More Success For Business Leaders

Business Bounce Back

2013-04-09T21:43:00.001+01:00

In your capacity as business leader you will know full well what statistics prevail in your marketplace and how they will affect the chances of your company doing good business.

But are you sure that you are reading those statistics correctly?

Let us look at how statistics are presented.

Country X is experiencing an economic downturn, which has caused unemployment to rise to 17%. Interest rates have been reduced to 0.5% to keep the inflation rate low at 2.6%. And the rate of tax has been increased to 45% on earnings above 150,000. In an effort to lift 3 million out of poverty the personal tax allowance has been raised to 10,000 before any taxation is applied.

This all sounds rather gloomy. But let us take a different look at those same statistics.

In this Country X, 83% of the working population are in full employment, which means they are earning and have disposable income available to them and with the interest rates so low, there could not be a better time to make investments. And now another 3 million potential customers have entered the marketplace.

This would mean that you should be targeting your business revenue opportunities on those customers who obviously have disposable income available which they should be spending on your products and services.

Forget all the doom and gloom and focus your attention on this different look at the statistics which are presented to you. In this way your business will soon bounce back and bring you an abundance of success.

Increasing Business Growth

2013-03-12T22:07:00.000Z

As most business leaders realize the future success of their business and its continuing survival is greatly dependant on creating business growth.

The business growth can manifest itself in several different ways; by providing their existing customers with new offerings; by increasing the price of their products; by finding new customers; by instilling a program of higher employee productivity; by eliminating unnecessary business costs, but there is one sure way to increase growth within any business and that is for the business leader to have an idea.

Companies that have shown a substantial increase in their business growth have all had business leaders who had an idea, an innovative idea that caused them and their business to develop new products and services which not only changed the direction of their business, but also changed the direction of people’s lives.

Innovation is the lifeblood of business growth and the spark which generates business success.

Why U.S. Businesses Urgently Need To Develop Global Leadership Skills

2013-02-27T14:46:00.002Z

5 Critical Areas to Begin Focusing on Now

Globalization has been the buzzword of the decade, and yet, many U.S. business managers are still unaware of the skill sets they urgently need to compete in a global market, says business consultant Kathleen Brush.

“The most attractive business opportunities in this century will be outside the United States, but identifying the best bets and tapping into them requires new and augmented skills,” says Brush, a 25-year veteran of international business and author of “The Power of One: You’re the Boss,” (www.kathleenbrush.com).

There are 32 developed countries with 1 billion potential customers, and 162 developing nations with 6 billion people, many heading into the middle class for the first time, with all the attendant needs and desires, Brush says.

The IMF has forecast $27.3 trillion in economic growth between 2011 and 2016. Eighty-seven percent will occur outside the United States, most of it in developing countries. The forecasted growth for developing China, India, Africa, and Latin America is two to four times that of the United States and the European Union.

“In 2013 and moving forward, U.S. business leaders will not come out on top without developing new skills to navigate the global opportunities,” Brush says. “Managers need to increase their understanding of how other countries operate.”

Brush offers five areas of critical importance to American business leaders:

• How to develop strategies that can’t lose. Being able to evaluate opportunities and threats around the world has to be a fundamental skill and one that is exercised regularly. This is because political, economic, and social issues are different and they change. How different are they? How about new regulations that appear without notice; judicial systems that do not administer justice; economic systems that can’t support the needs of operations, workers, or goods; and social cultural systems that condone corruption.

• Managing and motivating employees from different backgrounds. There is a good chance that Employee A from Country A won’t be motivated by the same things as Employee B from Country B. In part, this can be cultural, for example, pitting employee against employee may inspire the competitive spirit in Americans,but contests for individual supremacy can be culturally offensive for many others. Or, it may be regulatory. In the United States, it’s relatively simple to terminate an underperforming employee. In many countries, it will cost a fortune and even require external approvals.

• Traditional decisions on the 4Ps are being turned on their head. American managers have always preferred to build innovative/different products overproducts that are the lowest cost. But, this option will often be unavailable in the newest attractive markets. Besides competing on cost, there is the challenge of getting paid without credit. How do you promote products to people who read at a basic level, or in countries where there are many official languages? How can products be delivered on time when roads are primitive and airports inadequate?

