More Success For Business Leaders

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.

Are Your Customers Always Right?

2011-11-04T13:00:00.001Z

Expert Reveals Which Ones Are Right for Your Business

In business, the squeaky wheel almost always winds up getting the grease. Customers tend to be rewarded for complaining, but that strategy leaves money on the table, according to marketing consultant Betsy Kruger.

“No one likes hearing a complaint, so when a customer complains, a business quickly and resoundingly rectifies the complaint,” said Kruger, author of Top Market Strategy: Applying the 80/20 Rule (www.BetsyKruger.com). “The problem with this strategy is that disgruntled customers bring in less profit than loyal customers. Your business should focus on gratifying your most profitable customers.”

Contrary to popular opinion, the customer is not always right, Kruger says.

“It’s wrong to reward complainers,” she says. “You should reward loyal customers since they reward your business with higher profit. You should value their business since loyal customers value your business.”

Kruger says the 80/20 rule governs all results, including profits from customers.

“When you sort customers by their profitability, this universal law predicts that the top 20 percent of your customers will generate 80 percent of your profit. Conversely, the bottom 80 percent of your customers will generate only 20 percent of your profit – and virtually all of your complaints. This means you should target the top 20 percent with a top market strategy.”

Your business can profit from the 80/20 rule by enacting these steps:

Distinguish your top customers – Identify ways the top 20 percent of your customers differ from other customers and what characteristics they have in common. Realize that your top customers are highly profitable.

Target your top customers – Gratify your top customers with a top market strategy. Discontinue marketing to the bottom 80 percent of your customers by automating all interactions with that group.

Promote to top prospects – Focus resources on converting similar prospects into top customers. When you replace your less profitable customers with these new customers, you can expect your total profit from customers to quadruple.

“You may feel it’s rude to consider some customers as less valuable than others, but research proves it’s true,” Kruger says. “The top 20 percent of your customers magnifies your profit, whereas the bottom 20 percent of your customers magnifies your complaints.”

“I feel it’s rude to reward complainers since loyal customers deserve to be rewarded. When you prioritize your customers with the 80/20 rule, you are prioritizing your profit.”

About Betsy Kruger

Betsy Kruger heads Strategic Power, a marketing consultancy committed to empowering world prosperity, one business at a time. Business Expert Press released her book, Top Market Strategy: Applying the 80/20 Rule, in August 2011. This book enriches marketing and strategy textbooks and shows business leaders exactly how to quadruple their profit from customers. She writes articles, motivates groups, leads seminars, and consults with clients on how to prosper from the 80/20 rule.

Training Is Important For Success

2011-11-02T13:00:00.002Z

The right training for your people can make the difference between success and failure in their jobs. Effective training of your people will also make your business more successful.

Train them to understand exactly what you have to offer that is unique and exactly which target audiences would best use what you have to sell. The success rate will be much higher because you will be focusing your efforts only on those customers that have a high probability of buying.

When they make contact with your customers it is a critical test. The contact may be in person, over the phone, or by letter. Regardless of which approach is used, they should build credibility and trust.

They need to get enough information to know the customer's needs and what it will take to fulfil them. To do that, they should listen to what the customer says and also know how to ask questions.

Your people should always be in step with their customers. The goal is gaining a truly committed customer. It requires trust, respect, and open communication on each side.

Assuring customer satisfaction is indispensable to gaining success. If you make sure the customer is satisfied, it is more likely that there will be repeat business as well as referrals.

Train your people to think long term. All future business depends on their ability to reaffirm your commitment to quality and service.

Understanding Business Interactions

2011-10-28T09:00:00.000+01:00

It seems fairly safe to say that anyone who runs a business would like their company to grow. Whatever field you work in, you’re probably looking for ways to perfect your operations so that you can expand them and increase the amount of work that you do. In order to do this, you need to understand your business interactions.

This means it’s important for businesses to understand their customers – the people who give them their business and keep them operating. Being able to look back on a successful sale (or even an unsuccessful one) to see what happened and what you can learn from it is hugely valuable when it comes to working out what you could improve on for next time. It also helps you to identify trends in your business interactions.

