Will You Add? - Business

Don't Be Shy About Asking For The Sale - At Least Once!
I was doing a sales training project at a company in Los Angeles when I had an opportunity to hear the business owner address his sales crew.I usually enjoy watching other trainers, but this was a special treat. Frank is self-made. He built his company on grit and guts, and I admire him.Sure enough, within a minute of entering the training room, I was rewarded with one of his key teachings:“No matter how much you think you screwed-up your presentation, no matter how embarrassed you feel, no matter how shy you are, never leave someone’s office without asking for the order, at least once,” he urged.His logic is that we tend to be overly critical with our performances, and just because we think we erred, the prospect may have overlooked our miscue, altogether. Add to this the fact that

when I started up successfuloffice.com. Our complaints span years. Last week we had enough already as employee paychecks keep getting returned stamped "addressee not known, return to sender". This would be funny if it weren't so sad, but I actually made a video that will be up on YouTube shortly showing the post office letters returned with their stickers. Do a search there for 'The Post Office Stinks' Imagine if you will your own company sending you your paycheck, and the post office returning it stamped undeliverable. Our manager then goes to the local office which is located in Pompano Beach Florida and complained. They say all is fine so we re-mail the checks without opening them to keep the postal stickers on them. Three weeks later they come back yet again with another stamp on it saying addressee unknown. Is that sad or what? I had to Fede

2007 Small Business Networking Strategies
Small businesses need to continually be networking in the community to increase their chances for success. It is not enough for a small businessperson to simply advertise in the newspaper, send out direct mail, have ads on the local cable TV station and the radio and expect that to be enough. Advertising and marketing is a large expense and small businesses need to watch their outflow. Networking in any type of small business will increase sales and help with the word-of-mouth advertising.In these small business articles I have written I often talk about many secret strategies that I have used in the past 30 years to help grow my companies. It is amazing what a small business can do on a rather limited marketing budget if they will apply simple but sound networking strategies. Some folks are little

It is becoming extremely difficult to mail a letter these days, even if local delivery is only expected. The United States Postal Service has degraded to such an extent that they now routinely throw 'undeliverable' and 'return to sender' stickers on a large proportion of letters. It doesn't matter what state you are in and what kind of letters you are mailing. The Post Office is now an enemy of small business and regular folks. In fact if you want to mail anything to anywhere, beware of the recent events transpiring all over the United States.

Don't get me wrong; in terms of our post office being compared to the uninspiring postal services in nations around the world, we are near the top in efficiency. Scary thought since unfortunately this is a world where there are whole nations such as Nigeria, Egypt, Spain, Russia and Greece that routinely lose mail on massive scales. People who need something delivered in these nations either have to pray their letters or parcels get to the recipients, or use private companies such as Fedex or UPS, which can be expensive. Therefore the bar is so low in terms of efficiency that it is now at the pathetic level. To simply deliver the mail in any time frame is a challenge these days. Being the best in this industry then is no accomplishment to say the least. American citizens used to have confidence in our Post Office. Benjamin Franklin who is the founder of the first organized national post office on the planet, would roll over in his grave if he knew how his beloved postal service has devolved.

Background and Founding of The U.S. Postal System

On July 26, 1775, members of the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, agreed ". . . that a Postmaster General be appointed for the United States, who shall hold his office at Philadelphia, and shall be allowed a salary of 1,000 dollars per annum . . . ." On this day, Benjamin Franklin was appointed Postmaster General, the first appointed under the Continental Congress. He would serve in this post, shaping our Postal Services until November 7, 1776. The Motto of the Post Office is:

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. This motto is explained on the Post Office's main website. The origin of the motto as explained by them is as follows:

This inscription was supplied by William Mitchell Kendall of the firm of McKim, Mead & White, the architects who designed the New York General Post Office. Kendall said the sentence appears in the works of Herodotus and describes the expedition of the Greeks against the Persians under Cyrus, about 500 B.C. The Persians operated a system of mounted postal couriers, and the sentence describes the fidelity with which their work was done.

The Motto No Longer Fits - FACT

Is there anyone who has experience using the postal services in this nation who likes their performance? I think not. One of my businesses is a C.M.R.A., which stands for Commercial Mail Receiving Agency, and I have a unique perspective on the inner workings of this inefficient relic of the past that we call the Post Office.

Here is a perfect example just this past month on how well they deliver mail. One of my offices is located in Florida and we mail the employee paychecks to that office. We've had problems with the post office going back to 1996 when I started up successfuloffice.com. Our complaints span years. Last week we had enough already as employee paychecks keep getting returned stamped "addressee not known, return to sender". This would be funny if it weren't so sad, but I actually made a video that will be up on YouTube shortly showing the post office letters returned with their stickers. Do a search there for 'The Post Office Stinks' Imagine if you will your own company sending you your paycheck, and the post office returning it stamped undeliverable. Our manager then goes to the local office which is located in Pompano Beach Florida and complained. They say all is fine so we re-mail the checks without opening them to keep the postal stickers on them. Three weeks later they come back yet again with another stamp on it saying addressee unknown. Is that sad or what? I had to Fedex

Ten Ways to Make Prospects Like You Enough to Buy from You
Buyers buy from people they like.The only possible exception occurs when buyers have no choice but to do business with a particular salesperson or a particular company. Perhaps the company manufacturers or sells a proprietary product or service. Perhaps the buyer’s preferred vendor is out of stock and the buyer has to go elsewhere to service his or her customer. There are probably several other reasons I could think of, but these are rare exceptions, not the rule.As I said above, people by and large do business with people they like. I would even go so far as to say that people go out of their way NOT to do business with people that they DON’T like.Some call this system the “good old boy” system and say that it’s not fair. I disagree. I believe that it is everyone’s right to do busine

nely lose mail on massive scales. People who need something delivered in these nations either have to pray their letters or parcels get to the recipients, or use private companies such as Fedex or UPS, which can be expensive. Therefore the bar is so low in terms of efficiency that it is now at the pathetic level. To simply deliver the mail in any time frame is a challenge these days. Being the best in this industry then is no accomplishment to say the least. American citizens used to have confidence in our Post Office. Benjamin Franklin who is the founder of the first organized national post office on the planet, would roll over in his grave if he knew how his beloved postal service has devolved.

