Seven Reasons Organizational Culture Matters

Many of us spend more time with those we work with than we do our families. For us to be content and fulfilled people, that time must be valuable for more than a dollar. . .

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organizational culture, culture, talent, reduced turnover, employee satisfaction

We spend 40 . . . or 45 . . . or 50 . . . or more hours at work each week. Many of us spend more time with those we work with than we do our families. For us to be content and fulfilled people, that time must be valuable for more than a dollar. . .

We want to be engaged in our work. We yearn for work that is enjoyable, meaningful and engaging. When we are engaged we are safer on the job, more productive and more willing and able to delight Customers.

It is for these basic reasons that organizational culture matters. It is the right thing for an organization to do – to think about the work environment, working relationships and “how we do things here.”

Focusing on building and sustaining an organizational culture is one way of showing that people are the organization’s most valuable asset.

There are of course many other bottom line business reasons to focus on and build organizational culture. Here are seven of those reasons.

A strong culture is a talent-attractor. Your organizational culture is part of the package that prospective employees look at when assessing your organization. Gone are the days of selecting the person you want from a large eager pool. The talent market is tighter and those looking for a new organization are more selective than ever. The best people want more than a salary and good benefits. They want an environment they can enjoy and succeed in.

A strong culture is talent-retainer. How likely are people to stay if they have other options and don’t love where they are? Your organizational culture is a key component of a person’s desire to stay.

A strong culture engages people. People want to be engaged in their work. According to a Gallup survey at least 22 million American workers are extremely negative or “actively disengaged” – this loss of productivity is estimated to be worth between $250-$300 Billion annually. Your culture can engage people. Engagement creates greater productivity, which can impact profitability. Need I say more?

A strong culture creates energy and momentum. Build a culture that is vibrant and allows people to be valued and express themselves and you will create a very real energy. That positive energy will permeate the organization and create a new momentum for success. Energy is contagious and will build on itself, reinforcing the culture and the attractiveness of the organization.

A strong culture changes the view of “work.” Most people have a negative connotation of the word work. Work equals drudgery, 9-5, “the salt mine.” When you create a culture that is attractive, people’s view of “going to work” will change. Would you rather see work as drudgery or a joy? Which do you think your employees would prefer? Which will lead to the best results?

A strong culture creates greater synergy. A strong culture brings people together. When people have the opportunity to (and are expected to) communicate and get to know each other better, they will find new connections. These connections will lead to new ideas and greater productivity – in other words, you will be creating synergy. Literally, 1 + 1 + right culture = more than 10. How is that for leverage?

A strong culture makes everyone more successful. Any one of the other six reasons should be reason enough to focus on organizational culture. But the bottom line is that an investment of time, talent and focus on organizational culture will give you all of the above benefits. Not only is creating a better culture a good thing to do for the human capital in the business, it makes good business sense too.

Hopefully this article has helped you see that time spent enhancing your organizational culture will be time wisely invested. Regardless of your current culture, it is never too late to enhance it and to begin creating the benefits described above.

What are you waiting for?

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First Impressions Count – Even To A Search Engine

Before you think about submitting your site to a search engine, you need to be prepared.

Keywords:
search, engine, opimization, seo, google, indexed

Before you think about submitting your site to a search engine, you need to be prepared. Don’t think that because you have your domain name registered and a ‘under construction’ page up that you are ready.

Don’t even think about submitting your site to a single search engine until you are ready to receive guests or visitors. The worst thing in the world (I think so anyway) – is to follow a link to a website and only find a ‘under construction’ message or a front page with lots of links with ‘coming soon’ as a reward for my click.

Why did I come to your site? I want to either find out something interesting, look at something, download something or buy something – not to be told to come back later when you are ready – to tell the truth, I don’t think I would bother coming back. Even when you tell me to come back because I’ll remember and think “been there before, it was a waste of time, full of coming soon stuff”.

If you have a blog – don’t leave the messages saying ‘Just testing’ or ‘congratulations and welcome to your new blog’. Don’t even think about writing ‘Welcome to my blog, over the next coming few days I will be…’ Just remember, the internet has no concept of time, but humans do. If I come to your site and find a ‘Welcome to my blog…’ post with lots of promises, but you don’t deliver, why should I trust you with my time? My money? My business? The truth of the matter is, I won’t.