• Reading financial statements. What if financial data is unreliable due to cultural inclinations, political machinations, or manual reporting systems? Gone are the days of blindly valuing what comes in black and white.

• A strong moral compass. Operating within unfamiliar, unpredictable places can make it challenging to distinguish the gold mines from the land mines. Some cultures will see bribery, the concealment of data, and quality shortcuts as business as usual. Today’s leaders know that a strong moral compass is the only reliable navigator of behaviors and decisions.

About Kathleen Brush

Kathleen Brush has more than two decades of experience as a senior executive with global business responsibilities. She has a Ph.D. in management and international studies. Brush has been teaching, writing and consulting on international business and leadership for companies of all sizes, including those that are public, private, foreign and domestic.

Five Key Elements for Business Growth

2013-01-21T14:52:00.000Z

For a business to grow and be profitable, business wisdom has shown that there are five key elements that will promote and sustain growth within a business.

These five key elements are frequently talked about in many businesses, but they are only implemented when people are willing to change the traditional ways and embrace the positive aspects of these five key elements for business growth.

Customer Focus

Trust

People

Skills

Cost Savings

Great Leaders Motivate With Communication

2012-09-16T17:55:00.002+01:00

Great leaders give their people an overview of what the company is trying to achieve and then they work with each person to establish individual goals that will meet or exceed those company objectives.

Goals should have a good chance of being achievable while still challenging the individual to push themselves beyond their existing comfort zone. Each goal must be relevant to the main objective of the organisation and relevant to the overall success of the company.

Work with your people to help them determine the goals that would be most appropriate for their development and growth and work with them to develop the appropriate action steps to achieve these goals and you will see a noticeable improvement in their performance.

Communicate and tell your people what is happening, people are hungry for information and from my experience can be trusted with company details. Unfortunately, too many corporations and their middle managers feel that people should only be given information that is relevant to their specific job.

Communication must be clear and concise, employees want to know where they stand and want to do a good job. They want to know how, you, as their leader, view their performance. That's why it is critical that you give them direction and feedback on a regular basis.

Experience has taught me that people will work harder for someone who praises them and recognises the effort they put into their work. Acknowledge their energy and performance, their effort and commitment, how hard they worked and how involved they were with it.

Your people have a lot of knowledge and information and can often contribute valuable suggestions to improve the business. If you really want to create a team of highly motivated people take the time to listen to their comments and ideas.

This last point is the most important. If you want a highly motivated team, then you must lead by setting the example. You must demonstrate enthusiasm, energy, team cooperation, honesty, integrity and commitment.

Set and communicate high standards, provide positive reinforcement when your people perform and involve them. You will soon see a motivated team that will do almost anything to help you succeed.

Business Workplace Improvements

2012-07-20T11:30:00.000+01:00

Changing the workplace environment can lead to a change in employee attitude and productivity. There are numerous practical tips that can be incorporated in order to overcome workplace ruts, among them:

· Mentoring and Professional Development

Workplace mentoring, professional development opportunities and a steady influx of fresh perspectives can help shift stalled teams. Monthly lunch-and-learn sessions with inspirational guest speakers can build team cohesion. Employees need to feel comfortable voicing concerns and making suggestions.

· Initiate an Incentive Plan
When effective teams are challenged they will work hard to meet a goal, especially if there is an incentive at the end. Incentives can build team dynamics and contribute to employee satisfaction. They can include a team lunch, a monetary bonus, coupons or the chance to participate in additional training.

· Be Flexible
Flexible work schedules can allow employees to feel more at ease as they juggle the responsibilities of work and home. When employees feel trusted to manage their time and to take responsibility for their role in a team’s progress, then a manager has created a win-win situation.

· Make Time to Listen

Not all employees communicate in the same way. Some have great ideas you will never hear because they won’t speak up in a group meeting. Instead of expecting employees to conform to one way of communicating with you, learn different ways of listening and talking with your team. That can include more one-on-one or smaller group meetings, follow-up email questions and “drop-in” times where you are available to speak in an informal setting.

