Transform Your Business Life

Stress is caused by having anxiety about the things that are happening in your business life. The anxiety may well be because of some financial difficulties, or perhaps it is about a customer relationship that is going wrong and there can be many other things.

If you have to put up with a lot of hassle from business colleagues, then this will create an emotional stress for you.

Stress can become apparent just by being in an environment of nervous tension, where attitudes of other business people sometimes create an atmosphere of uncertainty or insecurity for you.

There are many reasons why you may be finding your business life a bit of a strain, everything you do seems to go wrong, everyone seems to be against you and you feel as if nothing can be done to change it.

When you have to face the pressure caused by other people with their temperament, noise and general chaos it can all leave you with a feeling of stress.

Stress is around us all the time, but it is the way we respond to it that determines if we are to succeed or fail in our business life.

Dealing with and responding to the many challenges that you encounter in your business will cause you to have pressure and stress which may well result in the possibility of you experiencing health problems.

The only effective way to deal with stress is to not let it influence and control your business life. If you can find a distraction that is powerful enough you will be able to re-focus your work activities so that stress becomes less and is finally eliminated from your daily business life.

Being creative may well be the strong distraction that is necessary and it will significantly reduce the stress that you are experiencing; it is the only distraction that is really powerful enough to be able to do this in your business life.

Once you have been distracted by creativity, it becomes your focus and it soon causes a peace and harmony within yourself that the world of business chaos cannot touch and that harmony is your weapon against stress.

With creative things filling your mind, stress can no longer control your business life, you begin to be inspired and you begin to want to really make more things happen in your business.

Once you are truly inspired the ideas will start to flow and the positive adrenalin will begin to motivate you to transform your business life.

Exploit Your Talented People

Talent, what is it, how can you identify it and then exploit it to its full potential within your organization.

A good business leader will carefully scrutinize their organization to identify the hidden talent of their people.

Why do they do that?

Because they want to be able to have a set of individuals that they can trust to do what is necessary to increase the success of their business.

And they want to have confidence in the team behind them.

But how do they do that? What do they look for in their people that will allow them to be able to easily identify the employees with talent and to then exploit them to their full potential for the employee and their own organization?

They look at the background of the employee, what have they done, what have they achieved and have they found really talented people themselves and exploited these individuals for the benefit of the company.

A team of talented people within an organization can make a really big difference for your organization and create a huge success for your company’s future.

So, as a business leader for your company, have a look inside your own organization to identify your hidden talented people and once you have identified them, fully exploit their potential for their development and for the future success of your company.

The personal development and training of your people is paramount to ensure that they are always ready to face the challenges of this vibrant business world.

By investing in your people you will guarantee that your business has the best possible people working for you and the best chance of being successful.

A Break In The Supply Chain

Many corporate organizations have felt the affect of the major changes to the economy that we have all been experiencing during this past year and non more so than the global automotive industry.

It was clearly apparent to a considerable number of people that the car manufactures were in desperate need of restructuring and had been for many decades.

When the credit crisis hit they had no choice but to try to withstand not only the financial affects, but also the cries for total restructuring of the industry.

The big three in the US approached the government looking for a bailout and after submitting, what was for some a very basic set of plans for the ongoing future of their respective companies, they were duly allocated temporary funds to try to keep them afloat.

GM and Chrysler were in a critical state and required the bailout urgently so that they could at least pay all their workforces and try to keep their businesses running at reduced production levels.

Ford on the other hand stated clearly that they did not require a bailout from the government at this moment in time and that they would self fund their business with partial restructuring measures.

Critics voiced their opinions and stated that it would be better to just let them fall and then they would be forced to do the restructuring that had been needed for so long.

The implications for thousands of suppliers to the automotive industry are enormous. If any or all of the big three were to file for bankruptcy it would be disastrous for all their suppliers.

And especially for the small to medium businesses that are completely reliant on the car manufacturers for their business survival.

It would in effect cause utter chaos, not just for the suppliers but more importantly for the people in the vast number of communities that are dependant on these suppliers for their jobs.

It would create a severe downward spiral of the economy by increasing the already high jobless figures and reducing the consumer confidence in the automotive sector.

The knock-on affect on other industries would be felt around the world and it would take years to stabilize the global economy.

Just like the banks and the other financial institutions before them the automotive companies are now starting to realize that the only way they can credibly continue is to restructure and downsize their organizations.

This will mean reducing the unprofitable segments of their portfolios by selling them off, as is now apparent with the negotiations between GM and Fiat for GM Europe, (Opel).

