are covering, it should be read, and reread before you put it out there as your own.

Sometimes, I will write a blog and read it the next morning and decide the best place for it is in a file. It wasn’t what I wanted representing me and it didn’t offer content that I would have read myself. That’s the true test. Ask yourself, “Do people really need this information?” And if they do, are you including content that is actually supporting the point you are trying to make? Is it guiding your subscribers and readers to the conclusion you want them to come to? When you read it, if it sounds redundant, edit your work. Keep what you need to make your point, and do away with fluff or unnecessary content.

I started a habit a long time ago of keeping a small pad and pen with me wherever I go. If I’m out and about and think of something that changed the course of my day, or try something that I experience success with, I jot down a few words to remind me about that thought. At any given time, I may have 10 topics that are pending as possible topics for my blog. Some may never be used. Others, I can’t wait to write about and they are crossed off the next day. It’s a great habit to get in and will provide you with content to expand on. Even things people say to you or something you read in a book can be a spur for a great blog idea.

The important thing is to get started. Once you do, you will find it comes easier with each entry. Worst case, you find out you need to improve your writing skills and utilize a grammar/spelling checker to help you out initially. Best case, you may discover that you have a hidden talent and actually might have fun doing it.

About the Author

Tami Stodghill was the Press-Relations manager, for a world-wide extensible-technology distributor based in London and the US for 20 years. She was also a freelance writer for several industry publications and is now a home-based business owner with WMI. She makes her home in Page-Lake Powell, Arizona, in the summers and Palm Harbor, Florida in the winters where she enjoys boating and reading, camping, hiking and meeting new people. She runs a blog site exclusively to offer tips for success for any small or home-based business.

Categories
Home-Based Business

Invest Wisely When It Comes to Your Office Desk

Article Contributed by Lloyd Burrell

The Small Business Boom

With all the funding available these days for starting your own business, it is no wonder so many people are choosing to do so. And with so many new businesses around, it is important to ensure that you have the edge it takes to draw a profit in your market if you are starting your own business. The best way to do this by spending as much time as you can afford planning and making smart investments.

Your principal, whether it consists of loans or your own saved cash, is the fuel that will get your business off the ground. The more you invest initially, the longer it will take for you to start turning out profits, but the more properly equipped for success you will be (assuming you plan well).
Most home office set-up investments are used to purchase a few basic things:

  • A personal computer
  • An office desk
  • Peripherals (printers, scanners, extra speakers, fax machines, etc.)
  • Other job-specific necessities (computer programs, envelopes, etc.)

Of these, the most consistently needed are the first two: a computer and a desk. With the speed at which technology is constantly changing and developing, it is hard to offer consistent advice about what to look for in a computer. Office desks, on the other hand, serve a more basic, less complex function, and it is therefore easier to offer solid advice about this essential purchase.

When Shopping For an Office Desk

Keep in mind every aspect of your business throughout the process of shopping for your desk. You should know how much business you expect to be doing, what the realistic requirements of that business would be, how much time you intend to spend at your desk each day and doing what tasks, and what your relationships with your customers and associates will be like.

A Desk That Speaks Success

Ultimately, the customer is the most important element in the success of any business. The more personable your business appears to your customers, the more likely they will be to choose your product or service. So of course having an attractive office desk is important if you ever plan on meeting customers in person.

Some businesses, however, are run entirely online, and simply having a tidy working area to post a picture of is probably sufficient if this is your case. You can save a lot of money by buying a more plain-looking desk, but you should not risk appearing unprofessional to your customers in doing so. Know what the standard in your industry looks like and try to meet it without exceeding it by too much. Bush Furniture retailers typically offer a range of products that cover all bases.

The Right Tools for the Job

Once you have gotten an idea of what you are looking for concerning the first thing you notice about a desk—its appearance—the next step is to come up with a general idea of the range of functions you need your desk to serve. There is an enormous range of available desks tailored to every imaginable function; in order to know what desk is right for you, you have to make a lot of decisions about what exactly your business is going to do. How extensive will your customer relations be? Will you correspond via email, telephone, fax, conventional mail, or all of these? Will you be shipping packages regularly? How much storage space will you be needing?

Each of these decisions has implications concerning what you will need in a desk, and under-planning by overlooking any of these details can be a very costly mistake. Used office desks are not easy to sell, and new ones are not cheap to buy. Make sure you know what equipment besides a personal computer your desk will have to accommodate. Typically any place you can buy Bush Furniture is a good place to find the desk that best meets your needs.

You Know What Is Best for You

While all of these factors are important, it is also important not to overlook the way you feel about the desk you are thinking of purchasing. Starting your own businesses is one of the hardest things you can do, and if you are serious about doing it without getting burnt out, it is important that you are satisfied with your work environment. Having the right office desk improves your attitude toward your business, increasing your chances for success.

