Idea Triggers

Idea Triggers

When you are out of ideas, try one of the following idea triggers to stimulate your imagination.

What technique will the leader in your field be using 20 years from now?

Explain your problem to someone who doesn’t know any of the technical jargon. Ask how he/she would solve the problem.

What is impossible to do in your industry, but if it were, would change the nature of your industry forever?

How would you pursue the goals if you had unlimited resources: people and money?

Spend a couple of hours in the library leafing through journals that are distinctly peripheral to your project.

If there were a crisis and you had to complete your project within a week, what would you do?

Can you break down your major technical barrier into subsets? Which one now is the greatest barrier?

See how well you can describe the barriers to your challenges. Then get your team, first individually and then as a group, to prepare possible solutions.

Our brains need to be fed quality questions that challenge our neural network to really think. Try opening your next meeting with 5 – 10 minutes of question-storming. You can think of questions related to a specific topic, or simply reflect on all the things you would like to know about the universe.

Think of 10 ridiculous ways to solve the problem.

Are you managing your staff to take advantage of accidental events?

Wouldn’t it be useful if you provoked a bit more laughter in your group?

What question would you ask God if God were in the same room with you?

Go out of your way to find someone who isn’t an expert, but who would enjoy learning about your project. The burden will be on you to explain it in an easily understandable manner.

How about spending an entire week not thinking about the problem?

Try thinking about the problem during times when you normally aren’t thinking about work.

Any good analogies to help you see the problem in a different way?

Ever consider thinking about your project in a different language?

Is it really necessary to see that your experiments are “correctly performed?”

Get someone else to look over your notebooks; perhaps a clue you’ve missed lies waiting.

Perhaps the idea that, at the time seemed silly, now has some value.

Anything useful in project disclosures of a decade ago?

Go out of your way to discuss the problem with someone who isn’t personally involved with its outcome.

Might an extension of the project deadline significantly increase the chance for success?

Are the ideas limited because you, or someone in your group, is “wedded” to a particular piece of equipment?

How about getting one more opinion on that strategy?

Is there someone in your group who may have a good idea, but isn’t offering it because he or she is concerned that it won’t be accepted.

Set up a meeting specifically to challenge the assumptions you consider basic to the problem.

What can you do to present your ideas more effectively?

Do you really listen to old ideas?

Concentrate on the problem just before you go to bed.

After a major decision is made, let it sit for a few days before you act on it– allowing people to mull it over and provide new input.

Are you willing to take the battering that frequently comes when you offer a great idea?

Write the problem down with the fewest number of words.

Play with turning the problem inside out.

When the problem seems complex, take a walk, relax and observe. Then outline the problem out loud, just before you go to bed.

- See more at: http://creativethinking.net/articles/2013/08/19/455/?goback=%2Egde_2433065_member_267223559#%21

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Creative Frenzy Ltd ‏@CreativeFrenzy

Making the Impossible Possible - Creative Frenzy are laying flooring (digitally) in places you might not expect ;) pic.twitter.com/Q34HRB6ffO

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7:54 AM - 27 Aug 13

Managing Work-from-Home Employees

How to Manage Home-Based Workers the Apple Way

by Tim Parker on August 15, 2013

If your small business employs or plans to employ virtual workers, check out the recent article by software analyst Ashley Verrill on TechCrunch. In it, Verrill says she emailed more than 40 current and former employees of Apple’s At-Home Advisor program to learn how to run a team that’s based in disparate locations. These Apple staffers work remotely, offering customer service and tech support to its customers.
Apple’s management methods “in every case were intense, sometimes sort of silly, and at other times borderline extreme,” Verrill writes. But the company’s style offers some insights that may help you evolve your virtual management practices or develop a strategy for future work-at-home employees. Here are three tips based on Apple’s practices.
1. Make them part of the team. When At-Home Advisors are hired, Apple sends them a care package of items such as a company T-shirt, gift cards, and a mug that makes the employee feel welcome, Verrill reports.
When you hire a virtual worker, invest time and effort in making them part of your team. If you’re transitioning on-site employees to at-home jobs, convene regular meetings and get-togethers to foster a “family” environment. Employees are more likely to work harder and stick around when they feel valued.
2. Set expectations during training. Working as a virtual employee for Apple means completing an intensive training program. It’s a four-week program in which prospective employees are required to participate from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. At the end of each week, trainees must pass an exam, Verrill reports. This makes it clear that working from home isn’t casual or easy. It also requires employees to invest time and energy in the program, which makes them less likely to quit soon after training.
The takeaway here for small-business owners is that, if you make any kind of training casual, employees may view the job as casual. Testing new employees’ work ethic and setting clear expectations are as important as teaching them the skills needed for the position.
3. Conduct real-time checks. There’s a fine line between micromanaging and encouraging efficiency, but Apple employs “big brother”-style strategies to monitor employees. During training, employees are asked to answer questions during live instruction. Mouse movements are monitored, and trainers may ask class members to turn on their cameras for group instruction. This extends after training as well, Verrill reports.
Monitoring your employees is easy: Services like Google Chat, Skype, and FaceTime allow you to speak with employees and catch a glimpse of where they are. Some employers require remote staffers to have their computer’s webcam turned on while working to more mimic the office environment. This allows managers to talk to workers in real time just as they would in a traditional office. If you use cloud-based services like Dropbox, you can view files as they’re updated, which time-stamps work as it’s delivered.
Apple’s methods may be “intense,” but they’re effective. By following its lead — and making adjustments to suit your small business — you can successfully manage home-based workers, too.

9 Ideas to Make Your Next Business Article Go Viral

BY Young Entrepreneur Council

How do you find readers--and get them to pause, click, and share? Nine YEC entrepreneurs tell you how to tip the scales in your favor.

