Watch “A Day Made of Glass” and take a look at Corning’s vision for the future with specialty glass at the heart of it.
Inspired, let us know your thoughts…….
02 Tuesday Apr 2013
Posted Inspiration, Interesting Blog, Tools
inWatch “A Day Made of Glass” and take a look at Corning’s vision for the future with specialty glass at the heart of it.
Inspired, let us know your thoughts…….
15 Friday Mar 2013
We discovered this interesting article on INC.Com
What seems like a disaster is actually the best news you’ve heard all day.
It’s easy to become discouraged when you’re selling, especially if you don’t recognize when something good just happened. Here are five very common situations that many people who sell for a living interpret as “bad news” when in fact they’re actually minor victories.
When you’re cold-calling, the last thing you want is to waste time having conversations with people who aren’t likely to buy. When a prospect hangs up immediately, you can move to the next person on your call list, secure in the knowledge that you weren’t going to make that sale anyway.
While this seems like a setback, the implication is that what you’re selling is of interest to the prospect and that there will, at some point, be a good time to talk about it. Therefore, your best response is to ask for an appointment sometime in the future. Make certain it’s a specific time and date. (Because of “setback” 3, below.)
Ouch! The prospect blew you off. Actually, no ouch. Hooray! As Tom Gimbel, CEO the staffing firm LaSalle Network recently pointed out to me, when a prospect stands you up, it creates a sense of obligation and even guilt. The prospect is now bound, by social convention, to say “yes” to another meeting and then to actually meet with you.
It’s not true that an objection means that the customer has found a reason not to buy. In fact, as sales guru Tom Hopkins once told me, an opportunity isn’t real until the prospect raises an objection. The objection proves that the prospect is now actually thinking about buying which means that you’ll likely make the sale once you’ve overcome the objection.
This is not good news, it’s great news. Chances are, if there’s already a budget allocated to what you’re selling, it’s already allocated to go to a competitor. You now have the opportunity to help the prospect change priorities so that budget IS allocated, with specific requirements that favor YOUR solution.
Geoffrey James writes the Sales Source column on Inc.com, the world’s most visited sales-oriented blog. His newly published book is Business to Business Selling: Power Words and Strategies From the World’s Top Sales Experts. @Sales_Source
12 Tuesday Mar 2013
Posted Expert Resources, Inspiration, Interesting Blog, Lifetime of Skills, Success
inThe Most Successful Leaders Do 15 Things Automatically, Every Day
A great article written by Glenn Llopis for Forbes found on the Huff Post
Leadership is learned behavior that becomes unconscious and automatic over time. For example, leaders can make several important decisions about an issue in the time it takes others to understand the question. Many people wonder how leaders know how to make the best decisions, often under immense pressure. The process of making these decisions comes from an accumulation of experiences and encounters with a multitude of difference circumstances, personality types and unforeseen failures. More so, the decision making process is an acute understanding of being familiar with the cause and effect of behavioral and circumstantial patterns; knowing the intelligence and interconnection points of the variables involved in these patterns allows a leader to confidently make decisions and project the probability of their desired outcomes.
The most successful leaders are instinctual decision makers. Having done it so many times throughout their careers, they become immune to the pressure associated with decision making and extremely intuitive about the process of making the most strategic and best decisions. This is why most senior executives will tell you they depend strongly upon their “gut-feel” when making difficult decisions at a moment’s notice.
More From Forbes:
— 14 Things You Should Do At The Start Of Every Work Day
— How To Be The One Who Gets The Promotion
— How To Pick And Stick To Career Goals
Beyond decision making, successful leadership across all areas becomes learned and instinctual over a period of time. Successful leaders have learned the mastery of anticipating business patterns, finding opportunities in pressure situations, serving the people they lead and overcoming hardships. No wonder the best CEOs are paid so much money. In 2011, salaries for the 200 top-paid CEOs rose 5 percent to a median $14.5 million per year, according to a study by compensation-data company Equilar for The New York Times.
