by Nan Russell

With mounting to-do lists, big projects with short delivery dates, consuming workloads, growing obligations and festering unfinished tasks, it’s no wonder in this what-have-you-done-for-me-today world we often feel time deprived. Work-life flows to home-life, balance becomes imbalance, and goals and dreams get relegated to a closet shelf.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. In a recent “Winning at Working” reader survey, the most commonly articulated work problem was related to time. Overwhelmed. Overworked. Overstressed. Too much to do and too little time to do it.

But here’s the reality. No matter how much we do, we will never get everything done. There isn’t enough time for all that needs doing, all we want to do or we’d like to do or we should do. There never will be, even with the most sophisticated productivity, organizational and time-management approaches. Sure, they’re helpful, but thinking the chaos and stress in life is caused by not having enough time is an error.

You see, the problem is not a time problem. We all have the same amount. It’s a choice problem. The choices you make determine whether you’re running your life, or your life is running you. And you do have choices. Sure there may be consequences to saying no, establishing boundaries or reordering priorities. But there are also consequences if you don’t.

All tasks are not equal. All commitments are not equal. All responsibilities are not equal. All clients are not equal. All people of personal importance to your life are not equal. Yet many of us operate as if they were. You can do fifty things today and get little, if any, result for having done them. Or you can do one or two that bring a big return, be it emotional, financial, physical or psychological. People who are winning at working know the difference and operate accordingly.

They see time as life’s currency and how it’s used as a choice. Choices shape your results and your life. You get the same twenty-four hours each day as your co-worker down the hall. But use differs. Practice the piano eight hours a day and you’ll be better than people who don’t. Practice and hone your workplace talents and the same applies. Or spend time getting ready to work, shooting the breeze, surfing the web, fiddling with email and you’ll complete the day having traded your time for minimal results.

How you spend your time puts value on what you’re spending it on. For years, I never had “time” to exercise consistently until a health issue caused me to re-prioritize my choices. Funny how I managed to find the hours when I had to. Choosing to eliminate an hour of television created 365 “found” hours a year. That’s nine weeks.

People who are winning at working know this secret: there is always time for what matters to them. So, they allocate their time carefully, understanding their life as a reflection of their choices. They make time for the people they love, the passions they have and work that uses their uniqueness. They focus on the results, goals, and life-dreams they desire, rather than accepting what comes their way. They do, while others talk of doing. They plan their day, while others let their day plan them. And they motivate themselves, while others wait for someone or something to motivate them. For people who are winning at working, it’s not about the time they have; it’s about the choices they make in how to use it.

(c) 2006 Nan S. Russell. All rights reserved.

The Eleven Biggest Time Management Lies
by Dr. Donald E. Wetmore

In the world of Time Management there are things said to us that we accept as truth and we act accordingly. The problem is sometimes they are not truths. They are lies and as we believe them, they waste our time.

Those who speak these lies to us are not bad people at all because you and I are among them. We all speak these untruths to one another from time to time. So let’s not wish harm and doom to the liars. Let’s avoid the time traps their lying may cause us.

Here are the eleven biggest lies to shield yourself from.