And it will not stop there, we will see many such acquisitions being put in place all over the world to try and stabilize what is now an industry that has fallen from its normal high regard with the public.

Focus On Your Success

Do you find that you seem to be working hard all day, but don’t seem to get much done that you set out to do?

Does it feel as if you are doing everybody else’s work and don’t have time for your own?

Are other people distracting you with the things that they want to get done, instead of what you want to get done?

Are you working long hours, constantly feeling exhausted and just a bit frustrated with it all?

Well you are not alone, this is happening to the majority of business leaders and their businesses are suffering because of it.

Successful business leaders have an ability to concentrate on what really matters most in their businesses.

They don’t allow distractions or trivial activities to take up their time. They focus on the success of their business and their own success in all the things that they do.

Their strategy is to make every activity a contribution to the success of each and every business day.

They empty their workspace of everything but the business details that they are currently working on to cut down on distractions.

They allocate sixty to seventy percent of their time to tasks that have the most impact on their business.

After they have selected the most productive business task, they do it at a time when they can accomplish it most effectively.

They keep within easy reach their current working papers and items that they may need when they answer the phone or talk to other people.

They do only what they set out to do and focus on their specified task or business activity and resist the urge to be distracted.

They delegate as much responsibility as possible to the rest of their management team and then trust them to do it.

And they make sure they get enough rest and exercise so that their physical and mental capabilities are not impaired in any way.

So, try following the successful business leaders strategy and then you will also have a successful business.

And you will not get home each night feeling so tired and frustrated.

Sixteen Successful Skills

These are the sixteen skills that any good business leader needs to learn to be successful.

Having tolerance of others that are around you and respecting their views.

Within your business trust is needed to create the right environment for business success.

Your purpose should be driving every aspect of your business activities.

Your vision is your ideal future state and includes your values and what you desire your organization to be like.

Attitude is only a small thing, but it can make a big difference within any business.

Having awareness is a personal understanding of the very core of one's own identity.

Becoming market leader means having the determination to reach that position.

Commitment means what you say you are going to do, you will do.

Every business takes effort and your personal endeavour makes it successful.

With tenacity, no matter what the challenge may be, you will never ever give up.

To have a belief in yourself, because if you don’t others will not believe in you.

To be able to have faith in yourself, as a business leader as well as having faith in the work of the people around you.

Inspiration is where the ideas come from and in business you need many of them.

Showing self control, especially when the person you are talking to makes you feel like you could shout with anger.

To have a strong will power, so that you can continue in business, even when everything seems to be going against you.

You need patience, because sometimes in business, it takes a bit longer for success to happen.

Anyone Know Where This Road Leads?

In all previous economic downturns, whether it has been an ordinary recession or even a depression, there comes a time when it is totally apparent to everybody that the recession will end and that they are on the road to recovery.

And it is no different in this recession; we have gone through the stages of realization, shock, denial, anger and desperation. We are now in the stage of looking forwards and planning for our future recovery.

Without the right planning the road to recovery can be longer and more arduous than it needs to be. It is the same with any journey; if you don’t put in the pre-planning before the journey then you suffer the results of not doing it.

Throughout the world in all businesses there is now the urgency of the task of planning the right route for their companies as the world starts to emerge from this very damaging recession.

The difference between this recession and all others is that it affected the whole world because of the credit crisis that preceded it.

This in turn caused the financial instability and a grinding to a halt of all of the normal business investments and financial transactions.

The affects of this recession will be felt for many years to come and no business can now think that it is immune from all the changes that have been occurring in the business and financial worlds.

Many analysts are now expressing what most of us have been thinking for some time, we may well be starting on the road to recovery, but does anyone know where that road leads?

Just like all the other decisions and actions so far taken, the approach has been one of muddling through and adjusting the things that are put in place dependant on the resulting outcome.

This has been quite understandable because all of us are dealing with a situation that has come from the realms of the unknown, which means that we have had to tread carefully and test out each step.

But going forwards on this road, that hopefully leads to full recovery for the world, will need much more precise planning and then confidence in the financial systems and corporate business will be rebuilt.

Let us all hope that we have the most competent drivers in charge of the direction and speed that is used on our journey, so that when we arrive at the full recovery destination we all feel that we have enjoyed the trip.

Winding Up And Winding Down

How productive are your employees? And have you measured when their productivity is at its lowest?

The practice that most employees use is to start winding up their work activity during the day Monday and Tuesday morning, with a peaking on Wednesday and then start winding down Thursday afternoon and during the day on Friday.

