Training activities for time management should include learning how to prioritize tasks, focusing on the needs of the business and learning how to delegate tasks. Make lists of important tasks to help improve time management skills with tips from a marketing and business management professor in this excellent video on time management.

• 0 Comments

You all know and love that middle of the afternoon feeling when the coffee seems to wear off and all of life’s endeavors seem to focus on the goal of making it to 5p.m. (All future and present employers please disregard that last sentence) One fantastic way to get through this midday funk is to find a really inspiring quote. I often find that tweeting a great little quote will find more retweets and responses than any other tweets. I gathered 25 quotes in sales I find to be very powerful and motivating. I hope you can take at least one to heart because there are some great ones in this list.

“You don’t close a sale, you open a relationship if you want to build a long-term, successful enterprise.” ~Patricia Fripp
“Whenever an individual or a business decides that success has been attained, progress stops.” ~Thomas J. Watson Jr
“Everyone lives by selling something.” ~Robert Louis Stevenson
“In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can.” ~Nikos Kazantzakis
“How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.” ~Gilbert K. Chesterton
“As you travel down life’s highway…whatever be your goal, you cannot sell a doughnut without acknowledging the hole.” ~Harold J. Shayler
“Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.” ~Zig Ziglar
“And old Dave, he’d go up to his room, y’understand, put on his green velvet slippers – I’ll never forget – and pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, he made his living. And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want.” ~Arthur Miller (1915 – 2005), Death of a Salesman, 1949.
“A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that inspires no one.” ~Mary Kay Ash
“Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.” ~Karl Marx

Read more – 25 Motivational Sales Quotes

• 0 Comments

Every small business is different, so, of course, every entrepreneur will be charting new territory. If there were a simple manual or step by step approach for operating any business, everyone could be a small business owner. Unfortunately, it’s a bit more complicated.

Tips For Success

Don’t have a clue? Not to worry. One of the things to remember about launching a small business is that often times there is no roadmap when you begin. Don’t sweat it if you feel as if you’re making things up as you go along. CreateHype

The one thing your business needs. You might be surprised by the answer to this question. Businesses of any size need leaders who spread ideals and are artists creating a business with unique vision. What skills do you bring to your small business leadership? Fast Company

Important Trends

Why we need black entrepreneurs. One critic says cuts in the public sector and a tough economy have had a disproportionate impact on the black middle class. One answer? Entrepreneurship! Now, startups in the black community are seen as key to maintaining a middle class lifestyle. Bloomberg Businessweek

Optimize your WordPress business blog. Do you use WordPress for your business blog? Odds are you do. The platform is very popular with business and other bloggers alike. But how do you or your Web developer make sure you are getting all you can out of the platform? HostCube

Read more – Create Your Own Roadmap with Your Small Business

• 0 Comments

Your workforce is your most valuable asset. Here’s how to leverage their expertise to keep your company growing.

Your company can have the most sophisticated equipment, the sleekest facilities, the best location and in-demand products, but none of it works without the human touch.

Your workforce is your most valuable asset. The knowledge and skills they have represent the fuel that drives the engine of business—and you can leverage that knowledge. Everyone in the company can benefit from their co-workers’ experience.

Encourage an atmosphere where employees are secure enough in their jobs that they are comfortable sharing their expertise and mentoring their co-workers.

Here’s how to set up a successful employee workshop:

1. Be present. The manager (you) can lead the first session, just to make sure everyone is on the same page. Explain the purpose, and ask for suggestions. Include a discussion on what the company is trying to do, how it’s doing, and where it’s headed. Don’t assume all the employees already know the answers.

2. Don’t make the sessions feel like extra work. Workshops can be scheduled at a regular time or as-needed. Food is a great ice-breaker. Keep the meetings to a reasonable length. Make sure to include everyone in the process.

3. Recruit your top performers to share their expertise. It’s not hard to identify who excels at customer service or managing data or sales. But does everyone know why this person is so good at what they do? Are there techniques they could share? How did they get so good? Are others comfortable asking them for advice?

Read more – 7 Tricks for Successful Employee Workshops

• 0 Comments

Make no mistake. Creating your own small business is hard work. But as you’ll see, there are rewards. Here are some tips, tools and trends to think about while taking the time you need to build your small business.

Small Biz Success

It takes time to build a business! Rachel Strella can attest to that. Over the last 18 months, she admits to spending many 60 hour days building her social media marketing firm based in Camp Hill, PA, but she often finds that people still ask her, What do you do all day? Strella Social Media

Living the dream after layoffs. Some people might think of a layoff as the ultimate bad news, but for Carolyn Higgins it was the first step on the path to helping small businesses think and market the way larger companies do. What can Carolyn teach you about marketing your business today? BizSugar Blog

Tips & Trends

Even celebrities want to be entrepreneurs. Nowadays becoming a small business owner is so popular, even the stars want to get into the act. Take Jessica Alba, star of TV’s “Dark Angel” and The Fantastic Four movies, who recently announced a new e-commerce biz selling eco-friendly products. CNN Small Business

Elections worth their weight in gold. It’s election season again and the dredging up of numerous public issues can mean good opportunities for PR if your business happens to touch upon any of these. Here are nine top ideas to get you started. Understanding Marketing

Read more – Building a Business is Worth the Time

• 0 Comments

Learn the spoon bending trick to perform in your office in this tutorial video from a professional magician entertainer.

• 0 Comments

When you operate your own business, you have an awful lot on your shoulders. You cannot afford to get sick or injured because the entire business is in your hands. And since most home-based businesses rely on computers, your business is literally in your hands. That is, if your computer is not set up correctly, you can do so much damage to your hands, arms, and wrists that you won’t be able to do your work. I know, because it happened to me.