Finally, because of the long hours required of entrepreneurs, it is important that you find a desk that fits your body type. Injuries related to computer use and other tasks that involve repetitive motions of the hands are no joke. The last thing you need is constant pain holding you back from accomplishing all you are capable of in your market. Take your time and find the right desk for you.

About the Author

Lloyd Burrell is an expert in office desks furniture and other office-related subjects. He is the publisher of OfficeDeskReviews.com. He is British, but currently lives on the West Coast of France with his wife and two children. His hobbies include traveling, enjoying French cuisine and culture, and keeping fit. Lloyd is an experienced badminton player and is learning to play the guitar.

Categories
People & Relationships

The 7 Deadly Sins Of Organizational Leadership Communication

Article Contributed by Skip Weisman

Upon completing a recent project I took my client to lunch to thank him for his business. We reminisced about how we first met at my End Procrastination NOW! Workshop and how he realized at that time he was tired of tolerating things in his business.

Among the problems with which he was becoming increasingly frustrated were senior team members and frontline employees who…

  • Were not taking responsibility for their jobs
  • Needed constant prodding to get things done
  • Were not responsive to client requests
  • Did not return phone messages
  • Were throwing their fellow employees “under the bus”
  • Were having shouting matches in the office and on project sites
  • Using profanity when communicating with co-workers, clients and vendors
  • Procrastinated on following through on business opportunities
  • Were showing up late or leaving early with no explanation
  • Had negative attitudes
  • Complained about customers and co-workers
  • Were “disappearing” during the day

I began my project searching for the real underlying cause of these issues by:

  • Interviewing the entire staff of 25
  • Holding a series of focus groups
  • Observing interactions and conversations between the business owner and his people.

What I learned in just two weeks could fill a book.

My new client was violating virtually every leadership communication mistake. To simplify the project I categorized them into what I now call “The 7 Deadly Sins of Organizational Leadership Communication:”

  • Communication Sin #1: Lack of Specificity – This causes people on the receiving end of a communication to have to mind-read or guess as to what is being requested of them. Details are left out or are at best, vague. The recipient for many reasons fails to ask follow up questions to get specifics and have to figure it out on their own.
  • Communication Sin #2: Lack of Focus on Desirable Behaviors – People are great at saying what they don’t want or what they don’t want others to do, but have challenges identifying the behaviors they want instead. Where your focus goes, grows. As such, people are getting more of what they don’t want because they continue to focus on it.
  • Communication Sin #3: Lack of Directness – This is where people in organizations go behind the backs of their co-workers, peers, bosses and subordinates with water cooler gossip. Another example is the leader who tries to fix a problem that should be addressed to one person but calls a team meeting to offer a blanket directive. A third is when co-workers tell managers the mistakes co-workers make hoping to make themselves look good at the expense of someone else.
  • Communication Sin #4: Lack of Immediacy – This is procrastination. This is when communication is avoided because the conversations are difficult and leaders don’t know how to approach the offending party, so they choose not to.
  • Communication Sin #5: Lack of Appropriate Tone – Ever had someone in a professional setting raise his or her voice at you in a condescending or threatening manner? How about responding in a sarcastic manner? These are just two of the ways inappropriate tone ruin relationships and trust in company cultures.
  • Communication Sin #6: Lack of Focused Attention – In this day of technology and multi-tasking too many office conversations occur passing in the hallway, while one person is checking/responding to e-mails on their smart phone, or talking to us while on hold waiting for someone they will likely deem more important once they come on the phone. This fosters disrespect and low trust in organizations.
  • Communication Sin #7: Lack of Respectful Rebuttals – This may be the most common, yet subconscious of all seven leadership communication sins. It’s the conversations when someone agrees or provides positive feedback in the first part of their sentence, only to be followed by “but.” After the “but” comes the other shoe and you end up feeling misled and unfulfilled.

These behaviors had caused significant damage to my client’s 25-year-old, $15 million business with 25 employees over the past ten years. My client actually estimated that allowing these communication issues to build up over ten years had cost him about $5 million.

That’s real money for some people.

If you are making these same leadership communication mistakes I invite you to go to www.HowToImproveOrganizationalCommunication.com and get my free special report “The 7 Deadly Sins of Organizational Leadership Communication” where I will show you how to fix these sins and build a championship organization.