For instance, do you find that you do a lot of your business with a particular type of customer? Are those customers individuals or other businesses? What sort of sectors do they work in? Do they give you repeat business? What are your most popular products and services?

Knowing the answers to these sorts of questions is a key part of understanding business interactions and learning how to apply them to the growth and development of your company. CRM software is something that can help you with this, enabling you to keep track of data and deals more easily. For those not in the know, CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, and CRM systems offer a wide range of features depending on your needs. You can get CRM solutions for businesses of all sizes, so it’s worth doing some research to find out about your options before you choose which one to buy.

Let’s take strategy as an example. Imagine you have a large database of customers – all the people or businesses that have ever bought anything from your company. You want to develop a strategy to work out which of them is the most profitable and has the most potential as your business moves forward. You also want to identify trends in your customer data. A good CRM system will help you to do this, identifying how much customers are worth to you and, from this, which are the most profitable.

This can help you to determine and analyse your business interactions – something that would take much longer and would be more complicated without the software to help you. When time is of the essence, it certainly makes sense to use a CRM system to help you wherever possible.

How to Increase Workplace Productivity

2011-10-17T09:00:00.002+01:00

All business leaders would love to increase the productivity in their workplaces, but doing so can sometimes be a challenge. It can be challenging for a range of reasons, but there are certain aspects that businesses should look at if they want to increase workplace productivity. Read on to find out more.

Organisation

Having organised working structures and timetables can help to improve productivity, especially in workplaces where organisation was previously lacking. For instance, using CRM software to help manage certain procedures can make processes more orderly, helping to focus the minds of employees. Knowing exactly what they should be doing and when they should be doing it is definitely a key to productivity.

Leadership

Good leadership can also help your team get more done in the workplace. After all, if your team are unsure of what they’re working towards, it will be hard to achieve much at all. Making sure everyone knows their individual role as part of the larger team can help with this, as many people thrive on responsibility but also like to have the security of a team around them.

Technology

Making use of technology can also help to drive up productivity. For instance, using CRM systems to take care of some processes that would otherwise need to be done manually (such as large email mail-outs or collecting website analytics) will leave staff free to focus on other things. All the important tasks will still get done, but your team will be able to dedicate more time to tasks that could help grow the business.

Chance for Creativity

Research has shown that, when people feel their work life is too regimented, they lose morale and productivity can drop. Conversely, allowing room for innovation and creativity can help drive up productivity as people feel their input is more valued and they are able to think independently in order to deliver solutions. This means that a combination of technology - such as CRM solutions - to speed up certain processes and room for your team to be more creative in other areas could be beneficial for your company. It might even produce some great ideas you never thought of before.

Invest in People

Finally, investing in the people who work for you is another good way to increase productivity. Sending your staff on worthwhile training courses, for instance, can teach them new skills and open them up to new ideas and ways of working, which can then be applied to your company in order to create better results.

What Makes a Business Successful?

2011-09-27T09:00:00.000+01:00

With millions of businesses registered in the United Kingdom, it is naturally important for companies to do everything they can to stand out in order to become successful. But what is the secret of business success? What can businesses do to help boost their chances of achieving it?

One of the most important things that any business can do is to give its customers what they want. Ideally, you shouldn’t create a business without having a specific purpose in mind (such as selling a particular type of product or service to a certain audience), and so one of the keys to business success is knowing what your aim is and delivering on it.

This means that you need to engage your customers: you need to know who your target audience is, what they like and what might encourage them to use your business. Good customer service is a vital part of this. For instance, if you own a shop, making customers feel welcome when they come in is one of the most important things you can do.

Something that can help you achieve your business aims is customer relationship management, or CRM software. There is a range of CRM systems available for you to choose from, including software that helps you to analyse customer data, such as which are your most popular products. It can also keep track of your contacts and make it easier for you to send out emails to a large group of people, which is one way of keeping in touch with your customers.

This means it is definitely worth giving CRM solutions some thought, as engaging with your customers is certainly important. In order for your company to become a success, though, you should also make sure you have a comprehensive strategy in place. A large part of this will be your business plan, which is where you set out the aims of your company, usually for the next three years. This is something that you can use as a guide to work out what you should be doing and when.

