Online Business Library

Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: Human Resources at Work
This article relates to the Human Resource Functions competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. It reflects one employee's satisfaction with the manner in which her HR department carried out their work. This competency examines how your employees feel with regards to the quality and implementation of the human resource role within your organization. A human resource department that is properly informed of employee issues, demonstrates a high integrity level, and communicate ...
Author: Josh Greenberg
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Managing Your Meetings
Managing Meetings

"To get something done a meeting should consist of no more than three people, two of whom are absent."
~author unknown

One of the complaints I hear most often is about the number of meetings people attend during any given week. It isn't only the quantity, but the duration and ineffectiveness that seem to cause problems. Conducting effective meetings is part of practicing effective time management and something we cover during my workshop so I thought a recap of ...
Author: Cynthia Kyriazis
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The Ultimate Career Builder
THE ULTIMATE CAREER BUILDER.

See full color web version at:
http://www.SeniorManagementServices.com/pvt-105-career-builder.html

Last week, I discussed "Success is no Accident."

My message was that according to research, most businesses
fail because of "management incompetence" and the solution
is for management to build success into its business
processes. I outlined a 7-step process for doing that.

I concluded with the question:

If what I've said i ...
Author: Mike Hayden
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"The Basics of Starting a Lawn and Landscape Company"

"The Basics of Starting a Lawn and Landscape Company"

You have permission to publish this article electronically or in
print,free of charge, as long as the bylines are included. A copy
of your publication would be appreciated.

The Basics of Starting a Lawn and Landscape Company
Article by Kevin Whiteside
Copyright 2005 by LawnForum.com

My goal is to bring lawn and landscape professionals great
information, advice, tips,and strategies. I love this business< ...
Author: Kevin Whiteside
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4 Areas Where Your Business is Losing Money
In my 18 years of consulting I have heard it all. Everything from competition to managed care as reasons why it’s hard to create the business of your dreams. New customers are needed to keep any business going but it is how you and your staff manage these customers that determines your success in business.

In every business that I have gone into over the years, what amazes me most is the amount of lost income from poor handling of the major income generating areas of any business. I will ...
Author: Jeffrey F. Lee
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Creating Time the Virtual Way: How Virtual Assistants are simplifying life for small business owner
Virtual Assistants are taking on those time-consuming administrative chores and special projects, and giving business owners more breathing room to grow, succeed and fall in love with their business again.

--------------------

Time. As a small business owner, it's the commodity you covet most but never seem to have enough of.

If you had more time, you could complete all the administrative chores required to operate your business.

With enough time, you could do more ma ...
Author: Danielle Keister, The Relief
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Real Estate Investor Banned From Renting His Property?
Do you realize that you might be prevented from renting your investment home? Prohibiting property owners from leasing their properties is a trend that is growing increasingly popular with some developers and many Homeowners' Associations (HOA).

It's rare that you can buy a new home in a development that does have a HOA. As a homeowner you are bound by the HOA restrictions found in the Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions (CC&Rs).

The CC&Rs regulate your use of your property, re ...
Author: Mark Walters
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Building A Business That Works For You
Before you want to build your business, you need to know why you are in this business.

Many of us entered business as a technician. You know the technical nature of this business; you do it everyday; over and over again. The question is: How can you do this technical work with the highest level of efficiency and effectiveness so that you'll have a great business?

Some of you entered the business as the manager. You plan, you quantify, and you implement it with ...
Author: Gordon Goh
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Hollander Consultants Creates Tight-Knit Teams with Florida Symposium
PORTLAND, OR: Hollander Consultants brought over three hundred and fifty people to Clearwater Beach, Florida to experience the full effects of the Hollander Consultants program. Attendees are attributing their ability to work better as a team to the lectures they attended in Florida.

According to Charles Mann, director of training for Hollander Consultants, “One of the best parts of the symposium is the opportunity to sit down with individual practice owners and their staffs to isolate ke ...
Author: Matthew Bratschi
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An Honest Look at Your Business
There is a difference between being comfortable and being in apathy.

It is very comfortable to have a smooth running organization when you have a team that knows what to do and does it. It is comfortable to have this group take care of your company and make it expand, and all you have to do is take care of the team. It is comfortable when the staff will actually handle the discipline problems of other staff members and not give it to you to handle. It is, of course, very comfortable to ha ...
Author: Shaun Kirk
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Want To Be Profitable In This Real Estate Bubble? I'll show you how in just Three Easy Steps
This is a question I get almost everyday from either our web site GetPreconstructionProfit.com or from my individual investment activities. The question is "How Can I Be Profitable When We Are In A Real Estate Bubble"?

STEP#1. First you have to recognize that in order to make money in almost any market (i.e. stocks, commodities, real estate, etc.) you need to have the market in motion. In other words, the prices or value have to be changing substantially, either up or down, for you to ma ...
Author: Chris Anderson, PhD
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Success is no accident.
Monday, March 21, 2005
Success is no accident.

See full color web version at:
http://www.SeniorManagementServices.com/pvt-104-success.html

Success is no accident. Success leaves clues. You can create
success on purpose.

Let's say you pick 100 people at random. How many of those
people do you think could bake a great chocolate cake?
A few? Many? Most?