508 SHARES | Share this article

We all know content is king, but you still have to get the right content out there. Then you have to figure out how to get people to read it. Nine successful entrepreneurs from the YEC share their tips for getting more eyes on your content.
1. Content That Evokes Emotions
A good blog post or article should satisfy two entirely different requirements: it should provide valuable information and it should evoke an emotion. (Humor, anger, or inspiration are all fine.) Don't go for controversy, though, just for the sake of it, and certainly not if it counters your brand's values. But do look for ways to offer people value and go ahead and tug at their heart strings. Curate and create content that justifies a share. --Fabian Kaempfer, Chocomize
2. A Clear, Honest Title
I wrote an article once for Forbes that had the title "Why Leaders Must Be Readers." I cringed at the cheesiness of it, but I believe the reason the article got more than 20,000 views was because it was obvious what the article was about. You can get a lot of views through an attention-grabbing title, but true engagement can also come when people aren't in the dark what they're about to read--and when they immediately know why friends or colleagues shared it with them.
--Kelsey Meyer, Influence & Co.
3. An Evident Tipping Point
Of course the content needs to be exceptional, but it also has to find its way to the key person or people who are going to be able to help tip it over into the world of massive sharing. In order to make your way to that tipping point, you have to ask for help. Going viral isn't something that happens to you; it's an active state of promotion in search of that tipping point. --Corey Blake, Round Table Companies
4. Organized Ideas
One thing I notice in a lot of successful articles is that it's very easy to consume content with numbered ideas. On BuzzFeed, most articles take this format: "10 Things You Didn't Know About Entrepreneurship." This is because people want information broken down for them. Organizing your ideas into a numbered or categorized format helps people consume the content more easily. The faster they can understand it, the more likely they are to share it.
--Andy Karuza, brandbuddee
5. Useful Information
There isn't one magic bullet for making a blog post or online article go viral. A combination of things contribute to the success of a post. However, one important trait of a viral blog post or article is usefulness. Giving your reader something tangible and practical that he or she can put to use will immediately increase your chances of the post being shared. If it's shared once, chances are it will be shared again. A few more shares and that post could be on its way to going viral.
--Jay Wu, A Forever Recovery
6. Unexpected Information
We've found that the key to a viral blog post is finding something truly unexpected. Whether it's insight buried deep within a data set or a case study with an unusual outcome, posts that defy people's expectations are more likely to be shared and tweeted about.
--Robert J. Moore, RJMetrics

7. Honest Advice
Be honest and vulnerable. There are so many "Top X" blog posts and impersonal litanies written for the search engines. Don't do that. Write about what you know, and be open, honest, and transparent. Don't write an article per week because it's on your schedule. Make sure you're writing about things that are important to you, and don't publish it unless it is of the highest quality. Be honest with your audience; it will help them connect with you and help you build a larger base.
--Mitch Gordon, Go Overseas
8. A Story to Connect With
If you want the kind of viral post that people act upon (as opposed to BuzzFeed lists that are passed around but quickly forgotten), you need a story that readers can connect with. Test out your concept this way: If you can't tell the underlying story your post describes, you probably don't have something that can go viral. It doesn't have to be a complicated story, but there does have to be something that's easy for people to remember and talk about. --Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting
9. A Different Angle
One key way for a blog post to go viral is to discuss a popular topic in your industry and reveal an angle that no one has discussed. If it's a hot-button topic and you can bring a new perspective to light, you have a great chance of having your article go viral.
--Phil Laboon, Eyeflow Internet Marketing

Tapping Into The B2B Blogosphere

Everyone and their mom seems to have a blog these days. From parenting to family to travel and even button collecting – there is a place for everyone to get a piece of the pie. While the consumer sector of the blogosphere has  latched on quickly to the trend, the B2B world has been slower to adopt these channels as strategic communications tools with real tangible benefits.
Since embracing social media and blogger relations in the past years, Dell has learned a thing or two about the importance of blogger relations. They have learned that people and their opinions come in all forms and every person finds their own and unique way to share a story. The savviest of companies are using this unique, word-of-mouth marketing strategy to help change company perceptions and tap into niche industries with relevant conversation.  B2B brands should take note!

Photo by: Dell Official Flickr, CC-BY-2.0

Bloggers are often the first to report on new industry trends, and once established, they rate very highly in terms of trust. So it is clear that if you’re launching a new B2B product or service, the importance of bloggers cannot and should not be ignored. Here are some tips for adding blogger relations to your B2B marketing mix.
When Making Lists, It’s Ok To Play Favorites
Remember when I mentioned there were 181 million blogs out there? If  thinking about where to start compiling your blog lists makes your head spin, get in line behind me. To be effective with blogger outreach, you have to play favorites  –  kindergarten-style. This means that you have to find, narrow and target blogs that  are the best fit for your company’s message and decide at which level you will communicate with those bloggers. Follow the blogger for several weeks to get a feel for their opinions, the topics they cover and how that fits in with your communications goals. RSS is a great way to streamline this process. Once you’ve narrowed down your favorites, it’s a good idea to tier your “best friends” for any priority messaging from your company because you already know they’re reliable and great fits to share your message.
It’s Always a Good Idea to Recycle Content
The social Web, for the most part, has a short memory. This doesn’t mean you should go digging in ancient archives for presentations to share, but it does mean that when pitching B2B bloggers, you can revisit topics that were previously well-received and update them for today’s business environment. It’s likely that new blogger contacts have never seen this information and may find it useful for their audiences. Try to:

• Turn old PowerPoint presentations into articles
• Use interview materials with journalists/media that never got published
• Break up long articles into series
• Re-write press releases into conversational blog posts

