Author: Ethan Theo

Abe WalkingBear Sanchez is an International Speaker / Trainer / Consultant on the subject of cash flow / sales enhancement and business knowledge organization and use. Founder and President of www.armg-usa.com, WalkingBear has authored hundreds of business articles, has worked with numerous companies in a wide range of industries since 1982 and has spoken at many venues including the Shakespeare Globe Theater in London.

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Success Attitude

5 Secret Steps the Positively Successful Take in Response to Change

5 Secret Steps the Positively Successful Take in Response to Change

I live in a part of the U.S. that received a once-a-decade snowfall last week. At least 12,000 flights were cancelled. Millions of people were home from work, rearranging untold numbers of meetings and assignments.

Such rapid change is commonplace in our world today. Snow is forecast. Other changes are not. How you deal with it determines your positive success at work.

Here are five secret steps the positively successful take in response to such rapid change:

Relax

When sudden change interrupts your work flow, your fight-or-flight response to stress emerges just as quickly. You will go thermonuclear or turbodrive away due to an overwhelming sense of powerlessness.

Successful business people first relax. They take a breath and see the moment as it is. They resist the urge to go Incredible Hulk or Chicken Little and focus on the positive.

Relate

Successful professionals secondly relate. They quickly turn to others and invest in their social circles. They offer support and gain strength from relationships.

Facebook was filled with pictures of parents at home, playing in the snow with their children. Residents of neighborhoods near highways left their warm homes to push cars stranded in roadside ditches.

Once you relax in the midst of rapid change, your focus shifts from “me” to “thee.” You relate to and invest in others.

Remember

Next, successful business people look behind the moment to previously similar times. They reflect on what they implemented that was most effective. They gather courage and strength from the knowledge that they survived and are in business today. Such emotional fortitude energizes them to deal strategically with the moment.

Everyone has a survival story. Such tales willingly suspend your disbelief in the moment and propel you forward.

Respond

Having relaxed, related, and remembered, successful professionals now choose to respond. Interestingly, the temptation is to first respond. However, success builds from well-chosen inner steps before it emerges in outer steps.

The focusing question behind your response is, “What can I do?” The powerlessness of rapid change paralyzes with a myopic view of “What I Can’t Do.” There is always some sliver of an opportunity open to successful people. They see what they look for. Seizing the moment, they respond with creative imagination and transform the paralysis into a powerful rewriting of the script.

They find an appointment for the patient who stayed overnight in hopes of seeing the doctor. They let the client text the picture of the damaged vehicle direct to claims. They respond positively and creatively.

Reward

Finally, successful business people reward themselves. They take off earlier than usual to play in the snow.

Also, they reward others. They gift the team member who came in on Saturday to complete what couldn’t be done on Friday.

Rewards recognize the importance of others to the success of the business. This secret step may be the greatest of all as it hooks the team member’s emotional engagement in a most personal way. Successful professionals lead from heartfelt recognition that it takes more than themselves to navigate rapid change.

Whatever your source of change, implement these five secret steps of the positively successful and Work Positive!

About the Author:

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), Positive Success coach, & speaker who helps business professionals increase sales with greater productivity so they leave the office earlier to do what they love with those they love. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org.

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Planning & Management

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? 3 Ways to Save Time This Week

3 Ways to Save Time This Week

Daylight Savings Time starts this week in most of the U.S. We “lose an hour” to supposedly gain more sunlight at the end of the day.

So how do you deal with this lost hour?

And for that matter, all the other lost hours of productivity at work?

Here are 3 strategies the Positively Successful use to save time:

Priorities

Dr. Covey was fond of saying, “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”

What are your priority activities that maximize your productivity and profitability? That 20 percent that contributes 80 percent?

Once you identify them, you positively save time because your focus sharpens. You consciously aim for achieving these priorities in a timely manner that keeps you moving forward.

Your priorities grow roots in the unique contribution you bring to your team. You do your part. When teammates unify around priorities with each one utilizing a different skill set, the company’s mission takes flight. Productive, profit-enriching activities become priority.