Wouldn't you say success depends on whether they have a
good recipe? Without a recipe, most people wo ...
Author: Mike Hayden
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Book Summary : The E-Myth Revisited
This article is based on the following book:
The E-Myth Revisited
Why Most Small Business Don't Work and What to Do About It
By Micheal Gerber
Published by Harper Business, 2003
ISBN 0967450659
278 pages

Ever wonder why most small businesses-- no matter how huge
effort they put in their endeavor--still fail? Micheal
Gerber reveals the answers in this book. Accordingly, the
future of small businesses revolve in only three
philosophies: the e-myth (entre ...
Author: Regine Azurin
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Book Summary : The 18 Immutable Laws of Corporate Reputation
This article is based on the following book:
The 18 Immutable Laws of Corporate Reputation
By Ronald J. Alsop
Wall Street Journal Books
ISBN 074323670X
320 pages

Everything an individual or company does or produces
contributes to its reputation. Reputation is an intangible
asset, but a very important one. In some ways it is even
better than having money in the bank, but not as easily
quantified.

A good reputation is its own advertising and qualit ...
Author: Regine Azurin
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Designing and deploying human centric processes
Suggestions for success in human-centric process reengineering projects, by applying best practices in knowledge intensive environments.

A lot of effort has been carried out in the last years to re engineer processes in order to automate all or parts of them. A great number of companies have changed their processes as a result of the introduction of new software systems, aimed to streamline the management of the back and front office. Companies have even taken care of processes crossing t ...
Author: Lucas Rodrнguez Cervera
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6 Step Market Potential Evaluation
EVALUATING THE MARKET

Criteria for Evaluating Business Opportunities

The following tool provides a quick indication of the market potential for your business, product or service in your area. The higher the figure at Step 6., the better the opportunity.

A low score does not mean you should drop your idea altogether. It does, however, indicate that in its current form, there is not a large market opportunity for your concept, and to enter the market in its present state you m ...
Author: Cate Deans Smith
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Two Vital Abilities Any Leader Must Have
As a business owner, you are a leader whether you like it or not. Whether you like it or not you have to guide your group in order to expand your organization. And whether you like it or not, there are some difficult situations that you have to confront and handle -- hopefully in a way that inspires confidence in you from your staff.

I commonly say that in order to be successful you only need to be right 51% of the time. You really don’t have to be much more right than that to make it. Fo ...
Author: Shaun Kirk, MHS, PT, MTC
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Are You in Control of Your Practice or Does it Control You?
One of the most common complaints that business owners have today is that they feel their practice is running them and that they’re being pulled in every direction instead of really running the business themselves.

Well, I’d like to tell you, when I was in practice I experienced the same thing. I was working too many hours, not seeing my family as much as I should; my staff always came to me looking for the solutions to day-to-day scenarios and so on. I found I was lacking the amount of ...
Author: Shaun Kirk, MHS, PT, MTC
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Your Practice is Only as Valuable as Your Referral Base
Many physical therapists in private practice have the appearance of a very successful business that is built on the backs of about four to five doctors. Now if anything would happen to any of these guys, the value of these practices would drop markedly. How can you run a practice for many years and then take a good look at it and realize that you have five doctors that represent more than 50% of the referral base? Exactly how can that happen? Well, it’s quite simple really. When you start your p ...
Author: Shaun Kirk, MHS, PT, MTC
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Creativity and Culture Management
Many concepts in the fields of managing creativity are very much applicable to culture management in general. The same concepts that foster creativity and innovation also maximise human capital potential, increase productivity, reduce costs and maintain competitive advantage etc. Some of the many commonalities between culture and creativity management follow.

a)A culture of psychological safety and freedom. A culture that limits experience, information and expression and allows relatively ...
Author: Kal Bishop
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Is Your Management Style Assisting or Hurting Your Business?
Many times business owners can have significant differences in management styles that can deter the growth of both the employees and the business.

Employees can have differing needs that require differing methods of management as well. Problems arise when the management style of a business owner does not match the needs of the employees.

There are two basic management styles that are also broken down into more minor categories, the Autocratic Management Style and the Permissive Man ...
Author: Vishal P. Rao
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Creative Thinking versus Critical Thinking
The process of creative thinking is often, mistakenly, intertwined with critical thinking. There is a tendency to write and edit simultaneously, couple hypothesis generation and evaluation, combine problem identification with solution.

To increase effectiveness, one should first apply creative thought, which is meant to be daring, uninhibited, free-spirited, imaginative, unpredictable, and revolutionary. The trick is to ignore content and maximise the size and richness of the idea pool. < ...
Author: Kal Bishop
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Revenge of the Sith – Creativity and Structure
The common belief is that lack of structure and randomness enhances creative output, whereas in truth, creativity is enhanced when it is organised, systematic and based on highly structured processes. This article will use Episode III of the Star Wars trilogy – Revenge of the Sith – to demonstrate that point.

First, some basic concepts.

a)We can measure creativity by observing the number of ideas produced, their novelty and diversity and the frequency of production. This allows us ...
Author: Kl Bishop
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Four color postcard printing: Made easy
Every company is thinking of a better idea how to introduce their company in the market. But because business postcard is widely known for its capability to capture the interest and to gain more clientele, every single creative style of business card is maximized. Thus, giving us problems in creating our own style of cards that tailors the business prospective.