Even a survey that was taken before the recession shows that the true amount of productivity in business was in the decline.

But now with the threat to many people of losing their jobs the practice is more about their own job survival or just trying to cover the work that has to be done because other workers have lost their jobs.

The trend appears to be that as long as you can look productive you can spread out the work and save the other work for the following week, that way you will always have some work to do.

But this is not new, since the modern working model came into being there has been an unspoken understanding among employees that as long as the boss doesn’t notice then it is quite alright.

Productivity only increases when your employees can see that there is an incentive to make it increase and that usually means that they will in some way gain more monetary rewards.

And once the incentives are removed or maybe just forgotten about the employees will just return to their normal lower productivity levels.

That means your business has to suffer a double cost blow, first of all with the lower productivity and then the cost of the incentives to try and increase the level.

Eventually this will affect your profitability and then quite obviously the number of people that you can employee. So in some respects it is self inflicted by their own actions.

There are of course many loyal employees that put in a solid days work and keep their productivity levels high, but in general most employees follow the pattern of activity described earlier.

Employee empowerment and delegation of responsibility are great ways to increase the success of a business, but not if these privileges are to be abused by the out of sight, out of mind principle that is used by many employees.

If you want to identify which are the least productive people within your business, they will be the ones who regularly on a Wednesday say that they have too much work to do.

This post is being specifically published today in the hope that as those employees reach their productivity peak they will find the time to read it.

10 Business Leadership Skills

In any organization, exceptional business leadership skills are needed in order to succeed and the right business leadership style is essential in order to reach your goals.

If there is one skill that every business leader needs most in today’s business environment, it is adaptability. As a business leader, adaptability means reacting in an effective manner to shifting circumstances in your business environment.

Everybody experiences challenges, but business leaders are keen to resolve them with a carefully thought out plan of action.

Develop ways to anticipate the issues and prepare backup plans to effectively cope with them. Keep an open mind and commit yourself to learning constantly, learning quickly and reacting accordingly.

You will need the skill to communicate, effectively. It is not easy to get ideas across to a group of people when attempting to make the right decision or reach a solution. A business leader should be able to communicate effectively to everyone, not just some people, in order to be productive.

The skill to motivate gives you the business leadership edge to get the best out of those who work for you.

Developing better people skills, helps you attain your business objectives much faster by working more productively with today’s very knowledgeable workforce. When you connect well with others, you develop a trusting, productive relationship that benefits everyone.

Business leaders who have the awareness of how they are perceived by others or how they impact the behaviour of others are more likely to succeed than those who are not self aware.

Others can only judge us based on our behaviours, which can often lead to misunderstandings and miscommunication. You can not, as a business leader, assume that everyone around you instinctively understands the “how and why” behind what you do.

You need to practice the skill of self awareness in order to establish a more positive working relationship with your employees.

If you are self aware, people will see that you are making the effort to overcome your faults, a very important skill of a great business leader.

The skill of decisiveness is an exercise in good judgment, affording well informed, fast and sound decisions when needed from a business leader.
Decisiveness is an important rule in business leadership, the decisions you are willing to make will have a direct impact on how you are accepted as a business leader.

Every business needs a vision to set its direction and every successful business leader tunes into that vision to achieve success. Business gurus clearly advocate businesses using vision as a resource, but having a vision in this century may not be enough for today’s business leaders.

What may be more advantageous today is the ability to own a strong sense of purpose and the skill to convey this purposefulness to your employees. Purposefulness can be more powerful than a vision because it shares the ambition of growing your business with others.

Understanding what the real purpose behind the vision is will inspire others.

Technology has opened up new avenues for communicating and working in today’s work force. Today’s business environment benefits greatly from a culture of collaboration within your business and across all departments. Collaboration is a technique that can quickly add to your bottom line if you are able to develop a system where everyone can play their part in contributing ideas.

The advantage of creating a culture of collaboration is the constant exchange of innovative ideas within your organisation. To be a great business leader, become the person that everyone approaches when they have a new idea or innovative approach.

Business leadership means understanding that you don’t have to come up with all the ideas yourself; you can also nurture growth and innovation in others that will benefit everyone.

The Future Is Freelance

How many people in your business are freelance workers?

The USA will very soon have nearly twenty five percent of its national workforces being provided by part-time and full-time freelance services.

And in Europe the figures for freelance workers is even higher.

Many companies are now using freelance expertise on a contract or project basis instead of employing full-time staff.

Freelance professionals can now be provided in all aspects of business life, writers, translators, software engineers, marketers, lawyers, in fact any function that you can think of can now be done by a freelancer.

