Management Secrets: Core Beliefs of Great Bosses. A few years back, I interviewed some of the most successful CEOs in the world in order to discover their management secrets. I learned that the "best of the best" tend to share the following eight core beliefs. 1. Business is an ecosystem, not a battlefield. Average bosses see business as a conflict between companies, departments and groups.
They build huge armies of "troops" to order about, demonize competitors as "enemies," and treat customers as "territory" to be conquered. Extraordinary bosses see business as a symbiosis where the most diverse firm is most likely to survive and thrive. 2. Average bosses consider their company to be a machine with employees as cogs. Extraordinary bosses see their company as a collection of individual hopes and dreams, all connected to a higher purpose. 3. Average bosses want employees to do exactly what they're told. 4. Average bosses see employees as inferior, immature beings who simply can't be trusted if not overseen by a patriarchal management. 5. What's the right size? The quantum mechanics of growth... How come there are no ants as big as Buicks (except in the movies)? Why not have a college with a million students (or ten)? The physics and economics of a business determine whether it's the right size or not, whether it ought to get bigger or smaller.
Starbucks, for example, was not the right size when it had 11 stores. That's too many stores for just one senior manager to handle, but not enough stores for centralized purchasing and marketing and organization. The cash flow from an eleven-store chain just doesn't easily connect to the staff requirements necessary to make it efficient. A web company might do really well with thirty people and a few million dollars in revenue. When I was growing my first successful business, I kept saying that one day I'd hire enough people that the people I was hiring could manage themselves.
The same rule applies to independent musicians and comedians. Craft an Attention-Grabbing Message - Kare Anderson. By Kare Anderson | 2:02 PM December 29, 2011 You can feel the tension in the compressed smiles, quick nods and pointed questions at the annual Morgan Stanley Global Healthcare conference. Schedules are packed as the high-stakes finance crowd gathers to hear 20-minute rapid-fire talks by CEOs of start-ups and public companies who seek funding or favorable stock analysts’ reports.
Presenters speak fast, using complex medical and financial terms. In contrast, my client, the CEO of a new biotech company walks on stage, rolls up his shirt sleeve, and stops at the center of the stage. By linking the speed of the medication’s effect to a Porsche’s acceleration, he evoked the “Compared to what?” Here are some examples of different ways to craft such a message: Use a familiar slogan in a fresh way: After a company has spent millions to make a slogan familiar, skew it in a new direction for your intended meaning.
Now, more than ever, your capacity to create indelible messages is vital. Distinction isn't based solely on technical intelligence. Bootstrapping Basics: How to Beg, Borrow and Barter Your Way into Business : MOMeo Magazine for Work-at-Home Moms: Business Tools | Parenting Advice | Mom Lifestyle Tips | Mom Blog | Mom Forum. What People Think Success Looks Like Vs. What It Really Looks Like. Become A Better Manager: 10 Inspirational Management And Leadership Blogs. One Easy Way to Listen to Your Customers | Becky Robinson Weaving Influence. One Easy Way to Listen to Your Customers Are you listening? One of the most important ways you can use social media to build your business is to LISTEN. Listening is the perfect place to begin. To get started today, I suggest that you sign up for Google alerts relevant to your business or industry.
One great way to listen to what people are saying about your business through social media is to go to Google.com and sign up for several Google alerts. When you sign up for a Google alert, Google will search for your terms and send you an email update with links that include your search term. After receiving these alerts for several months, I noticed an interesting trend. Most of the alerts I receive for my blog, “Weaving Influence,” are alerts to news articles about people driving under the influence of alcohol. That’s okay with me, really, because it only takes a few seconds to scan the email alerts to see if there is any information relevant to me, my blog, or my business.
Search for your name. Frank Sonnenberg ONLINE. Managing Expectations is Key. A good precept to follow is to underpromise but overdeliver. Always try to do just a little more than the client expects. This can best be accomplished if you understand how expectations are created. Sometimes they are based on hearsay; for example, a client may get a rave review about you or your organization from friends. Expectations can also be based on advertising claims or on a prior experience: “Vendors have always provided me with terrific service.”
Once you understand how expectations are created, you can manage them: Focus on a Problem, Not Your Passion - Management Tip of the Day - April 10, 2012. Even High Performers Need Feedback - Management Tip of the Day - April 24, 2012. Needs and wants are often confused. Me To We Video. Read This Before Naming Your Startup. Tips Offered On Building Your Business From Scratch. Starting a small business presents huge challenges, but many who’ve succeeded believe it’s worth all the struggle. Here are some tips we hope will help you as you build a new business. Do you have any suggestions to share with other entrepreneurs starting out? Starting Up Creating your dream business. Buying a franchise remains an option. Learning the Ropes Master your business credit early. How the law applies to you. Assessing Resources Know what you’re really worth. Got support?
Important Tips Some ideas on hiring. Why your business needs blogging. Developing Skills How mastering payroll pays. Learning from employees. The Traits Of A Great Entrepreneur. The world is built on the backs of the great entrepreneurs in history. Regardless of what society you are talking about or what time in history, the people who caused some of the greatest advances in business and commerce were entrepreneurs. But what makes a great entrepreneur tick? There are several traits that all of the great entrepreneurs in history shared. As the next generation of entrepreneurs looks to start their own multi-million dollar corporations, they should all stop and learn some lessons from the great thinkers that came before them.