Thus, we also think that creating a four color post card is too difficult to make, much more complex when it comes to printing…s ...
Author: Marlon D. Ludovice
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Managing Creativity an Oxymoron! Not.
Interrogated on a beach in Barbados by friends insistent that there was little validity to my speciality, I have felt compelled to come up with the most common objections in the field of Managing Creativity and Innovation.

a) Managing Creativity and Innovation is an oxymoron! When ideas are required, leaders tend to herd people into a room with a flip chart and conduct (usually an ineffective) brainstorming session. Implicit in this action is an acceptance that certain techniques and proc ...
Author: Kal Bishop
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Top 3 Myths of Leadership Debunked
What happens people define “leadership” as something attached to a title, or a salary, or a corner office? Both managers and employees suffer the consequences! Explore what happens when leaders and staff buy in to the top 3 limiting “myths of leadership.” And learn how you can ask the provocative questions that unleash everyone’s greatest potential in your organization.

Have you noticed that across the business world people are recognizing that we are fast outgrowing the thinking and lang ...
Author: Susan J. Schutz
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Creativity Myths
Sustained myths about Creativity and Innovation lead to confusion, bad practice and bad decision-making. Some of them include:

1. Creativity requires Creative Types
While some theorists assert that there are creativity traits such as tolerance for ambiguity and intolerance to conformity, these assertions are countered by the fact that traits are hard to identify and are not stable nor transferable across situations. Further, motivation is a critical factor. Additionally, creativity is ...
Author: Kal Bishop
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Good Idea Generation – a process
It seems incongruous that good idea generation can be a process or that a process may lead to insight. However, if you examine the behaviour of people who regularly generate good ideas – such as creatives in advertising - you will find that common patterns of behaviour do emerge and it is possible to make insight more likely.

a)Creativity is often triggered by the need to solve a problem. People who generate good ideas tend to clearly identify the problem through a tangible process. They ...
Author: Kal Bishop
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Effective Brainstorming
Most managers simply herd some people in a room with a flip chart and call it a brainstorming session. Yet there is a definite process that maximizes the size and quality of the idea pool. While there are hundreds of valid techniques for doing this, below are just some of the important concepts leaders should consider.

a) The sum of ideas produced by individuals acting alone is greater than the sum of ideas produced by those individuals acting as a group. Further, the diversity and novelt ...
Author: Kal Bishop
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Forcing Inspiration
Most people, when they have to complete a creative endeavour, often tend to wait for inspiration. It is not unusual to find, therefore, that most people take inordinately long to complete projects or never finish them at all. Look at the infinite number of people with half-finished first-drafts under their bed. This reveals a lack of understanding of how the mind and creativity work, for the best way to find a bucket-load of inspiration is to force it out.

1)Engaging in the Task.
Simp ...
Author: Kal Bishop
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Managing Creativity and Innovation part 2 of 2
Managers must be competent in at least thirteen domains to even begin effectively managing creativity and innovation. Part 2 of Managing Creativity and Innovation covers the last six of these domains.

h) Group Structure. There is much confusion as which group structure (or combination of structures) maximises creative output. Workshop leaders randomly seem to make people work alone, in pairs, or in small or large groups. Each combination has strong arguments for and against:

i)The ...
Author: Kal Bishop
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Managing Creativity and Innovation part 1 of 2
Leaders, consultants and managers must be competent in at least thirteen domains to even begin effectively managing creativity and innovation. Part 1 of Managing Creativity and Innovation covers the first seven of these domains.

a) The difference between creativity and innovation. Often used interchangeably, the two must be thought of as separate and distinct. One definition for creativity is that it is problem identification and idea generation, whilst innovation is best described as ide ...
Author: Kal Bishop
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Proofs of delivery and logistics: speeding throughput and avoiding pitfalls
It should be a straightforward business scenario: making sure that the delivery documentation from the supplier or haulier matches up with the documentation at the target destination.

However life is rarely straightforward, and if problems do arise, order completion times and cash flow will inevitably suffer as a result.

Making the paperwork match

Documents involved typically include delivery notes generated by the product supplier or logistics provider. The Customer takes d ...
Author: Tokairo
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Accounts payable: a powerful document management and workflow solution
Accounts payable is just one area of office management where problems arise because of the sheer complexity of transactions, and the vast amount of paperwork that is generated.

A disproportionate amount of time and administrative resources is consumed just getting invoices approved for payment. The problem becomes compounded when invoices are lost when being circulated for clearance and even more time is then lost in the retrieval process.

Typically these documents include purchase ...
Author: Tokairo
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RFID: A Smart Tag Primer
Good things come in small packages. This familiar clichй usually refers to precious stones, but today it's taken on new meaning, in that small things are now protecting items we deem valuable.

Analysts estimate that the retail industry loses US $50B a year to theft and up to ten times that much to counterfeiting. High-end products such as cosmetics, fragrances and pharmaceuticals are most likely to be stolen or counterfeited. Many retailers and manufacturers believe that this big problem ...
Author: Dennis Bacchetta
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3 Ways To Do More With Less Time
We live in a world where more is expected of us every day.

First there were fax machines, now email and cell phones.
Our number of communications daily from various sources is
extreme.

How can we get to all of it in a timely fashion and still
get 8 hours of sleep?

Here are three time reducing strategies that are easy to
implement:

1.Schedule. Like it or not in today's world if you want to
achieve greater levels of success you must learn to use a
sche ...
Author: Yolanda A. Facio
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Uncommon Common Sense – Know What is the Most Important Thing in Your Business
Over 3 of my meetings with 3 business owners last week, what really shocked me was how uncommon common sense was. 2 out of 3 I spoke to do not know what is the most important thing in their business. They keep on trying on other things that are not important. As we know, every business has ONE most important thing in their particular industry. You need to do well in your most important thing and the rest will take care of itself.

