Every business owner seeks advice in one way or the other, the belief is that advice usually is a thoughtful statement, and when acted upon, there is a result to show. When it comes to advice, you have the right to choose which one to ditch or follow. Often, this is a long and confusing process. However, it is well-deserving and demonstrates a new way to act in the future. So, we have gathered some relevant business advice in this article.

First, Always Announce your Business 

One major challenge most business owners face is that they do not have selling skills. Especially if they are new to the business world, however, it is inarguable that selling a product or service can be quite difficult, but it takes conscious and consistent efforts to get it right. If you are discouraged about what people will think about your business when you announce, you need to build confidence in what you sell. Anyone who needs to succeed can’t afford to be shy; instead, be keen on always facing your worst fear. Speak confidently about your business anytime, anywhere you find yourself and any day.

Be a Problem Solver

A business is much easier to run if it is set out to solve a significant problem, making it easy to gain a solid customer base. When your business focuses on a specific niche fixing a problem, then, you’ve successfully created a brand. Know the problem that your target customers are facing, and what is critical is how you can solve them. 

Have a Comprehensive Database

Countless businesses lose it all when it comes to keeping a comprehensive database. This is critical for every business because they help communicate information about income, expenditure, assets, customers, and marketing activities. Having a database is beyond possessing a skill in the accounting niche because it outweighs that course. A comprehensive database can help to determine a better strategy channeled towards the growth of your business. To read more business advice follow this link.

Most people George Zweig’s age are long retired. But for the 78-year-old — who has enjoyed a wildly successful and varied career as a physicist, military strategist, CalTech professor, inventor, software entrepreneur and hedge fund investor — not working isn’t an appealing option.

“I’ve still got it,” he told The Wall Street Journal, adding that without work, “life can be very boring.”

And so instead of joining his peers in their leisure-filled golden years, Zweig is entering a world typically reserved for men and women less than half his age: He’s starting a hedge fund.

Defining your ideal career path is a pretty daunting prospect. We spend large chunks of our lives at work, so we want to make sure we pick something rewarding and enjoyable.

Whatever you decide upon, it’s not set in stone, and there are lots of people who end up doing something completely different to what they expected – and love it. When it comes to making this huge decision, though, fortunately, you don’t have to struggle alone. There are many effective step by step models that exist, which you can follow systematically. In this guide, we will take you through one such example. By following this, by the end, you should start to be forming ideas on exactly what it is you are destined to do in your career and how you can achieve it.

Step One: Get to Know Yourself

We live with ourselves 24hrs a day, 7 days a week, and yet, we don’t often take time to look at ourselves in detail.

What are the things we enjoy, how do we work, what makes us tick, how do we communicate? These are all valuable things to know about ourselves, and when we understand them better, we can better understand what kind of careers we would be suited to, and most importantly, enjoy.

Understanding yourself isn’t easy, and it’s something that takes time, which is perhaps why it can take people much of their careers to find the job they truly love. However, by actively thinking about these things, you can give yourself a head start.

Step Two: Think Career, Not Jobs

No matter how well you plan, the journey never looks exactly how you expected it. If you asked many people, they would probably tell you they would never have expected to end up in the job they’re in, and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

If you focus in too narrowly on a certain job, then you might cut yourself off from other opportunities that present themselves. Instead, if you take a more macro view of things and focus on careers more generally, then you’ll be more open to the different opportunities that present themselves throughout your journey.

As you progress further through your career, then you can start to focus in on certain jobs and positions, but make sure you’re never limiting your ambitions.

Step Three: Prepare for the Future

Imagine you wanted to build cars in the 1900s, and you got yourself your ideal job in a car manufacturing factory. You get to work with your hands, put things together, and work as part of a team to build an amazing piece of machinery. Not many years later, though, machinery starts to take over many of the processes, and suddenly you’re left with a job that looks very different to what you expected.