I’m not going to go through a whole list of things that tend to put visitors off staying on a site – but here are a few of them:

Broken links (always check your links before you upload to a site)
Awful color schemes (Yellow and Red? – Try pastel colors)
Tiny fonts – I like to be able to read without pushing my nose to the monitor.
Difficult navigation – I want consistency and clearly labelled links

That should give you a bit to think about…

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Risk Assessment In The Workplace. Part 2

Step 3. Evaluate the risks and decide whether existing precautions are adequate or more should be done.

Consider how likely it is that each hazard could cause harm. This will determine whether or not you need to do more to reduce the risk. Even after all precautions have been taken, some risk usually remains. What you have to decide for each significant hazard is whether this remaining risk is high, medium or low.

Firstly, ask yourself whether you have done all the thin…

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Step 3. Evaluate the risks and decide whether existing precautions are adequate or more should be done.

Consider how likely it is that each hazard could cause harm. This will determine whether or not you need to do more to reduce the risk. Even after all precautions have been taken, some risk usually remains. What you have to decide for each significant hazard is whether this remaining risk is high, medium or low.

Firstly, ask yourself whether you have done all the things that the law says you have got to do. As an example, there are legal requirements on prevention of access to dangerous parts of machinery. Then ask yourself whether generally accepted industry standards are in place. But do not stop there, think for yourself, because the law also says that you must do what is reasonably practicable to keep your workplace safe. Your real aim is to Make All Risks Small by adding to your precautions as necessary.

If you find that something needs to be done, draw up an action list, and give priority to any remaining risks which are high, and those which could affect most people.

In taking action ask yourself:

1. Can you get rid of the hazard altogether?

2. If not, how can you control the risks, so that harm is unlikely?

In controlling risks apply the principles below, if possible in the following order:

1. Try a less risky option.
2. Prevent access to the hazard (eg by installing guards)
3. Organise work to reduce exposure to the hazard.
4. Issue personal protective equipment.
5. Provide welfare facilities (eg washing facilities for removal of contamination) and first aid.

Improving health and safety need not cost a lot. For instance, placing a mirror on a dangerous blind corner to help prevent vehicle accidents or putting some non-slip material on slippery steps, are relatively inexpensive precautions considering the risks.

And failure to take simple precautions can cost you a lot more if an accident does happen.

But what if the work you do tends to vary a lot, or if you and your employees move from one site to another?

Identify the hazards you can reasonably expect and assess the risks from them. Then, if you spot any additional hazards when you arrive at the site. Get information from others on site, and take what action seems necessary.

But what if you share a workplace?
Tell the other employers and self-employed people working there about any risks your work could cause them, and also the precautions you are taking. Also, think about the risks to your own workforce from those who share your workplace.

But what if you have already assessed some of the risks?
If. for example you use hazardous chemicals and you have already assessed the risks to health and the precautions you need to take under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH), you can consider them checked and move on.

More information about legal requirements and standards can be found in the HSE publications:

An Introduction to Health and Safety. Essentials of Health and Safety. And Management of Health and Safety at Work: Approval Code of Practice.

Thats it for this section.
I’ll cover Steps 4 and 5 in Part 3.

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Make business simple – Provide and Survive

All business is fundamentally the same. There are two key elements to all businesses – ‘Provide’ a product or service and ‘Survive’ by making a profit.

Clients are only interested in one thing – the benefit of the end product or service they are buying at a ‘fair’ price.

The flip side of this is profit. The combination of all the elements that go on behind the scenes all cost money. Knowing the sum of all these costs and charging them to the client is the process of doing business.

Business is the supply of a product or a service to a client at a given price that will allow the company to continue to trade, making all business fundamentally the same.

They must provide and survive.

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Provide and Survive
By Mike Pagan – Straight Talking Business Focussed Professional Speaker

Many Management Consultants and Business Coaches are asked the question ‘Which Industry do you specialise in?’ or more specifically ’I want a consultant who specialises in Industry X.’

If the consultant does not specialise or is not a specialist in this particular industry, then according to these rules, they have no chance of winning the client.

This can be entirely incorrect for a number of reasons. All business is fundamentally the same and objective opinions come from those who are not constrained by detailed knowledge of said industry.