Pick the Brains of Your Thought Leaders
Doing interviews with industry thought leaders is a great way to create interesting content and tap into new audiences for exposure. Interview internal thought leaders, whether they are business leaders, product managers or engineers. Interviews with these busy people can be done via phone and then transcribed into text. This makes it easy for the interviewee and also provides both audio and text versions of content. Questions can be keyword optimized and responses can inter-link using anchor text to support your SEO efforts. Send this information to your bloggers as sharable content for their readers and audiences.
Learn What Content is Successful and Popular
Many blogs make this information easy to find by having sidebars highlighting most shared posts and posts with most comments. Look for trends and topics that resonate with the blog’s audience.  It is also a great idea to read through the comments of popular posts (that fall within your area of interest) to gauge the tone of the conversation and the overall sentiment of the audience.
Understand what makes a good post and be ready to provide it. This will vary from blog to blog. Some blogs focus on highlighting news and technology while others are more issue focused and tackle industry debates head on. Determine what you need to provide to mirror the type of content the blog features.  Would offering a demo of your technology with screen shots piqué the blogger’s interest? What about sharing your opinion on an industry debate via the comments section of the blog? Also consider providing the blogger with product giveaways or exclusive tours of your facility.
“No Comment” is Never the Answer

Photo by Search Engine People Blog, CC-BY-2.0

Whether B2B or B2C, the most important part of the term blogger relations is the“relations” portion. This means ongoing stewardship between both parties. If a blogger writes a great blog post about your company, return the favor by sharing the blog post on your company’s social profiles or electronic newsletter. Nothing makes a blogger want to continue their working relationship with your company much like feeling as though their work is valuable and appreciated. It’s a two-way street – treat it as such.
Additionally, commenting on a person’s blog consistently with insightful thoughts is the best way to begin or build up existing relationships with influencers. Every time you leave a comment on a blog it is displayed in the least crowded inbox that individual has, the comment dashboard. The majority of bloggers read every comment that comes through their blog dashboard.
There is No “One Size Fits All”
Truth is, there is no mold that fits all brands and companies when it comes to successful blogger relations. The key is to get in, get your hands dirty and find the types of messages and strategies that sync with your brand’s communications goals.  Always be flexible and open to any ideas your blogger contacts may have as well. Though it takes time to get started, the fruits of the labor are totally worth it when done correctly.
Previously published on The M/C/C Minute at www.mccom.com/blog.

Motivational Quotes

Running a business is like riding on a roller coaster. Although it is fun and exciting, there will be times when you’ll be scared and feel powerless. During the bad times there isn’t much you can do, other than to keep on pushing forward.
So in that spirit, here are 101 quotes that will motivate you to push forward.