For Manufacturing: Most important is your quality consis ...
Author: Gordon Goh
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Creating a Winning Staff Team
As a business owner, I’ve had staff come and go over the years: some have done extremely well, and others not so well. During the time I was involved in running my business, I found some weaknesses in myself that tremendously affected things that were going on, especially from a negative point of view. It was not uncommon for me, whenever something was not going well, to ignore it. Sometimes I would hope it would go away, or maybe ask somebody else to solve it for me, whatever was going on. As t ...
Author: Shaun Kirk
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The Quantity Surveyor & Real Estate Development
Those of you who are new to the real estate development business, need to understand what each Design professional contributes to the development team and the specific services they are capable of delivering for you.

Knowing what they do for you ... what you are paying for is vital.

This is part of a series of articles I am writing for you to explain what each profession does in some detail.

So far I have covered:

. The Architect and Real Estate Development
. The S ...
Author: The Quantity Surveyor & Real Estate Development
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The Hydraulic Engineer & Real Estate Development
Those of you who are new to the real estate development business, need to understand what each Design professional contributes to the development team and the specific services they are capable of
delivering for you.

Knowing what they do for you ... what you are paying for is vital.

This is part of a series of articles I am writing for you to explain what each profession does in some detail.

Hydraulic Engineers

Most we know what an Architect does, or what a ...
Author: The Hydraulic Engineer & Real Estate Development
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Sales Success – The 5 steps
It's a common question we come across everyday: why is business getting more difficult now? Well, it all starts with your company's sales competencies. The strange thing is that many companies spend lots of money and time training its people how to sell their products but not how to sell.

Avoid the sales peaks and troughs experienced by the average salesperson by building an individual selling system that will guarantee you results…

Step 1: Goals

Without clearly defined goal ...
Author: Gordon Goh
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The Best Industry in the United States
Best Industry in the United States

My 17-year-old child is going off to college. She is starting ask questions about industries and careers. She has made me think further about what construction contracting has to offer her. I have concluded it is the best career a young person could choose. You may not believe it, however the facts will show our business is unmatched. It offers participants long term tangible benefits. Many people will argue however, let me show you the many virtues our ...
Author: Matt Stevens
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Effective use of your online time
The Internet is increasingly becoming a major time killer for
many of us. Involuntarily, we started to spend more time online
than we really can afford. Here is how it goes: you were sitting
at work, you needed to find some crucial information to finish
that project at hand, you went on the Internet to look for the
information, you run a web search or started browsing through
web directory, and suddenly you noticed something that seems
very interesting, it could be a b ...
Author: Nowshade Kabir
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Why Create Your Own Business?

The attractiveness of creating an independent business and the motivating forces for doing so should be positive, but why you may ask is it so attractive to start your own business?

Not wanting to dwell on myself, I must in fairness must give you an indication of where "I am coming from" and why I feel so keenly about helping people who are looking at the prospects for going into business on their own account.

I trained as an engineer and worked initially in Research & Dev ...
Author: Michael Harrison
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Business Planning for College Students and First-Time Entrepreneurs
More and more students, both in undergraduate and graduate institutions, are deciding to launch their own ventures upon graduation rather than taking the traditional route of working for another firm. Likewise, more and more individuals are leaving their jobs to fulfill their entrepreneurial dreams.

While these ventures may ultimately be very successful (e.g., Google and Microsoft were both launched by students), they face certain challenges in their business plans and capital raising pro ...
Author: Dave Lavinsky
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Does your Company have Documentum?
Are you lost in the mess of documents that get passed around your company, never knowing what the latest version is and which one you should work on without worrying if someone else has already made the same editions that you are making? Perhaps you have heard of collaboration software solutions such as Documentum to help your company manage its documents that are passed around. Documentum is a very good solution to this problem but is it the only one? In this article you will be presented with ...
Author: Mike Nielsen
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How to Easily Accelerate Your Profits
I’m always amazed at how disorganised most businesses are. The huge amount of opportunities that fall by the wayside due to poor management. Let me tell you what happened to me recently.

The Car Dealership

I stopped off at my local dealership as I was interested in updating my current vehicle. This dealership is very well-known and spend a fortune on advertising trying to attract more buyers.

I walked in to the new car division and was greeted by a saleswoman. I made some ...
Author: Lorraine Pirihi
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Can you create a company (or department) to fulfill your purpose?
See full color web version at:
http://www.SeniorManagementServices.com/pvt-102-purpose.html

Be sure to renew your PVT subscription before March 15th!
Just cli'ck this link:
mailto:Mike@SeniorManagementServices.com?Subject=Renewal-2005

I take part in a forum, a sort of Master Mind group of
business people in several countries. In a recent
teleconference, a well-known business consultant said,
"Small businesses fall apart when it comes to strategy."

This led ...
Author: Mike Hayden
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Reap Incredible Profit with This Simple Strategy
Why is it some people are incredibly successful at utilizing the power of the Internet in their marketing while others can’t seem to figure out the winning formula?

How often do entrepreneurs and salespeople look for that next magic formula to build their business and increasing revenues, never quite making any of it work? Many people make it much more difficult to succeed than it need be while others know exactly what to do … and they do it.