Productivity

When you set boundaries, especially around technology, you do more in an hour than many of your peers accomplish in a month.

The intrusive nature of always-on technology leaps with ease over the necessary boundaries for creating maximum productivity today. To be more productive so you generate more profit, you employ border guards like turning off your automatic updates and notifications, setting appointments with yourself to return emails and voicemails, using the DND and off buttons regularly, and other such attention-defining activities.

Multi-tasking is a myth. Intuitively you know it. Doing something consciously to rein it in is your best next step.

Profit

The obvious profit metric is money. More money grows from better priorities and productivity.

What about other metrics? A less tangible and equally important profit is your personal satisfaction with a job well done that calls upon your native talents. This profit insures your continuing emotional engagement with your work.

Also, you profit from work activities that align with and give expression to your core values. You benefit from opportunities that give expression to your best how you do what you do.

Such profits grow from your productivity and priorities which prompts you to save time to invest in doing what you love with those you love. That’s how you create your Work Positive lifestyle like the Positively Successful enjoy!

About the Author

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World, leading Positive Success expert, & speaker who helps business professionals increase sales with greater productivity so they leave the office earlier to do what they love with those they love. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org.

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Operations

Common Business Insurance Mistakes

eraser and word mistakes

Running a business is like a engaging in an extreme adrenaline sport: often exhilarating and very rewarding but also something that could have potentially devastating consequences at any given moment. An appealing part of business is the thrill of the chase but there are certain areas you cannot afford to be blasé about and top of this list is taking out insurance.

Every business is different and choosing the wrong type of insurance for yours could cost you down the line in more ways than one. Being aware of the common mistakes made by business owners is one small step towards making the right decisions for your company. Put your best business foot forward and avoid falling into the following insurance traps.

Being unaware of the basics

Even an established business will struggle if they fail to have an understanding of the business insurance basics. Business insurance is business insurance with one policy no different from the next, right? Wrong, no two insurance policies fall under the same umbrella and if you are willing to settle for a basic form of insurance that may only cover a tenth of your unique requirements, then you may as well put your assets in the hands of a child.

Taking the time to consider your business from all angles in terms of potential threats to assets and property etc will help you choose the right form of insurance for your business.

Leaving it too late

It is a cruel irony – waiting until the unexpected happens before investing in an insurance solution. It’s easy to assume that you are untouchable, particularly if you are a start up company with a run of good fortune but an expensive lawsuit or company accident may be waiting in the wings. A second consequence of leaving it too late to get insurance is buying poor coverage as a result of playing it safe with a small start up budget. Insurance is something that must be considered in the earliest possible stage to ensure your business gets the cover it needs.

Getting the wrong coverage

You wouldn’t take out home insurance for your car or vice versa, would you? Yet many businesses are content to pay over the odds for an insurance coverage that does little or nothing for them. When all is said and done, it is only up to you as owner to tailor insurance cover to your needs – not what the competition has or whatever the easiest option is but what caters to the interests and progression of your company.

Insurance policies are personal to each business which is why no company should ever need to settle for a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to relying upon insurance providers. Insurance experts such as Catlin USA pride themselves in providing specialist insurance solutions to clients; sharing their expertise within the banking industry to ensure clients can achieve winning business results.

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Success Attitude

3 More Positive Strategies to Deal with Your Eeyore Vampire Boss

3 More Positive Strategies to Deal with Your Eeyore Vampire Boss

A couple of weeks ago I shared with you “3 Positive Strategies to Deal with an Eeyore Vampire Boss.” I knew there were flocks of negative bosses everywhere, but evidently more than I realized.

Your overwhelming response prompted me to remember some of my Eeyore Vampire bosses. The one who was so insecure she didn’t want the organization to grow. Another who wanted me to trade product for pot. The one whose boyfriend was jealous of my success.