(Click here to see the entire list from Forbes)
If you are looking to advance your career into a leadership capacity and/or already assume leadership responsibilities – here are 15 things you must do automatically, every day, to be a successful leader in the workplace:
1. Make Others Feel Safe to Speak-Up
Many times leaders intimidate their colleagues with their title and power when they walk into a room. Successful leaders deflect attention away from themselves and encourage others to voice their opinions. They are experts at making others feel safe to speak-up and confidently share their perspectives and points of view. They use their executive presence to create an approachable environment.
2. Make Decisions
Successful leaders are expert decision makers. They either facilitate the dialogue to empower their colleagues to reach a strategic conclusion or they do it themselves. They focus on “making things happen” at all times – decision making activities that sustain progress. Successful leaders have mastered the art of politicking and thus don’t waste their time on issues that disrupt momentum. They know how to make 30 decisions in 30 minutes.
3. Communicate Expectations
Successful leaders are great communicators, and this is especially true when it comes to “performance expectations.” In doing so, they remind their colleagues of the organization’s core values and mission statement – ensuring that their vision is properly translated and actionable objectives are properly executed.
I had a boss that managed the team by reminding us of the expectations that she had of the group. She made it easy for the team to stay focused and on track. The protocol she implemented – by clearly communicating expectations – increased performance and helped to identify those on the team that could not keep up with the standards she expected from us.
4. Challenge People to Think
The most successful leaders understand their colleagues’ mindsets, capabilities and areas for improvement. They use this knowledge/insight to challenge their teams to think and stretch them to reach for more. These types of leaders excel in keeping their people on their toes, never allowing them to get comfortable and enabling them with the tools to grow.
If you are not thinking, you’re not learning new things. If you’re not learning, you’re not growing – and over time becoming irrelevant in your work.
5. Be Accountable to Others
Successful leaders allow their colleagues to manage them. This doesn’t mean they are allowing others to control them – but rather becoming accountable to assure they are being proactive to their colleagues needs.
Beyond just mentoring and sponsoring selected employees, being accountable to others is a sign that your leader is focused more on your success than just their own.
6. Lead by Example
Leading by example sounds easy, but few leaders are consistent with this one. Successful leaders practice what they preach and are mindful of their actions. They know everyone is watching them and therefore are incredibly intuitive about detecting those who are observing their every move, waiting to detect a performance shortfall.
7. Measure & Reward Performance
Great leaders always have a strong “pulse” on business performance and those people who are the performance champions. Not only do they review the numbers and measure performance ROI, they are active in acknowledging hard work and efforts (no matter the result). Successful leaders never take consistent performers for granted and are mindful of rewarding them.
8. Provide Continuous Feedback
Employees want their leaders to know that they are paying attention to them and they appreciate any insights along the way. Successful leaders always provide feedback and they welcome reciprocal feedback by creating trustworthy relationships with their colleagues. They understand the power of perspective and have learned the importance of feedback early on in their career as it has served them to enable workplace advancement.
9. Properly Allocate and Deploy Talent
Successful leaders know their talent pool and how to use it. They are experts at activating the capabilities of their colleagues and knowing when to deploy their unique skill sets given the circumstances at hand.
10. Ask Questions, Seek Counsel
Successful leaders ask questions and seek counsel all the time. From the outside, they appear to know-it-all – yet on the inside, they have a deep thirst for knowledge and constantly are on the look-out to learn new things because of their commitment to making themselves better through the wisdom of others.
11. Problem Solve; Avoid Procrastination
Successful leaders tackle issues head-on and know how to discover the heart of the matter at hand. They don’t procrastinate and thus become incredibly proficient at problem solving; they learn from and don’t avoid uncomfortable circumstances (they welcome them).
Getting ahead in life is about doing the things that most people don’t like doing.
12. Positive Energy & Attitude
Successful leaders create a positive and inspiring workplace culture. They know how to set the tone and bring an attitude that motivates their colleagues to take action. As such, they are likeable, respected and strong willed. They don’t allow failures to disrupt momentum.
13. Be a Great Teacher
Many employees in the workplace will tell you that their leaders have stopped being teachers. Successful leaders never stop teaching because they are so self-motivated to learn themselves. They use teaching to keep their colleagues well-informed and knowledgeable through statistics, trends, and other newsworthy items.