Ask anyone who has effectively integra ...
Author: Kathleen Gage
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Keeping The Flame Alive
Keeping The Flame Alive
By Arthur Cooper
(c) Copyright 2004

When you are going in to work every day to do a job that
seems boring and routine, how do you keep going?

When the business that you have started up does not seem to
be going anywhere, how do you keep motivated?

When you know that you have talents that are unused and
unrecognised, how do you keep at it?

In short, when faced with these situations how do you keep
the flame alive? The flam ...
Author: Arthur Cooper
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What is Groupware?
Vince Lombardi once said that, "The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual." If this is the case, then what do we need to do in order to insure success in our companies? How can we combine the efforts of each individual as Mr. Lombardi said was so key to the success of a particular organization? While there are many possible solutions to these questions, I have found something that will help your company become more organized, and your employees ...
Author: Mike Nielsen
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Where does the time go?
Ever find yourself wishing you had just a few more hours in the day to get it all done? Between work and family responsibilities alone, it can be challenging to juggle time for everything. Surely we were created for more than a life on a continuous treadmill where we never seem to catch up.
Futurists predicted that, in the 21st century, work would be done in virtual organizations and paperless offices. Some even said that the work week would drop to 35, or even 30 hours, and that too much le ...
Author: Coach Pat Morgan
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Hollander Consultants Promotes New Analysis Coordinator
PORTLAND, OR: Hollander Consultants’ Director of Public Contact, Robert Reifer has just promoted Nate Neilsen to the position of Analysis Coordinator. Hollander Consultants practices a management philosophy of investing in its staff through a high level of training and apprenticing. As a result of this level of staff enhancement, the company is often able to fill employment gaps through promotions within the company from newer staff who have, due to their training and competence, performed at a ...
Author: Matthew Bratschi
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Diversity in the Workplace: Benefits, Challenges and Solutions
Workplace diversity refers to the variety of differences between people in an organization. That sounds simple, but diversity encompasses race, gender, ethnic group, age, personality, cognitive style, tenure, organizational function, education, background and more.

Diversity not only involves how people perceive themselves, but how they perceive others. Those perceptions affect their interactions. For a wide assortment of employees to function effectively as an organization, human resourc ...
Author: Josh Greenberg
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Does your company face a Triple-Threat that will cause the loss of your company's lifeblood - custo
Does your company face a Triple-Threat that will cause the loss of your company's lifeblood - customers?

See full color web version at: http://www.SeniorManagementServices.com/pvt-101-assets.html

Be sure to renew your PVT subscription before March 15th! Just cli'ck this link: mailto:Mike@SeniorManagementServices.com?Subject=Renewal-2005

"Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life." -- Immanuel Kant.

Whenever your employees leave for any reason -- even ju ...
Author: Mike Hayden
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How to Make a Joint Venture Successful
Question: What was your first successful JV, and what were the steps you took to
make it successful?

Hello. This is Valerie Vauthey speaking. I am the CEO & Founder of the fastest
growing coaching company in North America and Europe: MyPrivateCoach.com

I would like to share with you a few of my experiences regarding business and
more specifically with Joint Ventures.

I have started, grown, and sold FOUR Joint Ventures so far and I just started a
n ...
Author: Valerie Vauthey
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Examining the Relationship Between Employee Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction
Numerous studies have been done to look at the connection between customer and employee satisfaction. A majority of these studies were able to uncover a correlation between employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction and profitability.

In a recent study for an international computer firm, the data reinforced the crucial link between customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and profitability. Some of the key factors they found:

Profit and growth are stimulated primarily ...
Author: Josh Greenberg
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Your Baby's Ugly
Your Baby’s Ugly…
and you’ve got bad breath

By Steve Baker

I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that 98% of businesses are small businesses. That bodes well for the entrepreneurial spirit that has made our nation great. The bad news is that 80%, that’s right, four out of five new businesses will fail in their first five years.

After years of building my own companies and consulting growing businesses, I’ve come to the realization that too many business owner ...
Author: Steve Baker
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Six Sigma Tools for Process Control
Part 4 of a Four-Part Series

Part One: Process Improvement

Part Two: Core Processes

Part Three: Process Mapping

Aim for perfection.

That’s a pretty lofty concept. It’s defi ...
Author: Six Sigma Tools for Process Control
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Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: The Importance of Organizational Structure
This article relates to the organizational structure competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. It shows how structural concerns can affect the typical employee workday, as well as feelings towards your organization's management hierarchy and reporting structure. A healthy organizational structure is one that arranges the activities of the enterprise in such a way that they contribute to the goals of the organization. Specifically, this competency looks to see if your emplo ...
Author: Josh Greenberg
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The Management Team Section of the Business Plan – Don't Just Include Resumes
Even the best new concept or existing plan will fail if executed poorly. The Management Team section of the business plan must prove to the investor why the key company personnel are "eminently qualified" to execute on the business model.

The Management Team section should include biographies of key team members and detail their responsibilities. It is important that these biographies are not merely resumes that include the educational backgrounds and previous job titles and responsibilit ...
Author: Dave Lavinsky
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The Desire For Money, Do You Have Business Sense?
For those of us who grew up with parents who worked for businesses rather than owned them, the world of business can be quite a mystery. Even more so if we've dared to try to start one of our own. There is the factor of what type of business to start - a product or service business. There are the issues of doing a good market analysis, licensing the business, understanding the codes of law governing businesses, and determining just what type of business structure to choose - especially if the bu ...
Author: Joseph T Farkasdi
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Your Organizing DNA
Your Organizing DNA

Do you like storing your papers on top of your desk in trays, baskets or just plain piles? Do you have a preference for Post-it? notes and maybe some colorful file folders? Or are clearly labeled files and file cabinets more your style? Do you 'file' or 'pile'? I make it a practice of testing my workshop participants for this very thing because of its importance in creating and supporting an effective, organized workspace.

