Casual Articles - Business

Phone Interviews: Prepare to Ace Them!
More companies are saving time and effort by doing initial telephone interviews before committing themselves to hours of time assessing and evaluating applicants. They are doing this because, frankly, it's a good way to save a team's time from interviewing obviously unqualified people. From your standpoint, this means that you need to develop an additional interview skill.One of the disadvantages of doing a phone interview is that they can't see how well you look or what a great suit you're wearing to the interview or that you own terrific ties. It also means that you can sit in the comfort of your home, rather than trudging to their site. With this opportunity, comes problem. The major problem is that they can't see how well you look or what great clothes you own. All they can do is listen to your voice and the energy that you convey and listen to the answers to your questions; you, on the other hand, can't see when you've lost their attention or when you've bored them. There are no visual cues for either of you.But with preparation, you can do a fabulous job and get in the door. Here's a few pointers.1. For any interview, go to the company's website and learn about the firm. Also, if you can read a job specification on their site (or elsewhere) do so. After all the spec is the road map to what they are going to assess your abilities for.2. Take some notes to remind yourself of points that you may want to make or about things that you might forget. Sometimes people get nervous, just like they do in person. Have a few notes nearby about your role, responsibilities and accomplishments as helpful reminders. Support your statements with detailed examples of accomplishments when possible. Remember, they can't see if you have a manual open to something you might be a little rusty in! They can't see that you have your resume in front of you!3. Rehearse. Have someone call you and listen to your voice on the phone. Maybe your cordless phone makes your voice sound tinny. Maybe you speak too softly, mumble or speak too quickly to be understood by others. Ask someone you trust to critique you.4. Pick out a place in your house where the kids won't interrup

EO of Inquisite Inc., a Catapult subsidiary that sells software over the Internet. But Goodner soon found his new digs to be “harsher, more spartan” than what he was accustomed to. “Half of it is actually under ground,” he explained, describing his much less attractive new office space.

But Goodner was not complaining. After all, it was his own idea to leave the comfortable CEO position of Catapult with a staff of 115, to head Inquisite Inc., with only 20 employees. But now something was wrong. To be sure, there were plenty of challenges to attend to. The phone rang for his attention, paper kept filling the “in” box, and email messages steadily came in from employees, venders, and customers. Every day, and every hour, urgent decisions had to be made, so much so that anyone in his shoes could have been overwhelmed by the “tyranny of the urgent.”

But increasingly, h

Customer Service Leads to Customer Loyalty
All customers want and expect superior customer service, and it is all too important that we give it to them. Otherwise, our competition will.Your customer doesn’t want to be treated like another statistic along an assembly line. They want to be treated with respect. It is very important that your customer realizes just how important their business is to you.Imagine if you were a daily customer at a bank, restaurant, or some other establishment. And every day that you walked in, a sales associate would take care of your business, than hurry you out the door, without so much as a hi, bye, or even making eye contact for that matter.Okay, so you don’t necessarily go to these places to make new friends, but you would think that the experience could be just a little bit positive.Maybe this isn’t enough to make someone take their business elsewhere. However, it just might if they were approached by your competition, and your competition gave them an idea of just how the grass can be greener on the other side, and managed to swipe that customer from you. And if they did, would you even realize it?The most important thing to your customer when doing business is customer service. People want to be treated with respect. They want to be addressed by name, they want their phone calls returned, and they want their problems resolved in a timely fashion.Customer service, believe it or not, is more important to people than the amount of the product, or the over all fees’ they have to pay.So before you discuss pricing, give them great customer service up front.When I was in banking, I had an elderly couple take their business to a new bank that just opened across the street offering all kinds of special promotions at their grand opening. They happened to be very good customers of mine, and they were sad to go. They told me that the new bank was able to offer them the same products I could, except the products were free.I told them that although the products may be free, they would never experience the customer service there that they received here.They understood, but left by telling me that it just made economic sense for them to le

We have only one life, but we live in three overlapping worlds—our business world, our family world, and our other social world. Imagine bringing your spouse and kids to a meeting with seven of your salespersonnel. Sitting off to your left, Miss Wright asks the question on the minds of all her fellow sales colleagues, “Why did you bring your family to our meeting today? Will they be playing any sort of role in our discussion?” You simply respond, “No, they’re just here so I can tend to their needs.”

