Category Archives: Working Smart

Working smart is working with an edge. A good business owner always makes it a point to work at tip-top shape. Working smart is working with a safety net; it does not hurt to have your workplace insured. The feeling of security makes us more eager to work diligently and even take some risks along the way because we know that we have something to fall back on to.

Working smart is about being well informed of the current market trends, what is hot and what is not. A good entrepreneur keeps himself or herself well-informed. More so that when he or she makes a decision he or she can take into consider as many factors as possible that can affect the business both in the short run and in the long run. So never forget to work smart!

accountability

Accountability is Directly Proportional to Credibility

When a crisis pops up, do you readily craft solutions and contingencies, or you eagerly list down all available excuses?

Your credibility goes through a testing by fire when you are made accountable for your actions. Your business’ success primarily depends on your ability on being accountable of all the things under your care. Your credibility is only as great as your accountability. Clients judge you by your character.

When you do business alone, there’s no way to share the work, nor the blame. You shoulder everything, so the temptation to make excuses is great. The true test of your credibility is in handling unforeseen glitches or delays. Do you face and meet it head on with your arsenals of solutions or you fall back and find anyone and anything to throw the blame. For you to truly succeed in business, you must not seek the easy way out in every crisis. The following are the common lines from people who care not to stand on their accountability:

  • I missed the meeting because the heavy traffic held me off
  • We missed the deadline because of the power interruptions
  • My computer is not in great shape, so there’s no way I could submit the reports on time

Compare these lines to people who own up to their responsibility; people who are ready for the inevitabilities:

  • I know that there could be a heavy traffic, so I left early and rode the public transport to catch the meeting on time
  • We’re calling you to let you know that we are experiencing power interruptions, but rest assured that we will try our very best to stay true to our original commitment of delivering it on time.
  • My computer is not in great shape so I better head to the nearest computer shop to do my report there

You establish and you strengthen your credibility when you begin being accountable for everything you do. You get to convey to your clients, both current and potential, that they could securely do business with you because they know that you hold yourself true to your words. Your credibility climbs as your accountability grows. They always come together. That is why it is imperative to groom yourself to being a responsible and accountable businessman because it is want clients need. People want to work with people they know they could trust. And without accountability, there is no way to build trust. Therefore, be true to your responsibilities, own it up. Do not make excuses, rather, look for solutions. And make your way to success.

I will love to hear any idea or feedback from you.

 

resolution

Staying True to Your Resolutions

Making a resolution is not even half as hard in sticking to them. Sometimes, it won’t take a day to make a resolution, but takes a lifetime to see to its completion. You will have to choose what to make of your resolutions; either you want it to be just a mere wishful thinking or a deep commitment?

Your resolution won’t mean a thing if your words are not followed by actions. No matter how many times you say you will change and yet you did not make one move to realize it, then it is all good for nothing. Do not stay within the boundaries of fantasy, make things real, and make it happen. Do whatever it takes to follow your resolutions. Too many times, you must have resolved to lose weight time and again, and yet gain pounds every time because you just can’t keep yourself from delicious fatty foods. Or maybe you have resolved to augment your income this year and yet you can’t make yourself look for an extra job that will generate extra income. As you break your resolution each time, your frustration will grow that might eventually result to hopelessness. Do not let this happen, follow these simple steps in keeping yourself stay true to your resolutions:

  • Define your goal. Do not be vague. If you say you want to lose weight, then specify exactly how many pounds you need to shred in a specific amount of time. Say, “I will start losing weight now until I will lose 50 pounds in 8 months”. The more specific you are, the greater the probability that you will stick to your resolution because the goal becomes achievable.
  • Push yourself to the limit. Do not be cowed with the circumstances. The harder you push yourself, the most likely your commitment becomes stronger. If you exercised yesterday for 30 minutes, then make it 1 hour tomorrow. Do not worry, your internal system will adapt to whatever changes you employ, no matter how drastic.
  • Avoid making excuses. Don’t say you were not able to jog because it rained; well, jog around your house!
  • Believe that you are capable of staying true to your resolutions. Even if things seem insurmountable, your self-belief will matter in your quest of achieving your goal.