· Improve the Environment

Sprucing up an outdated break room, upgrading lighting or adding a few office amenities can go a long way toward showing employees they are valued. If the budget is tight, funnel some of the savings from an office recycling program or energy efficiency project toward making the workplace more comfortable for everyone.

· Express Gratitude

In today’s hectic workplaces, it is easy to get so caught up on behind-the-scenes management tasks that you may end up being perceived as dismissive or aloof. Taking time to thank employees for a job well done helps build long-lasting rapport. Be specific in your compliment and deliver it in person when possible. Also, be sure to acknowledge the most consistent employees who are often neglected because they require little attention. You should cultivate their loyalty and possibly provide ways to allow them extra opportunities to grow, such as mentoring.

Taking these and other steps to improve the workplace environment will positively change employee attitude within the workplace, promoting more productive and creative work.

This guest post was provided by Jessica Edmondson who contributes on Leadership and Management for the University Alliance, a division of Bisk Education, Inc.

Leading From Behind

2012-07-09T10:05:00.000+01:00

Great leaders are successful because their approach is one of servant leadership, but what does leading from behind really mean?

Empowering your workforce and then trusting them to do a good job.
Delegating responsibility to your people and not asking for daily reports.
Listening to your employees innovative ideas and implementing them.
Promoting their hard work with regular praise for them.
Accepting the blame for not making the instructions clear and precise.
Projecting a vision which your staff can easily envision for themselves.

Great leaders are only as successful as the people that they serve.

Little Used Words in Business

2012-06-12T11:25:00.000+01:00

As the business environment has become more difficult over the last few years it is noticeable that certain sets of words and phrases have begun to almost disappear and to become little used in many businesses.

It comes as some surprise for this to be happening when these are the exact words that can change the fortunes of any business and bring them significant business success.

What are the words?

‘Thank you.’

‘Is there anything more that we can do for you?’

‘It has been a pleasure serving you.’

‘What could we do better?’

‘Is it easy to do business with us?’

‘These are the products and services which will give you the most value.’

Signs of Business Success

2012-05-21T11:00:00.000+01:00

What are the signs that indicate that a business leader and their business are being successful?

When a business is enjoying great success you only have to look at the business leader’s approach and attitude to their business to see what the signs of success are.

The business leader has empowered and delegated responsibility to their workforce.

New ideas and innovations are being listened to and cultivated.

Customer service satisfaction is high because the customer is being heard.

Product offerings are proven to add value for the customers.

And the business leader has a focus on business solutions not business problems.

There are truly lessons to be learnt by observing this sort of approach and attitude to business. Just by implementing these signs of success into your business you can make business success come to you.

The Importance of JD Edwards for Business Success

2012-04-30T22:42:00.000+01:00

Every business should be seeking reduced costs, growth improvement and increased profitability by using the results of well defined business processes that are driven by information.

JD Edwards is an integrated applications suite of comprehensive enterprise resource planning software that combines all financial processes across your business applications into a single database which links seamlessly with your other enterprise solutions.

By utilizing JD Edwards consulting from Syntax you will achieve the maximum benefits and business management advantages which will ensure your business success.

You need to be able to make reliable business decisions quickly and the JDE streamlined infrastructure ensures you can view specific, relevant information at a moment's notice.

This accelerates your decision making process ensuring that you are informed by the most complete, accurate and current data available, which allows you to react more quickly to changing requirements.

This can provide you with a competitive advantage for your business and centralized and automated data management will save your business time and money.

Lean Mean Business Machine

2012-04-16T10:00:00.001+01:00

When the economy is moving back towards growth it is a perfect time to take a close look at your business and determine if it is ready and capable of being a part of that growth.

Is everything about your business running smoothly or do you need to make some vital changes?

Do all parts of your business interact well and are they communicating clearly and efficiently?

When there is a downturn in business many people become complacent and bad habits begin to emerge, which will only cause problems when your business is running up to speed again. Now is the time to identify and eliminate those bad habits.

Have an overall review of your employees, do they look like a professional team of people who are ready for success? For any business to grow it has to be ready to grow and so do its people.