Successful leaders take the time to mentor their colleagues and make the investment to sponsor those who have proven they are able and eager to advance.
14. Invest in Relationships
Successful leaders don’t focus on protecting their domain – instead they expand it by investing in mutually beneficial relationships. Successful leaders associate themselves with “lifters and other leaders” – the types of people that can broaden their sphere of influence. Not only for their own advancement, but that of others.
Leaders share the harvest of their success to help build momentum for those around them.
15. Genuinely Enjoy Responsibilities
Successful leaders love being leaders – not for the sake of power but for the meaningful and purposeful impact they can create. When you have reached a senior level of leadership – it’s about your ability to serve others and this can’t be accomplished unless you genuinely enjoy what you do.
In the end, successful leaders are able to sustain their success because these 15 things ultimately allow them to increase the value of their organization’s brand – while at the same time minimize the operating risk profile. They serve as the enablers of talent, culture and results.
12 Tuesday Mar 2013
Posted Inspiration, Methods & Techniques, Motivation
inTags
60 of the world’s happiest facts
1. A group of flamingos is called a flamboyance.
2. If you fake laugh long enough you’ll start to really laugh, really, really hard.
3. The book cover to the prize winning short story collection, Spellbound, was chosen because author, Joel Willans, bought his wife’s engagement ring with poker winnings.
4. The Beatles used the word “love” 613 times throughout their career.
5. The chances of you (as opposed to someone else) being born is about 1 in 40 million.
6. Every year, millions of trees grow thanks to squirrels forgetting where they buried their nuts.
7. On the day of his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. had a pillow-fight in his motel room.
8. The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We’re all made of star dust.
9. Cancer death rates are down 20% in past 20 years.
10. The miles travelled by the Apollo 11 crew to the moon were greater than every single exploration mission to the New World combined.
11. Penguins only have one mate their entire life and “propose” by giving their mate a pebble.
12. Cows have best friends.
13. Despite high infant mortality rates and lower life expectancies, not one of your direct ancestors died childless.
14. Cuddling releases Oxytocin which helps speed healing and recovery from physical wounds.
15. Otters hold hands when sleeping so they don’t drift away from each other.
16. Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the Moon, wrote his daughter initials there. They’ll last at least 50,000 years.
17. There’s a type of jellyfish that lives forever.
18. Wayne Allwine (the voice of Mickey Mouse) and Russi Taylor (the voice of Minnie Mouse) were married in real life.
19. We now have less crime, a lower death rate and longer life expectancy than at any other time in human history.
20. The clitoris has 8000 nerve fibres, double that of the penis, and is the only organ in the body, which has evolved purely for pleasure.
21. Butterflies can taste with their feet.
22. For someone, somewhere in the world, today is the most amazing day of their life.
23. When you die, your body decomposes, and the atoms that contained “you” are recycled into Earth to be used again.
24. Every year the Netherlands sends 20,000 tulip bulbs to Canada to thank them for their aid in the Second World War.
25. Rats giggle when you tickle them. Their voices are so high-pitched you need special equipment to hear them, but when you do, their laughs are immediately evident.
26. Sea horses mate for life, are completely faithful and travel together by holding on to each others tails.
27. The guy at the end of this video exists.
28. If you say “my cocaine” you sound like Michael Caine saying his own name.
29. Male puppies, when playing with female puppies, will intentionally let the female win.
30. The next Star Wars will not be directed by George Lucas.
31. It takes seventeen muscles to smile and forty-three to frown.
32.The kingdom of Bhutan use ‘gross national happiness’ as a key national indicator.
33. The majority of European children born in 2013 will live to see the year 2100.
34. There’s an animal called a Dik Dik. And it’s the cutest antelope you’ll ever see.
35. Neurologically speaking, seeing somebody else smile actually makes you happier.
36. Every human being spent about half an hour as a single cell.
37. There are people, ombrophiles, who have a passionate love for rain.
38. Once your brain realizes that you’re dying, it releases DMT, one of the most powerful known psychedelics. This dilates your perception of time and allowing you to live inside your own mind for hours or even days.