I have my own resolutions as well. Some are easy to achieve while others, I admit, are a constant struggle. I just keep reminding myself of these simple steps to help me get through. How about you, do you have your resolutions that you were able to complete? Share your ideas to us.

success_failure

Fail to Succeed

I personally believe that success is impossible without a taste of failure. It is in failure where the learning is found and not in success. As one of the famous people says, “Success is a poor teacher”.

Success belongs to the daring, to those who are willing to brave the tides without remorse on the consequences. For you to succeed, you have to take risks somehow; to make valuable investments with pure audacity. When you are in a quest of achieving and accomplishing a great task, you need to be ready for the risks you are about to take. And when you take them, you must contemplate on the consequences. But you do not really think about this if you really want to succeed, right? Because all you could ever think of is the prize beyond the challenges. You are thinking of the celebration after an ordeal.

One reason why many people fail is because they fear failure. They do not want to fail that they do nothing at all. But if you rather not do anything at all, how will you suppose to succeed? Michael Jordan is one of the greatest players in NBA history, if not the greatest. In his lifetime, he scored noteworthy points. He was a scoring champion several times while he played. But what many people do not understand is: while he makes the most points for his team, he also makes the most number of shots and consequently the most number of misses. Yes, you heard it right; Jordan made the most number of missed shots too. But did it deter him to succeed? Did it cause him to fold and mourn? He was only making true of a mathematical truth that if you want to make the most number of shots, you have to take as much opportunity to shoot and risk a high probability of misses.

There are quite so many people in history that failed so many times and yet lived victorious lives because they were able to glean the lesson from the pain. Winston Churchill endured dozens of failure before he made his mark in history. Roosevelt, the crippled President was in his wheelchairs when he made the best moments of his life making the most important decisions in a time of war. There are countless others who have failed, and failed many times over, and yet become great because they do not see failure as it is, they only consider it as a bump for which an opportunity for them to reorganize.

Do not fear failure, be bold, take risks, and success will follow you all the days of your life.

goal

Achieving Your Dreams

Dreams will stay as dream unless you do something about it. You should have a proactive part in achieving your dreams and in bringing it to reality.

A man with no dreams is like a night without the moon. Dream is crucial; it is what makes us strive in life. If you do not dream, there is no point of trying to succeed. Your dreams are your reason why you try to become better. You can dream as great as you like. Dreams know no boundaries, it respects no limits. But what is a dream if it stays just a dream.

So for people like you who wants to alter his life for the better, make your dreams tangible. Turn it into a goal, of which you can aspire to bring it into being. It is good that you dream, but you cannot stay on dreaming for so long. You have to make careful plans of turning your dream into achievable goals and eventually crafting plans of finally achieving it.

When you dream you must also believe. There is no point of dreaming and yet deciding that it will just stay as it is because you feel like you are not capable of achieving it. Go out there, live your life, and achieve every single one of your dreams. It is just a matter of how powerfully you reinforce you thoughts. You need to keep your hopes up. You have to build up your faith as you tread along the way of achieving your goals. The longer the time you spend thinking about your dreams, the greater should be your confidence that you can make it into reality.

I and my husband have this dream of going to Nepal. It was really one of our most precious moments as we both crafted careful plans in getting there eventually. The anticipation was really great. And it took half a decade to see it to completion. We did not mind the wait; we just kept our dream alive and made it a part of our system. We talked about it, shared about it and dreamed of it. Along the way, as we try to achieve this dream, the dreams that we had are becoming a reality right in front of us, and that gave us all the more hope and confidence that we will see it through.

To keep your dreams alive, you could do the following:

  • Make your dream into a picture or a statement and then make it as a background of your computer
  • Read a lot of books that mentions anything about your goals
  • Share it to other people, talk about it whenever possible

If you have faith enough, if you strive enough, you will achieve your dreams. That’s for sure!

thinkb

Boost Your Self Confidence By Dreaming Big

I and my husband watched Roger Federer play, and my husband had been adamant on me asking Federer to coach for him. The idea really sounds absurd, but my husband was clearly driving a different nail; he wants me to believe I could be a coach.