1. The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer. – Nolan Bushnell
2. My son is now an ‘entrepreneur’. That’s what you’re called when you don’t have a job. – Ted Turner
3. Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy. – Norman Schwarzkopf
4. The golden rule for every business man is this: “Put yourself in your customer’s place. – Orison Swett Marden
5. I had to make my own living and my own opportunity! But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them! – C.J. Walker
6. The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failure is to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it. – Debbi Fields
7. Life is too complicated not to be orderly. – Martha Stewart
8. The winners in life think constantly in terms of I can, I will, and I am. Losers, on the other hand, concentrate their waking thoughts on what they should have or would have done, or what they can’t do. – Dennis Waitley
9. Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming. – Richard Branson
10. Leadership is doing what is right when no one is watching. – George Van Valkenburg
11. There is no royal, flower-strewn path to success. And if there is, I have not found it. For if I have accomplished anything in life, it is because I have been willing to work hard. – C.J. Walker
12. Business is more exciting than any game. – Lord Beaverbrook
13. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. – Albert Einstein
14. We are currently not planning on conquering the world. – Sergey Brin
15. If it really was a no-brainer to make it on your own in business there’d be millions of no-brained, harebrained, and otherwise dubiously brained individuals quitting their day jobs and hanging out their own shingles. Nobody would be left to round out the workforce and execute the business plan. – Bill Rancic
16. It takes more than capital to swing business. You’ve got to have the A. I. D. degree to get by — Advertising, Initiative, and Dynamics. – Ren Mulford Jr.
17. For all of its faults, it gives most hardworking people a chance to improve themselves economically, even as the deck is stacked in favor of the privileged few. Here are the choices most of us face in such a system: Get bitter or get busy. – Bill O’ Reilly
18. A man should never neglect his family for business. – Walt Disney
19. The only limits are, as always, those of vision. – James Broughton
20. To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goeth
21. I like thinking big. If you’re going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big. – Donald Trump
22. Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking. Running that first shop taught me business is not financial science; it’s about trading: buying and selling. – Anita Roddick
23. To waken interest and kindle enthusiasm is the sure way to teach easily and successfully. – Tryon Edwards
24. Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. – Bill Gates
25. Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable. – Coco Chanel
26. The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time. – Henry Ford
27. The good or ill of a man lies within his own will. – Epictetus
28. I have known not a few men who, after reaching the summits of business success, found themselves miserable on attaining retirement age. They were so exclusively engrossed in their day to day affairs that they had no time for friend making. – B.C. Forbes
29. The cynic says, “One man can’t do anything”. I say, “Only one man can do anything.” - John W. Gardner
30. I feel that luck is preparation meeting opportunity. – Oprah Winfrey
31. If there is such a thing as good leadership, it is to give a good example. – Ingvar Kamprad
32. Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly and get on with improving your other innovations. – Steve Jobs
33. You’ve got to say, I think that if I keep working at this and want it badly enough I can have it. It’s called perseverance. – Lee Iacocca
34. The desire of knowledge, like the thirst for riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it. – Laurence Sterne
35. Success in business requires training and discipline and hard work. But if you’re not frightened by these things, the opportunities are just as great today as they ever were. – David Rockefeller
36. Well, you know, I was a human being before I became a businessman. – George Soros
37. Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. – Dwight Eisenhower
38. If you did not look after today’s business then you might as well forget about tomorrow. – Isaac Mophatlane
39. The great accomplishments of man have resulted from the transmission of ideas of enthusiasm. – Thomas J. Watson
40. Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games. – Babe Ruth
41. Being able to touch so many people through my businesses and make money while doing it, is a huge blessing. – Magic Johnson
42. Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness. – James Thurber
43. The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same. – Carlos Castaneda
44. The great leaders are like the best conductors – they reach beyond the notes to reach the magic in the players. – Blaine Lee
45. To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted. – George Kneller
46. To the degree we’re not living our dreams; our comfort zone has more control of us than we have over ourselves. – Peter McWilliams
47. The enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth-persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. – John F. Kennedy
48. Long-range planning works best in the short term. – Doug Evelyn
49. The NBA is never just a business. It’s always business. It’s always personal. All good businesses are personal. The best businesses are very personal. – Mark Cuban
50. You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough. – Joseph E. Levine
51. A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts. – Richard Branson
52. The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity. – Peter F. Drucker
53. No enterprise can exist for itself alone. It ministers to some great need, it performs some great service, not for itself, but for others.. or failing therein, it ceases to be profitable and ceases to exist. – Calvin Coolidge
54. Live daringly, boldly, fearlessly. Taste the relish to be found in competition – in having put forth the best within you. – Henry J. Kaiser
55. Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. – Vince Lombardi
56. In all realms of life it takes courage to stretch your limits, express your power, and fulfill your potential. It’s no different in the financial realm. – Suze Orman
57. The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools. – Confucius
58. The first one gets the oyster the second gets the shell. – Andrew Carnegie
59. Hire character. Train skill. – Peter Schutz
60. The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency. – Bill Gates
61. Look well to this day. Yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well therefore to this day. – Francis Gray
62. Surviving a failure gives you more self-confidence. Failures are great learning tools.. but they must be kept to a minimum. – Jeffrey Immelt
63. Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. Thoughts are things! And powerful things at that, when mixed with definiteness of purpose, and burning desire, can be translated into riches. – Napoleon Hill
64. It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. – Charles Darwin
65. Industry is the soul of business and the keystone of prosperity. – Charles Dickens
66. I don’t pay good wages because I have a lot of money; I have a lot of money because I pay good wages. – Robert Bosch
67. People are definitely a company’s greatest asset. It doesn’t make any difference whether the product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps. – Mary Kay Ash
68. In business, I’ve discovered that my purpose is to do my best to my utmost ability every day. That’s my standard. I learned early in my life that I had high standards. – Donald Trump
69. In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later. – Harold Geneen
70. To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart. – Thomas Watson, Sr.
71. The absolute fundamental aim is to make money out of satisfying customers. – John Egan
72. There are a lot of things that go into creating success. I don’t like to do just the things I like to do. I like to do things that cause the company to succeed. I don’t spend a lot of time doing my favorite activities. – Michael Dell
73. I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well. – Alan Greenspan
74. You must be the change you wish to see in the world. – Mahatma Gandhi
75. Let’s be honest. There’s not a business anywhere that is without problems. Business is complicated and imperfect. Every business everywhere is staffed with imperfect human beings and exists by providing a product or service to other imperfect human beings. – Bob Parsons
76. You need to be aware of what others are doing, applaud their efforts, acknowledge their successes, and encourage them in their pursuits. When we all help one another, everybody wins. – Jim Stovall
77. The only way around is through. – Robert Frost
78. You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong. – Warren Buffett
79. The noblest search is the search for excellence – Lyndon B. Johnson
80. The man who does not work for the love of work but only for money is not likely to neither make money nor find much fun in life. – Charles M. Schwab
81. You must remain focused on your journey to greatness. – Les Brown
82. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. – Theodore Roosevelt
83. Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier. – Charles F. Kettering
84. Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right! – Henry Ford
85. You must either modify your dreams or magnify your skills. – Jim Rohn
86. Who likes not his business, his business likes not him. – William Hazlitt
87. The new source of power is not money in the hands of a few, but information in the hands of many. – John Naisbitt
88. The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed. – Henry Ford
89. It’s through curiosity and looking at opportunities in new ways that we’ve always mapped our path at Dell. There’s always an opportunity to make a difference. – Michael Dell
90. If you work just for money, you’ll never make it, but if you love what you’re doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours. – Ray Kroc
91. Winners take time to relish their work, knowing that scaling the mountain is what makes the view from the top so exhilarating. – Denis Waitley
92. Management is nothing more than motivating other people. – Le Iacocca
93. Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it. – Dwight D. Eisenhower
94. The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong question. – Peter Drucker
95. Why did I want to win? Because I didn’t want to lose! – Max Schmelling
96. To succeed in business, to reach the top, an individual must know all it is possible to know about that business. – J. Paul Getty
97. To win without risk is to triumph without glory. – Pierre Corneille
98. To succeed… You need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you. – Tony Dorsett
99. Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business. – Zig Ziglar
100. I wasn’t satisfied just to earn a good living. I was looking to make a statement. – Donald Trump
101. Whether it’s Google or Apple or free software, we’ve got some fantastic competitors and it keeps us on our toes. – Bill Gates

