10 Blogs Entrepreneurs Need to Be Reading | | See the 2012 edition: 10 Must Read Blogs for Entrepreneurs (2012 Edition) #1. The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur Site: What it is: Mike Michalowicz provides entrepreneurs and small businesses with tips on everything from starting a business to networking to marketing and health care. Why you should read it: Mike not only provides great tips but he provides great tips from REAL people. . #2. Site: What it is: Written by a panel of small business owners, the site offers tips and advice on everything business related. Small business trends really covers EVERYTHING! #3. Site: Run by two brothers, Matthew and Adam Toren, Young Entrepreneur is exactly what it sounds like; a site dedicated to young entrepreneurs.
Between blog posts, forums, polls and interviews with other small business owners, the site offers fantastic content. . #4. Site: Why you should read it: #5. . #6. . #7. . #8. Make the Most of Your Sales Call - Lynette Ryals. Over the last decade, the world of business-to-business selling has changed beyond recognition. Face-to-face, transactional selling is dead; where customers want to do transactional business, it is far more effective for both buyer and seller to use the Internet or telephone. Increasingly, customers resent having to spend time in sales calls purely to make standard transactions, and some customers are even beginning to measure the cost of spending their time in this way. From the supplier side, sending a sales person or a team of people is simply too expensive unless they can add real value. So, when clients and salespeople are going to invest time in a face-to-face sales call, what techniques can sales people use to ensure that they do add value?
Research based on observation of what makes sales people successful reveals that there are four techniques that drive effectiveness: 1. 2. 3. 4. Apocalypse Prep: How to Preserve Food Without a Fridge | Wired Design. When you bring food home from a grocery store, chances are you toss it in the fridge. Ever stop to wonder if that's your best move? People managed to store perishables before the era of refrigeration, and if you're imagining a root cellar full of cans and preserves, you're only partially right. Designer Jihyun Ryou has made it her mission to, er, preserve some of those old methods of preserving food, designing this minimalist system for the modern kitchen. "We hand over the responsibility of taking care of food to the technology, the refrigerator," says Rhyou. "We don’t observe the food any more and we don’t understand how to treat it. " Are you really treating your food badly when you pop it in the fridge? Speaking of the environment, fridges are huge energy hogs.
Have some food-preservation tricks of your own? All photos courtesy of Jihyun Ryou. Give Credit Where It's Due - Ben Dattner. By Ben Dattner | 3:16 PM March 27, 2012 You might remember the FedEx commercial “Stolen Idea”. A boss asks his team for cost-cutting ideas and a young staffer suggests opening a FedEx.com account. Everyone is silent. The boss then repeats the suggestion, without crediting the staffer, and the rest of the team congratulates him on his brilliance. Most leaders know not to act like the boss in the FedEx ad. Give credit where credit is due.
Credit team members for crediting one another. Avoid the temptation to blame. As a leader, you need to pay more attention to the allocation of credit and blame to individuals so — perhaps paradoxically — your team pays less attention to it. In one executive team I worked with, a hierarchical culture meant that people were being recognized for their status and power, rather than their performance. When Someone Asks You for a Favor - Daniel Gulati.
By Daniel Gulati | 3:33 PM May 10, 2012 The professional world is powered by favors — busy individuals helping those in their extended networks land highly contested roles, get feedback on ideas, or connect with influencers, typically without the expectation of either compensation or reciprocation. I’ve been on the receiving end of many professional favors, the givers of which I’m deeply indebted to. I believe that in today’s world, if you don’t ask, you don’t get, and that’s why I’m more than happy to extend favors, large and small, to others whenever I possibly can. Lately, though, I’ve been flooded with requests from my extended network. What’s more curious than the absolute numbers are the channels through which these favors are coming. In a world where we’re becoming saturated with inbound requests, let’s not forget the asymmetric value of a favor.