The brain's dominance factor
Resear ...
Author: Cynthia Kyriazis
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Top 7 Methods to Empower Employees
You have permission to publish this article free of charge, as long as the resource box is included with the article. If you do run my article, a courtesy reply to sean@bizmanualz.com would be greatly appreciated. This article is 801 words long including the resource box. Thanks for your interest.

How many times have you asked someone to do something like “draw up a plan for such and such project”? Your employee completes the plan, but then you say, “That is not what I wanted” or “That is ...
Author: Top 7 Methods to Empower Employees
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Improving Your CEO Succession Odds
There’s a hidden crisis in business today. A crisis causing board members, executives, employees and shareholders alike to lose sleep and question the future. The crisis isn’t rapid change, the economy or foreign competition, it’s the uncertainty that occurs when leadership fails and companies are left without a captain at the helm.

Surveys show that over 50% of major US companies have either an inadequate CEO succession strategy or no meaningful strategy whatsoever. The situation is sim ...
Author: Dr. Robert Karlsberg and Dr. Jane Adler
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The Key to High Productivity is Energy Management
One of the issues most often raised by my clients is better time management. People have tried prioritizing tasks, blocking out parts of their day for certain tasks, implementing new systems and getting better at delegation. While all of those things can make a difference, there is something else that will have an even greater impact on your productivity. The key to high productivity is energy management more so than time management.

Let me start to explain this concept by way of an examp ...
Author: Michael Beck
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When Not To Register For GST
When Not To Register For GST

By Christopher Raynal
www.masteraccountants.co.nz

________________________________________
One of the decisions that all businesses have to make not long after starting up is when and if to register for GST.

The first consideration is do you have to register? In New Zealand, the threshold is turnover or sales of $40 000, while it is $50 000 in Australia. However, that does not have to be the end of the story.

If the business is profi ...
Author: Christopher Raynal
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The Red Phone - Management Consulting in 30 Seconds or Less
Modern business faces complex problems; management often calls upon highly-specialized consultants to help them address these difficult problems. If you're ever called to help identify these most pressing issues, one of the easiest and quickest ways to start is to talk about the "Red Phone".

You know which phone I'm talking about -- it's the red phone that sits on it's own special corner of the desk. Lights flash when it rings; when you answer it, the person on the other end isn't in a go ...
Author: Joey Robichaux
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5 Steps to Build Stronger Communication and Understanding
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Part Three of a Four-Part Series

Part One: Process Improvement

Part Two: ...
Author: 5 Steps to Build Stronger Communication and Understanding
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Franchises - A proven Business System
Franchises offer the first time business owner a proven and successful business opportunity. If you are looking to start your own business for the first time, franchises provide you with the greatest opportunity for success. When you purchase a franchise from the "Franchisor", and become a "Franchisee", you are not only purchasing a business, but a complete business system.
Franchises have over a 90% success rate, compared to about a 15% success rate for those indidviduals starting their own ...
Author: Ernie Horning
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Two Types of Executive Summaries
Companies seeking capital often ask how long the Executive Summary of their business plan should be. The answer depends upon the use of the summary, mainly determining if 1) it precedes the full business plan, or 2) it will be used as a stand-alone document.

When the Executive Summary precedes the business plan, its length should be short, typically only one to two pages and certainly no longer than three pages. This is because the Executive Summary is not meant to tell the whole story of ...
Author: Dave Lavinsky
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Internal Prisons: The Thief of Productivity and Quality in our Workforce
INTERNAL PRISON: THE THEFT OF PRODUCTIVITY

As a professional speaker, one of my biggest challenges is to grab the attention of my audience within the first few minutes of the presentation- grab them by the throat if you will. I do this by coming out in a suite and tie, following an introduction in which I have been described as a recent college graduate who earned both of his degrees with a 4.0 GPA and placement on the Deans and Presidents List. I am portrayed as someone who was once an h ...
Author: Troy Evans
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11 Ways to Get What You Want - Be a Clever Customer!
There is so much about 'customer service' in the media these days and, well, yes, maybe things aren't what they were. But you can do more, much more as a customer, to get the best results for yourself. It's in your hands...

We all want great service, whether we are buying our weekly groceries from a store, or want a billing hitch resolved at our local utilities provider. Whether it's getting our car fixed, or a great meal in a restaurant. So we can holler and complain about how poor custo ...
Author: Martin Haworth
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Improve Your Bottom Line, Ken Saved over $100,000
Engaged employees can show us the way to continuously improve. Customers want our products and services to be better, delivered faster, and produced less expensively. This means that everything we do needs to be improved. All employees can be thinking about how to reduce costs, looking at safety issues, reducing wastes, and improving the environment, while at the same time developing skills to identify, articulate and communicate those kinds of things.

The Gallup Organization has studied ...
Author: Chuck Yorke
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Protect Your Most Vital Business Asset with Security Software
Homeland security, airport security, Internet security – these
days we’re literally inundated with a need to protect ourselves
and our property from the non-stop bombardment of potentially
damaging attacks by unknown sources and entities lurking
somewhere out there.

