Mentoring and Baby Boomers

Today, in our love affair with what’s new, what’s cutting edge, and what’s technologically cool, it’s easy to forget that knowledge also comes with experience. It may require a few hours of e-training or a semester-long course to learn how an energy pump operates, but it takes years and years of experience to recognize the sounds of a pump that is not operating properly. The only way to shorten that learning cycle is to have someone with more experience help to accelerate learning.

Businesses idolize youth and technological savviness. Firms recruit new (and less expensive) talent in the belief that that’s the way to build a competitive edge. But companies also recruit and retain mature employees because of respect for their knowledge. The best companies today will help their organizations transform the way they think about all of their employees. Each person brings different knowledge to the organization. Each generation brings something different and valuable to your organizational operations.

We’ve worked with business people across generations for many years and whether you refer to their sharing of knowledge and information as love, passion, or, more traditionally, as mentoring, we’ve repeatedly tried to foster the powerful synergistic release of cross-generational sharing, learning, and performance.

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Book Summary: The Rebel Rules

What does it take to get in touch with your inner rebel and run a business on your terms? Today's Information Age has spawned a number of rebel business leaders, from Virgin's Richard Branson to The Body Shop's Anita Roddick and to Joie de Vivre Hospitality's boy wonder the author himself, people who have the passion, instinct, agility and vision to rewrite the rules of business so it is ethical, respects diversity, and means more to people than simply turning a profit.

So what exactly is a rebel?

- Rebels get into activities that make them lose track of time and put them in a state of ecstasy.
- Rebels build a career that is a natural reflection of themselves and follow a natural progression from their most innate childhood skills.
- Rebels are working at jobs that they put on their list of top ten favorite future jobs from their childhood or youth.
- Rebels are normally not straight A students, they would have been naïve idealists, non-conformists, or artists in their teenage years.
- Rebels are not afraid to fail, quit their jobs, and follow their lifelong passion and true calling.
- Rebels either become leading experts in their chosen fields, millionaires, or end up in prison.
- Rebels do not lose their political and social beliefs as they grow older. Their passion for the causes they support will only grow stronger over time.
- Rebels do not take No for an answer. They will always try to find a way or solution.

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Book Summary: The 17 Indisputable Laws Of Teamwork

To achieve great things, you need a team. Building a winning team requires understanding of these principles. Whatever your goal or project, you need to add value and invest in your team so the end product benefits from more ideas, energy, resources, and perspectives.

1. The Law of Significance

People try to achieve great things by themselves mainly because of the size of their ego, their level of insecurity, or simple naiveté and temperament. One is too small a number to achieve greatness.

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Book Summary: EVEolution: Understanding Women Eight Essential Truths that Work in Your Business and Your Life

For any business to survive today, it needs to understand how to market to women. The fact is women make 80% of all purchasing decisions. Women are brand loyalists. Your product or service must address their complex, multiple lives as home managers, home-workers, entrepreneurs, caretakers of elderly parents, and professionals. Build a lasting, meaningful relationship with your female customer. EVEolutionize your business before it s too late!

Understand the eight truths about marketing to women:

1. Connecting your female consumers to each other connects them to your brand. Women need a backyard fence to talk to each other. If your brand is marketed in such a way that it connects women to each other as a community, a group, sisters, mothers and daughters and friends, they will embrace your brand into their everyday lives.

The web communities such as iVillage, women.com, and oxygen.com are just a few of the examples of women being linked together. Through EVEolution, and with the help of Faith Popcorn's consultancy firm, BrainReserve, Snackwell's launched a program of Mother-Daughter workshops across the US. It bonded mothers and daughters, reinforced the idea of eating healthy, while nurturing a positive self-image and attitude about food to pre-teen girls.

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Management by Baseball

If you think baseball is just the national pastime, think again. According to management consultant and ex-baseball reporter Jeff Angus in his book “Management by Baseball,” baseball can teach you everything you need to know about management. From the managers’ strategies to the players’ batting averages, baseball can impart critical lessons on project management, maximizing productivity of staff, strategic planning, facing difficult organizational challenges, or engaging big changes in a specific industry or the economy.

In his book, Angus distills the lessons learned from baseball news and applies them to business management. He uses baseball stories and anecdotes from baseball history to teach management skills and illustrate ways to approach and solve problems that a business owner or manager may face.