Here’s the one trick I use to separate those I actually help from those I choose to ignore: Qualify anyone who asks you for a favor. 1. How to Speak More Strategically - Peter Bregman. By Peter Bregman | 3:29 PM May 31, 2012 It had been three weeks since my throat started to feel sore, and it wasn’t getting better. The pain was most acute when I spoke. So I decided to spend a few days speaking as little as possible. Every time I had the urge to say something, I paused for a moment to question whether it was worth irritating my throat. This made me acutely aware of when and how I use my voice. In my observations, we speak for three main reasons: To help ourselvesTo help othersTo connect with each other That’s not surprising.
What is surprising though is how frequently we fool ourselves into thinking we’re achieving those objectives when, in reality, we’re thwarting them. Frequently, I had the urge to gossip about someone else. I also had the urge to share information when I thought it would be helpful to someone. Sometimes I wanted to help myself by getting the answer to a question, or making sure I was counted in a decision.
But life and relationships are long-term. 89 Simple Swaps That Could Change Your Life. Whole grains for white, quality for quantity, Wii Fit for Mario Kart—just one smart swap can pave the way to a healthier and happier life. We decided to go all out and provide 89 “this for that’s,” so there are no excuses when it comes to making healthier choices! Fitness 1. Planks for Crunches OK have we said this enough? 2. Congrats on that 26.2-mile marathon. 3. In a perfect, outdoor world, flat roads rarely exist. 4.
Trash that Cosmo-reading elliptical routine and surprise the body with a fun, calorie-burning cardio session. 5. Stretching out cold muscles could lead to injury. 6. We know that barbell looks tempting. 7. How often does someone complain about having to sit in a cubicle all day? 8. Okay, we get it. 9. Falling asleep at the wheel? 10. Skip the big machines (they’re sweaty anyway) and go for the little guys—free weights are more versatile and allow for a full range of motion in the joints. 11. Isolating muscles is so 2012. 12. Forget staying seated to work out the legs. 13. Why We Owe Amazon a Huge "Thank You" How To Get Rich Without Being A Tech Titan.
How To Make Money Without A Job. The Number One Mistake People I Interview Are Making These Days. Skip the Phone Support Queue by Calling Sales and Acting Confused. Skip the Phone Support Queue by Calling Sales and Acting Confused. How to Get Your Kid to Do Chores. (Photo: Ruthie Hansen) There’s a new iPad app for parents to incentivize children to do chores. HighScore House! Sets up a market for parents and children to assign points to chores and exchange those points for rewards. Co-founder Kyle Seaman tells us that they’ve tracked 150,000 tasks from about 6,000 users in their beta version (full version will launch in a couple months).
HighScore House! Shared some data with us: 43 percent of their users are kids between 5 and 9 years old, with an average task completion rate of 54 percent. Here are the top 10 tasks on HighScore House: Brush teeth (AM)Make bedHomeworkBath timeLaundryClean your bedroomHelp cookWash the dishes Feed the dogBrush teeth (PM) And the top 5 rewards: Video games and video game timeStaying up lateTV timeAllowanceSpecial treat. All Hail the Stand-Up Meeting! Driving Tips to Save Gas - Save Gas This Summer. Tactic No. 1: Coast to a Stop Brakes are necessary (duh!) , but they're inherently wasteful: They take the kinetic energy of a moving car—energy it took pricey gasoline to generate—and turn it into heat that's lost to the air. Everyone knows that accelerating until the last moment then braking hard to stop is less efficient than slowly coasting to a red light. But PM's test data (illustrated below) prove what a huge difference coasting makes. The lesson: Whenever possible, anticipate that a light will turn red and ease off the gas.
Generally, the less you have to brake, the better your fuel economy. Tactic No. 2: Avoid Slowly Crawling Up to Speed Conventional wisdom says that jackrabbit starts consume more fuel. Tactic No. 3: Close Windows and Use a/c at High Speeds It's a fierce efficiency debate: Open the windows in summer to avoid running your energy-intensive air conditioner, or keep the windows closed and the a/c on to preserve your car's aerodynamic profile. Fuel-Sipping Basics.