But don't just sit there thinking that your business will grow along with the economy. Business leaders should now think about how they will win the race to business success and insist on having a lean mean business machine that is capable of taking them there.

Substantially Increase Your Business Success

2012-03-29T13:00:00.003+01:00

For most businesses the biggest problem that they experience is a lack of real success. And yet they could substantially increase their business success if they would only realize that it is well within their reach by applying these five simple rules.

Determine what is working well in the business and repeat it.
Determine what is not working well and immediately eliminate it.
Instill a mentality into the workforce of new ideas and innovation.
Watch closely what the competition is doing and copy their successful initiatives.
Ask your customers to sample many more of your best selling products and services.

Collectively these five rules will move your business to a new level, one that is progressive and full of growth potential, all of which will substantially increase your business success.

Business Network Security

2012-03-12T10:00:00.001Z

As any business leader knows they have to ensure the highest levels of security for their Internet and IT infrastructure because it is vital to their business’s reputation and success.

The network security of any business is crucial in the increasingly risky business environment in which we now live, infrastructure monitoring and network visibility are critical to managing any security threats.

If your business’s existing solution doesn’t deliver the right results and your system is inflexible with inadequate management services, which only provide late incident notifications or even worse don’t capture the information on complicated risk events, it would be worth your time to review this network security business case

It provides an insight into how one retailer, that was seeking an IT network security platform that it and its customers could rely on, managed to find a perfect solution.

A solution that enabled them to enhance the privacy and security of their credit card transactions, avoided downtime due to fast incident notification and allowed them to renew their focus on core business issues and strategic planning.

How to Become a Successful Business Leader

2012-03-09T10:15:00.001Z

This book will give you a comprehensive set of insights into the plans of action that have been taken by business leaders who have succeeded in making their businesses a success.

Whether you are just starting out as a business leader or you have been performing a business leader role for a few years, you will definitely find considerable benefit from understanding and then putting into practice the 20 Steps of How to Become a Successful Business Leader.

These set of steps have been utilized by many thousands of successful business leaders throughout the world and have been found to move the business leader and their business, faster and higher up their ladder of success.

Read More.....How to Become a Successful Business Leader

Learning to be a Leader

2012-03-05T10:00:00.003Z

Nobody is born as a good leader but they can become one through gaining experiences and a better understanding of what it takes to be a leader.

The process is a continual learning curve just as most things are in life and it is only after many years that a good leader will emerge with the capabilities that have been accumulated from that learning.

People will follow a leader that has a vision and is able to convey that vision to them. A good leader will give empowerment and trust to their people so that they can achieve great things.

A good leader will give a lot of attention to what their followers are saying and listen to their new ideas.

A good leader commands the respect of their followers through their actions and not through the demands of their voice.

Doing The Right Things Right

2012-02-29T10:00:00.001Z

For a business to be effective there are several right things that need to be done, such as the promotion of your products or services, having a good pay structure that attracts talented people, providing a customer after sales service and delivering everything on time.

But it is not just by doing the right things that your business will thrive and grow, if you want your business to be successful you must ensure that you are doing the right things right.

Using marketing to promote your products or services is the right thing to do, but if you are not asking your customers for feedback about exactly what influenced them to purchase your products or services you are not doing the right thing right.

If you are providing an after sales customer service you are doing the right thing, but if it is only a customer complaint gathering exercise then you are not doing the right thing right.

Making the delivery of your products or services on time is the right thing to do, but without finding out if the customer is delighted in doing business with you, it is not doing the right thing right.

Thousands of businesses are doing what they know are the right things, but only a few hundred are finding success, that is because those are the businesses which are doing the right things right.

Is Your Business Too Fat?

2012-02-15T10:00:00.001Z

When a human is overweight it makes many of the things that you would normally do in your life more difficult, because it is not as easy to function properly when your body is carrying too much fat.

Well this principle is also true for your business, if it is carrying too much fat it will perform sluggishly and this will greatly affect the productivity and efficiency of your business.