39. No matter how long you live there will always be an amazing new food for you try.
40. A group of porcupines is called a prickle.
41. Aside from a sample in a lab, Smallpox is completely extinct. No one else will ever die from it again.
42. A pig’s orgasms last thirty minutes.
43. We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born.
44. Sloths only leave their tree once a week, to pee and poo.
45. Spinner dolphins sleep in pairs, one with the left hemisphere asleep, the other with the right. They each keep watch with one eye and half a brain. They are known to sleep-mate for life.
46. At the time of your birth, you were, for a few seconds, the youngest person on the planet.
47. Cows produce the most milk when listening to the song Everybody Hurts by REM.
48. Somewhere, someone is losing their virginity right now.
49. If you spell out numbers in order, the first time you get to the letter “a” is at one-thousand.
50. We’ve all been here forever. Every bit of matter we see has been here since the beginning of time and it always will be.
51. A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana.
52. Happiness is a skill. You can learn it and it’s not hard.
53. Except when breeding, the Common Swift spend their entire lives in the air, living on the insects they catch in flight. They drink, feed, and often mate and sleep on the wing
54. Baby rabbits are called kittens.
55. Baby puffins are called pufflings.
56. Costa Rica is statistically the happiest nation on Earth.
57. Worms communicate by snuggling.
58. 2013 is the first year since 1987 that consists for four different digits.
59. With our horseless carriages, flying robots, space travel, long-distance communication at the speed of light, cloning, lasers, connection to people all over the world, we are living in the future people dreamed of.
60. If you blend a sea sponge, it will re-form back into a sea sponge.
12 Tuesday Mar 2013
Posted Inspiration, Interesting Blog, Start Up
inWE so agree with this great article we found on INC.com
A killer company name isn’t just about finding something that sounds right. Here are six things to keep in mind.
What you call a new venture can very well turn out to be one of the most important decisions you will make in the early days of a company. The business name will dictate which Web domain you can register, your trademark, and how people identify what you do.
So while the R.E.M. approach might work on the rare occasion–the band reportedly opened a dictionary and picked the name at random–you’re better off giving the name due diligence. Here are six things to keep in mind.
1. Watch out for sound-alikes.
Tarek Pertew, the co-founder of Wakefield (which provides info about great places to work), says to avoid a name that has too many alternate spellings. For example, you might want to call your new start-up Phaser, but he says too many people will think it is Fazer or Faser. They will type that domain into a browser and find the wrong brand.
2. Wait for the lightbulb moment.
To create BloomThink, the name of his social media firm, Billy Cripe grabbed blank sheets of paper and had family members write down interesting words. Eventually, his daughter put “bloom” and “think” together. Everyone at the table new it was the right name. “Start-ups should take some time saying the words out loud because they’re going to be saying it a lot: on the phone, in face-to-face meetings, in presentations. You want your words to easily translate to the keyboard for accuracy and ease,” he says.
3. Let your name tell a story.
Pertew says it is not always necessary for your company name to tell a story. Yet, it can help with branding and generate buzz. One example: the eyewear company Warby Parker is named after two characters from a long-lost Jack Kerouac journal. Pertew’s company name is also a conversation starter: Wakefield is named after a character in a Tom Swift novel series from the 1900s that was inventive and prescient.
4. Make it personal.
Your company name is often an extension of your personality. Caroline Fielding was doodling on a sheet of paper one night, trying to think of a company name. She thought about three grandsons in the family: Dean, Bryan, and Steven. And, she thought about how her company, which makes an iPhone app called Bus Rage, is driven to succeed. She combined the three names to create Dryven. “The name is easier to remember [for customers] when there is a personal story behind it,” she says.
5. Don’t be too practical.
Some companies use a name that says exactly what is does, like Accounting101. That might be a mistake, says Aaron Frazin, the CEO of Charlie, an app that pulls info about your contacts before a meeting. Frazin played around with names like Socialize.it and Unclutter.it but ended up picking the name Charlie because it’s a bit esoteric. “No one wants just a tool that says what it does; they want a name that represents something bigger than it does,” he says.
6. Make sure you love it.
The process of picking a name can easily turn into a a huge headache. Chris Zepf, the CEO of Kingdom Ridge Capital, says he and a business partner spent hundreds of hours thinking of a name. They went through a laundry list of Greek gods, mountain ranges, and geographic locations but came up empty. He decided to pick a known quantity: the street he lives on, Kingdom Ridge. He now says the name resonates with him every time he hears it.
