Will You Add? - Business

Starting A New Business Is Easy And Other Myths
You’ve got your business ideas, you know what you want to sell and to whom. You’ve even got enough money to survive for six months. The next bit is easy then. Sorry no it’s not – now the hard grind starts. Here are some business myths that you should be careful not to believe.Starting a new business is easy: Well you have done a lot of the hard work if you’ve done your planning but now you are working for yourself and need to be your own boss. You will need to set clear objectives, work towards them and keep yourself motivated.I won’t have to work so hard: Sorry but entrepreneurs generally work harder and longer hours, particularly at the start of their business life. The difference is that they generally enjoy it and get rewarded for their effort.I’ll be the boss: To a certain extent you will be BUT please remember that your “customer is king”. Look after them and, apart from your bank

Retailing Quality Chess Sets Whilst Dealing With a Third World Country
Increased Competition - need for low costs of goods and time With a surge of online business, much competition is experienced accross all industries. With chess retailing many companies have sprung up to take advantage of what the internet affords us - a relatively easy way to put up a commercial store. The increased competition has had three main effects: 1. Now the goods have to the right goods, be of good quality and be worth their price. 2. The profit margin is reduced through the competition. 3. The cost of being seen by customers through such mediums as web advertising (adwords, etc.) has risen significantly as merchants see the front page as the new High Street/Mall.Therefore more than ever (and clearly set to become more critical) there is a need for suppliers to provide high quality goods for a low price. In the case of chess sets, chess boards and chess pieces, once the goods are imported, tax paid, packaging bought, pa

This thought was triggered by an article in the February 2005 issue of Harvard Business Review entitled "Breakthrough Ideas for 2005". The article has a brief synopsis of 20 breakthrough ideas for 2005. One of those was subtitled "Seek Validity Not Reliability" and was written by Roger L. Martin, the dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and director of the AIC Institute for Corporate Citizenship.

Reliability versus Validity

In the above referenced article, the thrust was a challenge to corporations to balance the need for process-driven reliability with a quest for validity. Here is a key paragraph from the article, "Six Sigma, CRM, Sarbanes-Oxley, and most other corporate systems have one thing in common: They are reliability-oriented processes. They are intended to produce identical or consistent results under all circumstances, often by analyzing objective data from the past. For instance, a perfectly reliable poll would be able to produce the same result from ten random samples of voters. By contrast, a perfectly valid poll would be able to predict an election's winner." The article continues to il

Fundraising Mailing Lists: How List Brokers Can Help
Last time I checked, there were 25,000 response lists and 50,000 compiled lists currently on the market. Among all of these lists, you'll find hundreds that work for fundraising appeals. Actually, you likely won't find them. Locating the best names for your mailing is complicated and best left to an experienced list broker. A list broker is a specialist who researches and recommends lists for you, and manages all the paperwork and other details of renting the list.An experienced list broker: helps you find new listsidentifies profitable segments on unlikely listshelps you create a matrix for testing your mailing against other listsnegotiates the best prices for you with the list ownerrecommends other media (such as email) to consider testingmakes sure the list gets to your lettershop on timehelps you evaluate your response rates, gift income and other r

Validity Not Reliability" and was written by Roger L. Martin, the dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and director of the AIC Institute for Corporate Citizenship.

Reliability versus Validity

9 Tips for Making Callers Feel Taken Care Of
Here are 9 super-simple tips for making callers feel taken care of over the phone... Consider holding a 5-minute training session with your staff and share these 9 tips for making sure callers feel taken care of. 1. Smile -You can actually hear a smile through the telephone. When you smile, you sound friendly, interested, and helpful. You also make the customer feel that your sole intent is to be of service and people really can tell the difference. So smile! 2. Tell the caller your name - Giving the caller your name demonstrates accountability and communicates a sincere desire to help. It also gives customers a reference should they need to call your company back. 3. Ask questions - You should ask questions for these reasons: To gain information To focus the conversation To gain consensus when necessary To begin the call closure process

Your Future View Will Determine The Future You
How you view the future shapes your actions. Technology has changed the future. The future is not what it is. Anticipation of the future is the key to the success of corporations. It is good to step back to look at the big picture at times, hence the need for rest and relaxation. Your worst enemy is relying on past successes. You need to reinvent your cash cow. Your views and perceptions of the future will determine the new you.Many things are shifting and future views have to be changed. We have shifted from the information age to communication age, from passive data to interactive media, from computerization to intelligent network, from local access to universal access.Human resource management has shifted its focus from upgrading technology to upgrading people, job security to job employability, job titles to job skills. We need to become migrant professionals instead of corporate men, and change from single-sk

es-Oxley, and most other corporate systems have one thing in common: They are reliability-oriented processes. They are intended to produce identical or consistent results under all circumstances, often by analyzing objective data from the past. For instance, a perfectly reliable poll would be able to produce the same result from ten random samples of voters. By contrast, a perfectly valid poll would be able to predict an election's winner." The article continues to il

360 Degree Feedback - Legal Pitfalls and Dangers?
There are legal risks and potential liabilities involved with using 360 degree feedback, although you can reduce your risk by using 360 feedback correctly. The risk of a law suit associated with 360 increases when you use it for determining promotions, bonuses, pay raises and the like. It's much less when the ONLY purpose you use 360 for is to improve performance. In other words, use 360 as a replacement for traditional performance appraisals, and you have the potential for legal problems.For the most part, the risks associated with performance appraisal in general, and 360 specifically have to do with whether the information used is valid, job related, accurately measures employee performance, and is not discriminatory against any protected classes. The major issue has to do with the potential for someone from a designated minority group who has been passed over for promotion, to accuse the company of discrimination. If 360 is used to

he past. For instance, a perfectly reliable poll would be able to produce the same result from ten random samples of voters. By contrast, a perfectly valid poll would be able to predict an election's winner." The article continues to illuminate the negative consequences of highly structured processes: loss of creativity/innovation. Here is a table from the article to add more clarity.

While the HBR article illustrates the negative impact of rigidly applied business processes, it does not provide a model to gauge the degree of structure to be applied for a specific business process. The purpose of this article is to provide such a model.

The NASCAR Perspective

Throughout my business education and career, I have tried to liken businesses and business processes to biological systems, thinking of organizations as organisms. Each organism has its own intellectual and physiological functions. This is the traditional model.

With this model, however, I have struggled with the questions of how much process to apply and to

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TV has always been a popular stepping stone on the way to Hollywood stardom. The film industry will

This article presents a review of the careers of fifty executives who have been outstanding in traversing the careers of their professional lives. In a world of short job tenure-elongated middle age, most executives will have to manage two separate careers. One career is called W-2 and is the traditional “job.” The other career is called 1099 and will be interim or consulting work.

If you have ever bought products outside of retail stores, you most likely know of the great deals that can be had from getting your items from overseas. You can get your products for a fraction of the cost. Most people are not aware that the items that they buy are usually imported, so they are not aware of the great savings they are missing out on. It can be hard for an individual to make purchases as such overseas, but for a businessperson, it can be a great asset that they can obtain quite easily.

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Will You Add? - Business Process: A NASCAR Perspective

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