I reflected on what I learned from them and here are “3 More Positive Strategies to Deal with Your Eeyore Vampire Boss”:

Take Charge of the Conversation

From the one who was so insecure she didn’t want the organization to grow I learned that positive success means change. While some bosses say they want to succeed, their definition is to keep things as they are. To prop up the current façade so that it survives, not thrives.

Take charge of the conversation with such bosses and realize that their fear is real, primarily fear of losing control. Rather than waiting until the weekly meeting, have impromptu conversations about some positive outcome and connect it to something familiar that he knows about. That’s comforting to your boss, easing him into growth mode rather than jerking him out of his comfort zone.

Take Care of Yourself

From the one who wanted me to trade product for pot (and promised to share with me) I learned that you have to take care of yourself.

Yes, the job is important. Yes, you respect authority. Yes, you need to make money.

Yes, you have a job and respect authority in jail, but it doesn’t pay very much.

Each morning when you get up and stare at yourself in the make-up or shaving mirror, it’s you. Only you. Your first responsibility is to yourself. As James Altucher writes in his great book, be sure to “Choose Yourself.”

Take care of yourself. Live in honesty, integrity, and love and you’ll always have a job, or better yet, be your own Work Positive boss!

Take Compassion on the Boss

From the one whose boyfriend was jealous of my success I learned that sometimes the boss needs some compassion, too.

I was 22 years old, had tripled the company’s revenue each month in my first three months, even picked up her Great Dane from the shelter when he ran off in a driving rainstorm, and she fired me a week after I returned from my honeymoon because her boyfriend was threatened by me. What did I learn?

It took a while to quit hating her and forgive her. When I did, I realized this company was the first she owned. She was figuring out what it meant to be responsible for all kinds of operational matters that she had little background in. She was in way over her head, which is why she got drunk to fire me. Later she lost the business.

The boss is human and makes mistakes, too. I made my fair share working for her.

Quit hating the boss. Hate hurts only you.

Forgive the boss. No, she doesn’t deserve it, but forgive her for your sake.

Take compassion on the boss for being human, too, take care of yourself, and take charge of the conversation so you Work Positive in a negative world.

About the Author:

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), leading Positive Success expert, & speaker who helps business professionals increase sales with greater productivity so they leave the office earlier to do what they love with those they love. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org.

Categories
Operations

The Key to Running any Kind of Catering Establishment

The Key to Running any Kind of Catering Establishment

Anybody that works in the catering industry knows how stressful it can be at times, and that is why you need to be sure that you can rely on all of your equipment. You will need a range of quality catering equipment that won’t let you down and will live up to the tough demands that this industry is known for. No matter how busy you get you need to know that you will be able to serve food and drink of the highest standard in order to run your business efficiently. All kinds of establishments, including sandwich shops, cafés, restaurants, any kind of fast food establishment, bars and even convenience stores that offer food and drink that needs to be refrigerated, need to have confidence in the quality and reliability of their catering equipment.

Providing quality food and refreshments to the public will enhance your reputation and improve your business. The best way to maintain your standards and reputation is to invest in high quality and reliable equipment. In addition, if you own an establishment where your fridges and displays are in front of the customers you will also need to ensure that you have sleek and stylish items, and this is because appearance and cleanliness also accounts for a lot in the catering industry.

Investing in Reliable Catering Equipment

What you will need in your establishment will depend on the food and drink that you offer to customers, but generally it will include fridges, freezers, display cabinets, ovens and other cooking equipment, cutlery, a range of bar supplies and more. You will want high quality items at affordable prices, and for this it is worthwhile starting at reputable supplies such as Fridgeland and others. These companies supply catering equipment to all types of outlets, and by shopping at large and established places it ensures that you are getting reliable items that will last for years to come too.

With all the necessary equipment set up at your business you can be sure that it won’t let you down and you will be able to run efficiently. Busy periods in the catering industry can be stressful, but having high quality, reliable equipment will alleviate a lot of this stress and ensure that you are able to maintain a continuous service to your customers.