John Brandon is a contributing editor at Inc. magazine and writes the Tech Trends column in every issue. He also writes the Tech Report column for Inc.com. @jmbrandonbb
07 Thursday Mar 2013
Tags
David Fairweather of Experience Business Solutions looks at how the Internet has changed the way we need to sell.
There are no doubt many of us out there that remember the pre internet days of word processing and glossy product brochures but over the past quarter century we have gone from slow dial up connections to high speed broadband and along with that we have Social Media and Social Networking. All of these changes have had a dramatic effect on the way businesses buy and sell.
Customers are now more Self Informed than ever before
The advance in technology and online awareness means that customers are better informed than ever before and historically, buyers relied on vendors to provide them with product information and expertise, usually in the form of product/benefit presentations that provided the information necessary for the buyer to make an intelligent decision.
Now, things are quite different as buyers can get all the product information they want (and more) from the Internet, and as a result, do not want sellers to waste their time providing information that’s easily available elsewhere.
The Web also greatly influences how buyers evaluate pricing. In the past, the simple logistics of gathering relevant data on a range of competitive products (along with price comparisons) was a major task requiring a great deal of time and effort.
In contrast, buyers can now instantaneously compare products online, making it simple and efficient for customers to search for the lowest prices for any number of goods and services that they might require.
The ability to rapidly find alternative products and services tends to drive prices downwards because the customer will almost always purchase the lower-priced product since it no longer costs much to research those alternatives.
Buyers now “Spoilt for Choice!”
In addition, even though the Web allows buyers to research alternatives, many potential buyers find themselves spoilt for choice and can become overwhelmed by what psychologists refer to as “the tyranny of choice,” where too many alternatives can create buyer anxiety, making a purchase less likely.
Many buyers believe (especially those with time constraints) that researching and evaluating sufficient information about product categories to make an intelligent decision is less cost effective than simply calling an expert (i.e., a salesperson) and just having that salesperson provide all the relevant information.
In this case, the seller, in essence, acts as the “manager” of that segment of the customer’s business, ensuring that the product or solution works well in the customer’s environment and creates the measurable results that the buyer seeks.
As a consequence, many customers now look to their vendors to “own” the aspects of their own business that the customers would prefer not to “own” themselves. Customers are thus demanding more from sellers than when selling was mostly delivering information.
The Internet has created the need for different Sales Skills
Not so long ago, many business experts believed that the Internet would make sales reps obsolete because customers would be able to make decisions, order products, check delivery status, and so forth, entirely without the seller’s assistance.
In some markets, this has happened. The airline industry, for example, has become almost entirely driven by price, with consumers and business people alike able to choose the lowest cost flight on a variety of websites, without using a travel agent.
However, while travel agents are no longer responsible for selling the millions of domestic airline tickets, travel agents still exist, but they provide more complex services (like luxury travel) that assume that airline tickets are commodities.
In other words, whilst one market becomes less subjective and the sales role declines, it typically creates another, higher-level market that requires the customer to seek the expertise of a salesperson in order to navigate the complexities.
The Tech or Computer industry is another prime example where most computer hardware is now considered to be commodity product and is largely purchased over the Internet without the need for a salesperson.
At the same time, what companies actually utilise these cheap and easily-purchased computers for has become far more complex, demanding greater levels of expertise from the sellers of software and other services.
The Internet also demands more from Salespeople
Historically, selling was seen by many as a “black art” consisting primarily of interpersonal skills, a hint of psychology, and a varying degree of both product and procedural knowledge, such as how to describe and compare products, configure a deal or write up an order.
Today, selling to businesses still requires business acumen and in-depth Industry Experience, so that the seller can take responsibility for key functions inside a customer’s account. Selling also often requires the ability to build a strong cost justification for ROI.
This does not mean that traditional sales skills are ineffective, quite the contrary as a professionally trained and highly experienced salesperson can always adapt their skills. However, if buyers are to welcome sellers into their business as trusted advisers, the seller must be able to provide the same level of service and command the same credibility as a manager within the buyer’s firm.