How can all businesses be the same?
A restaurant is very different from a Hydro Electric Power station just as a bus service is equally distant in essence to an accountancy practice.

There are two key elements to all businesses – product or service and profit.

The client is only interested in one thing –the benefit of the end product or service they are buying. How that is produced or brought into being is irrelevant to them. That is the producers issue, not theirs.

The company may have to employ specialist skills, knowledge of equipment, language and labour relations or specific motivational or managerial skills. They are of no interest to the client who simply wants product or service ‘X’ on date ‘Y’ for the agreed price. How that happens is of no concern.

Profit, not loss
The flip side of this is profit. A provider of products or services is not in business unless they are making profit. Without profit the company cannot survive. There are many situations which can debate this point such as loss leader marketing techniques, market share capture initiatives etc. At the end of the day, the business must make a profit in some form or other in order to survive.

The combination of all elements that go on behind the scenes all cost money. Manufacturing, learning, training, marketing, building, teaching and developing – they all take place to differing degrees; prior to the product or service being delivered.

The sum of all things
Knowing the sum of all these costs and charging them to the client is the process of doing business. Adding a mark up on that cost is the principle of running a profitable business. The final price will be driven by what the external market forces allow. Competition, cost of raw materials, costs of staff and the clients’ ability to pay.

Fundamentally the business is the supply of a product or a service to a client at a given price that will allow the business to continue to trade, making all business fundamentally the same.

They must provide and survive.

Why specialise?
Why then when looking at external advice and coaching do clients demand or request specialists in their particular field?

A Consultant or Coach working on a specific project in a key area of a business will naturally have specialist knowledge. The more specific the remit and project the more specialised the consultant or coach needs to be.

However, where driving business growth in conjunction with motivation, strategy, communication and planning – an in depth knowledge or experience of one particular area can hamper progress.

For example, a Consultant or Coach working in the health and fitness industry might focus primarily on the day to day running of the health centre. Areas such as staff recruitment, management, pool ph and chlorine levels.

The non specialist approach
In contrast, a non-specialist coach or consultant will focus more closely on the two fundamentals of business – member numbers, retention of members, quality of service, consistency of service and other sources of income. The ph levels in the pool are details that the client is not concerned about unless it goes wrong.

The processes need to be in place in the background, but the focus should be elsewhere on growing the business.

A non-industry specialist objective viewpoint will examine the bigger picture of the business without being constrained by the small details that do not affect the overall goal.

Clients simply want product or service ‘X’ on date ‘Y’ for the agreed price. How that happens is of no concern. If the producers complicate that system and make it difficult for the client, there will be a competitor elsewhere more than willing to take over.

Difference of Opinion
An objective opinion from an unbiased or clouded opinion can give a far greater return in the grander scheme. It may involve work in conjunction with those that have specialist knowledge in a key area.

The long-term view will drive businesses further, faster and more effectively towards their primary goal. Give the clients the product or service at a price that brings you the level of profit that will enable the company to survive to fight again another day.

The first things to do when contemplating which consultant or coach you need is to understand exactly the reason for seeking external advice or assistance. What is the reason for doing x, what is not working, what could work better, is it a symptom or a cause that you are not happy with?

About the Author

Mike Pagan is a keynote speaker, known as the:-
Straight Talking, Business Focussed Professional Speaker.
Forthright, practical and thought provoking, Mike speaks passionately about business growth strategies and celebrating success in business.
He is also Managing Director of Breaking Frontiers a business growth consultancy specialising in keeping businesses focussed on the growth strategies they plan.
Got to MikePagan.com for free downloads, ‘Top Tips’ and DVDs available for sale.

Building The Right Sales Pipeline – Mike believes companies should concentrate FULLY upon 4 or 5 key marketing methods in order to gain new clients.

Building Your A1 Clients – We all want them, but do we know who they are, when they buy and why they buy?

Celebrating Success – Not many businesses do. Life’s meant to be enjoyable, so is your business.

To check availability, fees or make a booking contact mike at enquiries@mikepagan.com .

Comber House, Union Road, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire CV32 5LT
Tel- +44(0) 1926 450090

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Full Color for Stunning Brochures

Full color adds life and vibrancy to a promotional material. If your brochure is presented in different colors, readers will be encouraged to flip through the rest of the pages.

