VA hospitals neglecting our veterans, global warming, a
poorly rated public education system, unaffordable health
care, and corporate corruption running amok have all been
in the news. What’s going on here? What do all of these
have in common?

“Inadequate leadership”‘ is the answer.

Steven Covey, in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People, mentioned the discovery of an interesting
phenomenon when he reviewed success literature written
during the last 200 years. The success literature of the
past 50 years emphasized the importance of personality and
skill development. The literature of over 50 years ago by
writers such as Emerson, Thoreau, and others, emphasized
character and inner development.

What happens if we do not build a strong foundation through
inner development? We have witnessed charismatic
politicians, ministers, athletes, and others with
tremendous communication and interpersonal skills who ended
up in disgrace and/or prison. What was missing? The
foundation. It was either missing or unstable. Character is
the foundation upon which we must build skills, techniques,
and strategies for effectiveness which can withstand the
test of time and temptation. Without strong character the
likelihood is that our skills will be misused and
improperly channeled, which may be damaging to us and
others.

(more…)

I did a teleconference a few weeks ago with people who were new in sales and new to prospecting. The focus of the call was to help participants get beyond fear and understand their prospecting process.

One of the participants on the call told me that she had
been given the telephone prospecting script that her team
leader uses to set appointments. The team leader was a
highly successful sales professional who had been in the
business for many years and made quite a lot of money. The
participant, who had been in the business for approximately
a week, told me that she was going to work with the script
and “make it her own.”

“No!” I cried out. “Don’t do that! Don’t make it your own!”

My reasoning? This participant was a beginner. She knew
nothing about sales or prospecting. She had a script that
was crafted by someone who was highly successful on the
telephone. This particular participant did not know enough
to make it her own. More than likely, in making the script
her own she would eliminate all of the powerful, persuasive
and motivating language used by the sales super star who
had given her the script.

(more…)

Does this sound like you?

*  You’re spending way too much time trying to network
online and are on networking overload.

*  You’re trying to keep up with all the threads that
relate to your business in all the social networking groups
you’ve joined.

*  You’re also monitoring all the discussion lists you’re
on looking for an opportunity to jump in and share your
pearls of wisdom with the others on the list.

*  You’re afraid to keep track of the hours you spend in
online networking because whatever the number is, it’s way
too high.

*  You’ve just gotten an invitation to join yet another
social networking group and while you’re very flattered,
you realize if you join one more group in an effort to
network your way to a full client roster, you won’t need
any new clients because you’ll be out of business

*  You’re spending so much time trying to master online
networking that you’ve totally neglected the face-to-face
networking that has been working for millions of people for
centuries.  (Come on, how do you think people built their
businesses before the Internet came along?)

I mean, seriously, how much time can you afford to take
away from your work to keep current on all the goings on in
all the online networking groups you belong to without your
business starting to spiral downward?

(more…)

No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.

― John F. Kennedy

An emergency room (ER) nurse kept hearing complaints from
patients who had been waiting for hours to see a doctor.
After reading The 2,000 Percent Solution, she began to keep
track of how long it took various kinds of patients to get
the attention they needed. She was shocked to find that
those who were too sick or injured to explain their
problems but who appeared to be okay sometimes waited for
more than 10 hours ― even if they needed immediate
treatment. This nurse shared her concerns with the other ER
nurses and physicians. They discussed possible solutions
and decided to train the guards at the door to spot people
who couldn’t explain about themselves and bring a triage
nurse immediately to check the patient. Waiting time for
these vulnerable, hard-to-diagnose patients dropped to less
than 10 minutes. Although her colleagues didn’t know it,
they had just put in place a 2,000 percent solution.

A 2,000 percent solution is any method of accomplishing
what your organization does now with zero-to-four percent
of the current time and resources, or accomplishing an
increase of 20 times in results while employing the same or
fewer resources. A combination of those results can also be
a 2,000 percent solution.

That much improvement probably sounds pretty extreme to
you. It shouldn’t. We’ve all seen 2,000 percent solutions,
but we don’t usually label them as such. For instance, a
slow reader takes a course in better reading methods.
Reading speed increases from 100 words to 1,100 words a
minute while comprehension of what is read doubles. The
reading speed increase is a 10-fold improvement, [(1,100 –
100)/100 = 10], and the doubling of comprehension allows
twice as much to be comprehended in whatever reading time
is involved. When you multiply reading 10 times faster by
double the comprehension, you have a 2,000 percent solution
― a 2,000 percent increase in reading comprehension
per minute from the same time and effort.

(more…)

Entrepreneurs work harder than most Americans. They spend countless hours and enormous amounts of energy trying to reach business and financial goals that are often elusive.  They seem to be doing all the right things: attending seminars, scouring the latest business books, networking, guerilla marketing, hoping, and praying.

We all know of business owners who go through the same
motions yet they are far more successful and don’t work
nearly as hard. And, they seem to have more fun. One can
find two businesses providing the same product or service
next door to each other. One business can be thriving-with
more customers than they can handle. The other business can
be close to bankruptcy.

What is the difference? The difference is that the first
business owner is allowing their natural brilliance to run
the business. That natural brilliance is the Law of
Attraction. We are all far greater than we think and we
have truly amazing potential that most people are not even
aware of. The real key to success in life and in business
is accessing your “miracle mind” and unleashing your
capacity for abundance.

The best way to do this is to learn how to make the Law of
Attraction work for you. The Law of Attraction is the most
powerful law in the universe. It works just like a magnet.
Our thoughts are energy and we attract and are attracted to
the people, opportunities, and situations that are in
harmony with what we focus our attention on.