Negotiating

3 Golden Rules of Negotiating BY Grant Cardone | January 20, 2013| The art of negotiating escapes most of us, even good salespeople, because few take the time to correctly understand the word and follow the golden rules of negotiating. The first and biggest error is a misunderstanding of the word. When I ask people at my Closers workshop what the word "negotiating" means, I get answers like, "how good a deal can I get" and "how cheap can I buy." For many people, it's a process of painful tactics of stall and overcome or a give and take mostly involving the surrender of price and terms. "Negotiate" comes from the Latin negotiatus, which is the past participle of negotiari, and means to carry on business. This original meaning is critical to understand because the goal of negotiating is to continue doing business by conferring with another to arrive at an agreement. Related: Grant Cardone on Debunking the Price Myth So, scrap the notion that negotiating means lowering the price to reach an agreement. A lower price does not make for a better deal; it only makes for less margin for you and your company. Your goal is to come to an agreement about a proposal, and the way to do this is to build value in your offer. The solution your product or service offers is the focal point of negotiations, not the price. Here are three of my 12 golden rules, which I won't allow myself to violate in any negotiation, whether simple or complex: 1. Always Start the Negotiations. You must initiate the process because whoever controls the start of the negotiations tends to control where they end. If you let the other party start negotiations, you will be constantly giving up control, often without even realizing it. For instance, when you ask someone what his project budget is, you are allowing him to start the negotiations. You will then spend your time chasing his number rather than finding the best solution. When I sit down to work out an agreement on the numbers involved in the decision, I will even interrupt to prevent the other side from controlling the starting point. Sounds bizarre, but that is how important starting the transaction is. I once had a client who wanted to offer his terms upfront. I politely said, "Excuse me, I appreciate your willingness to tell me what you can do and would like just a moment to share with you what I have put together for you. If it doesn't work, then please tell me." This allowed me to control the starting point. Related: 9 Proven Sales Tips for Introverts 2. Always Negotiate in Writing. I see so many professional salespeople make the mistake of discussing and working on the terms of an agreement without ever committing their ideas to a written agreement. But the purpose of negotiations is to arrive at a formal written agreement, not tell a story or spend time talking. From the first moment I make a proposal, I refer to a document that is being created in front of the client. It includes all the points of agreement and becomes real to the prospective customer. Negotiating first and then having to create a document adds unnecessary time to a transaction. But if you build your written agreement as you negotiate, you are prepared to ask for a signature the moment the decision to buy is made. Related: 5 Ways to Succeed in Any Economy 3. Always Stay Cool. The negotiation table can be loaded with agendas, egos and emotions. Great negotiators know how to stay cool, providing leadership and solutions, while the rest of the room becomes insanely invested in personal agendas and useless emotions. Crying, getting angry, name calling and blowing off steam may make you feel good, but such behavior will not benefit you while negotiating. When the rest of the room gets emotional, stay cool like Spock and use logic to negotiate and close. Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/225537#ixzz2c2QxnE3a

Important Tips for Increasing Profitability and Decreasing Time Consumption

How to find a sellable subject for an ebook

How to Write an Ebook: Choose a Sellable Topic

Read the How to Write an Ebook: The Guide and How to Write an Ebook: Why It's a Good Idea here.
So you've decided to write an ebook and you've got a designated spot in your schedule to work on it.

What should your ebook be about?

Be strategic about the topic of your ebook. This is not necessarily a "write whatever and they will come" sort of endeavor. A little research is helpful, as is some serious thought.
When choosing a topic, think PFC:

P – Solve a Problem. I know I've said this about 15 million times on this blog, and I apologize for being a broken record, but seriously, be helpful! "How to" topics are excellent choices for ebooks. Find a hole and fill it. The hole you find doesn't have to be huge, it's just gotta be common to at least a decent-sized group of people.
F – Address a Fear. Most of us have fears and we do our very best to avoid them. Our fears range from "What are people going to think of me?" to "What if my spouse gets cancer?" to "What if we run out of money?" to "What if I die?" to "What if my children turn out to be tyrants?" and on and on. So, if you can come up with a topic that addresses a common fear and you offer a way to relieve that fear, you just might have a winner of a topic.
C – Satisfy a Curiosity. People wonder about stuff. This is why celebrity gossip is so popular and why reality shows are captivating. What's it like to live in a family of 19? How does so-and-so run his business successfully? Who's going to be wearing what at the Oscars? You get the picture. The bottom line is, we are intrigued by information that's not readily available. If you have an inside peek into something the masses might like to know (and are free to share that information), it might be a good ebook topic.

Now, if you can kill two birds with one stone (with PFC) and figure out how to effectively include two of the three in your ebook, all the better. I'm sure there are even some of you creative minds who will figure out how to solve a Problem, address a Fear and satisfy a Curiosity all in one shot. May you become ebook superstars!
In my case, I tried to tackle both the P and the F. In Tell Your Time, I address the fear of living a luckluster life with the how of managing your time in a simple, straightforward 4-step way.
Here are some additional things to think about when choosing an ebook topic:

1. Write about something you've got a passion for or at least know a fair amount about.

Once your ebook is launched, people are likely to ask questions about your topic. If you're writing it just to make a quick buck but you know nothing about the subject, things will fizzle when you can't answer their questions. Or, you'll be frustrated having to answer questions about something you could care less about.
If others ask your advice on a subject, that's often a clue that you have something great to offer (even if you don't feel like a ninja).
For me, I enjoy organizing and most of all, efficiency. So, an ebook on time management wasn't a stretch at all. I also had already gotten positive feedback on the information so it made me confident that others might find it helpful as well.

2. Choose a topic that has some meat and substance.

I read somewhere that an ebook should be at least 25 pages long. I'm not exactly sure who came up with that figure, but it seems reasonable to me.
What you don't want is a topic that could really be covered in about 10 pages and then you just use a bunch of filler to expand it to 25 pages so you can call it an ebook. If your topic can be sufficiently described in less than 25 pages, write a blog post, a blog series, a guest post or perhaps an ebooklet (in which case you should sell it for much cheaper).
I'm dancing on the line of this one with Tell Your Time coming in at about 28 pages. However, this was somewhat purposeful in that I was deliberately trying to keep it succinct to align with my Unique Selling Proposition (i.e. a book on time management that wasn't time consuming).

3. Write about something that fits with your established online identity.

So, for example, if people know you as the woman who is an expert knitter, your ebook will be easier to sell if it has something to do with knitting (or a topic somewhat closely related). If, however, everyone knows you as the expert knitter but you write an ebook about investing in the stock market, it's going to be a harder sell.
The exception to this would be if (a) you want to break into the "investing in the stock market" niche and you're going to use your ebook as a way to do that or (b) if, for some reason (maybe you mentioned it inadvertently in a blog post at one point), you have gotten a BOATLOAD of questions about investing in the stock market and since it doesn't really fit into your regular blog, you decide to write an ebook about it so you don't have to keep answering all the questions individually.
I sort of found myself in this situation. Obviously, my site is about blogging, but one day I threw up some tips about saving time using Gmail. Well, those tips turned out to be some of my most popular posts. While time management didn't quite fit in the "blogging for money" niche, it was somewhat related and was a feasible diversion in ebook form.