Of course, this is a highly unlikely scenario. You don’t bring your family into work with you every day. However, Heather Howitt does. Howitt, the CEO of Oregon Chai in Portland, Oregon, balances motherhood with her responsibility of running an eleven million dollar manufacturer of tea lattes. “Our office is a very casual place. We’ve got a family element going on here.”

Living in the rain soaked city of Portland, 32-year-old Howitt often arrives at her office lightly splattered with mud. She often spends her lunch break taking her one- year-old son, Sawyer, to a nearby park, or to her nanny who takes him home. On other days, she simply places him in his crib in her office.

With the growth of her company, Howitt hired some key executives including a chief operating officer to manage operations and finance. She also delegated the sales calls that she used to make herself. “I used to come in at 6 a.m. and make calls nonstop,” she explained. “I don’t have to do that anymore.” Howitt positioned herself in a way so that she is no longer personally over-worked or over-challenged by her daily responsibilities at the company. She balanced her business and private life. She not only recognized her strategic contribution to the success of Oregon Chai, but she also appreciates her unique role in the life of her young son.1

As an entrepreneur or a business executive, you must give your best in two entirely different worlds. The needs of your business and the needs of your family and friends compete for your time and attention. And both expect the very best from you. Heather Howitt found one way to do it; you may have another way.

To enjoy both the rewards of business success and family fulfillment, you need to constantly work to keep your balance. To successfully tackle the challenges of a fast-growing company, you need all the personal resources that come from a balanced life. “How do you develop a balanced business personality?”

Some entrepreneurial executives suffer from dangerous imbalance. Others achieve top excellence in maintaining optimal balance. “Early in my career, I use to think that entrepreneurship was more an art than a science, that it was a gift or something,” says Cherrill Farnsworth. “I don’t believe that anymore.”2 Entrepreneurial leadership is not some automatic personality trait or some artistic talent some people are just born with and others happen to lack. Instead, entrepreneurial effectiveness with a balanced life is a dynamic process that you must constantly work at. If you don’t keep developing and nurturing your entrepreneurial personality, it might just die. Then, only drastic action might revive that entrepreneurial spirit.

That’s exactly what happened to Sam T. Goodner. His software company, the Austin-based Catapult Systems Corp., ranked 77th among the fastest growing companies in America while Goodner served as the founding CEO. At age 33, Goodner decided to step down as CEO of Catapult to take on the new challenge of serving as CEO of Inquisite Inc., a Catapult subsidiary that sells software over the Internet. But Goodner soon found his new digs to be “harsher, more spartan” than what he was accustomed to. “Half of it is actually under ground,” he explained, describing his much less attractive new office space.

But increasingly, he

Your Job As Secret Shopper
What do You do as a secret shopper? You simply get paid to visit local stores and evaluate the kind of service they get. You enter the store and acts like an ordinary customer, just to keep the identity of mystery shopper a secret. A mystery shopper evaluates different aspects of the service while they are in the store.Secret shoppers provide businesses with more information through the use of questionnaires and detailed narratives. These questionnaires provide businesses with an unbiased recommendation of how they are perceived by the customer. secret shoppers relieve the owner of this added responsibility. Business owners who are presently using these kind of services are now getting a more realistic picture of how their customers perceive their company.The secret shopper company work with their clients to establish mechanisms to measure and improve the levels of service. The information from a mystery shopper is reported to the management of the clients and they use it to evaluate and improve their customer service. Ultimately the purpose of mystery shoppers is to help businesses increase sales.If You work as a mystery shopper You will be paid to shop. That is right, a secret shopper is paid to evaluate different types of customer experiences.You can be paid to- Fill up Your car with gas - Eat on a local restaurant - Shop in Your local hardware store - Request information about a computer - From time to time You will be paid for working from home. Some tasks can and should be performed by a phone call.The list can be very long because the number of businesses using this method to collect information is very long. And it is increasing for every day.The best thing about being a secret shopper is that You are paid for everything You purchase. If You have lunch or dinner - Your expenses are paid for. If You watch a movie You will be paid for the ticket and the job You do. This is really an opportunity for many.Why do big companies use mystery shoppers?How many times have You left a store dissatisfied with the service You got? How many times will You go back to that store again? It is not surprising to fi

p>Living in the rain soaked city of Portland, 32-year-old Howitt often arrives at her office lightly splattered with mud. She often spends her lunch break taking her one- year-old son, Sawyer, to a nearby park, or to her nanny who takes him home. On other days, she simply places him in his crib in her office.