The world changes very quickly, and just because things are done a certain way today doesn’t mean they will continue to be the same in the future. Another great example of this is in nursing. The role of the nurse has changed greatly over the years and continues to do so. The healthcare industry is going through changes, and nursing is adapting to meet new challenges.

This is why you need to always be on the lookout for the trends of the future. It’s impossible to predict exactly what’s going to happen, but if you take an interest in your industry, then you can prepare yourself for the changes that might occur.

Step Four: Money Isn’t Everything

Money is important; it’s something we all need. However, when you’re choosing your career it shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all. You’re going to spend huge portions of your life working, and if you don’t enjoy what you do, those hours are going to feel much longer.

People who love what they do often tend to do it better as well. Just think about it; it’s much easier to learn something if you enjoy reading about it.

So, making sure you enjoy your chosen career is something that’s well worth putting time and effort into. Money will always be a consideration because we need it to live, but it shouldn’t be the only thing to think about.

Looking deeper into your career path

It is at this point that you should have a better idea of what career path you want to go down, but how do you know if it is the right one, and how can you then achieve it?

Step Five: There’s No Substitute for Experience

How often do you meet someone who had a dream, only to realize when they achieved it that it wasn’t what they expected?

The nice thing about choosing your career is that is always a good idea to get some experience before you make any commitments. Of course, if you want to be a surgeon, they’re not going to hand you the scalpel just so you can find out if it’s your perfect career, but you can get practical experience in the healthcare industry that can give you a feel for things.

If you think a certain career is the route you want to go down, then try and get some experience and see how it feels. It might confirm the fact that this is the ideal occupation for you, or you may find you hate it. Either way, you’ve learned something useful.

Step Six: Invest in Your Education

Sticking with the previous example, once you have had experience working in a hospital and you know that this is the right career path for you, the next step will be to make sure that you are investing in the right education. As we mentioned previously, nursing is one of those industries that constantly changes, and requires expanding responsibilities and new skills. However, by following the model systematically, you will already know this and, therefore, be on the lookout for the right course you need. In this instance, to kickstart your nursing career, before you take a relevant nursing degree, you will know that it would benefit you to first take an online MBA in healthcare administration. In a course such as this, you will gain more skills and be able to undertake more responsibilities, such as understanding the US healthcare system fully, opening up the opportunities to you in the future. Investing in the right degrees can make such a difference to your career.

The same is true for many careers.

Step Seven: Accept Guidance

There are lots of people out there who can help you with your journey, so make the most of it. Navigating yourself through life is difficult enough, but it’s even more difficult to do it on your own, so seek advice from the people you trust.

Not everyone’s advice is going to be right for you, but if you take it on board and analyze it, then you can do with it what you want. You are your own person, and ultimately the decision is up to you, but that shouldn’t stop you from taking on board other people’s opinions.

It’s not always easy to find help in life, so if people offer it to you, then accept it.

This is an excerpt is from the classic best-seller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and has been edited for brevity. Habit 4 discusses many approaches to negotiation and why one strategy stands out from the rest. The 30th-anniversary edition of the celebrated book by the late author is being published next month by Simon and Schuster.

Win/Win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win/Win means that agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial, mutually satisfying.

With a Win/Win solution, all parties feel good about the decision and feel committed to the action plan. Win/Win sees life as a cooperative, not a competitive arena. Most people tend to think in terms of dichotomies: strong or weak, hardball or softball, win or lose.

But that kind of thinking is fundamentally flawed. It’s based on power and position rather than on principle. Win/Win is based on the paradigm that there is plenty for everybody, that one person’s success is not achieved at the expense or exclusion of the success of others.

Win/Win is a belief in the third alternative. It’s not your way or my way; it’s a better way, a higher way.

Of the five philosophies discussed —Win/Win, Win/Lose, Lose/Win, Lose/Lose, and Win—which is the most effective? The answer is, “It depends.” If you win a football game, that means the other team loses.

Weigh options for the long term

If you work in a regional office that is miles away from another regional office, and you don’t have any functional relationship between the offices, you may want to compete in a Win/Lose situation to stimulate business. However, you would not want to set up a Win/Lose situation where you need cooperation among people or groups of people to achieve maximum success.