Belief Great entrepreneurs believe that what they are doing has significant value to the world. Successful business people believe in themselves and they believe in what they are doing. Dedication When a proactive and successful business owner gets focused on completing a task, he stays with that task until it is done.
Entrepreneurs will sacrifice everything they have to make their business successful. No Boundaries Innovative Flexible. Bandits and philanthropists. The web is minting both, in quantity. Bandits want something for nothing. They take. They take free content where they can find it. They fight for anonymity, for less community involvement. They want more than their fair share, and they walk past the busker, because they can hear him playing real good, for free. The spammer is a bandit, stealing your attention because he can get away with it, and leaving nothing in return.
Philanthropists see a platform for giving. The artist who creates a video that touches you, or an infographic that informs you--she's giving more than she gets, leaving the community better than it was before she got there. Both types have been around forever, of course. The fascinating thing for me is how much more successful and happy the philanthropists are. One third of SME owners haven’t holidayed since opening for business. A nation-wide survey has found one third of SME owners are sacrificing holiday time with family and friends, in order to keep their businesses up and running.
“The most concerning result from this MYOB Business Monitor is that so many self-made business people have not taken a break at all. This has big implications for their wellbeing,” MYOB CEO Tim Reed said. The MYOB Business Monitor found that of the third of business owners who had not holidayed since starting their business, 33 percent were baby boomers. Fewer younger business owners were willing to make this sacrifice, with only 23 percent of Generation Y missing out on holiday time. The Monitor found it’s Generation Y run businesses that are most likely to see positive revenue results, with 29 percent seeing a rise, while business owners over 60 are most likely to experience a fall, at 41 percent.
“In fact, their dissatisfaction is now just below the equal highest level recorded in all our MYOB Business Monitor studies.” Stop The Confusion: Business Information Versus Business Strategy | Revenue Breakthrough. I waded through tons of business training programs and information in my first four years of running a business. All of the courses were excellent, though the timing was off for some of them. In the process, I discovered much about the different kinds of information we need at different points in our business. Here is a fundamental concept that I hope will help you understand the different kinds of information out there and the ways to take it all in.
Business Training There is a difference between business training and customized business strategy – and as business owners we need both at every level of our business. Keep in mind that I am defining these terms “Monica Style”, and these aren’t textbook definitions. Basic business training is about learning the fundamentals – the step-by-step how to behind marketing both online and offline, running your business, hiring your team, creating systems, etc. I’m always surprised at how many business owners don’t understand the basics.
Planning for retirement? Plan to live to 100 - Robert Powell. By Robert Powell, MarketWatch BOSTON (MarketWatch) — Researchers will debate ad infinitum whether it’s better to use mortality data or a fixed time period when studying the subject of retirement planning. But there’s no debate about what you should use when planning for retirement in real life. In fact, most researchers and financial advisers say you should only use a fixed period of time when planning your retirement. /conga/personal-finance/retirement_seo.html259847 And in a world where many people — at least according to various surveys — are worried about outliving their money, this is an important point that should not get lost in the retirement-planning fray. Playing the odds that you won’t live past a certain age because of numbers in a mortality table is the wrong way to plan for retirement, say researchers.
Consider: According to the mortality tables, there’s a two-thirds chance that a male who’s age 55 today will live to age 80. This, by the way, is no trivial matter. Michael J. Independent Workers Are Here to Stay. Sally Ryan for The New York Times Alexandra Levit started her own workplace consulting business in 2004. I started my business as a workplace consultant in 2004, and since then I have seen more people take a similar employment path. A government report in 2006 said that 31 percent of the American work force was independent or contingent, a category that encompasses contractors, temporary workers and the self-employed, among others. Although more recent government data is not available, companies clearly relied on contingent workers during the last recession as a way to keep costs down.
And, amid a fragile recovery, hiring full-time employees remains expensive and risky for many. Add the fact that technology makes working off-site easier than ever, and contingent workers are a force that’s here to stay. A strong part of me is thrilled with this. But, to be honest, I’m also tired. Patti Johnson can relate. She also missed the camaraderie of a larger organization. How Work Email Has Ruined Leisure Time [INFOGRAPHIC] When you clock out of work, do you leave your email behind as well? If so, you're definitely in the minority. A recent survey of 543 business execs by ad agency Gyro and Forbes Insights found 98% of such workers check email during their "off" time. If that's not bad enough, 63% say they check on their email at least every one or two hours when they're out of the office. The trend holds up when the execs are on vacation — only 3% say they don't check work emails.
SEE ALSO: Sheryl Sandberg Leaves Work at 5:30 Every Day — And You Should Too Despite the impingement on their leisure time, most of the workers surveyed say they like being able to check in when they're away. As the following infographic shows, they have their reasons. What do you think? (For the full-size version of this infographic, click here.) Image courtesy of iStockphoto, PeskyMonkey. All artists are self-taught. 12 Most Compelling Free eBooks by Business Bloggers.