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full color, printing, brochures

Have you ever feel so engrossed in something so beautiful and breathe taking? Perhaps a picture or image of a person or a scenic spot that you just find it so difficult to take your eyes off it. If you have, have you ever wondered what made you stare? Well, most of these pictures become attractive because of its color. Yes you read it right, color is the culprit. After all, who would like to read or see something that is not appealing to the eye?

Color is definitely the reason why most business opts for color printing in their promotional materials. Customers today are much pickier in choosing the product or service that they avail of. That is why; if you are a business owner it may be the right choice for you to have that brochure colorfully represented.

Colors, especially those printed in full color, leave a lasting image to the reader and if you have interesting brochures customers are less likely to discard it. Because they are colorful and contain interesting images, full color brochures build name recognition and image for your business and the product and/or services that you offer. You would perhaps ask, isn’t full color expensive? Well, yes full color can be quite expensive but if know where to look for print shops to do the printing for you; chances are you will save a considerable amount of money. And besides, if you were able to meet your goal – that is to make the customers interested in what you have to offer, it is often worth the cost.

Full color brochures can make a difference in your business. Just imagine how many sales you can make with just one brochure. And if your brochure is presented in different colors, readers will be encouraged to flip through the rest of the pages.

Simply put, using full color brochures is important for two reasons: remembrance and memory. An average human’s retention rate is less than ten percent. So if you want readers to remember your products and services, printing your brochures in full color might be a good idea. They simply build up the image of your company and help the customer remember all the information.

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Retooling The Hiring Process For Today’s Market

As the Baby Boomer generation exits the workforce steadily over the next 10 years, sourcing new candidates will become a tenuous task. Companies that understand the impending scarcity of candidates and can retool their process will have a marked advantage in acquiring talent.

One key to properly retooling will shift the current focus from experience to talent. This fundamental change will be precipitated by the need to develop talent as opposed to hiring experience. The ex…

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hiring,selection,recruiting,assess,benchmark

As the Baby Boomer generation exits the workforce steadily over the next 10 years, sourcing new candidates will become a tenuous task. Companies that understand the impending scarcity of candidates and can retool their process will have a marked advantage in acquiring talent.

One key to properly retooling will shift the current focus from experience to talent. This fundamental change will be precipitated by the need to develop talent as opposed to hiring experience. The experienced candidate will become a product of a supply and demand marketplace. There will be more demand with less supply which leads to increased wages. The highly successful, extremely experienced candidate will be able to take a free agent approach to their job search. They will be able to select from multiple offers and leverage the best overall package.

There is nothing new in this market-driven scenario except for one item. The supply will be greatly diminished which will put incredible pressures on the compensation packages. However, companies will have an alternative to the bidding war – hire for talent and develop for strength.

This shift in hiring focus will require an “outside the box” approach to candidate screening. The first step will be to wean the process off of the 20th century approach of placing an ad, receiving and reviewing resumes and qualifying candidates with a face-to-face interview. This 3 step process is riddled with vulnerabilities.

First off, the sheer number of responses will surely decrease let alone the quality of the applicants. Gone are the days of simply placing an ad in the Sunday edition of the local newspaper and collecting the overwhelming responses. Some online ads return volumes of resumes, but the applicants’ qualifications are often completely misaligned. Properly written online ads provide fewer responses but a higher quality of fit to the position.

Second, the majority of resumes (some statistics state >75%) contain embellishments of some form. Using these embellished, sometimes fictional documents to sort applicants is similar to building your house on shifting sands. The entire premise is flawed from the start. The resume elicits experience-based decisions which are less than reliable. The applicants’ embellished industry experience is weighted grossly higher in comparison to their true talent and abilities.

Finally, face-to-face interviews are needed in any hiring process, but again, they tend to be used out of sequence for an effective process. Society of Human Resource Management studies have shown that interviewers make candidate decisions within the first 7 minutes of the in-person interview. We are all susceptible to internal biases and blind spots. No interviewer is completely objective.

The aforementioned hiring approach was widely followed in the last century. The onslaught of the Internet, decreasing worker populations and exploding job productivity requirements have made successful hiring the key component of the 21st century.