Management by Baseball is based on the “baseball diamond” model, which has four “bases.” These bases are the skills sets that an effective manager requires -- operational management, people management, self-management, and change management. As Angus said, “Like a baseball player trying to score a run, a manager has to touch all the bases and do it in sequential order.”

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Using the Right Logo for Your Business

The Logo: a little history

Logotype, commonly know as a logo, is a design, a graphic representation/image/trademark symbolizing one's organization. Designed for instant identification, a logo can appear on company letterhead, advertising material and signs as an emblem by way of which the organization can easily be recognized.

Originating in the 19th century, after a surge in industrial manufacturing that led to an increase in output, global distribution, and the commencement of competition, logos were created to differentiate between products within the same industry. Emblems or symbols were included on products, packages and labels so buyers could easily recognize the product they preferred.

Logos revolutionized the advertising world. There was a time when only affluent organizations could afford their own crest, emblem or logo. They were, in some cases, a very detailed drawing with many objects. Cost was not an issue and more was considered better. Then, flags were used due to their larger format. They were visible from the craft fields and from long distances. Today, successful companies continue to say that "simpler is better". Especially when the world is advancing so rapidly, you have less and less time to impress your customers. Logo designs, now, are very stylish yet remain conservative, which makes them eye-catching and easier for the brain to memorize.

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How to Use Graphs and Charts in Your Business Plan

Many people ask how many graphs or charts they should have in their business plans. As with most other business planning questions, the answer is it depends . This article discusses the key factors influencing the number of graphs and charts to include in your business plan.

To begin, the key point to consider in developing your business plan is the time restraints of your audience. If your audience is a retired angel investor, he may have few obligations and can spend an hour reviewing your business plan. However, the more likely scenario is that a venture capitalist, corporate investor or loan officer will review your plan while sitting at a desk topped with fifty other business plans. As such, it is critical that your plan conveys its key points quickly and easily this is where graphs or charts come in.

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Compensation of Husband and Wife in a Partnership

This is a question we received from one of our readers through our Consult Your Guides:

I'm staying in VA. Recently I've started a new firm (S Corp) and working as a contractor in DC through my firm. I'm the only one working for the company. My wife is partner in the company, but she is permanent employee of some other firm. Estimated revenue of my company is around 120K/yr. What salary/compensation should I draw for myself? As my wife is a partner, is it mandatory to pay salary/compensation for her? - Prashant

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Book Summary: Effective Networking For Professional Success

We are all self-employed now. Today there is absolutely no job security. We are living in an age of corporate downsizing, and freelance consultants, or self-employed workers are growing by the day. Networking is one skill you need to practice to get ahead and survive these uncertain times.

Wisdom in a Nutshell:

1. Networking is essential for both new jobs and business contracts.
2. Effective networking is 12 times more effective than answering advertisements
3. Advertising is becoming ineffective except on a large scale.
4. Networking helps you find hidden opportunities and can set you apart from the competition.
5. An indirect approach is better than a direct one. Use someone you know to introduce you to your target contact. Never go straight to your target without a go-between who will put in a good word for you.
6. You can overcome your natural shyness, your fear of using people, and your fear of rejection.

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Embarrassed To Discuss Your Prices? Seven Common Reasons

Last week, a wonderfully-skilled electrician installed a new light fixture for us. He was competent, courteous and efficient. He answered all our questions simply, with skill and eloquence. I was amazed, as you might imagine, when I asked him, How much do we owe you? and his embarrassed reply was, Gee, is $50 okay?

With the quality of work he'd done and the amount of time he put into it, I would have expected to pay double that amount. His resistance to naming his price reminded me of my small business clients who have the same problem.

All entrepreneurs feel fear at some point, including attorneys, consultants, coaches, and writers. It's a natural part of starting or growing your business. It can be uncomfortable to take risks, to name your price and tell a prospective customer that you want to work with them.

Roberto Goizueta, the late chairman of Coca-Cola, said, "If you take risks, you may still fail; but if you do not take risks, you will surely fail. The greatest risk of all is to do nothing." Put this mantra into your head: Risk equals reward.

So, what's the problem?

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Changing Your Position When There's Competition

Are you finding many of your best prospects already working with competitors? When you pursue a new opportunity, is someone else capturing the prize? Maybe it's time to re-evaluate your positioning.

Your market position is the place you occupy in the mind of your prospective clients. It's how they think of you as compared to your competitors. Adjectives like established or cutting-edge; high-quality or inexpensive; convenient or full-service are all relative terms. When applied to you and your business, they distinguish you from the competition.