Background and Founding of The U.S. Postal System

The Motto No Longer Fits - FACT

Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: Finding The Perfect Balance
This article relates to the Work/Life Balance competency, which investigates how your staff feels with regard to the balance between work and personal life. It explores issues such as priority of family and hours on the job, also covered in this competency. Organizations that enjoy a high satisfaction level in this area will normally exhibit a low rate of absenteeism and experience higher employee retention. Evaluating this competency is helpful in understanding issues relating to a workforce that is commonly tardy or absent from work. This article, Finding the Perfect Balance, is part of AlphaMeasure's compilation, Tales from the Corporate Frontlines. It illustrates how one employee's evolving life circumstances required him to make some career changes in order to achieve a healthy balance between the

agreed ". . . that a Postmaster General be appointed for the United States, who shall hold his office at Philadelphia, and shall be allowed a salary of 1,000 dollars per annum . . . ." On this day, Benjamin Franklin was appointed Postmaster General, the first appointed under the Continental Congress. He would serve in this post, shaping our Postal Services until November 7, 1776. The Motto of the Post Office is:

The Motto No Longer Fits - FACT

Manufacturing Capacity as a Commodity
Excess capacity in an automobile plant at Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, GM, and Honda is a commodity and those who study finite capacity scheduling modules can readily see the possibilities for increased production and that means profit. Einstein said time is relative, that is true, time is relative, manipulating commodity theoretical models allows companies to see thru time and keep costs and purchases on an even keel without the problems of relative time. Thus the commodity can be simplified to price/cost models. The commodity is still relative to fluctuations in currency, weather, and supply and demand. There is no reason a company like Ford cannot take those plants, which have closed and use them to make something else. Instead, they ran their plants at maximum capacity or close to it, and built lots of cars, whi

ppears in the works of Herodotus and describes the expedition of the Greeks against the Persians under Cyrus, about 500 B.C. The Persians operated a system of mounted postal couriers, and the sentence describes the fidelity with which their work was done.

The Motto No Longer Fits - FACT

The Eight Networking Tricks of Rainmakers
1. Linkedin.com Inroads: Linkedin.com is a great resource for networking with other professionals within your in-dustry. You can make connections with thousands of individuals that you can ask for advice from and network with. Most people who join the website want to move forward with their careers or they would not take the time to try networking online. Use this website to find professionals within a company you want to work at, identify potential new employees, and propose new partnerships. Linkedin.com is free and backed by a leading technology venture capitalist firm, Sequoia Capital. To join my network, send me an email at Richard@RichardCWilson.com.2. Easy Email Access Many people are hard to reach. This is not an accident. They are often busy or would simply receive too many sales pitche

Knowing this is going on, I advice everyone to no longer use the Post Office if possible. They are now at record levels of inefficiency and simply do not care about delivering the mail. Why should they as employees in the system can't even be fired unless they kill someone. I know as I tried to have one such manager fired. I escalated it all the way to our local Congressman who stepped in for us in Florida 3 years ago. Even with Congressional pressure the offending manager was given the all too typical 'paid leave' for a month to cool things off and prevent a lawsuit. I did manage to organize many of the local businesses, all of us prepared to confront the Post Office legally. We were even told she was let go to placate us into not suing, only to see this person return to the Post office to harass patrons just one month later! So here we are again, in the same position. In this day of videotape and audio I think it's time we all stand together and take action. The Post Office is a legal monopoly. No private company may deliver regular mail, only special delivery items that UPS and Fedex and other private carriers may deliver. It is an archaic socialist system that is dying, and costing the people of this nation billions of wasted dollars a year.

Can anyone say Privatize?

The Post Office will never go for it. They know and have seen that if any private company were allowed to compete with them, they will lose. This is the way of the world. Private companies are always between 30 - 60% more efficient than anything run by the government. That's why if you need something sent overnight, you would have to be crazy to use the Post Office's next day service. We used them once and found out that 25% of the time their next day service took 2 days. Some guarantee isn't it? Private companies are the way to go, and the Post office must become efficient or it will continue to lose more and more of our tax dollars every year, while not even delivering the mail. It's time we all stand up and say enough already.

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Aging workers are fighting downsizing and outplacement in a unique new way – business ownership. This article looks at why it is happening and why many aging workers are finding success by leaving the corporate world behind.

Have you thought about buying your own carpet cleaning franchise? I have found through my 14 years in the cleaning industry that buying a carpet cleaning franchise is really not a great idea.

Marketing gurus always like to have real life examples of how branding and perception coupled to a pleasant experience creates happy customers. That got me thinking about examples I could use when training new salespeople and the humble banana seems to be an appropriate example.

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Will You Add? - Does the Post Office Still Deliver Mail? Hardly!

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