Retooling a complete hiring process requires a company to release outdated, stereotypical approaches and embrace the tactics needed in today’s market. There are 3 steps all companies can integrate into their process today to begin the shift towards a reliable and repeatable hiring strategy.

Phone Screen. This article discusses new approaches to hiring and then leads off with a retro tool! Perhaps we should consider the phone screen a lost art. Oh, but how effective it is. In our own practice, we do not assist companies in hiring salespeople without using the phone screen. In fact, we use some variation of it for all positions – it is that effective. This approach removes many biases that naturally occur in a face-to-face meeting. An effective phone screen can be accomplished in 15-20 minutes which allows for many more to be completed in a day versus the traditional 1 hour, in-person interview.

The phone screen allows the hiring manager to get a better understanding of the applicant’s thought process, composure, communication ability and even, to some extent, their fit to the position. This tool is vastly more effective for pre-screening candidates than sorting resumes into yes and no piles.

Job Rewards. Remember the days when newspaper ads were riddled with acronyms and abbreviations to save on cost? There were literary artists who could describe an engineering job in 50 words or less. Those days are gone, yet we still see the occasional online ad written in that manner. One might as well place “dinosaur” in the ad’s title.

Today’s young job seekers value balance in their work life. Their rewards are less centered on material wealth accumulation. They still work to earn money, but they are greatly influenced by the job’s rewards. How will they personally grow in the position? What skills will they develop? How would you describe the company culture? These topics can easily be added to any online job posting since space is no longer a fiscal limitation. The candidates who respond to this information will have a strong interest in learning more about the role and typically will have a reinforced skill set that matches the position’s needs.

Objective Assessments. There are amazing tools available in the market today that will measure intrinsic traits in a candidate that not even the most skillful interviewer can ascertain. As previously stated, all interviewers bring biases to the process. Two techniques to limit these biases are the incorporation of objective tools and the delayed introduction of an interviewer’s bias into the process.

Candidates should be assessed before an in-person interview. The EEOC encourages this approach in all hiring processes. A validated assessment tool given to viable candidates provides a strong insulator for any hiring process. The tests do not introduce biases and generate objective information.

A secondary, powerful benefit to using assessments before interviews is that it changes the focus of the in-person interview. The interviewer now has reliable data about the candidate that can be explored within the context of the interview. The interview is shifted from the candidate mindlessly regurgitating previous work experience to an exploration into their talent areas and potential vulnerabilities in direct relation to the position for which they have applied.

Most companies have seen the significant shift in hiring that has occurred with the advent of Internet-based technology over the past 10 years. This fundamental realignment has already rooted itself into the economy. The next seismic shift is already underway as the Baby Boomer generation begins its exit from the full-time workforce. Companies that adjust their hiring process and adapt to the changing landscape will ensure their success in the evolving 21st century marketplace.

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Pass Them The Crown To Build The Empire

Stop for a moment…. and imagine how you would feel as an employee under this situation:

You have been working for ACME for ten years now. You do the same thing everyday. You’re tied at the desk pounding a decrepit keyboard; half the keys don’t work. When you’re not nursing carpal tunnel syndrome, you’re sipping stale coffee at the greasy counter. Worse, you don’t really know anyone that you work with. Socializing involves a casual hello… with the doorman’s Doberman.

One…

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motivation, leadership, executive coaching, employee empowerment, employee motivation, employee motivation program, employee motivation article,employee motivation theory

Stop for a moment…. and imagine how you would feel as an employee under this situation:

You have been working for ACME for ten years now. You do the same thing everyday. You’re tied at the desk pounding a decrepit keyboard; half the keys don’t work. When you’re not nursing carpal tunnel syndrome, you’re sipping stale coffee at the greasy counter. Worse, you don’t really know anyone that you work with. Socializing involves a casual hello… with the doorman’s Doberman.

One day you receive a memo stating that the dress code had been changed. Everyone must wear long pants with closed shoes. There is no explanation, and since you usually wear a sexy skirt with strappy sandals, you assume that it had something to do with you.

Would this sit well with you? Would it have been better that you and your colleagues were consulted first?

Now think about this scenario.