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Growing Your Business with Your Marketing Priorities

None of us have enough time in the day to get everything done, but small business owners and entrepreneurs like you are particularly pressed. You wear so many hats; there is a seemingly infinite list of tasks to accomplish each day, from providing services to clients, managing product distribution and delivery, to keeping accounting in order.

You try to fit in some marketing when you can, but you're not sure which activities are essential to do each week or each month to build a steady stream of clients. You make some calls, send out a mailing or put up a web site, but you still have that nagging feeling that if you knew which marketing activities translated into the most new business, you could be more successful.

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All Fortunes Begin With an Idea!

A new idea is merely the combination of two or more old ideas. The creation of a new idea is the critical first step in establishing any business.

With the quality of work he d done and the amount of time he put into it, I would have expected to pay double that amount. His resistance to naming his price reminded me of my small business clients who have the same problem.

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Why You, Why Now - A Critical Component of a Winning Business Plan

Business plans continue to be an essential element of the capital-raising process. They must convince investors to take notice - investors that are shrewder today due to the ups-and-downs they have experienced over the past few years.

Adding to the financing challenge is the plethora of high-quality companies, both public and private, in which investors can choose to invest. In this environment, more and more investors are asking companies seeking capital the question "Why You, Why Now"?

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CRM 101: Customer Relationship Management for Beginners

Customer Relationship Management, abbreviated CRM, is the term for a business strategy that is designed to improve customer service. CRM is also designed to increase customer satisfaction and gain new customers, thus increasing a business revenue. CRM is a term that can be applied to software and an entire business strategy.

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A Step-by-Step Approach to the Federal Acquisition Marketplace

Doing business with federal government agencies can be very lucrative for the people who lean how to maneuver through the maze of registrations, certifications and regulations. But if you are ready to start, these are the first steps you need to take to open the door to federal business opportunities.

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Email Remains a Viable Marketing Tool

The advent of spam, phishing scams, and tightened legislations on combatting these email menaces have put the effectiveness of email marketing on the line. Marketers began to have questions whether emails can still bring the level of response it did a few years ago. Are customers even receiving the emails? Or are the marketing emails being filtered alongside spam? Are customers so inundated with emails that they no longer welcome emails from marketers?

Internet Retailer magazine sought to find out how marketers are viewing and using email to promote their businesses. The magazine sent out a survey to 32,000 subscribers of their daily email newsletter and found the following results:

• 68.3% of respondents say that they are not only using email, but they are doing more email marketing now than before. The main reasons cited for the increasing use of email is to support their growing retail web business (38.1%) and to stay in closer touch with customers (36.8%)
• Only 13.2% have been using email less. Of those who are using email less, the main reason cited is the declining response rates with spam.
• However, 71% of the respondents attribute only 10% of their sales to the email marketing they do
• According to 34.8% of the respondents, conversion rate from shoppers who visited the site after an email marketing message is only less than 2%. Only 8.2% of the respondents say that their conversion rate is 15% or higher
• 49% of the respondents say that email is much/somewhat more effective in generating online sales compared to other forms of marketing

Chilly-Dawg: Tapping the Growing Gourmet Pet Food Market

People enjoy eating ice cream, so why shouldn’t dogs enjoy ice cream, too? Sounds preposterous for some but the lack of frozen delights specifically made for pet dogs gave Becky Marshall of Chicago, Illinois this bright and unique idea to start a business offering all natural frozen treats for canine pets.

As Becky said, “Like many pet parents, I will do anything for my big furry child, Hailey. She is my main inspiration. While out for ice cream one evening with Hailey and my family, I wondered aloud why ice cream stores didn’t serve frozen treats for dogs. Many people bring their dogs with them when heading out for ice cream. They end up feeding their dogs this human treat, which is not good for them as dairy products upset their stomachs.”

A graduate student studying Interior Architecture at Columbia College in Chicago, Becky started experimenting with the recipe for her product. Once she was confident of her frozen treats, she started her business Chilly Dawg (http://www.chilly-dawg.com/) in 2004 offering “natural recipes for nutritious, refreshing and delicious frozen treats.”