If you value a relationship and the issue isn’t really that important, you may want to go for Lose/Win to genuinely affirm the other person. “What I want isn’t as important to me as my relationship with you. Let’s do it your way this time.” You might also go for Lose/Win if you feel the expense of time and effort to achieve a win just isn’t worth it.

There are circumstances in which you would want to Win, and you wouldn’t be highly concerned with the relationship of that win to others. If your child’s life were in danger, for example, you might be peripherally concerned about other people and circumstances. But saving that life would be supremely important.

The best choice, then, depends on reality. The challenge is to read that reality accurately and not to translate Win/Lose or other scripting into every situation.

Most situations, in fact, are part of an interdependent reality, and then Win/Win is really the only viable alternative of the five.

Respect your counterpart

Win/Lose is not viable because, although I appear to win in a confrontation with you, your feelings, your attitudes toward me, and our relationship have been affected. If I am a supplier to your company, for example, and I win on my terms in a particular negotiation, I may get what I want now. But will you come to me again? My short-term Win will really be a long-term Lose if I don’t get your repeat business. So an interdependent Win/Lose is really Lose/Lose in the long run.

If we come up with a Lose/Win, you may appear to get what you want for the moment. But how will that affect my attitude about working with you, about fulfilling the contract? I may not feel as anxious to please you. So we’re into Lose/Lose again. Lose/Lose obviously isn’t viable in any context.

And if I focus on my own Win and don’t even consider your point of view, there’s no basis for any kind of productive relationship. In the long run, if it isn’t a win for both of us, we both lose. That’s why Win/Win is the only real alternative in interdependent realities.

But if individuals cannot come up with a synergistic solution—one that is agreeable to both—they can go for an even higher expression of Win/Win—Win/Win or No Deal.

Walking away can make sense

No Deal basically means that if we can’t find a solution that would benefit us both, we agree to disagree agreeably—No Deal. No expectations have been created, no performance contracts established. I don’t hire you or we don’t take on a particular assignment together because it’s obvious that our values or our goals are going in opposite directions.

It is so much better to realize this up front instead of downstream when expectations have been created and both parties have been disillusioned.

When you have No Deal as an option in your mind, you feel liberated because you have no need to manipulate people, to push your own agenda, to drive for what you want. You can be open. You can really try to understand the deeper issues underlying the positions.

With No Deal as an option, you can honestly say, “I only want to go for Win/Win. I want to win, and I want you to win. I wouldn’t want to get my way and have you not feel good about it, because downstream it would eventually surface and create a withdrawal. On the other hand, I don’t think you would feel good if you got your way and I gave in. So let’s work for a Win/Win. Let’s really hammer it out.

And if we can’t find it, then let’s agree that we won’t make a deal at all. It would be better not to deal than to live with a decision that wasn’t right for us both. Then maybe another time we might be able to get together.”

The concept can lead to bigger fish

Sometime after learning the concept of Win/Win or No Deal, the president of a small computer software company shared with me the following experience.

“We had developed new software which we sold on a five-year contract to a particular bank. The bank president was excited about it, but his people weren’t really behind the decision.

“About a month later, that bank changed presidents. The new president came to me and said, ‘I am uncomfortable with these software conversions. I have a mess on my hands. My people are all saying that they can’t go through this and I really feel I just can’t push it at this point in time.’

“My own company was in deep financial trouble. I knew I had every legal right to enforce the contract. But I had become convinced of the value of the principle of Win/Win.

“So I told him, ‘We have a contract. Your bank has secured our products and our services to convert you to this program. But we understand that you’re not happy about it. So what we’d like to do is give you back the contract, give you back your deposit, and if you are ever looking for a software solution in the future, come back and see us.’

“I literally walked away from an $84,000 contract. It was close to financial suicide. But I felt that, in the long run, if the principle were true, it would come back and pay dividends.