You’ve conducted time-motion studies at the factory for about eight months now. Since day one you toyed with ideas to optimize work-flow efficiency. A simple modification will cut costs 30% and increase output 20%. A brilliant idea worthy of an 80% raise!

You finally befriend the manager and broach your great idea. He points at the suggestion box. He adds that the supervisor browses suggestions once a week. So you whip up a nicely structured essay and plunk it into the box. Three months later, no one acts upon your ideas. No one has raised the issue. You retreat to your cubicle and sulk at the dancing-baby screen saver.

What’s the problem?

Employees naturally expect that managers consider personal feedback as decisions are made involving work environment. After all, they are the frontliners and have a better feel of the immediate situation.

In order to motivate employees and supercharge performance, companies can implement “participative-style management” :

1. Never reprimand someone for their input- no matter how misguided. Look into the positive intention behind the suggestions. You will build confidence and motivation by acknowledging opinions. 3M is world renowned for paying cash prizes for crazy ideas. The idea for the Post-It came from rank and file. It catapulted the company to the Fortune 500.

2. Never rush employees to come up with flawless decisions. Provide them with appropriate tools and resources. Empower them to delegate responsibilities so they can focus on action planning.

3. Respect decisions once they have been made. Once you’ve authorized a committee to reach decisions, let the decision stand. Exercising veto powers to flex the ego will destroy motivation. Override staff decisions only if doing so will cause irreparable damage.

4. Impose clear standards of expectation. Inform empowered committees the core issues and what is desired.

5. Reward group members who strive to make informed decisions based on all available information. They will rise as future managers who will nurture organizational growth.

Occasionally, employees feel that too much involvement can spell disaster. Their mindset is that managers should decide, and employees simply follow. Some complain that taking on ad-hoc managerial roles breaches the scope of their job description!

Enlighten the employee. Remember that the objective is to make the employee feel that his opinion is valuable AND have him relish the pleasure of executing his ideas. Ultimately he gains confidence as he discovers how capable he is of making his own decisions. Your firm ultimately benefits as new talent is cultivated for the future pool of managers.

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Money In Reward And Recognition Systems

The role of money as a motivator is indisputable if you don’t have enough. With bills to pay and mouths to feed, most hunter/gatherers will push themselves to get enough money into the bank account to remove those troublesome worries. However, once the threshold of comfort has been reached and there is a steady flow of money coming from a job that is well understood, can money be used as a further motivator?

The answer is firmly in the realms of “it depends”. It depends on…

Keywords:
employee, recognition, employee recognition, motivation, employee

The role of money as a motivator is indisputable if you don’t have enough. With bills to pay and mouths to feed, most hunter/gatherers will push themselves to get enough money into the bank account to remove those troublesome worries. However, once the threshold of comfort has been reached and there is a steady flow of money coming from a job that is well understood, can money be used as a further motivator?

The answer is firmly in the realms of “it depends”. It depends on the individual. Some people will always “jump for the jellybeans” because their lifestyle and their conditioning demand that they acquire the next best car, house, entertainment center or vacation. Others satisfy themselves with smaller dreams that they can achieve without being overly ambitious.

Why Reward Systems?

You will have ambitions for your business. It is important to you that you make the most of your investment both in money and in time and it is important that the people who work with you are focused on the same outcomes that drive you. A well structured reward system can accommodate everything that your people desire and can demonstrate to those who want to do better for themselves, just what it is they need to do to make it happen.

A reward system is more than pay levels, bonuses and stock options. It should encapsulate other forms of recognition for a job well done including promotion, reassignment and a range of flexible bonuses that can be selected to match the particular life-style of the individual person.

Reward systems should be based on the fundamental premise that “You get what you pay for”. The old adage “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys” could never be more true however you also don’t want to bankrupt the company, so the balance can be a fine one.

The reward system also has to be responsive. People tire of stretching themselves for future promises. How many times have you heard “If you do this well I’ll consider a pay rise at the next review.”? If you fail to reward appropriate behavior quickly, you stand less than an even chance of getting the right result.

What is the Reward Strategy?

Like all business activities, it is important to be clear for everyone concerned how the reward system interlocks with the business mission. The Reward Strategy is designed to demonstrate how the company values its people and how the payment practices it adopts help to engage and motivate employees.

