Business articles
Showing page 61 of 90 - There are 2700 Business articles
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Hiring a book keeping service
- Whether you choose to do your own books and accounting or hire those services out there are a few things you should know first.A good book keeping service will normally charge you around $200 -500 per month while you are still somewhat small and you can receive: Profit and Loss Statements; Balance Sheets; Bill Paying Services; Checking Account Reconciliation; Journal Reconciliation; Tax Inf...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Cheat sheet; understanding the msds and your obligations in the workplace to employees
- MSDS SHEETSMSDS stands for Material Safety Data Sheets. MSDS sheets contain nine sections. These sections are:I. General InformationII. IngredientsIII. Physical DataIV. Fire and Explosion Hazard DataV. Health Hazard InformationVI. Reactivity DataVII. Spill, Leak and Disposal Procedures VIII. Special Handling InformationIX. User's Respo...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Effective meetings by phone - part 2, how to hold a teleconference
- Even a well-planned teleconference can go poorly. Some people treat any meeting as a casual social activity instead of as a serious business project. And a teleconference brings special challenges because people attend them in the privacy of their office without being able to see or be seen by the other participants.Use these techniques to hold a more effective meeting by phone.1) Be...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Effective meetings by phone - part 1, how to plan a teleconference
- Teleconferences can be a boon or a bust. On the positive side, they allow people at different locations to attend meetings without having to travel. On the negative side, they can degenerate into frustrating struggles with uncontrolled babble. This occurs because people lack visual contact, which hinders effective communication and provides opportunities to misbehave.Here's how to set up an...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Problem-solving success tip: measure
- Measure.The first key question to answer in starting a problem-solving project is, "How will you know when the problem is solved?" Answer this question in measurable terms before you start trying to solve the problem. As you begin defining your problem, these success metrics help set clear expectations about what will be different when you finish. At the end of the project,...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Problem-solving success tip: test your assumptions about everything
- Test your assumptions about everything.Assumptions have a way of creeping into all parts of a problem-solving project. They're often wrong, which can lead to a lot of wasted effort and even cause a problem-solving project to fail entirely. It's very easy to take a strongly stated assertion as true, especially if it's the boss who makes it. Remind everyone involved to be skeptical and...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Hiring great people and how to be one yourself: five secrets
- Bad news.Your senior vice-president, your marketing director or your accounting department head has decided to retire, move to Okinawa or start his own business??and you're left staring, horrified, at a polite letter of resignation. The timing couldn't be worse. You've now got a vacancy to fill, and you need to do it...well, yesterday. Is there any ray of hope?There is. But first, le...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Think twice before selling roi
- When we're selling to business people, our value proposition has to show a good return. Solid, credible Return On Investment (ROI) calculations are supposed to prove this for us. But if we don't think twice, calculating ROI can sabotage our sale.Lots has been written about various ROI methods -- return on assets, net present value, months to break even -- and I'm not knocking any of them he...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Innovation management ? diversity can make all the difference
- Companies are welcoming a diverse range of employees (The Sunday Times, April 10 2005). Doh!It is incredible that this concept is getting coverage in 2005. I mean, how many new ideas, novel ideas and divergent thinking is going to come from an all male, white board!Employees tell us that when you bring together a team that represents different perspectives and different experiences, ...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Crm ...the emperors new clothes
- The story of the emperor's new clothes is a fairy tale about men who fooled the emperor into believing that they had made him a beautiful suit of clothes. In fact they had not made anything. The emperor went out in public wearing nothing but his underwear because he didn't want to appear stupid since they had told him only the wisest people could see the fine fabrics.When the emperor went out in p...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Innovation management ? ibm opens lid on its treasure chest
- IBM, which registered 3248 patents last year, has decided that sharing technology can sometimes be more profitable than jealously guarding its property rights on patents, copyrights and trade secrets (Herald Tribune, April 11 2005).International Business Machines have come to the above conclusion 205 years after the invention of electric light ? thus clearly illustrating that even the 19th ...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Making your workers your partners
- There is an inherent conflict between owners and managers of companies. The former want, for instance, to minimize costs - the latter to draw huge salaries as long as they are in power (who knows what will transpire tomorrow). For companies traded in the stock exchanges, the former wish to maximize the value of the stocks (short term), the latter might have a longer term view of things. In the USA...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - The inferno of the finance director
- Sometimes, I harbour a suspicion that Dante was a Financial Director. His famous work, "The Inferno", is such an accurate description of the job that it cannot be otherwise. He is fervently hated by the workers. He is thoroughly despised by the other managers ("mean bastard" is his common nickname among them, mostly for scrutinizing their expense accounts). He is dreaded by the owners of the firm ...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Dividing the loot
- It is when the going gets better, that the going gets tough. This enigmatic sentence bears explanation: when a firm is in dire straits, in the throes of a crisis, or is a loss maker ? conflicts between the shareholders (partners) are rare. When a company is in the start-up phase, conducting research and development and fighting for its continued, profitable survival in the midst of a massive inves...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - 10 fool proof ways to intensify your profits
- 1. Create benefit intensifiers for your list of ad copy benefits. Example, The Benefit: "Save More Time", The Benefit's Intensifier: "Never Seen Before".2. Use a little humor in your ad copy. It could be the little extra motive you need to close a sale. People are usually persuaded easier if they're in a good mood.3. Ask your visitors questions that induce thoughts, feelings, memorie...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Unravelling the data mining mystery - the key to dramatically higher profits