“Three months later, the new president called me. ‘I’m now going to make changes in my data processing,’ he said, ‘and I want to do business with you.’ He signed a contract for $240,000.”

Always weigh cost-benefit

Anything less than Win/Win in an interdependent reality is a poor second best that will have an impact on the long-term relationship. The cost of that impact needs to be carefully considered. If you can’t reach a true Win/Win, you’re very often better off to go for No Deal.

The Win/Win or No Deal approach is most realistic at the beginning of a business relationship or enterprise. In a continuing business relationship, No Deal may not be a viable option, which can create serious problems, especially for family businesses or businesses that are begun initially on the basis of friendship.

In an effort to preserve the relationship, people sometimes go on for years making one compromise after another, thinking Win/Lose or Lose/Win even while talking Win/Win. This creates serious problems for the people and for the business, particularly if the competition operates on Win/Win and synergy.

Without No Deal, many such businesses simply deteriorate and either fail or have to be turned over to professional managers. Experience shows that it is often better in setting up a family business or business between friends to acknowledge the possibility of No Deal downstream and to establish some kind of buy/sell agreement so that the business can prosper without permanently damaging the relationship.

Of course, there are some relationships where No Deal is not viable. I wouldn’t abandon my child or my spouse and go for No Deal (it would be better, if necessary, to go for compromise—a low form of Win/Win). But in many cases, it is possible to go into a negotiation with a full Win/Win or No Deal attitude. And the freedom in that attitude is incredible.

‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ Update: A Win-Win Is Always The Best Negotiating Strategy [Entrepreneur]

Innovation comes from environments where ideas can connect. So, what kind of environment does an epidemic create when it comes to spurring innovation.

This is the very question a new infographic from Top Masters in Public Health Degrees developed by NowSourcing looks to answer. According to the report, ground-breaking innovations have come despite the tragic effects of epidemics throughout history.

This is a timely report because people are coming up with some innovative ideas to address many of the challenges brought on by COVID-19. The second part of the infographic looks at how individuals, small businesses and large organizations are coming together to solve these challenges of today.

Past Epidemics

As epidemics go, the Black Death of the 1300s was devastating. The plague as it is also known, wiped out up to 60% of the population in Europe. According to the report, it was responsible for changing the economic and social structure of Europe and the creation of a middle class. Furthermore, it sparked interest in literacy, art, and experimentation.

There were other outbreaks of the plague in England later on. In 1592, London faced an outbreak that shut down theaters for six months. This led Shakespeare to start writing poetry to make a living. And it was during this time he wrote Venus and Adonis, and The Rape of Lucrece. Another plague in 1606 also closed the theaters in London, and this time Shakespeare apparently wrote King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony & Cleopatra.

A plague from 1665 to 1666, was responsible for making Isaac Newton flee to the countryside where he came up with his theories on calculus, optics, laws of motion, and gravity.

In the U.S., the Boston smallpox epidemic of 1721, led to the spread of variolation which was responsible for reducing the mortality rate from 14% to 2%, as well as the first steps towards vaccines. And the debate of inoculation ushered in a new era in journalism.

The Spanish Flu of 1918 was responsible for the death of 50-100 million people. The pandemic marshalled in a new era of public health. The underlying causes of illness, like diet and living conditions were now being considered.

COVID-19

A little over a century after the Spanish Flu, COVID-19 is wreaking havoc around the world. And although the death rate is nowhere close, the economic impact has been overwhelming. On the negative side, it has highlighted many of the shortcomings in the healthcare industry as nurses and doctors battle the virus woefully underequipped.

With increased connectivity and technology, innovators around the world have responded by making the equipment healthcare workers desperately need.

Today’s innovators are addressing ventilator shortages by using 3D printers and designing simpler ventilators; distillers are producing hand sanitizers; companies are making washable and reusable masks; apps are tracking the virus and Facebook, Google, and Twitter are combating the spread of misinformation.

How Epidemics Spur Innovation [Smallbiztrends]