4. Have your target audience in mind before you begin.

This is related to the previous point, but the gist of it is, make sure you have a group of people in mind that you will market your ebook to. Who will want to read it? Would they be willing to pay you for it? The ability to put yourself in your potential reader's shoes will make writing much easier and your finished product better.
The size of your target audience matters too. I don't think you have to appeal to everyone on earth — by no means — however, if you'd like to write an ebook about ancient Mongolian tribal burial rituals, it'd be good to know if there are a whole lot of people who share your interest before you dive in. Do you have a market at all?
Also, does your target market spend much time online and therefore would be likely to (a) find your ebook and (b) know how to access it? Ebooks are still an enigma to many people so keep that in mind when choosing your topic. For example, ebooks targeting older populations are going to be trickier to sell than those targeting the 18-24 crowd simply because the older crowd (not all though!) are less internet savvy.
For me, time management is something everyone deals with, so I went big on this one.

5. Make sure the information is something they can't easily get for free elsewhere.

You may have heard people say "there's nothing new under the sun" which is largely true. In other words, most of the information we come across really isn't anything new, just packaged differently. So, in that sense, it's doubtful any of us will ever come up with a completely and totally novel idea.
Still, make sure your ebook is unique enough that someone isn't able to find it for free elsewhere without too much effort. And if your ebook content could be found elsewhere, have a solid Unique Selling Proposition. That is, make sure before you get started that you have a strong case why someone should shell out cash for your product and not just get the information for free someplace else.
In my case, time management books and blogs abound. One thing I've noticed about them though, is that so many of them are heavy on theory, overwhelming and (ironically) time consuming. In response, I made Tell Your Time short and to the point. I also came up with the tagline "What if you could change your life in less than 30 pages?" I wanted people to see that it was different right off the bat.

Need Fresh Content For Your Blog? Try These 3 Idea-Generating Tips

Developing story ideas for your blog is a lot like coming up with a business idea: You're bound to come up with a handful of duds that have a few gems sprinkled between. Even the most expert writers experience this.
While it's simple enough to come up with broad topics as an entrepreneur -- such as successful networking, defining your brand, marketing strategies -- these are broad themes that have been written about many times.

Your story ideas live inside the popular topics, so get ready to dig deeper. The best way to connect with your readers in a unique and meaningful way is to share stories born from your experiences.
Here are three tips for generating specific and insightful content your readers will love:
1. Make it personal. As you well know, expertise develops over years of successes, failures, false starts, experimentation and risk-taking. Sharing personal experiences provides valuable insight only you possess. First-person accounts of experiences you've had and lessons you've learned often make for compelling and unique stories. Sit down with a blank piece of paper and ask yourself the following:
What are the biggest mistakes I've made along the way? Jot them down in a list. If you've learned valuable lessons from them, each one could be its own story. Did you design a marketing campaign that failed miserably? What did you do wrong and what did you learn? Pointing out your own missteps and how they changed your frame of mind can be illuminating for readers.
What do I know now that I wish I'd known when I got started? Again, brainstorm a list. What experiences changed your understanding and how? Be specific. An anecdote from your life and what it taught you can be a great jumping-off-point for a story.
What are some successes that could provide lessons to other entrepreneurs -- whether they are yours or someone else's? Think outside the box. Rather than relying on high-profile examples that everyone is writing about, such as Steve Jobs, consider case studies of other successful people who may be under the radar.
2. Scan the news. Is there anything relevant happening in your industry -- policy changes, tech developments or recent reports -- that could affect your customers? Can you distill some valuable lessons from companies or industry leaders who've made headlines? What could your customers learn from these victories or disasters?
3. Pick up the phone. Call clients or colleagues and ask them about the challenges they have they been experiencing lately? As you jot these -- and all other -- ideas down, take a moment to search the web for similar stories in the news using keywords. Often, you may think an idea is unique, only to find it has been covered extensively. Think of a fresh angle.
Bottom line: Be specific. Examples are important. Your personal experiences are what make your writing shine. Work those into your stories. Bring out your voice. Let your readers get to know you and they will turn to you repeatedly for expert insight.

Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/227130#ixzz2b7iS4hiX

Working the Numbers to Understand the business

Knowing your business numbers

As business owners it is very important to know what is needed to drive your business to be successful. Let’s take a moment to examine your business. Are you aware of your next product launch? What about the date you will begin offering that new service? I’m sure you are able to answer the previous questions but can you answer the most important questions below?
Do you know your last month’s gross profit or your largest expense amount? What about your Projected Sales target for the year and how close are you to reaching that target?
Most business owners are unable to answer these questions and because of that they are cutting their chance of reaching maximum success. To ensure that you reach maximum success in your business you must have a reliable record keeping system in place.
Having a reliable record keeping system is about knowing, controlling and monitoring your financial numbers consistently. Quick detection of money issues in your business places you in a positive position to correct them early which can prevent business failure.
Follow the simple steps below to implement a reliable record keeping system.

1. At the end of each business week create an excel spreadsheet to list your sales and expenses.
2. At the end of each month total your sales and expenses for the month.
3. Subtract your sales total from your expenses total to determine your profit or loss for that month.
4. Compare side by side the current month numbers against the previous months.
5. Now use those numbers to determine the next best steps to reaching your Projected Yearly Sales.