The Internet also demands that sellers have a higher level of technological skill as well. Blogs, web conferencing, SEO, SEM and social networking are now common as sales tools, and many sellers utilise the wealth of web-based data to help focus their selling efforts.
The new technology, together with the new demands that buyers are putting on sellers means that buyers now expect sellers to become engaged and enmeshed with the buyer’s own business, an expectation that demands high levels of industry knowledge, technical knowledge and general business expertise.
26 Tuesday Feb 2013
Posted Advice, Inspiration, Interesting Blog, Optimistic
inOptimism isn’t always automatic. Sometimes you must create it for yourself.
We recently came across this great article by Geoffrey James for Inc.com let us know your thoughts……..
Geoffrey James he writes the Sales Source column on Inc.com, the world’s most visited sales-oriented blog. His newly published book is Business to Business Selling: Power Words and Strategies From the World’s Top Sales Experts. @Sales_Source
Many people struggle to stay optimistic, especially in the workplace. After all, there are many reasons to be pessimistic: a difficult economy, global competition, a business ethos that seems to reward criminals and penalize truth-tellers.
Nevertheless, your ability to succeed depends heavily on your ability to remain optimistic. I’m not talking about seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. I’m talking about trusting your ability to cope, regardless of what life throws at you.
Pessimists don’t just miss opportunities, they can’t take advantage of opportunities that drop into their laps. They’re so convinced that everything is awful that they can’t figure out how to make things better.
As I’ve pointed out before, everybody has rules that they use to interpret the meaning of events. Pessimists have rules that make it easy to be miserable and difficult to be happy. Optimists have rules that make it easy to be happy and difficult to be miserable.
Pessimists let just about anything–like getting caught in traffic–make them upset. Their “what makes me miserable” rules have a low threshold. As a result, they’re constantly experiencing life in a way that makes them more pessimistic.
Pessimists also have “what makes me happy” rules that have a high threshold, such as “I’m happy when I get a brand new car.” Since such events are uncommon, pessimists rarely have experiences that justify being optimistic about the future.
Optimists tend to have rules that do the exact opposite. Ask optimists what make them happy and you’ll hear something like: “any day above ground is a good day” or “all it takes to make me happy is a smile.”
Optimists also have rules that make it difficult to be miserable. Many can barely remember a time when they were consistently unhappy, and then it’s because something unusually sad happened, like the death of a loved one.
In a previous post, I provided a simple method to create and instill a set of beliefs (i.e. rules) that make you happier. That method was taught me by my mother, who stayed optimistic even while confronted with breast cancer.
I was talking about my mother with a relative recently and it emerged from the conversation that I’d left out an important step. So I’m going to go over the method again, with a bit more detail:
Take out pen and paper (important: do not use your computer) and write out your current rules, using the following format:
Don’t make a huge project out of it. Accuracy is less important than the “feel” of the rules. The rules that pop into your mind immediately are usually the most significant.
Step back for a moment and consider those rules as if you were reading what somebody else wrote. Do those rules create an attitude of pessimism or optimism? Do they make it easy to be miserable and difficult to be happy?
I can almost guarantee that’s the case because, if that weren’t true, you wouldn’t be bothering with this exercise. The reason you’ve gotten this far is that there’s a part of you that knows that your rules are bringing you more pain than pleasure.
Take a moment to consider why you believe those rules. In most cases, it’s because you’re afraid to be disappointed. You’ve set your expectations of life low so that you have an automatic excuse for failing.
Now it’s time to get creative. Get out a second piece of paper, take a few deep breaths, and then ask yourself:
The wording of these questions is important. You’re thinking about possibilities at this point (i.e. “could make me”) not your current reality. List out as many things as you can for the first question. Keep the second list short; only really serious stuff.
When you’ve finished with your list, write down your “optimism” rules in the following format:
Once again, the wording is crucial.
At this point you should have two pieces of paper, in your own handwriting, one documenting your current “pessimistic” rules and the other documenting the “optimistic” rules you’d like to believe.
I fully realize that this sounds completely corny. Even so it works, and here’s why.