About the Author

Skip Weisman of Weisman Success Resources, Inc. of Poughkeepsie, NY (www.WeismanSuccessResources.com) works with organizational leaders to improve personnel, productivity and profits by helping them “Create a Champion Organization,” one that communicates effectively and takes action with commitment towards a shared compelling vision. His latest White Paper Report is “The 7 Deadly Sins of Organizational Leadership Communication” available free at www.HowToImproveOrganizationalCommunication.com

Categories
Business Ideas

Saving Green by Going Green

Article Contributed by Cyndi Lundeberg

Purchasing new equipment which satisfies eco-friendly concerns might be a business investment most companies are uninterested in making. While purchasing new equipment might prove an expensive undertaking, some green business technologies might actually end up saving your company money. One of these green technologies is a POS system developed by Panasonic System Networks of America.

In adhering to the company’s eco-ideas initiative, Panasonic developed the Lite-ray pos system based on the previous Stingray workstation and recently earned the United State Environmental Protection Agency’s prestigious Energy Star qualification for the eco-friendly system.

The Lite-ray point of sale systems reduce energy and therefore carbon emissions, by eliminating the need for a fan. Because the system better performs per watt and therefore uses less energy, purchasers of the system can enjoy cost saving benefits.

While not only being green, this new system comes with all the traditional necessities businesses come to expect from point of sale systems while providing new revolutionary initiatives as well. Lite-ray is powered by an Intel Atom processor and supports both Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems, making this pos system ideal for all businesses including retail markets.

Lite-ray also offers users customizable options from receipt printing to credit card storing options. To ensure the security of saved information, the system is equipped with not only a back-up and recovery system but also comes with a 3 year warranty.

Hopefully, inventions and upgrades of business technologies will follow suit of the Lite-ray system, therefore encouraging businesses through cost saving benefits to be more green, which will be for the betterment of all.

About the Author

Cyndi Lundeberg is a writer based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as phone systems & voip service at Resource Nation.

Categories
Recommendations

Business Conferences and Seminars Offer Long-Term Value

Article Contributed by Tami Stodghill

My husband recently returned from a conference that was hosted by the company our home business is through. I resigned myself to not going as I still do freelance writing work and had committed to a publication to provide an article which involved some research. I rationalized that even if I missed this conference, he could take notes and share the highlights with me. And he did. But what I didn’t realize is that by missing actually attending this event, I would never be able to carry away from it all the long-term valuable things he did. So I couldn’t have been more wrong…

Conferences and seminars that are related to your business, marketing, sales, mindset and any other topic that may assist you in your business are invaluable. The right conference—with the right speaker or speakers—offers intelligence and instruction that is not available sometimes through any other outlet. The information you garner can sometimes change your approach to your business completely. Speakers who are “gurus” in these key areas are paid well for a reason. They offer insights and lessons and suggestions and guidance and the chance to hear them speak in a conference or seminar setting is often a once-in-a-life-time opportunity.

Here’s the thing…by attending these type of events, you come away with a new mindset. You have the chance to meet with like-minded people, network, share ideas and strategies and also put names to faces in the industry. By allowing yourself to participate, you gain a positive, reinforcing feeling about your business, and those who are involved in the same business or a similar business, and are enjoying success. The motivational speakers put you in a whole new “place” and when you return home, you are often eager to implement all of the tips and information you have accrued.

Another reward is the promotion of yourself as someone who has attended this type of event and therefore no possesses more knowledgeable in key areas. Posting pictures from the event of you with some key players in the industry goes a long way toward letting potential prospects see you are a key player yourself. You can utilize some of the content in your business blog, on your website and in your advertising campaigns. With the exception of anything that is under non-disclosure, the general concepts are a great marketing tool.

At the conference my husband attended, he also had the chance to mingle with these key players and successful entrepreneurs. They were there for attendees to chat with, they answered questions and people were able to find out more about what helped propel them to the level of success they had experienced in their ventures. Being able to talk one-on-one with these people is illuminating and helps you to renew your passion for your own business.

Finally, one of the main pluses of attending an event is the time away. Seriously. If you step back, leave your routine and attend an event with enthusiasm and the attitude that it holds immeasurable value for you, you will come back refreshed and even excited about your own business and the potential that is there to grow and expand it. I won’t make the mistake of missing another event that can propel me forward in our business and that can offer me those keys to further success. It’s like a vacation, only it’s tax deductible and it provides an opportunity to learn from the best. And if you are like my husband, you’ll come back eager to actualize what you have learned!

About the Author

Tami Stodghill was the Press-Relations manager, for a world-wide extensible-technology distributor based in London and the US for 20 years. She was also a freelance writer for several industry publications and is now a home-based business owner with WMI. She makes her home in Page-Lake Powell, Arizona, in the summers and Palm Harbor, Florida in the winters where she enjoys boating and reading, camping, hiking and meeting new people. She runs a blog site exclusively to offer tips for success for any small or home-based business.