But increasingly, h

Advergaming – Playing to Win
From automobiles to personal hygiene, advergaming can promote a product and capture the time and attention of potential consumers of any age. While adult consumers have the disposable income to spend, consumers under the age of 18 are big marketing targets for companies and the millions of products and services offered. There's no denying the influence a child has on the spending habits of a parent, and advertisers are aware that pulling in the kids pulls in the parents – and their money.According to a recent brandingvoodoo.com posting, nearly 33 million kids and teens between the ages of 3 and 17 use the internet regularly, and it is projected that number will grow to 38 million by 2008. Further, between 72%-81% of kids ages 8-18 are playing online games when they are using the computer.While the kids may be playing the games, parents are very aware of how their kids are spending their time on the internet. Most parents check on their kids regularly to make sure kids aren't involved in dangerous activities, so parents become aware of the games kids are playing and the products they promote nearly as much as the kids.But kids aren't the only ones playing online games, which is one of the big appeals of advergaming to marketers. In a recent study conducted by the Interactive Digital Software Association, 42% of frequent game players are over 35, while another 30% are age 18 to 35. With such a huge demographic, advergaming has just begun to scratch the surface of its possibilities.Advergaming isn't cheap, though. Advertisers spend an average of $100,000 to $500,000 for a custom-designed game for use in an advergaming campaign. Most marketers who use advergaming feel the benefits far outweigh the costs, however. Advergaming eencourages repeat visits to websites and has higher "stickiness rates" – people play games for longer periods of time than they would view other forms of advertising, like pop-up or banner ads (which most of us consider very annoying), or offline advertising (which is so non-interactive.) Many consumers are parting with valuable minutes, even hours, of their working days to play advergames. Advergaming simply captures consumers' attentions

Chai, but she also appreciates her unique role in the life of her young son.1

But increasingly, h

Choosing a 'Top of the Line' Executive Office Chair
Executive office chairs are typically “top of the line.” They are often used in the corporate offices of top executives and are commonplace in high-level conference rooms and boardrooms, as well as the waiting areas of upper management. It is important that an executive office chair present a professional image while also being comfortable.Executive office chairs are typically made of leather and fine wood. Most feature an ergonomically correct design to help reduce the pains that are often associated with sitting for a long period of time. Various adjustment mechanisms allow executive office chairs to be fine-tuned to accommodate individual body types and various work environments.In comparison to a standard office chair, executive office chairs tend to carry a higher price tag. They are typically made of finer materials, rather than the standard plastic frame and cloth covered cushion. They are available through a large variety of retailers. Many retailers specialize solely in executive office furniture, including executive office chairs, and allow the buyer to customize their chair.Most executive office chairs feature a design that contributes to maximum comfort. Several standard features include; a thickly padded seat, pneumatic seat height adjustment, adjustable tilt tension, height adjustable armrests, lumbar support, and dual wheel castors. Executive office chairs often come with an extended warranty.There is an executive office chair available to fit each and every individual. They are even available in a “big and tall” configuration to ensure comfortable seating for those who are large in stature. It is important to try out an executive office chair prior to purchase and to properly set adjustment mechanisms to meet one’s needs. In addition to taking full advantage of an executive office chair’s adjustable features, it is equally important to take frequent breaks from sitting during the day. This is important to alleviate the added stress on the back that being seated for a long time can create.

reneurship was more an art than a science, that it was a gift or something,” says Cherrill Farnsworth. “I don’t believe that anymore.”2 Entrepreneurial leadership is not some automatic personality trait or some artistic talent some people are just born with and others happen to lack. Instead, entrepreneurial effectiveness with a balanced life is a dynamic process that you must constantly work at. If you don’t keep developing and nurturing your entrepreneurial personality, it might just die. Then, only drastic action might revive that entrepreneurial spirit.