By comparing the months to each other you are able to clearly understand the flow of you business. For example you can determine when your high revenue months are against your slow revenue months. You can then determine what marketing strategies or economy changes occurred during your high revenue months and other important information regarding you business.
The benefit of knowing your numbers will enable you to make wise business decisions and if used correctly it can propel you a step ahead of the competition. Your numbers helps you to understand the health of your business and understanding the true health of your business will lead to maximum success.
Leave a comment below and let us know what are some other benefits that come with knowing and understanding your business number.
For more information on how to keep better books for your business click here.

How to Write a High-Quality eBook in 30 Days

by  Ali Luke 

What if, 30 days from now, you had a finished, well-crafted eBook sitting on your hard drive, ready to distribute and sell?
That might sound next-to-impossible to you, but it’s not.
Every November, over 200,000 people worldwide take part in NaNoWriMo — “(inter)National Novel Writing Month”.
NaNoWriMo participants aim to write 50,000 words during the month, and tens of thousands of them manage to do it.
If those writers can do that, you can write a 20,000 word ebook in a month. Right?
And I am absolutely not talking about some scrappy, thrown-together document. You’ll have more than enough time to properly plan, organize, and edit your eBook as well.
Think I’m pulling your leg?
Here’s how to do it:

Pick your topic (Days 1–2)

Maybe you’ve got an idea in mind already: a book you’d really love to write.
Go ahead and write that idea down, and then store it in a safe place.
Leave it there for the next 30 days.
Yep, seriously. You’d probably have a great time writing it … but chances are, it’s not what your audience is looking for, so it’s not going to sell.
A great ebook idea needs to be:

• Specific. Don’t try to write the definitive guide to your topic: it’s overwhelming for your readers, and it doesn’t leave you much room for your next eBook.
• Useful. If you do consulting or coaching, what problems come up again and again? Do your blog readers always ask for posts dealing with a particular issue?

Ask your audience what they want, and give them a few possibilities to choose from.
You’ve only got two days here, so you won’t have time for a full-blown survey — but you can tweet out a question, or put up a thread on your Facebook page.
Be prepared to be surprised!
Once you’ve got a solid idea, you can …

Create an outline (Days 3–4)

Your outline is your roadmap.
It lays out the territory ahead, and lets you spot any tricky patches before you’re half-way through the first draft.
There’s no one “right” way to outline, but one or more of these might work well for you:
#1: Draw a mindmap. Put your topic or ebook title in the centre and start adding ideas to it as they occur to you. Use lines or arrows to create connections. At this stage, put everything down, however big or small — you can tidy the entire thing up later.
#2: Work backwards. Start at the end: what do you want your reader to be able to accomplish once they’ve finished your ebook? Then take a step back — what will they need to know before they can do that? And what about before that?
#3: Write a list. If you’re already extremely familiar with your topic, you’ve probably got an outline in your head. Start writing a list: what chapters or major sections will your ebook need? Once you’ve got the big pieces in place, write a list of 3–5 key points for each chapter/section.
#4: Examine other eBooks and books. Look through several chapter lists to see what topics appear in almost every book. Is there anything that you’re missing from your outline?
At this stage, it’s worth considering whether each chapter (or each section) could have a consistent structure.
This will make the writing process much easier and faster: you’ll have fewer decisions to make.
For instance, your chapters could follow a simple pattern like this:

• Quotation at the start
• An example mid-way through
• Practical exercise at the end

Once you have a clear outline and, if possible, a structure in place, it’s time to …

Start writing (Days 5–25)

This is where the bulk of your time will be spent: 20 of your 30 days.
If you’re aiming for a 20,000 word ebook (around 80-100 pages, assuming you’re including a few images) then that breaks down to writing 1,000 words a day.
Yep, that’s a sizeable commitment –- but, the trade-off is, you’re going to get your ebook done within a month, instead of having it drag on for a year or more.
Here’s a few tips to speed up your writing and get to 1000 words a day:

• Work on your ebook at the right time of day. If you’re focused and motivated in the mornings, write in the morning. If you’re at your best at 10pm, do your writing then.
• Turn off distractions when you’re writing. You might want to switch off your internet connection entirely, or use a program that blocks it for a certain period of time.
• Use a timer. Set a timer for 30 minutes, then write until the time is up. Having the minutes ticking away is a real help when you need to stay on-task.
• Don’t stop writing. If you need to check a quick fact, look up a link or add a screenshot, mark the place with yellow highlighter or something else highly visible — and come back to it later.
• Don’t edit while you write. Maybe you just can’t get the first paragraph right: it doesn’t matter. Leave it and move on. You can come back to it at the editing stage (and you may find that it works fine after all).

Aim to write every day for these 20 days — even if you only manage a couple of hundred words on some days.
The more you make writing a habit, the easier it becomes.
But you’re not done yet. You still need to …

Redraft your eBook (Days 26–28)

Ideally, you’d put your eBook aside for a while before revising it — but you’ve only got a few days left.
So, to see your eBook with fresh eyes, print it out — or transfer it onto your e-reader.
Read through the whole thing in one go, and make a note of:

• Any material that you’ve covered in more than one place
• Any missing information that you left out during the writing
• Chapters that would flow better in a different order

At this stage, don’t agonize over every word.
Obviously, fix any glaring typos or mistakes that you spot, but avoid getting too bogged down.
Spend these three days focusing on cuts, re-ordering and additions.
This might mean cutting out unnecessary tangents, juggling sections or paragraphs around, and adding in any hyperlinks and quotes that you didn’t have time to look up earlier.
At this point, your ebook might look finished.
But there are two days left, and you’ve still got time to …

Make final changes (Days 29–30)

These two final days can turn your eBook into a professionally finished piece.
Print out the ebook again, or view it as a PDF.
Read through slowly, checking every sentence and word.
Particularly, look out for:

• Clumsy or confusing sentences
• Misspellings (especially commonly confused words like “its” and “it’s”)
• Missing words — surprisingly common, and often hard to spot when you’re reading at a normal pace

And now …

Hurrah! You’re the proud author of a finished eBook!
Well, you will be that proud author
Which means it’s time to get out your calendar and write “EBOOK” onto every page of every day for the next month.
Yes, writing an ebook takes time, effort and energy. Yes, the next month looks incredibly busy already: but every month looks incredibly busy, right?
If you write a small, free eBook, you’ll have a great piece of promotional content.
Or, if you write an eBook to sell, you’ll be able to make money for months, even years, from just one month of work.
Right now is the best time to write.
One of the quickest and simplest ways to give yourself a motivational boost is to make a public commitment to your goal — so, write a comment below and tell us to look out for your finished ebook next month!