- Data mining is the art of extracting nuggets of gold from a set of seeminngly meaningless and random data. For the web, this data can be in the form of your server hit log, a database of visitors to your website or customers that have actually purchased from your web site at one time or another.Today, we will look at how examining customer purchases can give you big clues to revising/improv...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Managing motivation
- "Without the chance to meaningfully participate in steering one's own destiny, without the opportunity to gain the sincere respect of one's own peers, without an honest stake in making the community more successful through one's own work and ideas, employability can quickly decay into generic training programs or bogus choices..." --"Beyond Empowerment: Building a Company of Citizens" by Brook Man...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - 10 ways to maintain profits in a slow economy
- 1. Sell more back end products to your existing customer base. You already created rapport, trust and proved your credibility to them.2. Make it a practice to up sell to new and existing customers. After they decide to buy one product, offer them another product.3. Cross promote your products and services with other businesses that aren't competition. You will reach a wider audience ...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Creativity and innovation management ? personality testing
- Whilst tests measuring the creative or innovative personality exist, there are a number of inherent flaws. Some are noted below:a) Whether a creative or innovative type exists at all is highly contentious. Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation ? universal abilities. Creativity can be defined as producing a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a nu...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Creativity and innovation management - core competencies and competitive advantage
- Following is a brief definition of core competencies and competitive advantage and their fit with creativity and innovation management.Core Competence:A core competence is one which critically underpins the organisation's competitive advantage. Companies can differentiate themselves from their competitors with specific core competencies, but often not for long. The differentiation is...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Your biggest problem in business? work ethic
- US Work Ethic Issues and Lack of serviceWell many of us are getting upset with the lack of service these days and no one cares and somehow we have all lowered our standards to the fact that getting good service is not to be expected, but rather a nice surprise if it ever does occur. Many great companies have derelicts, under achievers, cry babies, and people which could really careless...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - A tricky supervision challenge
- Many managers believe that treating their team members as responsible adults will assure excellent results. The truth is that while this usually is effective, some people need much firmer limits than others to perform their jobs.Ellen, the manager of a rehabilitation hospital unit, was discussing her frustration in supervising one of her social workers. Ellen would much rather help Angeliqu...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - First things first -- process before technology
- Here's a brief story I encountered while leaving Newark International Airport following a recent business trip. Hard to believe, but true.After a long flight home from the West Coast, I took a short train ride to the long term parking facility, located my car (which is becoming more difficult with age it seems), and proceeded to the parking exit. Note that it's been a while since I've used ...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - The boss didn?t understand why his staff wasn?t reading his mind
- Many people believe that everyone sees the world exactly the same way as they do. This is never true and was the source of much turmoil in Dr. Jacob's office.When the Job Isn't Getting Done"They never seem to get any work done on time, but they complain that they're being underutilized."Dr. Jacob, a chiropractor, was talking about his office staff."I have...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Influencing change - a guide for sellers, coaches, and supervisors
- When people or groups make a decision to purchase something, they go through the same decision cycle that an individual goes through to decide upon a personal change, or an employee goes through to change behaviors at a boss's insistence.Until now, our communication rules have assumed that when we kindly or persuasively offer others good information that could solve problems and achieve suc...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - The 10 realities of change
- I've seen several articles that begin with lines like "the only constant today is change." I assert that change that is constant can't really be called change. It's simply a new reality. It's time that we accept that things simply don't stay the same and speed to change is the new reality of business. Like any other new reality it requires new responses.There is not more change than there w...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Business fails when we do not talk
- You may remember being told as a child, "Keep quiet!" "Children should be seen, not heard," and "You talk too much." You were a "good" kid if you kept quiet. However, being quiet when you are little causes big problems later in life.As an adult, you may have been punished for communicating. For example, if you admit you committed a crime and are sorry about it, no one cares. You still go to...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Creativity and innovation management - turning ideas into action
- The phrase "turning ideas into action" is a Russian doll.Managing the ideas to implementation process is important for at least two reasons:a) To make effective use of resources ? investing in one idea uses resources that could be applied to another idea. Yet all ideas do not have the same likelihood of success.b) To prevent re-engineering. There is often not enough ...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Creativity and innovation management :- thought leadership
- Leadership is only sustainable when leaders consistently come up with good ideas ? when they are dependable thought leaders. It follows then that leaders would be more effective if they knew how to manage creativity and innovation.Some of the tools for effective creativity management include:a) Develop the brief. Formulating a brief helps i) induce the problem solving state of mind, ...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Manage or lead ? why the difference matters and what to do about that difference
- Many books have been written about managing people, and an equally large number have been written about leadership. Some use the words manage and lead interchangeably, and some talk about the differences between the words, building a distinction based on style or behaviors.With all due respect for these books, let me make it simple.Manage things and lead people.Manage...