This is the reality of the world in which we live today. We can’t
just lock ourselves up in our homes and wish the problems away.
Life must go on. What we’ve got to do is fight back. And we have
to ...
Author: Cavyl Stewart
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How to Size an Emerging Market
In developing their business plans, companies of all sizes face the challenge of determining the size of their markets. To begin, companies must present the size of their “relevant market” in their plans. The relevant market equals the company's sales if it were to capture 100% of its specific niche of the market. Conversely, stating that you were competing in the $1 trillion U.S. healthcare market, for example, is a telltale sign of a poorly reasoned business plan, as there is no company that c ...
Author: Dave Lavinsky
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Re-Discovery Procedures for Building Effective Management Systems: Phase V
You have permission to publish this article free of charge, as long as the resource box is included with the article. If you do run my article, a courtesy reply to sean@bizmanualz.com would be greatly appreciated. This article is 502 words long including the resource box. Thanks for your interest.

Part One: Discovery

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Las Vegas Sands Corp. is IPO of the year

Sheldon Adelson, founder and owner of Las Vegas Sands (LVS), won $690 million on December 15 2004, in the most profitable initial public offering (IPO) in the American gaming industry.

Las Vegas Sands is the company that owns the [aid:venetianresorthotelc label:Venetian Hotel & Casino] on the Las Vegas Strip and Sands Resort in Macau, a former Portuguese colony, nowadays reinstated to China.

The company sold nearly 24 million shares, that sum as littl ...
Author: Iulia Pascanu
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5 Steps to Continuous Process Improvement
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Part One of Creating Well-Defined Processes Series

What if your sales increased from $100,000 to $110,000 per day and your profit increased from $10,000 to $11,000 – did you impro ...
Author: 5 Steps to Continuous Process Improvement
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Management wants faster implementation of new Organizational Strategy (Part III).
See full color web version at:
http://www.SeniorManagementServices.com/pvt-98-faster-org-strategy.html

============================================================
Is anyone "not affected" by a reorganization?
============================================================

In the last couple of weeks, I have discussed reorganization
and how you can manage employees who are affected positively
or negatively.

What about employees "not affected" by a reorganization? ...
Author: Mike Hayden
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Checklist For High Performing Teams
Why do some teams perform well while others struggle? How can you assess how effectively your team is working now, and identify methods for improvement?

Research shows that 85% of the reasons that teams of people succeed or struggle has more to do with interpersonal issues, than technical competence. But both are needed for effective teamwork.

Below please find a checklist you can use to identify the strengths and development needs of your own team:

1. Clear Goals.

I ...
Author: Susan Cullen
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How To Bully Your Prospects Into Buying Your Product or Service
How To Bully Your Prospects Into Buying Your Product or Service
(c) Copyright 2004 by Chris Coffman

Selling is a tough job, and sometimes you may need to appear tough in order to get the sale.

As a salesperson (whether in person or in print) you don’t have to appear to the customer as being needy of the sale. Many times, the opposite can work quite effectively, that is, to make the customer think of purchasing your product or service as a special privilege.

Here are a nu ...
Author: Chris Coffman
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Top 7 Small Business Resources for 2005
If you want to start a business in 2005, and start making money almost immediately, the sites listed below are some of the best I have found. I've chosen each site because it is absolutely outstanding in providing the tools you need to get started, as well as taking you through the steps you need to get started immediately.

My1stBusiness.com - http://www.my1stbusiness.com - This site is owned by Ben Botes, who is currently working on a doctoral degree in business. Ben will take you throug ...
Author: Jinger Jarrett
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Implementation Procedures for Building Effective Management Systems: Phase IV
You have permission to publish this article free of charge, as long as the resource box is included with the article. If you do run my article, a courtesy reply to sean@bizmanualz.com would be greatly appreciated. This article is 516 words long including the resource box. Thanks for your interest.

Part One: Discovery

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Management wants faster implementation of new Organizational Strategy. (Part II.)
Management wants faster implementation of new Organizational Strategy. (Part II.)
============================================================

This week, I will continue the discussion from last week's
PVT, where we discussed four steps to introduce a new
strategy.
(http://www.SeniorManagementServices.com/pvt-96-faster-org-strategy.html)

To review last week, your organization works OK n0w. But,
you've discovered that your whole operation is based on key
irreplacea ...
Author: Mike Hayden
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The Ideal Length of Your Business Plan
How long should a business plan be? A business plan needs to be whatever length is required to excite the investor, prove that management truly understands the market, and detail the execution strategy. From surveys of investor needs, Growthink has found that 15 to 25 pages of text is the optimum length in which to accomplish this. Any more and the time-constrained investor will be forced to skim certain sections of the plan, even if they are generally interested, which could lead them to miss e ...
Author: Dave Lavinsky
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Quality consulting major consumer products company
Organizational TQM Assessment
The executive staff was trained on the key components of the Malcolm Baldridge criteria, and facilitated discussions that resulted in a baseline evaluation of the organization's TQM implementation. The Baldrige criteria, used as the basis for this evaluation, provided a focus for next year's operational plan.