The Benefits of Freelance Working

• You are your own boss
• You can work wherever, whenever and however you want to
• You can use the skills that you enjoy to use
• You will have more freedom in your life
• You can spend more time with your family
• You can even work from home

The Downside of Freelance Working

• You will lose your healthcare coverage
• You will not have any pension rights
• You will not have a constant flow of income

With the economic recession people are losing their jobs and are having difficulty finding new jobs, even if they are willing to change to another industry and be retrained.

Many of these people are now turning to freelance work because it is something that they can do immediately with their current set of skills.

And as more and more businesses start to realize the benefits for them, which are reduced costs, flexibility of workforce and availability of an expertise on demand, they will be using freelance services even more.

Gone are the times of people being in one or two companies for their working life. The trends had already begun with the last generation of get up and go anywhere workers and the freelance services market is just an extension of those trends.

And as the benefits to both business and the freelancer balance out then more and more people will turn to being a freelance worker.

5 Things To Focus On For Growth

Working Capital

The lack of working capital is the leading threat to most small to midsize businesses. They are already undercapitalized with no access to the type of working capital needed to break into the next level of business. Working capital is a must for financing new receivables and purchasing additional inventory associated with a growing customer base.

Time Allocation and Focus

Your focused time and attention consumed by your ongoing daily operation activities such as inventory management, vendor relationships, order fulfillment, accounting and information technology leave little time for the one revenue producing activity: Sales. Outsourcing non core functions and placing the focus back on sales and marketing is a workable solution for many small to midsize businesses that have the capital needed to initiate the outsourcing process.

Products and Services

Today’s customers expect more from their providers. As more customers streamline their own operations to focus on core business functions, they become increasingly persuaded by the advantages of a complete one stop solution. Offering a one stop solution will allow you to develop and strengthen customer relationships while improving profitability.

Geographical Growth

Increasing sales is a good indication of your business’s strength. One way to achieve this goal is to gain access to the broadest geographical territory possible. However, many small to midsized businesses find themselves limited by the reach of their service network. Expanding an existing service network or developing one for the first time is an option that must be considered for continued growth.

Overcoming Your Business Challenges

The challenges facing the average small to midsize business owner are daunting. The time has come for you to step back and develop a strategy plan that builds loyalty among existing customers and takes full advantage of changing market conditions.

Your business plan should enable you to attract the working capital needed to expand your business and stay competitive. The early adapters will reap the biggest rewards. If you lack the skills needed to adapt independently, another alternative worth investigating is partnering.

The high number of small to midsize businesses, locked in competition for market share and with the daily demands of running their businesses, must lay the groundwork now. For those business owners who are able to step back and focus on adapting their businesses, they will reap the benefits and increase their customer base and have a certain future of business success.

Relationships Are Your Business Energy

Positive relationships are the backbone of any business.

Positive relationships bring you many benefits, whereas the negative relationships will steal your precious resources.

We all face having to manage relationships. Relationships are what keep our businesses moving. They are the energy and life force of our business.

Relationships are based on good communication. Different kinds of communication; not just face to face verbal communication with customers, but written, telephone, e-mail and internet, are all important. The relationships are one of the key operating systems of a business.

Clearly we should try to lay the groundwork for each relationship very carefully so that expectations are known and agreed upon at the beginning of the relationship.

Below are a few strategies that can nurture positive relationships with your customers:

Always treat your customers like dear and valued friends. Do the nice things for them that you'd do for your best friend or a family member.

If your customer has a problem, rectify it as soon as possible. Communicate with them always. Let them know exactly how you intend to handle the problem, and when you'll be in contact with them next.

Always try to conduct yourself with dignity and professionally at the end, as well as at the beginning of a relationship with your customer.

If the business customer relationship does not work out, attempt to salvage whatever goodwill is still left in the relationship. Just because it didn't work out with them, doesn't mean they would not refer others to you, as long as you treat them with respect.

Despite any differences of opinion, work hard to be honest and positive. Always be noble, respectful and genuine.

The message is simple: People understand that things go wrong. They understand that you forget. They understand that you get busy. They understand that you and your product or service may be imperfect. All they want is to feel like you respect them, you care about them, and that you'll do whatever it takes to help them.

Positive relationships are the key to success in business, and it starts with you, now.

Start Building Consumer Confidence

The only way that this recession is going to end and for there to be a full economic recovery is for there to be a complete noticeable return of the normally high levels of consumer confidence.