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The Canadian Ecommerce Market

J.C. Williams Group recently conducted a study on the state of e-commerce in the Canadian market. The study, which was based on a survey of 1,014 individuals, found a number of interesting results such as:

• Gender profile of the Canadian market has shifted from 60% women and 40% men to 55% women and 45% men.
• Female buyers have a higher tendency to become an impulse buyer. Women are also more likely to become "search and destroy" shoppers, or those who know what they want and where to get it.
• Online buyers are younger with 58% between the ages of 18 and 48.
• About 86% of Canadian e-commerce users are collectors of Air Miles
• Like the US market, the products commonly purchased by Canadians online include books & magazines (47%); music, DVDs, videos, video games (35%); and computer hardware and software (34%).

Best Practices in Affiliate Marketing

The April 2005 issue of the Internet Retailer magazine published several interesting graphs based on the AffStat Report conducted by Shawn Collins Consulting, an annual survey of marketers who use affiliates. The survey shows the variety of approaches that marketers take to make effective use of their affiliates.

Some of the interesting data of the study are:

• Most effective method for recruiting affiliates. Email is considered the best way to recruit affiliates (25%) followed by phone (18%) and advertising in affiliate program directories (14%).
• Percent of total transactions affiliates generate. According to survey respondents, 28% of affiliates generate only less than 5% of total transactions, while 20% are responsible for 5-10% of transactions. About 14% of respondents say that affiliates make up for more than 40% of transactions.
• Acquisition of New Affiliates. On a monthly basis, 26% of the respondents say that they are able to recruit 51-100 affiliates a month; 23% say they get 11-50 new sign-ups; while 22% say they have 101-500. About 19% say that they only get less than 10 affiliates a month while only 4% say that they receive more than 500 new affiliate signups in a month.
• Conversion rate for affiliate program. Less than a fifth (18%) of the marketers say that their affiliate program conversion rate is between 0.5-1%, while 14% say that their conversion rate is greater than 5%. About 16% of the marketers surveyed say that they do not know the conversion rate of their affiliates.
• Rewards offered to affiliates. Majority of respondents (40%) offer tiered commission increases; 26% say they have contests rewarding their top affiliates; and 25% say they give their affiliates special access to marketing materials such as data feeds and PPC keywords, among others.

The Business of Matchmaking

Nope, this is not about Match.com or any other dating sites! But if you are a small business looking to get into the business contracting action, then this site is for you. SBA Business Matchmaking http://businessmatchmaking.com/about.shtml matches "small companies with federal, state, and local government agencies and large corporations that have actual contract opportunities for products and services offered by smaller companies."

How does it work? Two modalities are used: one is through regional face-to-face events and the other is through the more limited online network (currently available only in Phoenix, Arizona; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Tampa, Florida; Kansas City, Missouri; and Denver, Colorado).

7 Ways to Improve Your Credibility on the Web

An important component of the success of an Internet business hinges on its credibility, defined as the perceived trustworthiness, expertise and security of the Web site. It is how a person judges the site and the level of overall assessment they arrive at -- and whether they will continue to patronize the site or dismiss it.

A recent article in ProductMarketing.com magazine discusses the ways a web site can improve their credibility. The article defines credibility as " believability; it is a perceived quality like beauty... Credible sources have the ability to change opinions, attitudes and behaviors, to motivate and persuade. In contrast, when credibility is low, the potential to influence is also low."

The article suggests the seven tactics below that you can use to improve your web site's credibility:

1. Associate your web site with respected organizations - such as the top names in your field or even the local Chamber of Commerce.
2. Respond to inquiries received through the web - respond to the emails sent by your users and customers.
3. Anyone home? Make them feel that you're real - have contact information.
4. Content you're willing to sign your name to - literally - authors' credentials, article citations and references.
5. Content you're willing to vouch for - have privacy policies, information on who your authors are, archives section to allow users to research past content, etc.
6. Dress for success - site should look professionally designed.
7. Stay current - a user considers a site more credible if it has been updated and the content is fresh.

Book Summary: Secrets of Word Of Mouth Marketing

Spread the word about your hot new product or company!

Word-of-mouth marketing is the most powerful and persuasive weapon you can use, and it won't cost you anything! Based on George Silverman's years of consulting with successful word-of-mouth campaigns of his own clients, here is one of the first resources on how to harness the often underestimated power of word-of-mouth, and be heard above the media noise.

1. Word-of-mouth is actually the center of the marketing universe.

2. Just as it is untrue that the sun revolves around the earth, marketing does not really revolve around advertising, selling, and promotions. Much of marketing actually centers around illusion-creation.

3. Word-of-mouth offers an authenticity to it because the source is normally independent of the company, he or she is offering his or her own candid opinion and therefore, the marketing appears credible.

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