For a business to be successful it needs to be agile and lean with no unnecessary extra weight to drag it down and slow its progress. Anything that does not contribute to the growth and success of your business will count as fat and needs to be eliminated.

In an economy that is putting so much pressure on the ability of businesses to perform, only those businesses that are carrying the least amount of fat will emerge as successful sustainable businesses.

All business leaders should now be carefully reviewing their business activities and determining if there are any that are not needed because they only constitute adding a burden and are essentially only business fat.

Are You Bringing on the Best Worker or the Best Personality?

2012-01-16T10:30:00.001Z

In an ideal world, employers would get the employee who is both a great worker and exhibits a fantastic personality. Remember, I said the ideal world.

Truth be told, many employers end up getting outstanding workers who have the personalities of a door mat or workers whose personality lights the room on fire, yet they can’t think their way out of a paper bag. In a day and age where employers use internal human resources, outside staffing agencies and even social media sites to get a better idea of who they may be interviewing and ultimately hiring, just what exactly should companies be looking for when adding to their payroll ranks?

Know the Cost of Hiring Someone?

Keep in mind, the average expense of hiring and orientation for a non-exempt employee was reported a decade ago to be approximately $1,100 (Saratoga Institute - 1999 Human Resource Financial Report). The average cost of hiring and orientation for an exempt employee came in at around $9,000 (Saratoga Institute). While the cost of replacement figures will differ from company to company, take note that today’s tight economy makes hiring the right people all the more critical.

I have always been of the belief that while finding a strong worker with a good personality is the ideal catch, there are many more cases where you will end up with one or the other.

When you hire someone who is more than qualified for the job yet they tend to keep to themselves, you typically end up with:

* A worker, who will give you 100 percent on the job, yet may shy away from after-hours activities involving the company. They also may keep to themselves during the day and not engage in a lot of one-on-one conversation with others;

* A worker, who is not going to be one who needs much attention and/or micromanaging. This person knows what is expected of them and will come to work regularly with the attitude of accomplishing the goals and tasks set for them.

When you hire someone who is mildly or extremely personable yet they may not entirely focus on their jobs, you typically end up with:

* A worker, who will in most instances, be very outgoing and take part in different office functions. They may end up being the life of the party in the office, so one may wonder if they’re not spending too much time talking and not enough time concentrating on their jobs;

* A worker, who oftentimes takes it upon themselves to bring others into the fold as far as office happenings both during and after the work day. This person can sometimes have too much placed on their shoulders as far as helping to bring the team together outside of work or for in-house functions. Remember, you did not hire them to be a party coordinator in most cases.

One of the oftentimes overlooked factors when hiring people is where and how they will fit into your corporate structure.

If you’re hiring someone for your sales team, you want an individual who is outgoing and can make a connection with both current and potential clients. Someone who is more to themselves is not in most cases going to be a good fit. Conversely, the people you hire for in-house work that will not have direct contact with customers and/or upper management do not necessarily need to be bubbly and outgoing.

Another factor to keep in mind when hiring is where the individual will be placed.

Some new-hires are great fits for your company individually, but then they find themselves lost and unhappy when you match them with a manager who is of the complete opposite personality. Conversely, you may hire someone who is more than qualified, yet lacks the ‘people skills’ to be entirely productive. Yet, when you match them up with a stellar manager, you can see them emerge from their shells.

As you can see, there are a myriad of things to consider during the hiring process.

Both talent and personality are just two of the things to consider when the interview process begins.

Dave Thomas writes for Business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.

Motivating Your Employees

2012-01-11T15:00:00.001Z

A good business leader is a multi-faceted individual who possesses many strengths and capabilities. He can manage budgets, spearhead marketing campaigns, design products, network with industry experts, and appraise contract management software. He is dedicated, hard-working, smart, and creative. But even with all these exemplary qualities, a business leader is truly only a leader if he also possesses one crucial trait: motivation skills. In fact, no matter your walk of life, if you seek to be a successful leader you need to be able to motivate those people who follow your guidance.

Motivated employees are more productive and cohesive. They also are more likely to be happy with their job and less likely to seek work elsewhere. But how can you motivate your employees and achieve these results? How can you make them as passionate about your business as you are?