The Reward Strategy should deliver the following:

A framework within which the rewards provided by the business will operate
Clarification of the reward objectives
An outline of how reward will be managed
A link between the expressed values of the business and the methods used to manage reward

The total Reward System is, of course, much more than just pay and benefits. Employees also see value in career opportunities, personal and professional development, the management style and, coincidentally, recognition.

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Why Most People Are Afraid To Use An Outside Source

Let’s face it, it’s arguably a better choice to outsource any and all of your work that can be supplied by other means. There are a great number of businesses in the world that simply distribute other people’s work…

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Let’s face it, it’s arguably a better choice to outsource any and all of your work that can be supplied by other means. There are a great number of businesses in the world that simply distribute other people’s work. You’ve heard about OPM, right? You know, Other People’s Money! Well how about OPW? Other People’s Work!

One of the smartest things I did in my business was to hire people smarter than me. (Okay, those that know me well are thinking, gee that wasn’t hard to do)! Seriously, one of the best ways to grow your business is to find others who possess the skills and/or talent that fill our weak spot (or void).

Most of us are good about hiring people to doing the things we don’t want to do. You know, maintenance, cleaning, trash, menial labor type jobs. We even look to certified public accountants (CPA) to handle our books at certain times of the year. However, many times when it comes to our main source of revenue (our business) we tend to keep matters close to the vest.

Don’t get me wrong, we need to protect our lively hood and should police our endeavors well. Many times I’ve found it necessary to have certain potential “work for hire” individuals, sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Believe me, this is simply a good business practice! It protects you and your prospect from possible trade secret leaks. In many cases signing an NDA prevents private information from getting out in the first place.

It’s been my experience that most people have the false impression (a hallucination process) in which they believe it will “cost too much” to outsource it or “I’ll save money” by doing it myself (showing they may not value their time). When in fact it would “cost less” and “save money”, plus give more time to place towards other needs. In twenty years of creating and reproducing logos for the trade, there have been countless times I hear excuses for not outsourcing. Invariably it seems to always center on time and money!

It’s interesting to know some people would rather spend three, four or five hours scanning, digitizing and cleaning up their artwork as opposed to instantly emailing or faxing their need to an outside source. Blow’s me away! Why spend an entire afternoon or evening doing something you could spend three minutes of your time and $35 of your budget to get completed? Surely three to five hours of your time is worth more than $35!! I know some people just enjoy the process of creating whatever they’re creating. However, did you start a business to make money? You’ve heard it before “Treat it like a hobby, get paid like a hobby. Treat it like a business, get paid like a business!”

I encourage you to consider using third party suppliers to fulfill your needs. You may be surprised at how easy matters can be facilitated for you. Freeing you from always having to do everything yourself. It’s been reported that 70% of the senior citizen’s that have retired have agreed upon one thing. That one thing is this, if they had it all over to do again, the one thing would they do different is … take more risks!

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Tools For Success: Attitudes-Thoughts- Beliefs

To keep the title of this writing brief, I left out one very important word: “Positive”. Everyone has attitudes; we all have thoughts; we all have beliefs. But where do they land on the scale of negative to positive?

In any realm, whether it is school or job or relationships, our attitudes, thoughts and beliefs will determine the level of satisfaction, happiness, or success in those areas. And to go a little deeper- sometimes negativity in one area can spread into all the …

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To keep the title of this writing brief, I left out one very important word: “Positive”. Everyone has attitudes; we all have thoughts; we all have beliefs. But where do they land on the scale of negative to positive?

In any realm, whether it is school or job or relationships, our attitudes, thoughts and beliefs will determine the level of satisfaction, happiness, or success in those areas. And to go a little deeper- sometimes negativity in one area can spread into all the other areas, making it difficult to succeed anywhere.

We all come from different backgrounds and have different experiences. Some of us were really blessed and were given all the tools we would need for success from the time we were very young. Some of us were not so fortunate and have needed to work a little harder at it.

When it comes to Making Money Online, or any life endeavor, where we come from and how we think can have tremendous impact on our measure of success. Our beliefs alone can steer the course of an entire lifetime. It is my opinion that beliefs are the hardest to turn around, because one first has to have an experience that opposes that belief before we will question it. Sometimes that happens by chance and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes our negative beliefs can be so ingrained we miss the opportunity to choose a different thought.