But increasingly, h

5 Ingredients Of The Perfect Job
There are as many concepts and definitions of what should a perfect job look like as there are adult men and women. For some, it could well be the one which takes little or no commuting while many would rate a high paying job a perfect one. There is also a good deal of majority that rates less of bossism as uppermost when it comes to choosing a perfect job? Well, the big question on hand is whether your current job is a perfect one or not.Defining the Basics of a Perfect Job An ideal job has many attributes. But practically speaking, an ideal job never exists at all. So how do we define a perfect job?A perfect job is one in which you excel, have the aptitude for and that you are very much comfortable with. Here are few more key points that define a perfect job:1. Growth opportunity: Jobs that provide great growth opportunity, regardless of whether you joined at a lower or middle level, stands out as the top characteristic of a perfect job. Most employers offer a structured career growth plan, as in the case of government jobs, while some others provide out-of-turn growth opportunity as a reward for performance. Small, up-and-coming companies, unlike large, lean & mean corporations will not have too many organizational ranks. So you have fewer rungs to climb up to the top.2. Adequate Salary: This could well have made it to the top of the list. Your salary package may include a car, insurance, or paid vacations. Before you accept the offer, you should compare salaries across the industry for your career level.3. A Great Boss: Many people would like to believe that it is the boss who makes your job hell. Whether there is truth in this or not, the fact of the matter is that a great boss can also make your career flourish. Just as companies like to say that good help is hard to find, it is equally as hard to find a good boss!4. Job Duties: Your responsibilities, along with your working environment, are what hold the key to your success. Even any additional responsibilities offered, as you move up the ladder, can be enjoyable if it doesn’t push you into doing grunt work. You must understand that in every job, you will have to do at least some penc

But increasingly, he felt like he was only reacting to demands and not taking a visionary proactive role any longer. And too often, long hours of work would crowd out what he’d prefer to do in his home and personal life. Even worse, he realized that even if he could experience any gratification in his personal world, it could not make up for what was missing in his business world.

“I had none of my entrepreneurial creativity left,” Goodner reflected. “I was falling back on what was easy. You know that’s happening when you start just going through your email all day long.” Recognizing that his former entrepreneurial spirit was gone, he resigned and hired a new CEO to head the company.

Perhaps Goodner had already achieved financial independence and had other worthy goals to pursue in life. In that case, relinquishing his CEO position could be the best decision to make. But could there have been another way to recover his entrepreneurial spirit with a healthy balance of attention to work, family, and friends?3

Entrepreneurial functioning can range from the low level, “You are personally over worked and over challenged”—to the most desirable level, “You regularly implement action plans to improve every aspect of your life.”

The lowest level of functioning leaves your company endangered. Top management is personally over worked and over challenged. The unrelenting urgent matters of your business seem to demand so much of your time that you go to work earlier and earlier, and stay later and later into the evening. You are like a runaway tire, rolling down a steep hill, turning faster and faster and faster until finally, you run out of control and then crash.

Or, you might think of it this way: The underlying foundation of your life at work and at home is built on sand instead of a solid rock. Even the slightest storm will plunge you into a danger area, damaging your relationships with your business associates and with your family and friends.

You are barely surviving, but you are endangered like a stick of dynamite that has been lit; you don’t have much time before things will blow up in your business, or in your family life, or in both. You must get out as soon as possible. But how? You can’t help but think, “There must be a better way.” And you are right! There is.

An ancient Hebrew writing warns, “In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat—for he [the Lord God] grants sleep to those he loves.”4 God, who created our reality, designed us and the world for a better set of options.

“Over the past three years, I’ve been able to identify gradually what things I can give to my CPA, or to my bookkeeper, or to my office manager. I read about people who work 60 or 90 hours a week and build multimillion-dollar businesses at the expense of their health and family. Those aren’t success stories in my book. Success is having a multimillion-dollar business and the other stuff, too,” says 40-year-old Tom Melaragno, founder of the $7.6-million Compri Consulting, an IT consulting and staffing firm founded in 1992. Although he put in 12-hour days when he started the business, today he works just 8 or 9 hours and makes sure he’s there to watch his two sons’ Little League baseball games in the summer and coach the older one’s football team in the fall.5

Taking a proactive stance means you take control to invest your life wisely. Scott Tinley is an extraordinary triathlete who has competed in more than 350 triathlons including 19 Hawaii Ironman triathlons. The

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Fake security cameras have helped to prevent many crimes. Mounted in high profile, totally visible locations, these cameras are not hooked up to anything, they mostly operate for a long time on batteries and sometimes have a few flashing lights or other obvious characteristics to make them look as if they are doing something.

There are many different ways to protect and/or access product when using stand up pouches. Here is a brief description of each and their advantages.

In my travels visiting different businesses I am amazed at the various different ways that companies have of treating their staff. Each culture has its merits, but some are nearly impossible to live with. Which culture does your business utilize?

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