Internal Operations Assessment
Interviews were conducted with representatives of the most significant portions of the business to better unders ...
Author: Jose Sanchez
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A leadership program for general contractors
PROBLEM
Many of the General contractors and workers are "technically" excellent in their field but do not know how to deal with people.
Also, in many instances, they exhibit attitudes which are not conducive to teamwork and effective, efficient operations.
This impacts the team environment which is required to do an excellent job in the construction industry.
Some instances included people who were technically competent, ready to be promoted to managers of regions but who were bei ...
Author: Jose Sanchez
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Improvingcustomer service in large stock registrar cmpany
ROBLEM
The organization was always working under a crisis mode, with the managers feeling pressured and "under the gun".
There was discord and resentment among the manager team, which reflected in the employees.
Re-work and bureaucracy were eminent.
Two of the managers were at odds with each other, which was evident to the employees, and created additional discord.
The Customer Service group showed a lack of concern for the customers, assuming that it was "OK" to wait in line, ...
Author: Jose Sanchez
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A Customer complaint management system
Background
The company was experiencing an increase in the number of customer complaints and an increase in the cost of processing them and we were hired to analyze the current situation and develop recommendations to increase the effectiveness of the process of administering and resolving the complaints.

Identify Customer Requirements
A consultant was assigned to the design of customer service systems and complaint processes, and who had done extensive work in QFD (Quality Funct ...
Author: Jose Sanchez
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A large international insurance company IT department
PROBLEM
The workers in the information systems division were technically excellent but lacked in human behavioral skills. One employee in particular was exceptionally intelligent and knowledgeable but had a pessimistic, cautious and negative attitude.
One of the groups, the "Help Desk" was informally called the "Dis-service Desk" by the rest of the company.
The group’s mission was to assist all employees and affiliates of the company in resolving their systems needs. To do this, custom ...
Author: Jose Sanchez
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Managing an Elevator Cash Flow
By Catherine Franz

Jannice K., a past Virginia resident, now California
resident, worked in Burger King for ten years. Back when I
was a junk food addict, she passed me the bag and drink
through the drive through window. Occasionally, I would go
inside to eat. We became friends and soon had regular times
together early afternoons during her break. It wasn't long
before I discovered Jannice’s real buried passion was
grooming dogs. She sparkled whenever the topic came u ...
Author: Catherine Franz
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Blueprint For A Comprehensive Business Plan
Blueprint For A Comprehensive Business Plan
Copyright © Tanner Larsson
http://www.work-at-home-resource-center.com

Getting started in a new business requires a lot of work, not the least of which is planning. Although many business owners claim to little or no formal planning, even the most intuitive of them have some idea of what they’re trying to accomplish and how they hope to do it. However all successful entrepreneurs know that planning is essential to success.

No amount ...
Author: Tanner Larsson
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Five Crucial Components of a Business Plan
The format of a Business Plan is something that has been
developed and refined over the years and is something that should
not be changed. Like a good recipe, a business plan needs to
include certain ingredients to make it work.

When you create a business plan, don’t attempt to recreate its
format. Those reviewing this type of document have expectations
you must meet. If they do not see those crucial decision-making
components, they’ll see no reason to proceed wit ...
Author: Cavyl Stewart
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A Balanced Life
Today, people as busy and stressed as professionals often do not take the time to check in with themselves periodically about where they are in their lives. They tend not to stop and ask what is giving meaning and value to their lives. Sometimes the idea of doing so is frightening because of what they think they might find.

In my coaching practice, I do meet many professionals who want to make some adjustments about the way they are living. Most of the time the fear is unwarranted becaus ...
Author: Dr. Dorene Lehavi
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Development Procedures for Building Effective Management Systems: Phase III
You have permission to publish this article free of charge, as long as the resource box is included with the article. If you do run my article, a courtesy reply to sean@bizmanualz.com would be greatly appreciated. This article is 592 words long including the resource box. Thanks for your interest.

Part One: Discovery

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Lifetime Training
Lifetime Training
By Arthur Cooper
(c) Copyright 2005

Most companies agree on the need to keep up to date.
Most companies agree on the need for an efficient workforce.
Most companies agree on the need to train their staff.

So why don’t most companies do it?

All successful companies do.

Why is it that so often the first thing that gets cut back when times are hard is training?

It saves money in the short term. But it costs money in the long term. I ...
Author: Arthur Cooper
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A Common Sense Approach to Job Interviews
As a person who has been on both the job seeker side and the employer end it is amazing how many people throw any chance of getting hired right out the window before they even say a word.

There are thousands of books out their telling you how to memorize possible interview questions and to have an arsenal of winning answers on hand, but the biggest part of any job interview is that initial 10 seconds when you meet your prospective future employer.

Most of what you need to know to b ...
Author: Jeremy Gislason
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Organized Crime Expert - Amway Just Like Mafia
Organized Crime Expert - Amway Just Like Mafia

Amway knew it was in trouble when the internet arrived and the details about the company’s pyramid schemes began appearing online. A memo dated Dec 19, 1997, that surfaced in a lawsuit, contains the details of a voice message sent out to the Amway leadership, by then Vice President, Ken MacDonald, that reveals just how desperately Amway tried to control the flow of information on the internet.

MacDonald said ... "This message is on the ...
Author: Evelyn Pringle
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Top 7 Small Business Sites for 2005
If you want to start a business in 2005, and start making money almost immediately, the sites listed below are some of the best I have found. I've chosen each site because it is absolutely outstanding in providing the tools you need to get started, as well as taking you through the steps you need to get started immediately.

My1stBusiness.com - http://www.my1stbusiness.com - This site is owned by Ben Botes, who is currently working on a doctoral degree in business. Ben will take you throug ...
Author: Jinger Jarrett
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