It can include big things such as launching your website or developing a new service, as well as smaller things such as running promotions or deciding when you are going to send out a newsletter. In conjunction with your CRM software, a passion for your business and a desire to succeed and give your customers the great service they deserve, you will be giving your business the best possible chance of becoming a success.

Innovative Small Businesses Will Create The Jobs

2011-09-15T13:00:00.002+01:00

Many recessions have been experienced previously in the world, where many people have lost their jobs and have been out of work for a long time.

And in each of those recessions it was the small businesses that came to the rescue.

Innovative small businesses are the ones which create the new jobs, not the big companies and large conglomerates.

In all countries throughout the world the way to beat the recession and to get sustainable economic recovery is to stimulate, motivate and invest in the innovative small businesses which will create the jobs.

This is a tried and tested solution that works because it not only creates jobs, but also new ideas, new products and new businesses which increases consumer confidence and boosts the economy.

Attributes of a Successful Business

2011-09-02T21:33:00.000+01:00

Entrepreneurs know the awesome power of networking. They take the time to identify and build relationships with their peers, mentors, and advisors. This inner network should be cultivated because it will provide support and direction.

Customer commitment is required to understanding the customer’s wants and needs which provides your business with an opportunity to earn a loyal customer base. Focus toward what you can do to improve the life of your customers.

Be open and honest about yourself and your business it will create more growth for you as an individual and for your company. Building up your strengths instead of fixing your weakness is the path to success.

Nothing ever goes as planned. The world of business is full of surprises and unforeseen events. Using adaptability allows business owners to respond to circumstances with the agility to change course and act.

Problems are a regular part of business. Every problem can be turned into an opportunity. Be opportunity focused and make the game of business fun and energising.

Productivity is the cornerstone of a business. Formulate the habit of finding a better way to make your business more productive. This will create more time to focus on the critical issues that drive sales and profit.

A business can consume your time and energy. It's easy to allow the business to take control of your life. Separating time for daily business tasks, profit driven tasks, and free time is an attribute that will make your business and life more enjoyable.

Grow Your Business with VoIP

2011-08-25T20:59:00.001+01:00

If your business isn’t growing, then it might as well be shrinking. Today’s economy demands that companies of all sizes continue to set and reach higher goals. Many businesses, however, find that they struggle to expand, especially in areas where high real estate costs prevent them from finding office spaces that are large enough to accommodate a growing staff. However, by utilizing VoIP technology, business owners find that many of these obstacles disappear.

VoIP can help companies grow faster without the traditional overhead costs of phone lines and office space. This allows your business to be more nimble and expand more quickly than competitors that have not made the switch.

Working Remotely

VoIP services often make larger office spaces unnecessary, giving users the opportunity to use networks that do not rely on proximity to a central location. In other words, employees are now free to work from home, coffee shops, or any other place that offers a secure Internet connection.

Having the technology to allow employees to work remotely gives businesses the ability to save money on real estate and improve employee satisfaction and productivity. When expansion is necessary, instead of moving to a new building that can house more staff members, more and more companies are encouraging remote offices and sometimes even hiring staff that live in a different location. This flexibility allows the business to grow and expand without traditional constraints.

Outsourcing

VoIP also offers the opportunity to effectively increase the size of your staff without actually hiring new employees. Outsourcing can save a lot of money on payroll taxes, health insurance, and other benefits that you would offer your employees.

When you outsource some of your business’s needs to another company, you reduce the amount of money that you have to invest in individual employees. Instead, you get the work done that you need and you let another company handle the details of training employees, implementing schedules, and developing policies that will lead to improved customer service.

Business owners can even seamlessly integrate outsourced services and internal operations making it possible to add on to current staff without spending a lot of money on training, work stations, and additional computers. This allows the business to expand quickly and react to ever changing economic conditions.

When a customer calls your business, a VoIP network can redirect some of those calls to the outsource center that handles your call center’s overflow, reducing the amount of time that customers spend waiting on the phone and resulting in improved customer service and increased profits.