(more…)

Whether you are looking for a low-cost but reliable photocopier for a home office, a networked copier for an office workgroup, or a heavy-duty full colour photocopier for a print-hungry corporate group environment, black-only photocopiers black and colour photocopiers, the choices these days are huge.

Digital technology

If it is a few years since you last took the plunge to
replace an ageing machine, you might be in for a big
surprise at the substantial improvements in design and
features now available to you.

The most obvious and important advances have been due to
the introduction of digital technology. Digital copiers
work by scanning the original document to be copied and
creating a digital image. This digital image is then used
to create all the resulting copies.

Essentially, this “scan once, print many” technology means
that digital copiers do a great job of photocopying
graphics and photos as well as creating far less wear and
tear on parts and equipment. Old hands will know that that
the technology has been around for several years, but if
you are a newcomer, you should not feel that this is a an
unproven new-fangled technology - far from it!

Which photocopier is right for you?

(more…)

Do you have a Business Plan? Congratulations, but you are in a small minority. And if you have a plan, do you actually use it? And have you looked at it in the last few months? If the answer to this question is yes to these questions, then you need to read no further. However, most business owners who actually go to the trouble to write a business plan have left it languishing on their bottom shelf, gathering dust! This is the dirty little secret of business consultants.

Most business consultants are only interested in selling
their time or their ‘Business Plan in a Box’ but know that
for a business plan to be useful, it has to be part of a
Business Management System. But this is a much harder
proposition for the consultant to sell, particularly to
small business owners who are just looking for a quick fix.
So most consultants just sell a quick fix solution-  a
business plan that they know will, within months, end up on
the bottom shelf. Once owners have prepared their “fill in
the blanks” plan, they expect it to transform their
business overnight just by its mere existence. And because
this does not happen, they never look at it again.

Business Plans do work, but you have to make them work. It
is not a one-off exercise. If you buy a ‘Business Plan in a
Box’, you need to understand that you are responsible for
maintaining the plan. You also need to satisfy yourself
that the product you buy is not just a fill in the blanks
product. These plans always end up on the bottom shelf.
They don’t show you how to do your strategic analysis
(which is never a fill in the blanks exercise- no matter
what someone tells you).

(more…)

As a small business start-up coach, I get asked a lot of questions.  The most frequent one:  Where do I get start-up cash?

I’m always glad when my clients ask me this question. Their
readiness to take financial responsibility for their
business is a sure sign that they’re serious about starting
it.

Not All Money Is the Same

There are two types of start-up financing: debt and equity.
Consider what type is right for you.

Debt Financing is the use of borrowed money to finance a
business.  Any money you borrow is considered debt
financing.

Sources of debt financing loans are many and varied:
banks, savings and loans, credit unions, commercial finance
companies, and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)
are the most common.  Loans from family and friends are
also considered debt financing, even when there is no
interest attached.

Debt financing loans are relatively small and short in term
and are awarded based on your guarantee of repayment from
your personal assets and equity.  Debt financing is often
the financial strategy of choice for the start-up stage of
businesses.

Equity financing is any form of financing that is based on
the equity of your business.  In this type of financing,
the financial institution provides money in return for a
share of your business’s profits.  This essentially means
that you will be selling a portion of your company in order
to receive funds.

Venture capitalist firms, business angels, and other
professional equity funding firms are the standard sources
for equity financing.  Handled correctly, loans from
friends and family could be considered a source of
non-professional equity funding.

(more…)

The temptations are there – warm, lazy, casual days, when
the shoes of choice are “flip flops.” Taking the summer off
and getting back into the groove of things when the “kids
go back to school” would be very easy. You think to
yourself, “Nothing’s happening during the summer anyway –
everybody goes on vacation during these months.”

Stop! This is not the time for giving in to those pleasures
and giving up on your job search, at least not all the way.
You are better off pacing yourself during the summer
months, and not stopping your search altogether.

Currently, the numbers of jobs being added to the workforce
are reported as a positive sign that things may be opening
up on the job front. You don’t want to miss out on new
opportunities or let someone else get that great job you’ve
been waiting for – do you?

Here are six ways to get through your job search this
summer and still enjoy some sun and fun – guilt free.

1. Get up earlier. The sun is up earlier and the early
morning hours are much cooler than at high noon. Try
leaving your blinds open or shades up and rise when the sun
begins to stream through the window. Try to remember what
it was like getting up for work on those cold, winter
mornings. One bonus to early rising is that the house can
be quieter. Hit the Internet before the rest of the family
or household is even out of bed.

2. Set a schedule for yourself. Plan to work at your job
search for a certain number of hours each day – 2,4, or 6
hours. Stick to the schedule that you set for yourself. If
you work on the schedule that has a beginning and an end,
you can quit on time and still enjoy the rest of the day –
guilt free.

(more…)

Looking for that new job?  Or just curious to know what else is out there?

Social Networking websites have taken on a storm the past couple of years.  From the well known Myspace.com and Facebook.com to the many others that pop up daily.

Finally, there is a job seekers social networking website that is taking the recruiting industry by storm: BlueChipExpert.com

However, BlueChipExpert.com is by invitation only.  If you would like an invitation, please email me at damon @ ceoconsultant.com

BlueChipExpert.com is unique in that it is not only looking for top notch consultants, software enginers, and creative directors, but it offers a referral fee to those that introduce these people to BlueChipExpert.com and get placed for a project.

Many high end job seekers do not want to post their resume on Monster.com or CareerLadder.com.  Instead, they like to use their network of collegues and friends to find those positions.  BlueChipExpert.com uses this network to provide high end jobs for those high end job seekers.

It’s a win-win-win situation for everyone involved.

To learn more how BlueChipExpert.com works, visit money.cnn.com