Musculoskeletal disorders, which affect tendons, muscles, and ligaments, are a major cause of lost workdays among U.S. workers. Whether you work for someone else or on your own, you are at risk for getting a musculoskeletal disorder if you use a computer. Read on to learn what I found out about staying safe and protecting my body.

Workstation Design

Ergonomically designed office furniture is great, but you can use the furniture you have to create a safe computer workstation. It’s all about setting up your desk and workstation so that it’s comfortable for you.

When your computer desk is set up properly, this is how it will be:

- The top of your monitor will be at eye level or slightly below;
- Your elbows will be bent at a 90-degree (or slightly less) angle when you are keying.
- Your hands and wrists will be straight. This is called the neutral position: Forearm and hand are in a straight line. The wrist is neither bent back nor flexed forward.
- Your shoulders, neck, and arms will be relaxed.
- Your thighs and legs will form close to a 90-degree angle. Your thighs will be more or less horizontal with the floor; they may be sloped downward slightly.
- Your legs will rest on the floor or on a footrest.

Read more – Your Home Office – What You Need to Know to Stay Safe

• 0 Comments

Stress can impede your productivity and adversely affect your ability to accomplish your tasks. Teach yourself to embrace the situation, move beyond fear, and get the job done.

I am always amazed at how many people stress out over seemingly manageable deadlines at work. Back in the day when I was an attorney with a law firm in Washington, D.C. associates would come in my office riddled with concern over some legal brief to which they had to respond.

Without hesitation I would always smile and ask them how long they thought it would take to write the response. Almost without exception they would respond it would take four to five hours to complete.

I would then ask when the brief was due. Typically the answer was in about five days.

“So”, I would reply, “You need to find four to five hours in the next 120 hours to complete this assignment.” Their brow line would begin to soften. “Huh?” was often the response I would get from some of our finest legal eagles. I would repeat myself this time slightly raising my eyebrows to connote an “Are you getting this?” look.

“You need to find five hours in the next 120 hours to complete this assignment.” The response would begin: “Well, when you put it that way…” I would reply: “What other way would the time-space continuum have me put it?” The tension would ease. The air would soften. And you could actually watch them physically begin to relax.

We are often faced with matters which induce the reaction known as stress, especially in the workplace. Perhaps the single largest cause of stress in the workplace is the imposition of significant work obligations coupled with perceived unrealistic deadlines. But irrespective of the burdens imposed upon you, stress, in and of itself, can impose an even greater burden upon your productivity and actually adversely affect your ability to accomplish your assigned tasks.

To be effective you must teach yourself to live with stress. You must teach yourself to embrace the situation, move beyond your trepidations, and get the job done. Here are four steps you can take today to knock out work-place stress:

1. Remember, the Glass is Half Full: If there is anything that the last few years has taught us it is not to take employment for granted. That is not to say that you should be happy to be in an abusive atmosphere. But for every project you get you can either look at it as yet another thing heaped upon your plate or a blessing that there is work to be had. Think about it, would you rather things be so slow you are sitting at your desk twiddling your thumbs waiting for your business to fail or would you prefer that business is thriving and everyone is getting lots of work. In this economy try looking at assignments as a good thing, as the glass being half full. So the next time an assignment is handed to you do not stress out because of the increased amount of work, be thankful there is work to be had in your company and get on with it.

Read more – 4 Steps to Knock Out Workplace Stress

• 0 Comments

Many new business owners think that marketing is just advertising or selling. Then there are those that consider marketing is getting people to buy things that they don’t really want! If this is how you think of marketing then you might be missing a trick, so in this post I want to share with you 5 Small Business Marketing tips that can sky rocket your business.

Before I reveal these 5 small business marketing tips that will give your business a jump start let’s take some time to uncover exactly what Marketing is.

The chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as

“The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably”

That definition lead my nicely into my first marketing tip.

See Your Business Through Your Customers Eyes

Yes, I know you here this all the time – and yet many of us still start by developing what we want to sell and then find people to buy it.

Effective marketing reverses the process. It requires an outside in approach – a mindset that puts the customer at the centre of everything the business does. After all, without customers, we don’t have a business.

Look at the example of campaigns such as Weight Watchers. They know full well what their customers need – they need to lose weight by eating less and exercising more in a structured and regimented fashion. But that is not what they market because who wants to have structured eating plan? It doesn’t sound very appealing!

Instead, Weight Watchers advertises members who have lost weight and are now looking forward to wearing their bathing suits on vacation, going shopping for new dresses or having the fitness and energy to run around with their children.

By tapping into their customers’ wants, they give their customers what they need – weight reduction, overall fitness and improved eating.

Be Proud of who you are – Personal Brand

Nike, McDonalds, Coca-cola, Starbucks these billion dollar organisations have the resources to fill every billboard, inbox or mailbox with their marketing paraphernalia every week. Why? Because they are trusted and established brands and no matter where you are in the developed world you are probably in walking distance of being able to purchase one of these products.

Mass marketing should be reserved for those that have a MASSIVE budget, which quite often small businesses don’t. Small businesses should focus on having a clearly defined audience and marketing directly to them on a personal level through a personal brand – YOU!

Trying to be everything to everyone is costly and ineffective. Find the gap in the market that only you can fill and focus all your efforts there. Identify your ideal customer, aim at them and you will achieve success.

That personal brand should allow the customers to relate directly to you, the prospects’ problems should be your problems and your products or services are the solutions to those problems.

Read more – 5 Small Business Marketing Tips to Sky Rocket Your Business

• 0 Comments

Simple, easy, economical options to fine tune your home office into a more productive space. Increase your efficiency while decreasing your clutter.

• 0 Comments