How would I ever feel, offering my services to one of the most successful athletes of all time? It does not seem right for someone like me, with nothing to show for compared to Roger Federer, to literally go and point blank ask him to make me his coach. He made his millions when I was still dreaming of making one. He is popular, and nice, and smart, and gorgeous. But my husband’s point is: so what? My hubby wants me to think far beyond the way I think now. He wants me to realize that if I need to convince people on something, I need to be convinced of it first. I’ll tell someone it is black when I see it and know that indeed it is black. I just wish it was as easy as that to ask Roger to make me his coach.

In business, you need to project an image of self confidence. You need not flaunt an image that does not project the real you; No, that is exactly not what I meant to drive out. You have to be genuinely confident; you should be able to answer your clients’ questions without gaps and uncertainty. You must assert you authority on things you know you are really good at. But of course it is entirely different from bragging. Your clients will trust you based on your track record and on your confidence that you will deliver what you promised.

How do you exactly do this; by dreaming big! When you set your goals real high and you eventually achieve it, the rest will become a lot easier to handle. If I get to make myself Roger’s coach, don’t you think it would not be simpler for me to approach lesser players to play under my tutelage? That is exactly my point. Expand your tent. Make your dream bigger and your goals loftier each time. Not long from now, you will just realize that in the process, you were helping yourself build up your self-confidence. If need be, affirm yourself. Speak words of affirmations:

  • Say you are the best
  • Say you are becoming the man that you ought to be
  • Say you are a success everyday in every way

When you believe that you are capable of reaching a lofty goal, the necessary ability to do it will automatically follow. So when you are having trouble with self-confidence, just dream big.

lifecyc

Business life cycle: dealing with its inevitabilities

Everything moves in cycles; the weather, the night and day and the season. What happens now is a repetition of the past and inevitability in the future. Business even follows this law and knowing exactly how cycles work, you are better prepared to handle all the challenges that go with it.

Nothing stays the same in this world. Either one progresses or the other way around. Failure is followed by recovery, and then eventually success, and then another failure which is again succeeded by another recovery and then not long after, success, and so on.  The cycle never ends and the loop continues even long after we are gone. The economy has its own cycle, and if only you know exactly what a cycle means, then you would not have been caught surprised when the recession happened. It happened before, sure it will happen again.  Your business whether it’s small or not, will take its own cycle. It will have its own ups and downs, but as long as you know that cycles are inevitable, then you can get through anything. Fashion does not stay the same for quite long, it changes, but it does not actually introduce an entirely new style but only a slight improvement of yesterday’s. Your life is quite the best example of a cycle, starting off with vitality and tries everything with reckless abandon. Just like any business, it starts with a seemingly inexhaustible energy until it reaches a certain point that everything needs recharging. So when your business hits a snag as it courses through the business cycle, you must consider some simple ways to bring it back its enthusiasm, here are the following:

  • Innovation – Do not cease from innovating and introducing innovative products. No product stays marketable forever without even a slight modification. People are hungry for innovations. People have an insatiable hunger for something better, bigger and faster. Therefore, you have to know how to reinvent; either you reinvent the company’s image or the product line it produces. Innovation is adaptive in nature, and adaption is nature’s way of preserving itself. If you can keep a profile of being highly innovative, you will come out as fresh. And this will eventually translate to something greater.
  • Joint venture – A joint venture is a picture of power poised for a great new start. It is a very good opportunity to overhaul your system to rightly fit with your partner thus giving you better capability of preparing for business cycles’ ups and downs.
  • Self reinvention – you will also have to reinvent yourself even if you are a soloist businessman. Reinvention is not limited to big corporations. Rather, everyone is encouraged to tap its richness and experience firsthand its benefits and advantages. In doing this you are encouraging and conveying to your employees the importance of innovation.

How else to adapt to the new changes that confront us everyday? Let us hear you deal with business cycles.

innovcreat

Improve on your innovation and creativity techniques in Six simple steps.

Have you also fallen to the pitfalls of limitation? If you are making some petty excuses why your innovation skill are not in its best shape,  then you might find it helpful to study the next six steps of creativity improvement.

