Can You Sleep While The Wind Blows? Let me repeat a story I heard many years ago that has stuck with me throughout my life. The lessons from this fable are many and have been applied to a variety of areas of my life. It recently popped into my mind again as I was thinking about the needs businesses have today for business continuity planning and disaster recovery contingencies.
Finding the Right Way to Motivate Your Employees Zig Ziglar says that there are three main ways to motivate people in general and employees specifically. They are fear, incentives and growth. Let's take a look at each one.
Making Your Workers Your Partners There is an inherent conflict between owners and managers of companies. The former want, for instance, to minimize costs - the latter to draw huge salaries as long as they are in power (who knows wha...
Training and ROI (Return On Investment) Statistics consistently reinforce that the biggest challenge in today's contact center environment is agent training. Turnover continues to be high; new hire costs are on the rise--$6500 per agent! At the same time, losing customers because of bad call experiences negatively impacts your bottom line. What can you do? How do you justify the training expenditure?
Effective Meetings Begin With a Real Agenda A meeting without an agenda is like a journey without a map. And a meeting with a bad agenda can be even worse. Here's how to prepare an agenda that works.
The Power of Ask For Call Center managers, it is not a pipe dream to improve employee moral while increasing productivity. It may even come easy to some to find fresh, new ways to reduce performance problems. Sound like an advertisement for something unattainable? Perhaps try to engage, involve, and connect employees to their work by the power of ASK.
What are Your Best Practices? Who are your high performers? Do you know what practices are making them successful? Can other team members benefit from their skills?
Are they engaged in discussions about the success of the business?
Partnering for Performance "The difference between a boss and a leader: a boss says, 'Go!' - a leader says, 'Let's go!'" - E. M. Kelly
Business Fails When We Do Not Talk Businesses fail when managers do not talk to
employees or employees do not talk to customers.
Everyone mistakenly believes telepathy is working.
The 10 Realities of Change I've seen several articles that begin with lines like "the only constant today is change." I assert that change that is constant can't really be called change. It's simply a new reality. It's time th...
Influencing Change - A Guide for Sellers, Coaches, and Supervisors Until now, our communication rules have assumed that when we kindly or persuasively offer others good information that could solve problems and achieve successful results, or coach them toward making a much-needed change, or even just pitch a product they sorely need, we can expect a positive reception. Obviously, if our communication partner (called Partner in this article) has a problem and we've got the true solution - and we do! We do! - they should take our advice. But they don't.
The Boss Didn’t Understand Why His Staff Wasn’t Reading His Mind Many people believe that everyone sees the world exactly the same way as they do. This is never true and was the source of much turmoil in Dr. Jacob's office. When the Job Isn't Getting Done "They...
A Tricky Supervision Challenge Many managers believe that treating their team members as responsible adults will assure excellent results. The truth is that while this usually is effective, some people need much firmer limits than...
How To Manage A Difficult Employee An article of 789 words with a focus on: how to address a difficult employee, handling continuing problems and how/when to terminate this employee.
How To Hire Superstars An article of 817 words with a focus on: how to strengthen the interview process, steps for recruiting within your company and how to use powerful assessment tools.
Factoring Financing: How to Grow Your Business Without Debt or Loans Article describes how small business to business companies can leverage their slow paying receivables to finance business growth. It describes financing options for businesses that cannot qualify for a loan or line of credit.
Five Ways to Increase Profitability By Doing The Right Thing Ethics is actually more profitable! Author and consultant Shel Horowitz, founder of the Business Ethics Pledge, shows how taking the ethical high road--and forming partnerships with your competitors--increases revenues and lowers costs.
Letting Go and Letting Be This article takes the words of Beatle Paul McCartney from his beautiful song called "Let it Be" and examines what it means to live a life beyond "times of trou...
Whats The Truth About Fat? What the average person doesn't know about fat. It's not what you think it is.
What Am I Going To Do With The Rest Of My Life? Life changes, traumatic events or even just garden-variety nightime agnst can make us feel uncertain about our future. Are your ready to move on with your life ...
Variations of Neck Lanyards Neck lanyards are often made from lengths of rope, wire, or cloth and are worn around the neck to secure an important object.
Sugars Sweet Little Game of Deceit This playful, tongue-in-cheek article offers three compelling reasons to avoid sugar's sweet little game of deceit.
The Truth About Info Business Let me save you, at least, several hundreds of dollars you would have spent on different business guides and tutorials, claiming to bring you online wealth. We...
Improve Your Business Dealings with Improvisation "Nothing is accidental ... use everything." -- Keith Johnstone Even the best-laid plans, the proverb goes, go oft astray. And by learning how to improvise like...
Fumblitis You won't find "Fumblitis" in any medical journal, but it is an unfortunate ailment. It occurs in the fall along with the onset of winter, just like colds and t...
Can You Afford to Write Your Own Resume? In today's economy, if you can save a buck or two, you are ahead of the game! However, as the saying goes, "penny wiser, pound foolish," there are times when sc...
How To Install A Home Water Purifier Installing a home water purifier is easy! You can easily install an under the counter water cleaner or a water purifier that attaches to your faucet. Enjoy the...
Butterfly House in the Flower Garden Whenever you decide to look for a butterfly house for your flower garden, you first have to determine what it is you actually want. A search for butterfly hous...
A Brick Wall Direct Answers - Column for the week of August 18, 2003 Two years ago I divorced, and there is still a lot of hostility. My former husband has been served wit...
You Have to Spend Money to Earn Money It surprises me that many people fail to grasp this concept as they first set out to start their own businesses. Thanks to the power of the Internet, anyone who...
Refinance Your House Now is a great time to refinance your house, it could save you quite a bit on your monthly payment...
5 Tips to Choosing a Direct Sales Business With so many different companies to choose from, joining just one may be difficult. These tips will help narrow down your choices, and help you find the perfect...
Read This Article If You Want To Date A Dream Babe Are you envious of those guys who get all the babes? Do you want to date a dream babe? Well really it is not all that hard, perhaps you need to work on your app...