Useful VoIP Features

A good VoIP network offers many more benefits. For instance, you could save money on domestic and international calls, monitor incoming and outgoing calls more easily, and integrate your phone system with your customer service software. With so many benefits to using these systems instead of standard phone lines, all businesses should consider learning more about VoIP to determine whether this technology will help them reach their goals more efficiently.

Be Assertive and Earn More

2011-08-16T22:31:00.000+01:00

A recent American study has found that the people who are more assertive in their behaviour within the workplace will earn eighteen percent more in salary than the less assertive employee.

Assertiveness is not being aggressive or demanding, it is about having a strong belief in yourself and your abilities. And it is also about being confident enough to say no to your boss and telling them that you deserve more.

Earning more in today’s business world means that you have to use good negotiation skills and assertively stand up for what you deserve. Being nice will make you a lot of friends at work, but it will not increase your earning potential.

Pressure Causes Accidents

2011-08-03T09:00:00.001+01:00

The pressure of this long recession on businesses has resulted in a position where many companies are endeavouring to create significant cost savings, so that they can survive.

These cost savings have in most cases been in the form of reductions of their workforce. This reduction in the amount of workforce available has understandably put a considerable amount of pressure on the remaining workers to somehow do more with less people.

That is the sort of pressure in the workplace that can and in many cases does cause work related accidents and personal injuries to occur to the many workers who are under stress.

Most businesses have sensibly taken out insurance to cover these types of eventualities, but there are quite a lot of businesses who have either had no insurance or have cancelled it to save on their business costs.

These work related injuries are accidents which many businesses can ill afford to pay for and they will want to find ways to avoid paying out any claims.

As an individual you have the right under the rules of law to be able to claim for any personal injuries which you sustain whilst working on the premises of your employer.

Those injuries may well leave you in a position where you can no longer work and support your family. So, an accident claim would ensure that you still had income to cover the necessities in your life.

Yes, it may indeed put financial pressure on your employer’s business by making a claim, but the more important thing is your future survival.

Always be careful at work, but if accidents happen, claim.

Grow Your Small Business Out of the Recession

2011-08-01T10:00:00.004+01:00

The recession may have hit small businesses hard, but there are still lots of opportunities for them to succeed. The hit taken by the economy means that innovation is now key to success and this is something that a lot of small businesses are very good at. If you work for or run a small company and are looking for ways to grow your business out of the recession, read on for some ideas.

If you are looking to grow your business, then the first thing you need to do is make sure it is already as efficient as it can be. This will make sure you are only spending what you need to, therefore maximising the resources you have to invest in your business. For instance, think about your payroll. Quite a lot of small companies still do their payroll manually, but it is much more efficient to use payroll software.

For a relatively small initial investment, you can save lots of time. The payroll software will be able to do your tax and NI calculations, produce reports and payslips, store records and generally save you a lot of time. This is great for your business as it means you will have more resources to dedicate elsewhere. There are also great payroll courses and payroll training options available to help you maximise the efficiency of the software.

Once you are satisfied that your business is operating as well as it possibly can, it’s time to start looking elsewhere in order to grow it. Quite often, you might find that your competitors went under in the recession and so it could be a good idea to get in touch with their previous clients to see if there’s any business to be had. You could also ask your existing clients whether there’s any other way you could help them or if they know anyone who might be in need of your services.

Overall, think carefully about your current position and where you want to go, so you can map out a path to achieve your goals while still maintaining those all-important high standards of quality.

Watch Out The Chinese Are Coming

2011-07-11T13:00:00.002+01:00

The world is slowly seeing a shift in relative power with the emergence of stronger developing countries, such as China, India and Brazil. The largest and fastest growing of these economies is China.

China intends to increase its growth by investing in many other countries and acquiring companies and businesses that will best meet its future needs.

China is now emerging as the new superpower potentially taking over the role that has been held by the United States of America. After all it is China that is lending the USA money to keep it afloat.

But China's way of doing business is slightly different, they do believe in reciprocal trading, but on their terms. They are growing so fast using up many of the world's scarce resources, which they will buy from any country that has them.

Doing business with China has always been quite easy as long as you understand that they go by their word and a handshake rather than formal documents and contracts. Anyone who does business with the Chinese has the potential to grow their business as China grows.