The wrong notion that creativity comes at any random moment foils the true nature of creativity. Your creativity is under your own command and does not come according to its own wishes. Sometimes, it is used as a petty excuse as to why not to innovate.  How exactly to take command of creativity and how to call for it spontaneously whenever you need it? Let me show some six simple steps to make way for innovation and creativity to flourish.

1. Be objective to new ideas

You need to be objective every time a new idea is presented to you no matter how ridiculous it seems the first time. You need to give it a second look even if you already tried it because there might have been important factors that you overlooked the last time.  By being objective to every new idea being presented you allow yourself to grow in a profound way thus stimulating your innovation and techniques. Do not out rightly reject new ideas, rather allow it to be seen in an entirely new light, full of anticipation and excitement for whatever it behold. These ideas could literally come from people that matter to your business; it is definitely all the more worthwhile to give it your appropriate attention.

2. Trial and error process

You need to test every idea that you deem good. You have to let it pass through the process of testing where its strengths and weaknesses are revealed for evaluation and rectification. If it fails the first time, give it a look and evaluate the things you need to improve to achieve the desired results.

3. Take calculated risks

Success comes after you have taken a great leap. When you stay in your comfort zone, you limit your opportunity to discover great, new and relevant things. Never be held back by your fear of failure, keep your charts open for testing. Risks are part of the venture. It could help you strengthen your structure. By taking risks, you are waking up your creative and innovative faculties to get ready for a test run.

4. Enjoy

Never let your business becomes a burden to you; otherwise, you will burn your passion out. Enjoy every moment you are doing things. Make sure that you are having fun while you are thinking of staying up ahead creatively. Innovation gladdens the heart and creativity excites the soul. You should have more glow to your face than wrinkles

5. Be results-oriented

Creativity and innovation only makes sense if it gives off relevant results. While you are busy crafting all the creative and innovative ideas, you must never lose focus on the results that must come out from all of you efforts. Everything must have to have a fruit, otherwise it is a senseless pursuit.

6. Mix everything up

You might just mix everything up all the given simple steps given above. You may do it all in progressive steps or do it all at once. To stimulate your creative juices you might just need to solicit big and bold ideas and then let them go through the trial and error process of which all the while you are taking a calculated risks, and then you are extremely enjoying the whole thing especially that you know you will have your desired results.

bizperf

Business performance: Procedures and Reasons

If you wish you track about the progress of your business and to test whether your employed techniques have anything to do with the noticeable improvements, measure it!

Every other detail in our life needs to be measured. If we have set for ourselves a defined goal, whether in business or personal, we have to measure our development, otherwise, there is no way of telling whether the improvements we notice are relevant. Most businessmen neglect to include measuring in their business procedures and they pay for it dearly. To know whether you are practicing business performance measuring, read the following questions and evaluate your answers.

1. Are you keeping updated accounts?

You have to account your activities, time and again. Do not put it down in bulk or just twice a year. It is more productive if you could do it prompt and consistent.

2. Are you measuring your results?

Every after accounting your results on time, you have to make sure that you measure it for what it is. You need to gauge whatever there is to gauge.

3. Are you measuring the right data?

You have to know to identify which data that needs measuring. Otherwise you might end up wasting time and resources. You have to know which one goes where.

4. Are your measuring procedures extensive and comprehensive?

When you measure, make sure to include not only the internal but also the external factors that have contributing influence over the data that you are trying to measure.

5. Are you practising benchmarking?

When measuring is employed, it is practical that the data you have will be used for comparison for reasons of benchmarking. You may benchmark all the major consideration points so as to come up with a sound conclusion.

6. Are you using ratios for easy presentations?

Get into the habit of using ratios when you wish to present the results of your measuring procedure. When you use ratios, it is easy to interpret. A data expressed in ratio explains extensively without having to get into many intricate details.

7. Are you capable of interpreting the results?

Every item discussed above should be able to tell you much more about the anatomy of measuring and its results. More than anyone else, you should be able to understand the implications of the results so that you can fully utilize its uses.