Perhaps this is not an issue everyone faces; but I know scores of people, myself included, that have really had to work hard at turning the negatives to positives. We really do create our own reality. We make statements to ourselves that can really limit our potential and thwart our success. Most of the time, we probably don’t even realize we do it.

Some examples might be:

“I can’t afford it”
“I am broke”
“I am never going to be able to retire”
“I am such a fool”
“I can’t do that”
“I am never going to get ahead”
“I’ll never get out of debt”
“I am stuck in this dead-end job”
“I can’t seem to do anything right today”

I suspect one reason we can be drawn to the flashy, ‘get rich quick’ ad that we see on the internet is because it screams “YES YOU CAN!!!”- when we may have been telling ourselves we “can’t”. If we are really honest with ourselves, each of us has a reason, a prime motivator, for being urged in the direction of making money online. We are unsatisfied, unfulfilled or even extremely unhappy in our present circumstance.

So, what can we do? We can begin by turning our words around; take certain words out of our vocabulary; make positive statements out loud. If we can change the way we speak about a thing, we can change our thoughts about a thing. When we can change our thought patterns toward the positive, we begin to open ourselves to possibilities… and a possibility is certainly more positive.

Think about this: you are driving down the road at midnight and get thirsty for a coke and you pass a store but it is closed. You consider going a block out of your way to stop at another store, but the thought comes that this store is probably closed, too. Based on that one negative thought, you make a decision not to see if the store is open. You just tell yourself you can’t have a coke because the store is closed. You tell yourself “No”… and that’s the end of it. You might even get resentful that the store was closed.

So what happened here? One store was closed, so you THINK they are all closed, and now you have a resentful attitude about it. Without checking it out, you may form the belief that all stores are closed after midnight and be totally closed off from believing any store might be open. EVER.

While it’s a silly example, it is sometimes true that one negative experience behind us can cause us to view scenarios in front of us as impossible situations.

Taking a more serious approach- lets say the company you work for shuts down and you lose your job of 23 years. This is devastating at best, and even though it may have been no fault of your own, you feel like a complete failure. Stop HERE. Feelings are not facts.

Start with a fact:
You didn’t have 23 years at a job by being a complete failure. You were certainly a success for those 23 years.

It is important to start with a fact and stay with it and when a negative thought creeps in- turn it around. Ex: “I excelled in my job for 23 years and now it’s time to do something different.”

So, you find yourself surfing the net and you start to notice all the opportunities to make money online that are being advertised out there. Some are legitimate; some are not. You choose a method that seems appropriate and you get started on your $10,000.00/month home business opportunity. But it gets confusing and nothing seems to be happening. Here comes that feeling again…

It’s time to bring some more facts into the situation or equation. For 23 years, you went to work everyday, you got good at your job, you got promoted and you got raises. When times got tough, you persevered and you didn’t give up. When something wasn’t working, you found another way to get the job done. It’s no different here in the realm of Internet Marketing. It will take work and sometimes it will take perseverance. (One of the differences with internet opportunities is the massive exposure to millions of people and why things can happen so much faster, including the thought of giving up.)

So it will still take having a positive mindset and that will take maintenance. Developing and maintaining a positive attitude can be arduous at first, but by developing some good habits, it can be done. That’s all negativity is really; just a bad habit.

One suggestion is to start each day in a quiet place and think of all you have to be grateful for. Make statements to yourself and to the universe that are positive affirmations. Ex: “I am a success and today I will take an action to promote my progress”. Continue throughout the day to speak positive words with your mouth and be careful with your thoughts. Make a conscious effort to turn negative thoughts around, immediately!

Another thing we can do is: avoid negativity at all cost. If a friend needs to gossip, just walk away. Don’t take it in and don’t participate. If someone needs to criticize your choices in your life, whether it’s whom you decide to marry or how you choose to make a living, find someone else to talk to and don’t participate in their negativity.

“I am…”, “I will…”, and “I can…” statements are so powerful. We should be deliberate with them and use them to keep our thoughts, attitudes and beliefs in check. Even when we doubt, we can use them to affirm who we really are. We are all huge successes just waiting to be believed in, and that belief must come from within ourselves first.

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