In the past few years, eBooks have been a very popular method among online authorities for promoting themselves and the great work that they can do. The eBook is a highly diversified piece of content. Basically, there are four types of eBooks. First, there are eBooks that are merely digital versions of print books, and these usually do carry a cost. Secondly, there are eBooks that authors charge for but are only available digitally.
This last kind eBook is what today’s post consists of. 1. Author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR, Scott is one of the pioneering authorities on digital marketing. 2. Chris Brogan, author of Trust Agents, Social Media 101, and Google+ for Business, is probably the single most popular name that people associate with social media. 3. Anthony Iannarino’s blog, The Sales Blog, is probably the most widely-read sales blog on the web. 4. 5. This great little eBook is put out by a few leaders from the Content Marketing Institute. 6. 7. 8. 11. 12. Report: One In Five U.S. Adults Does Not Use The Internet. Internet adoption among U.S. adults increased rapidly from the mid-’90s to about 2005. Since then, though, the number of adult Internet users has remained almost stable at around 75 to 80%.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project’s latest poll shows that this trend continued in 2011. Those who are online use the Internet more than ever before, but about one in five U.S. adults is simply not online. According to this report, “senior citizens, those who prefer to take our interviews in Spanish rather than English, adults with less than a high school education, and those living in households earning less than $30,000 per year are the least likely adults to have Internet access.” Age, household income and education have remained the strongest positive predictors of Internet use since Pew started tracking these numbers. On the positive side, though, this new study also found that the gap in Internet access between whites and minorities in the U.S. is slowly disappearing. Startup Company | Home. Don't give up (you're on the right track)
Attention Shoppers, Baby Boomers May Inherit Trillions – Women Will Receive the Lion’s Share. Want to Build A Business That Serves the Needs of 100 Million People? He said, she said: Retirement vs. work - National baby boomer. Enroll At MySmallBiz University Today For Internet Marketing Courses. Baby Boomers Are Finding Career Solutions l Become An Entrepreneur | Business solutions, simple business solutions, marketing solutions, new entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, internet marketing. Values: The Value in a Strategic Planning Process « Ironbridgedev's Blog. 'Pursuit of Happyness': Chris Gardner on Reinventing Yourself. Wage-earning vs. Business Ownership – Consider the Employer’s View | Missouri Small Business Training.
Dr. Alexandre Kalache: How the Baby Boomers Are Reinventing Old Age. When execution gets cheaper, so should planning. For Baby Boomer 'Solopreneurs,' Business | Baby Boomer Second Careers. Ledface wants to use the 'Collective Brain' to help solve problems. Don't Go Broke Being The World's Best Kept Secret. My Own Business Inc.
Free Online Business Management Training Course Certificate Program. "Entrepreneurial Mindset" Secrets for Success - Comfort Zone Pt 4. "Entrepreneurial Mindset" Secrets for Success - Comfort Zone Pt 3. "Entrepreneurial Mindset" Secrets for Success - Comfort Zone Pt 2. "Entrepreneurial Mindset" Secrets for Success - Comfort Zone Pt 1. Five Mountain Press | Books. How To Create Your Marketing Message|Precise Client Attraction: And Why the Framing of the Problem Matters. 5 tips for jumping from the corporate ship without drowning. 5 Ways to Stop Dreaming and Start Building Your New Business Now.
Compensating for Weaknesses. Essential Qualities for Business Owners. Assessing Your Strengths. Do You Have the Right Stuff? How to Quantify Your Goals. Your Retirement Goals. Personal Goals. Economic Goals. What Are Your Goals? Roles You'll Be Expected to Play. Pros and Cons of Owning a Business. Responsibilities of Business Ownership. Do You Have What It Takes? Finding Entrepreneurial Opportunities. The Entrepreneur Network. TEN -- Score Reference Materials. Starting A Small Business. How to Start a Small or Home Based Business: Questions and Answers. Top 15 Startup Questions.
Tough questions to ask yourself Before starting your own business. 50-Plus Entrepreneurs. Www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/sbfaq.pdf. FE571/FE571: Ten Frequently Asked Questions for Small Business Start-Ups. Starting a Small Business - Before Starting a Small Business of Your Own. Legal Q & A: Legal topics. Key Questions in Starting a Small & Home Business. 6 Questions to Ask Before Starting a Business. Online Courses for Starting Your Business. Where can I find out how some individuals started a successful business? Small Business Assessment Tool (SBAT) Thinking About Starting.
Follow These Steps to Starting a Business. Is Entrepreneurship For You? 20 Questions Before Starting a Business. Your brain is a stage with only four actors | Brain Friendly Trainer. What goes around goes around… | Brain Friendly Trainer. Skill Will Matrix.jpg (1021×766) 3 ways the brain creates meaning (video by Tom Wujec) | Brain Friendly Trainer. Tom Wujec on 3 ways the brain creates meaning. A conversation on TED.com: The vagueness of words prevents us from achieving the collective intelligence we need to solve our social and political problems.
When words are not enough.