Here are a few tips:

Keep Clear Reinforcements

There are two general ways of explicitly motivating people: positive incentives and negative tactics. Using positive motivation creates goals and incentives to which your employees can strive. Negative motivation, on the other hand, involves using threats or fear of reprisal in order to achieve productivity goals. Far too many employers use a combination of the two in their attempt to motivate workers; this approach, however, causes threats and incentives to cancel each other out and yield counterproductive ends. For this reason it is important to have a clear approach. Of course, when choosing between the two, most experts would say that positive motivation almost always works better than the negative variety in the long term.

Breed Culture

Many office managers and business leaders believe that it is important to promote workplaces that are “fun” and “relaxed.” These two aims certainly reflect admirable goals, but there is really only one overarching word that should come into consideration here: culture. If having fun office outings, free food, and themed work days translate into a more cohesive office culture – one where employees see themselves as members of a family rather than a team of workers – then fostering a fun office is a good approach to take. If not, you need to consider other ways of promoting employee cohesiveness.

Create Team Incentives

Along similar lines, employee motivation often rises when a collaborate work environment is promoted – when it comes to business projects as well as office functions. While creating individualized incentives may breed stress and competition among employees, group projects and targets can translate into productivity, cohesion, and more motivated employers, even on an individual level. Keep in mind that a desire to build a team culture should carry over into hiring practices. Applicants who are good fits for the culture should be sought out. Employees who detract from it, conversely, should probably be let go.

Hopefully these tips can help you plan an appropriate motivational approach. While a good business leader may be highly motivated, a great one needs to be just as capable of instilling that same spirit in his employees.

Are You Using Social Media in Your Small Business Aspirations?

2012-01-06T11:00:00.003Z

With 2012 here, many small business leaders are looking to get the New Year off to a positive start, removing any negative memories of the past 12 months.

For those small business heads who have not implemented productive social media campaigns into their plans over the last 12 months, now is the perfect time to plow forward with such efforts.

One of the great things with deploying a social media strategy for your small business is that it essentially doesn’t cost much money, along with opening you up to a new realm of customers.

Some Small Business Leaders Missing the Boat on Social Media

That being said, many small business leaders have been slow to embrace all social media has to offer, meaning the competition is oftentimes getting a leg up. The bottom line is that one’s return on investment (ROI) can be greatly impacted, leaving them playing catch up to competing small businesses.

If you are a small business head and are still lagging behind when it comes to social media, recognize that a consumer or other business may be a potential lead.

When using social media in your small business plans, this allows you to instantly introduce yourself to potential customers. Not only that, you can guide them to your company’s Web site, providing pertinent information that may lead them to start up a business relationship with you.

Most social media campaigns involve more time than money, so this can be especially attractive for those businesses working on a tighter budget, yet still need to spread their message and attain more leads.

What Are Our Social Media Options?

For a small business who has yet to fully embrace social media, what are some of the better SM outlets to assist one’s business in generating more customers?

Among the more notable options (these are not all of them):

* Facebook – As the leader of social media, Facebook and its approximate 750 million users provide a great resource for small businesses seeking to create more leads. Begin with forming a fan page for your small business. Be sure the page offers visitors’ pertinent information related to your business, is set up for back-and-forth conversations with other small businesses/consumers that follow it, provides linking/subscription information to a company newsletter, and is monitored regularly. One aspect where some small businesses come up short when putting together such a page is that they forget about it and only update it off and on. Doing so will turn off consumers and other small businesses coming to you for possible business;

* Twitter – While a budding rival of Facebook, Twitter differs in the sense that small business leaders can use this SM tool to provide both businesses and consumers interested in their product and/or services with valuable links to industry information. As an example, if your small business falls in the salon area, use a company-based Twitter page to share hair-related information with interested parties. By using Twitter hashtags, you can use keywords like hair, haircuts, hair coloring, hairstyles etc. to link up with others who would find your business useful, therefore bettering your opportunity to generate leads;

* LinkedIn – By interlinking both the professional and company profile, you offer individuals who locate your profile information regarding both you and your business. In generating leads through this social media option, make sure you effectively optimize your profile, become linked up with groups that are interested in your audience so that you can be involved in discussions, and lastly search for individuals at companies you want as potential clients.