You are a human being. For the past 125,000 years, one of the defining characteristics of being human has been the mastery of fire. Fire is part of every religion, from the actual worship of fire to the use of candles in churches.
The importance of fire is in your DNA, in other words, and by burning those old beliefs, you are reaching into the very depths of your subconscious and telling yourself that those beliefs are no longer real. They no longer count. The fire has made them into ashes.
Crumple the ashes into dust. You’re done with that way of thinking.
When you burned those old rules, you created a vacuum in your mind. Your mind wants to fill that vacuum and it will “glom onto” whatever it’s exposed to on a daily basis.
Post your new rules beside your computer or on your bathroom mirror. Or both. Just be certain that you write out every copy of those rules in your own handwriting, so that your brain “knows” that they belong to you.
If you follow the above steps, you will inevitably become more optimistic. You’ll be happier, healthier and much more likely to see the opportunities in life and work, rather than wallow in the challenges.
What are your thoughts, please feel free to leave a comment………………
22 Friday Feb 2013
While exploring recent articles we came across this amusing article about Marguerite Joseph a 104 year old Facebook User in The Huffington Post
A 104-year-old woman must lie about her age in order to use Facebook.
Marguerite Joseph, from Grosse Pointe Shores, Mich., will turn 105 in just a few months but Facebook doesn’t know that, Detroit station WDIV reports. Because of aFacebook glitch that won’t allow her to input her birth year of 1908, Joseph has been 99 years old for the past two years, as far as the network knows.
“Every time I tried to change the settings to the right year, Facebook always came back with an unknown error message and would send us right back to a year she wasn’t born in,” her granddaughter, Gail Marlow, who has tried to contact Facebook about the issue, told WDIV. “I would love to see her real age on Facebook, I mean in April she’s going to be 105. It’s special.”
When the 104-year-old attempts to change her birth date to 1908, it switches to 1928, according to the Associated Press.
Joseph, who currently doesn’t have a birth year listed, notes Facebook’s error on her profile.
“I was actually born on April 19, 1908 which makes me 102 years old but Facebook wouldn’t let me enter in a date that goes back that far,” reads the great-grandmother’s “About” section, written two years ago when her Facebook page was first created. She later writes, “I am a wealth of knowledge and history and love to tell my stories.”
Due to her eyesight, Joseph has her granddaughter read and write her posts for her. She uses the social network to keep in touch with her family, including 12 grandchildren, and friends.
A Facebook spokesperson apologized for the error and is working to fix the malfunction of using pre-1910 birthdays, the AP reports.
“We’ve recently discovered an issue whereby some Facebook users may be unable to enter a birthday before 1910,” Facebook said in a statement to The Huffington Post. “We are working on a fix for this and we apologize for the inconvenience.”
The company and its founders are certainly aware of its older users.
In August, Mark Zuckerber and his sister Sheryl went to visit Florence Detlor — a 101-year-old woman who was proclaimed Facebook’s oldest registered user.
11 Monday Feb 2013
Writing a Business Plan?
David Fairweather, Business Development Director of Experience Business Solutions Ltd. offers his read on the right way to do it!
“I have been fortunate to have been involved in both private (angel) and venture capital (VC) funding in the past, and a well-written and detailed business plan was always essential in opening doors. However, it always surprises me how many start-ups don’t actually have a business plan.”
In some cases where budding entrepreneurs have great ideas, they may not have the experience or background to know exactly what is needed to put together a sound business plan.
To many, creating a winning business plan can often seem like an off putting or daunting task for those that haven’t done it before, in some cases resulting in them abandoning their idea for a new business and maybe missing what could have been a great business opportunity!
In essence, your business plan should be the first thing you create – before websites, before a profit and loss (P&L) sheet, and before anything else with the exception perhaps of some sound research. However, your business plan should not be written purely for the purpose of raising outside investment.
The plan defines, charts and details your business strategy, and should be used as the document that you and (if applicable) your business partners refer to in order to ensure you’re on the right track, as well as becoming the document you update when and if you need to change course. In other words it should be used in effect as a continual road map, charting your journey and how you will get to your eventual destination.
In general, the more detailed the plan, the easier it is to execute and measure its success across all of the important parameters.