Many country leaders are falling over themselves to have meetings both in China and in their own countries with the Chinese leader and his delegates, so that they can position themselves better in trading agreements.

This is also very good news for any of the businesses in these countries who can capture new business from the Chinese.

Leadership Knowledge From Great Leaders

2011-07-01T13:00:00.001+01:00

You will gain many valuable insights from these ten knowledge packed great leader books. Read and learn about how these great leaders used their talent to achieve amazing things in their lives.

From different countries and all walks of life these now famous people were able to develop the use of their skills to change their lives and the lives of all around them.

Use what you learn from within these ten knowledge packed great leader books to enhance the amount of opportunities and success which you can achieve in your business life.

Read More.....Leadership Knowledge From Great Leaders

Stealing Ideas From Your Competition

2011-06-20T13:00:00.002+01:00

Knowing your competition and what they are doing is so important if you want to succeed in business. By understanding what other business leader's are doing you will provide yourself with valuable insights into how you can improve your own business.

Reviewing your competition will open your eyes and mind to new business concepts and you will learn what it is that captivates their customers and then you can use the same technique in your own business.

Review as often as you can across the many different aspects of your competitor's business and make notes about what you find that is useful to improve your business fortunes.

The more you review your competitors, the more you will succeed as a business leader.

Family Businesses – Opportunities in Enterprise

2011-06-07T13:00:00.003+01:00

If you run a small or medium sized business, do you employ any family members? Currently, more than a fifth (21%) do so. The impact can be great – a staggering 94% of SMEs employing family members felt that their business had benefited as a result.

The source of these figures is specialist public liability insurance providers, Hiscox, who carried out a survey of 1000 UK business owners on the subject of family employment. Interestingly, 43% of those currently employing family members said that this was due to the recent recession. A lot of SMEs have struggled due to happenings in the financial world, but employing a family member could help you weather the storm.

One reason for this could be that the recession has led to people with the right skills being available: if there is someone in your family who has been made redundant and has great experience and skills, employing them in your business could be mutually beneficial.

Of course, when employing family members, there are things to consider. The Hiscox survey found that 43% of those questioned felt that the biggest risk was keeping family and work life separate. A further 25% were worried about family politics but positively, while succession of business ownership is generally seen as being a big issue, only 8% felt that this was a risk.

While this shows that there are definitely issues to consider when employing a family member, the fact that you already know them means you are more likely to be able to easily identify the relevant risks. Plus, your pre-existing shared interests mean that it’s in both your interests to make it work. With the majority of SMEs in this study who employ family members saying that it’s a good thing to do, there are clear benefits to the business that can be found.

Successfully Regaining Customer Trust

2011-05-30T13:00:00.001+01:00

Everybody seems to think that the economy will recover if businesses can find a way of creating an environment that will ensure that there is customer confidence.

It is true that businesses have got to provide an environment where customers feel that they can do business with them and believe that they are getting great value.

But what is crucial at this point in time is for all businesses to work at the more important task of regaining customer trust, which was so badly dented during the financial crisis and the current recession.

And the only way to successfully regain customer trust is to be honest with them, transparent in all of your dealings and put an emphasis on making the experience of doing business with you a true customer delight.

It will not happen overnight, it takes time to build any trust relationship, but it will happen if you make everything in your business put the customer first in all of your efforts.

Customer Trust - Customer Value - Customer Delight - Customer Confidence

A Winning Formula

2011-05-16T13:00:00.001+01:00

Is there a winning formula for business success?

This question is asked by nearly every business leader at some time in their life and the short answer is, yes there is.

In all walks of life, whether it is sport, politics, education or even home cooking, there is a winning formula that will bring you success and it is no different for business.

Success in business comes from being observant, being aware, being able to take risks and being in the right place at the right time. These are the main factors for a winning formula.

Being observant means constantly watching what is happening in your business and determining what is working and what is not.

You should always be aware of what your competition is doing and if it is bringing them success, as well as being aware of what customers are saying about the things which they need most in their lives.

In any business the opportunities will present themselves in all sorts of ways and it is sometimes necessary to take a risk and be courageous in order to capture that opportunity.

And the final factor of any winning formula is that you will need to have a measure of luck.