Should you still be questioning the importance of social media and its ability to help in generating leads, think about the numbers from a study via Constant Contact and Chadwick Martin Bailey. The report notes that 51 percent of Facebook fans and 67 percent of Twitter followers claimed they were more likely to buy from the companies they “liked” on Facebook or “followed” on Twitter.

As all small business owners should know by now, it all comes down to being social.

Dave Thomas, who covers among other items starting a business, writes extensively for Business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.

Small Business Strategy Guide

2011-12-29T10:00:00.002Z

This small business strategy guide features insight from experts in several industries showcasing what tweaks they see small businesses making to stay afloat. Some highlights include:

• What sets the small business owner and his or her company apart from a larger company when it comes to Internet marketing
• Tips for going beyond a basic online storefront with e-commerce small businesses
• The real root of the problem small business owners face in strategy development and execution

Read More.....Small Business Strategy Guide

Providing Excellent Customer Care

2011-12-14T13:00:00.003Z

There are many different aspects of providing quality customer care. It begins with the call center manager, who is responsible for the call center and all the many outside contacts.

The call center manager will decide the amount of time that is dedicated to the training of customer service agents and team leaders. Training is an important aspect of running a quality call center, as customer service agents need it to appropriately represent a company and deliver great service to the customer.

The shift supervisor communicates between the call center manager and the team leaders. They produce reports from the information they receive from team leaders with regards to any issues with attendance, call times, and customer satisfaction rates.

Team leaders spend most of their time on the call floor providing coaching to their customer care agents to ensure their comfort and positive frame of mind.

These agents have the daily responsibility of staying within their policy and procedure guidelines while occasionally dealing with irate customers and still keeping a smile on their face.

Quality assurance is monitored within a call center to ensure a high level of quality is maintained so that customers are receiving the correct information and that they are treated with respect.

A dedicated IT team will keep the call center, including the telephones, computers and call center software, running smoothly so calls can be answered in a timely fashion.

The Secret of a Business Leader’s Success

2011-12-08T10:00:00.001Z

Experience plays its part and there is always a good measure of luck involved when it comes to understanding what makes a business leader successful.

But there is in fact a deep embedded secret that greatly influences whether a business leader will find success.

That secret is not in the way that they work or indeed not even in what they do, it is a secret that dwells within them.

It is the capacity to believe that they can and will make a success of their business and that nothing will in any way stop them from doing it.

This self confidence and self determination is the secret that drives all of the successful business leaders to be even more successful.

Now you know the secret use it, believe in yourself and make it happen.

Big Business Opportunities

2011-12-02T09:00:00.001Z

The traditional world powers of the United States and Japan are starting to diminish either through economic or natural disaster circumstances and in terms of Europe the bottom really has fallen out of the market.

The new world powers of Brazil, India and China are now emerging and that is where the big business opportunities are to be found.

Any business that recognizes this trend towards these countries will gain the most benefits by investing as much of their business activities with them.

Whether you are a small innovative business, a medium sized traditional business or an internet based business the decision should be the same, get on the bottom rung of the ladder and climb up to those big business opportunities.

By acting now your business will grow as the influence of these new world powers grows.

Filling Your Forward Order Book

2011-11-18T10:00:00.001Z

The purpose of a forward order book in any business is to log everything that has been ordered but not yet bought by prospective customers. It will include any deals where contracts have been signed but have not yet reached completion, as well as reservations for specific items.

The forward order book will act as a good barometer of how a business is faring.

Now is the time to fill your forward order book for 2012 while your prospective customers are beginning to feel the spirit of the season of goodwill.

Share with your customers the future innovations which you intend to develop for your business in the coming year.

Inform them of next year's seasonal promotions and special deals in advance.

Show your customers how much you value them by offering them discounts now on future purchases.

By making an environment of customer inclusion in your ongoing business planning you will discover that your customers will greatly assist you in filling your forward order book and making the prospects for your business much more successful.