In my view it is good practice to break down all of the components which make up the business plan and work on them individually on a one-by-one basis before bringing it all together into a single document. I find this approach useful for shaping and re-evaluating the plan as I go along; plus it’s always useful to have the different elements stored as separate files for future use.
So…How to write a Business Plan!
The key structure of a business plan should be:
• What is it? It may sound unnecessary, but start by telling your audience what the document is!
• What is its purpose/what inefficiency does it solve?
• Market opportunity – is there one and what is it?
• Key business objectives/definitions and milestones
• Product differentiation – why is your product or service different?
• Market conditions – Is it a good time, economically, socially, politically etc.?
• Competition – Who are they, how do they compare, assess competitive advantage potential?
• Customer Focus – Who is your target market and why?
• Revenue models – Where will revenue come from and how?
• Marketing and PR – What will you require, how will it be deployed?
• Key people and headcount – What resources will you need, what skills, timing etc.?
• Top line three to five year financials – Profit and Loss, Cash Flow projections
Here are a few steps I take when creating my business plan:
1 Start with an Interest Benefit Statement (IBS). You need to articulate your entire proposition in a single sentence so it is clear and obvious to everyone what it is that you do.
2 Use a single page to highlight your key milestones for the next three to five years: engagement/users and revenue/target number of customers, i.e. a snapshot of your P&L.
3 Create an Executive Summary. This is typically one or two A4 pages which starts with your IBS statement and highlights every facet of the business. The important points to cover are: business purpose, market opportunity, key business drivers and milestones, revenue, and P&L.
4 Write a detailed section on your vision. What does your business look like today, next year and by year five? How large can the business become? How will you realise your vision?
5. Your product/service. What are your competitive advantages? What IP have you created or what proprietary technology have you developed? List the five key features of your product or service that will win adoption for you.
6 Marketing & PR. How will you take the product/service to market? Demonstrate how you can get traction in your chosen market(s), what channels you will use and what your customer and user acquisition strategy involves. How will marketing support your financial strategy? PR is also important and is required for building and maintaining relationships and growth.
7 Revenue. How will you make money? What are your revenue streams? Don’t fictionalise this. Forecast numbers that will challenge you but you are genuinely confident of delivering. Never forecast based on what you think investors want to see. That is a sure-fire way to kill your business.
8 Management/founding team. Investors will almost always be sold on you and your founding team before they buy into your business idea. A concise, well-articulated, detailed business plan with accurate revenue projections is the first step to demonstrating you are intelligent and understand your business and marketplace. However, a one-pager on you and key members of the team is important. Display work history/education but don’t make this boring. You all have personalities, show this off too.
9 Exit. Finish on how you think you’ll achieve a return on investment for your investors, when it’s likely to happen and what it looks like (in terms of the return) when you do.
Remember, investors do not like lifestyle businesses. They want a return, usually with a multiple of at least several times what they commit. Show them how they can achieve this.
10 Profit and Loss. This isn’t a business plan, but a budget. Formulate a detailed three to five-year budget outlining your income and expenditure forecasts. This should also cover cashflow based on you receiving investment too, so an investor can clearly see when you break even, or run out of cash. Be realistic with it and attach this to the business plan.
Is this the formula to a winning business plan? That depends on you. No matter how good a business plan is, investors buy people. A solid, defensible business plan helps and should be used as your business manual and point of reference when executing the strategy.
Experience Business Solutions provides advice on all aspects of Business Start Ups, Business Planning and Strategy, Business Development and Business Management.
04 Monday Feb 2013
Posted Inspiration, Lifetime of Skills, Motivation
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45 LIFE LESSONS, WRITTEN BY A 90 YEAR OLD
1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short not to enjoy it.
4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will.
5. Don’t buy stuff you don’t need.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Stay true to yourself.
7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for things that matter.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye… But don’t worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful. Clutter weighs you down in many ways.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It’s never too late to be happy. But it’s all up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Overprepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words, ‘In five years, will this matter?’
27. Always choose Life.
28. Forgive but don’t forget.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give Time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d
grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. Accept what you already have, not what you think you need.
42. The best is yet to come…
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.
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