Copyright 2006 Scott Searles

It’s Inevitable sooner or later your going be faced with
the daunting and sometimes confusing tasks of interviewing
for a job. Whether it’s for just a job to keep your bills
paid, or if it’s the dream job you’ve always wanted, there
are many steps that you must accomplish in order to lock
yourself in as the best candidate for the position.

Most assume that the most important part of a job interview
is showing up well groomed. But there is much, much more to
the process than meets the eye. Everything you may have
ever wanted rides on how well you have prepared and if in
fact you have covered and mastered every step in the
process.

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Copyright 2006 Dennis Sommer

You’ve just been called into the CEO’s office for an
important meeting. Your welcomed into the office and asked
to take a seat. Your CEO says, the reason I asked you in
today, is to discuss our IT strategy for next year.
Specifically, I want to discuss our objective to reduce
overall IT costs by 30% while maintaining excellent service
levels and supporting our business growth.

Now, you think to yourself, this is completely insane. How
can we continue to provide top notch support of the
organization with a 30% budget reduction. In other words,
how am I going to do more with less. If you are not
prepared for this type discussion, then your best plan of
action is to say you will go back and develop a plan of
action achieving these new goals. Or, if you have reviewed
this article and outline a plan of action in the likelihood
this conversation every comes up, you will be prepared to
discuss your strategy at this time.

Are you ready to get the most from your technology while
protecting the bottom line? We have five steps that should
be discussed during your IT strategic planning sessions.

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Copyright 2006 Progress-U Ltd.

T h e   U l t i m a t u m

A couple of months ago, Marc (name changed), a manager in
his early 40s, called me and said: “I need your help! My
superiors told me today that I get another 6-week trial
period and if by then I can’t show a good performance, I
will be fired.”

He sounded quite panicky and outraged, which is not
surprising in such a situation. First, I helped him to calm
down so that he would be able to think clearly and
rationally.

Typically, my clients get coached 2 to 4 times per month.
However, as this was a true emergency case, we decided to
set up 2 coaching sessions per week for the first 3 weeks
and then review the situation again.

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Copyright 2006 Melissa Galt

One of the most common challenges for any small business is
determining what their worth is. This is different than
establishing their value as value is dependent on the
marketplace, competition, skill set, and exclusivity. These
elements are external to the business and can be measured
objectively. Worth, on the other hand, is an internal
measurement and subjective in nature. Worth has more to do
with innate talent, confidence (belief in one’s abilities),
core ethics, and other less well defined and measurable
benefits.

Too often it seems, small business owners struggle with
their worth versus their value. They can easily put a price
on their service or product based on value but less readily
incorporate their true worth in that price. It is the worth
factor that determines if a caterer charges $20 per person
or $55 per person for a menu, not necessarily the cost of
ingredients. The ingredient that is most important is the
worth of the creative talent. Just as in interior design it
is the worth of the designer that establishes whether to
charge $65/hour or $200/hour in the same marketplace. It
often has little to do with education and training and much
more to do with a subjective valuation of talent and
confidence.

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Copyright 2006 Erika Trimble

If you don’t effectively handle the multiple demands of
your every day life as an event or meeting planner, your
customers will know! Your coworkers, industry peers,
suppliers, and customers can, and will, hold you
accountable for how you spend your time and do your work.

How effective are you? Take this quiz to find out.

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Copyright 2006 Danek Kaus

Let me begin by stating that this article is not a
discussion about the military or the pros and cons of war.
It is about learning some of the most powerful persuasion
strategies in use today.   And the truth is, military
recruiters are some of the best salespeople in the world.
They have to be. When you enlist, you agree to a four-year
commitment.  During this time, you give up your freedom.
You must do what you are told no matter how much you might
not like it or the people who or telling you to do it.
This is ironic because the majority of those who enlist are
young men, who sign up at a time in life when many of them
tend to be the most rebellious.

WHAT MAKES THEM WORK

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Copyright 2006 Joseph Turner

Most job search approaches are Ready! Fire! Aim!

Don’t do it. Do your company research FIRST.

What happens in the real world is that most job searchers
will throw a lot of resumes against the wall and see what
sticks. We all know that job search is a numbers game.
Since a certain percentage will fall our way, why not stack
the deck up front and follow up with those that “stick”?

Here are two big problems with that thinking:

1. Having not done the basic research beforehand, should a
call come through for an initial phone screen, you are
caught dead in the water. You don’t even have any basic
knowledge about either the company or the job opportunity.
Not only do you look foolish, you’re now toast. You’ve just
been ruled out of contention after a 5-minute phone call.
Your resume has just been thrown on the reject pile and the
interviewer moves on to the next candidate to call.

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Copyright 2006 Todd Brabender

The call came into my office and the voice on the other end
was very energetic, almost giddy: “I have finalized my
marketing budget and need your help launching an
advertising campaign for my new product,” he breathed.
“Congratulations,” I replied, “but before we implement an
ad campaign, I want to make sure you have explored
potential PUBLICITY opportunities that could generate some
cost-efficient media exposure first.” Then, silence. “I
never thought about that,” he sighed. “Frankly, I don’t
know much about it.”

He is not alone. It’s a common conversation. Although many
entrepreneurs or business people know a bit about publicity
or media exposure, the majority of them simply don’t
understand the full benefits of “publicity placements” or
how to go about generating them successfully. Publicity
placements have always been a cost-efficient way to market
a product/business and generate clients or customers, but
because of lack of knowledge or a misunderstanding of what
publicity is and does, many entrepreneurs don’t take full
advantage of publicity opportunities — and that can lead
to missed marketing chances.

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Copyright 2006 Synergy Strategies

Stop for a minute and think: What is the #1 project that
you need to get done, but have been putting off? Every day
you try to get to it, but other things just seem to catch
your attention first, like answering e-mails  returning
phone calls, cleaning, taking care of little to do’s on
post it notes… tasks that suck you in and captivate you
until you have no time left to work on what you’ve deemed
important.

These IMPORTANT things are necessary to do at some point
but are not critical or urgent to do right now. IMPORTANT
tasks usually involve something a bit more tedious and time
consuming, like filing, billing, writing, making follow-up
calls, planning, marketing, etcetera.  Since there is no
immediate pressure to get them done, they remain in our
mind and on our to-do lists as things we SHOULD do
sometime. They absorb our energy as we begrudge the thought
of starting the project and they actually eat our time as
we subconsciously procrastinate, doing other little things
that feel more rewarding first.

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Copyright 2006 Marketing Maven

A mistake that entrepreneurs and business owners making is
trying to create their own marketing materials or to have
an amateur – a friend, relative, or neighbor design their
materials. It may seem like you are saving money by doing
your own logo, business card, or website, however, the
reality is that you are making a VERY costly mistake that
can make your business more likely to fail.

By trying to create your marketing materials cheaply, you
end up looking…well…cheap. Many business owners do not
realize the high cost of this mistake. They do not
understand that by having a logo, stationery, brochures,
and other marketing materials that looks unprofessional and
poorly designed is creating a sub par impression in the
minds of new prospects.

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