8. Are you actively responding on the results?

The core reason why you need to measure your business performance is so that you could actively make relevant response to its implications. If the results are positive, your response should be to devise methods to maintain your operation in its current state. If the result is negative, you should be able to come up with ideas in how to rectify your current procedures so as to make the business way better.

Extend an effort to gauge your business performance. Take time to measure as to how you are fairing. Your business needs measuring from time to time.

father

Are you willing to pay the price of business success?

Have you ever considered that every success you achieve, you pay the price in one way or another? Success alone is glorious; it’s the price that could get us to muse long and hard.

Most of the times we only view success as it already is. What we see are just the products and what we do not realize is the sacrifices and all the other things we need to give up in our pursuit of this elusive prize. Success always happens for a fee, for most of the time, it is costly.

When I was still a 13 year old kid I used to play foot ball. My Dad seldom comes to watch me play because his schedules are always full chasing after his lofty dreams and ambitions. So when one day he showed up, it really made a difference. I was playing the best game of my life at that time. I have a friend named Patrick who has a dad like my own. A businessman and successful and have as much reasons as my Dad for not coming to watch us play football. But his Dad always makes it a point to come every game and cheers loudly for his son. He would always shout at the top of his voice for bill. As children, we would make fun of this kind of gestures but it is only when I was already a grown up that I view this in an entirely new and higher perspective. I have grown so much respect for Patrick’s Dad by the time I realize his commitment to support his son. Both my dad and Patrick’s were highly successful in their ventures and I would say it was my dad who paid a higher price for his success. And I wish to emulate Patrick’s Dad’s fatherhood style when I already have my own children.

You have to draw a line between your priorities. And you have to identify which comes first in your priority list. I would say that you need to learn to balance things out so as not to make any unnecessary cost along the way as you tread towards your ladder of success. Make your family be your greatest motivation, and do not neglect them on the process of achieving your dreams. Value them much more than you value your business clients.

I have had my down times I admit. There are times that I had my difficulties along the learning curve. But in the end, I realize I want to be the father that my children will remember as someone who is always there for them, for love and support. Do not miss important family dates for the sake of business meetings. You don’t get to hold the years, sooner or later, your children will grow faster than you could ever notice and you will realize that you have missed their golden years of growing up.

As a businessman, you have to take good care of your business with utmost passion without compromising your quality time with your family. Every time you are faced with a decision to choose between work and family, choose family, all the time, every time.

 

after-the-rain

Keeping Abreast Of Gloom

You need to change your gloomy outlook in life if you wish to succeed and make a great impact. You could be surrounded by various reasons to be down, but you can always tap on your inner self to rise above the circumstance. Here are 5 steps to help you out change your gloomy outlook.

1. Keep a distance from gloomy people

Your company is a big influence on your mood, perspective and actions. If you want to have a positive outlook in life, what better way to do it than to associate with positive people? Keep your distance from people who make storms out of a simple breeze.  It will do you no good to keep their company. If you cannot beat them, then walk away from them. Stay away as possible. Allow your ears not to hear their senseless talks.

 2. Pick your clients

You need not accommodate every client that comes your way. You have to gauge what kind of people you are dealing with. Politely decline business dealing that will reinforce gloomy outlook. Choose your associates that provide a positive vibe; ones that assures a regular flow of work and at the same time who allows a friendly environment. If you think the work deal you are offered is not worth your while and will compromise your perspective, then say “NO”.

3. Get yourself involved

Get involved in helping people sort out their dilemma. In therapy, people who are depressed are encouraged to go out of their self-made cages and associate with people and offer to help. When you help, you release an aura of kindness that automatically influences you to be proactive and positive in your outlook and ways. Take time to give your best ideas in every way possible. There a number of social sites that offer vast opportunities for you to showcase your skills of helping people out.

4. Encourage your customers

Never be short on making encouraging remarks. You have to give your customers the needed reassurance that they will do just fine. You do not need to flatter them; it’s no good to do that. You uplift their spirit in a way that is sensible and sincere.

5. Make things exciting, all the time

Have fun. Excite all your loyal customers. It does not need to be fancy all the time, but just enough to make things lively and happy.

 

Share your thoughts.