SEO Visabililty

Hi All I am looking for suggestions for better visibility of small business websites. I end up paying a lot for Google adwords, also appointed an overseas SEO company but no encouraging results

What keywords are you aiming for and what's your target market? I am not sure what they are doing for you but you need to focus on understanding your target markets online presence and then develop a strong results oriented strategy that will help you in the long run.

Start by doing a detailed keyword and competition analysis and optimize your website the right way. As of now I don't see any keywords on your site. Once you do the on page SEO, work on creating content that sells and keeps your website dynamic to gain exposure.


I thought the SEO company that I contracted the job to had done that..

I will take it up with them to look into this.

Thanks for your input.

 Your most welcome Hemant, While you talk to them I also advice you ask them about creating high quality industry specific links that point to your site (also known as back links) this would help redirect potential customers onto your site. Feel free to give me a shout if you have any other questions. Cheers!• Ask them how they are optimizing your site both On Page and Off Page. Basically what is their plan? Ask if they use social networking and Videos in their SEO.

RE keywords relevant to your industry, ask them for the 3 top ranking results per competition.

 

Not sure what that "SEO" company was supposed to be doing, but whatever it was it wasn't SEO.

Your website has a lot of errors that they should have addressed that is preventing any outside SEO from working effective. Basically your On-Site SEO is pretty bad.

Your pages aren't targeting any keywords or phrases properly.
You have broken image links, no alt tags.
Your content isn't written well...most of your pages aren't even close to having enough words on them.
You're targeting too many subjects on the same page.
Your navigation structure is a little confusing. No copy on the home page.

And that's just what I see off the top of my head. Whatever they are supposed to be doing for you, for whatever you are paying them, for however long you've been paying them is a rip off.

Fire them immediately, and hire a capable webmaster that understands on-site SEO to help you redesign, or repair your website so that it is ready for prime time.

 

 

SEO is best implemented at the time your site is built, but there are ways to gain more exposure, through social media and also customer ratings systems, please feel free to contact me for more information.
This is a very inexpensive alternative, plus we can analyze your current SEO keywords and possibly come up with some that you had not considered.

Retellity is new platform, linking B2C locally, enabling each manager to promote its company for FREE, issue best deals (without comission fee), developp tailored loyalty program.

Please have a look on the site and register :

http://bit.ly/14Der1t

 I am happy that there were good responses here w/o the plugging of "my company" as the solution. While I only briefed you FB page, I certainly don't have the answers and struggle with similar concepts, although, SEO is not necessarily what my goals are.

 I am looking around your site, am I to understand that you are a consulting company that also provides sales and service?

"When you are visited by our engineer, your application is assessed as a whole. If you need a component, your application is matched against our comprehensive product range to find the exact part you require. If your needs are more complex, then we will work with you to design a system to enhance your business."

 Thanks for your comments Robin.

Yes, we are an independent consulting company and have access to many suppliers worldwide. We match up customer's process requirements and suggest the right product that we then source for them.

Thanks for the positive feedback. As an engineer who started a business few years back, I just approached a web design company to launch a website with the products we can offer.

We had no exposure to concept of SEO and looks like fine-tuning of website in line with today's business ways & requirements is needed.

I get numerours calls and emails from SEO businesses from India offering excellent results but I am a bit hesitant to resign them though they are again promising results citing Google's change of policies as a reason for not getting top rankings..

 

 

At the moment your problem isn't that you need an SEO company. And I would caution you not to hire one until you learn a little more about building the needed foundation on your website first.

Google's changes would only affect you if your SEO person was using tricks, instead of a solid marketing strategy.

My advice: Get the website up to par first. If done correctly, a lot of your SEO foundation will be taken care of, and then you can concentrate on building on to it.

It's a steady crawl, not a sprint. At this point SEO services are just going to take your money, throw a few tricks at it to get some temporary change, and still not solve the core problem.

That's just my opinion. I'm sure others will disagree.

 

 

 There's little point in paying for google adwords to direct people to your website that has no call to action

As Harold says, the problem's not the seo - the problem is the lack of direction - there's no sales funnel, the website is merely an online brochure - with no reason for customers to buy

 

 

 @Charles, I tend to agree, that is why I was asking the question as to exactly what business they are in, consulting or sales...

@Harold, you are correct, this should have been completed at the level of building the website as I stated earlier.

if your content is relevant - you don't need to sign up for SEO - and i wouldn't be signing up with them till you've got all your other business functions running smoothly.. such as your product lines, clients etc.. it's all in the numbers - not the website (which is just one vehicle) the numbers in your business do NOT lie.

Stop spending/wasting money until you look at the health of your business and unearth where the real problems lie. A bandaid may stop a cut from bleeding, but not from hemorrhaging... SEO is a not even a bandaid at this stage 

 

I too agree with Charles - a call to action is necessary. What do you want your customer to do? Call for more info? Email? Make a purchase? Fill out a form to download a helpful guide? I know nothing of what you do, however, it appears as though there are 3 levels of potential customers in business:

1. those that don't know they need your product/service and need awareness and total education
2. those that know they need your product/service and need some education but aren't ready for purchase yet
3. those that know they need you, are highly motivated and are ready for a purchase
I like the #'3's....finding them ( or them finding you) at the right time is the trick.