It has been the same in all recessions, when there is financial instability and economic uncertainty, the consumer confidence drops dramatically because people realize that they have to spend money more wisely.

But in this recession because of the huge number of global job losses and the highest number of home foreclosures in modern history it has meant that consumer confidence has been badly affected.

All business leaders have a responsibility to do whatever they can to start building consumer confidence, no matter what type of business they may run.

A lot of business leaders seem to have the opinion that the only real consumer confidence that needs to increase is related to retail business activities and that everything else will just follow.

Consumers are customers and every business that has a product or service that it offers to its customers is responsible for ensuring that those customers will be confident that it is money well spent.

What today’s customers are looking for is solid proof that the product or service that they purchase will add value to their lives and not find later that it is poor quality and not providing what they expected.

That holds true in all business transactions whether they are business to customer or business to business.

For the business world to see the quick return of consumer confidence another important factor must not be overlooked, that is the requirement to rebuild the trust in all of the relationships.

It takes a long time to build real trust, but if it is lost it means even more effort is needed to bring it back. In this current recession because of the activities of the financial institutions and large corporate businesses the trust has been severely damaged.

It will come back, as will the confidence but it will take the accumulated endeavours of all business leaders to make sure that it is sustainable.

Recessions may come and go, but nothing really changes in respect of the customer’s needs, which are value, trust and full confidence in all aspects of their business involvements.

So, to all responsible business leaders I say, start building consumer confidence and we will then soon be out of this depressing recession.

Business Goals For After The Recession

The business world is continually changing and in order for a business to maintain its success the goals and objectives of that business need to be reviewed on a regular basis.

With the severity of this current recession the business landscape will change dramatically and your business outlook will require adjusting to align with those dynamics.

Now is the time to completely review your business goals, objectives and action plans, don’t wait until after the recession has ended, because if you create the vision for your business now you will be ahead of your competition.

Consumer confidence, customer relationships, loyalty and trust have all been greatly tested in this global economic downturn and in the future customers will have a different set of expectations and requirements for value and commitment will be high.

When you review your own business think carefully about what sort of affect these changed customer demands could mean for you in the way that you perform your business activities.

You will no longer be able to take for granted the normal approach that your customers have shown in the past. They are now more educated by the events of the credit crisis and more knowledgeable about what they are seeking, which is complete value in all that they purchase.

So in respect of your business does this affect your future goals?

It will in fact affect all businesses and many of them have come to that realization already and are drawing up new goals, objectives and action plans for their businesses to meet this new customer approach.

And they are doing it now because not only do they want to be ahead of the competition, they also know that if they don’t do it now the chances of them surviving in the changed business world after the recession will be very difficult.

Most businesses make plans for five or ten years ahead, but all of those plans will need to be reassessed in the light of the changes to business that have been caused by this global financial instability.

And there is no guarantee anymore that the money that you will require for all the business investments that you had planned will be so readily available.

The setting of new business goals and objectives for after the recession makes good business sense and will ensure your business success.

Normal Service Will Be Resumed Soon

How often do you hear that phrase being expressed, normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

It may be your utility provider, when your service was disconnected for some reason, or your internet service provider, when your connection was down, or the company that hosts your business computer system, when their server was not available due to technical problems.

But what exactly is meant by normal service?

What if the normal service that you were receiving was a load of rubbish and that not having it was actually an improvement for you?

It is the same in all businesses when you are providing a service, what is most important is the expectations of the customer that is receiving the service.

Most customers are not expecting normal service, they can get that at any of your competitors, what they are looking for is a truly exceptional service, which not only meets their expectations but also delights them.

It's an easy term to toss about, but knowing what exceptional service entails is essential to establishing the procedures and the mindset with which to achieve it.

By knowing precisely what is merely good enough, and what takes your business beyond that, you get a firm handle on what you need to do to hit that goal on a consistent basis.

For business success you need to help your business establish and maintain an ongoing climate of service excellence.

Nothing can prove more destructive to a commitment to exceptional service than management for whom the concept is little more than lip service. Walk the walk by buying into that commitment just as much as you hope your people will. Make sure you reward top performance.

Invest the time and expense in any sort of training that may help your employees carry out and maintain high performance standards.

Don't forget yourself and others in the front office. And make sure that training takes in everyone, not just sales, marketing and other front line employees.

Training is an important part of creating a lifelong culture for service excellence since it helps build an understanding of the concept of service.

And that means a top down commitment. Leadership should set the tone for the entire effort.

Then you will be hearing more the phrase, our exceptional service will be resumed as soon as possible.