1. “This will just take a minute.” Has anyone grabbed you with that line? Does it ever “just take a minute”? Rarely. What typically “just takes a minute”, generally consumes several minutes and more.
   Next time, when someone asks for your time and assures you,” This will just take a minute”, tell them, “You’re lying. You may not realize you’re lying, but you are. I’ll give you five minutes. You may begin now.”
2. “I need this as soon as possible.” No you don’t. That’s a lie too. You need it by a certain date and time because you are going to do something with what I provide for you. And if you’re not going to do anything with what I provide for you, why am I doing it for you in the first place?
   Don’t lie to me. Tell me when I have to get it to you. Be specific. You and I probably have two difference dates in mind when we think in terms of “as soon as possible”.
3. “I want this now.” I doubt it. In this 24/7/365 world, everyone is under a sense of artificial pressure to get it done “now” or worse,” yesterday”.
   Things are generally not that urgent. Don’t get caught up in someone else’s urgent trivialities.
   Call the liar to task. “I’m not sure I can get that done now. What if I got it to you one week from today?” Use an outside deadline to give yourself ample time to prevent getting into crisis management.
   Oh, and if they reject that alternative, try three better dates for you. Why? Because they may keep lying to you.
4. “It’s not about the money.” When it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
5. “This is the best (investment, business opportunity, book, movie, restaurant, boss, job, etc.) you’ll ever find.” Not true. There’s always something better. The best is yet to come.
6. “I can get this done in an hour.” It’s a fib. Ever notice how it almost always takes twice as long to get something done as what you thought it would? That’s because few of us have a very accurate internal clock to estimate the time required to complete most tasks.
7. “He’s a’ late’ person.” Most people who are “late” have a consistency about their behavior. My friend Dwayne is 20 minutes late all the time. If we need to meet for lunch tomorrow, it will take him 24 hours and twenty minutes to get there.
   Dwayne is not “late”. He’s “On-time; 20 minutes later”.
8. “No Cost.” You don’t get “nothing for nothing”. Everything has a cost. It may not cost you your money but more often it will be your time and more of it than what you are getting in return for “no cost”.
9. “I’ll prove you’re wrong if it’s the last thing I do.” And it may well be. No one wants to be proven wrong. Everyone likes to be caught doing things “right”. Most, however, don’t mind being shown how to do things better.
10. “By the time I show him how to do it I could just as quickly have done it myself.” If it’s a one-time proposition this may be true. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to spend an hour to show someone how to do a task that takes only 10 minutes.
    But if it’s a repetitive task, it’s a lie. If that one hour investment will save you 10 minutes every day, then in about a week you have your investment back and now you have a dividend of 10 extra minutes a day. What if you do that six different times? You get an extra hour in your day and 365 hours over the next year.
11. “This is going to be really hard.” Not true. Going through whatever you have to go through is almost never as difficult as you imagined it to be.

Mr. Smith, my high school principal, taught me that 95% of what we fear coming at us will never hit us. It will ditch itself before it ever reaches us. And as to the remaining 5%, God has given us the tools to deal with it.

10 Things You Can Do to Save Time
by Dr. Donald E. Wetmore

In my Time Management seminars which I have conducted for more than 100,000 people from around the globe, I show people how to get more done in less time, with less stress; to help them have more time for the things they want to do in their work and business lives.
If you can recapture a wasted hour here and there and redirect it to a more productive use, you can make great increases in your daily productivity.

Here are ten of the techniques I share in our Time Management seminars, each one of which will help you to get at least one more hour out of your day of additional productive time.

1. Maintain Balance. Your life consists of Seven Vital Areas: Health, Family, Financial, Intellectual, Social, Professional, and Spiritual. You will not spend equal amounts of time in each area or time every day in each area. But, if in the long run, you are spending a sufficient quantity and quality of time in each area, then your life will be balanced. But ignore any one of your areas, (never mind two or three!) and you will get out of balance and potentially sabotage your success. Fail to take time now for your health and you will have to take time for illness later on. Ignore your family and then may leave you and cost you a lot of time to re-establish relationships. It is especially challenging for self-employed people to maintain balance, isn’t it?
2. Get the Power of the Pen. A faint pen has more power than the keenest mind. Get into the habit of writing things to do down using one tool (a Day-Timer, pad of paper, Palm Pilot, etc.) Your mind is best used for the big picture rather than all the details. The details are important, but manage them with the pen. If you want to manage it you have to measure it first. Writing all things down, no just incoming orders, helps you to more easily remember all that you need to accomplish.
3. Do Daily Planning. It is said that people do not plan to fail but a lot of people fail to plan. Take the time each night to take control of the most precious resource at your command, the next twenty-four hours. Plan your work and then work your plan each day. Write up a To Do list with all you “have to’s” and all of your “want to’s” for your next day. Without a plan for the day, you can easily get distracted, spending your time serving the loudest voice, the noisiest customer, rather than attending to the most important things for your day that will enhance your productivity.
4. Prioritize It. Your To Do list will have crucial and not crucial items on it. Despite the fact most people want to be productive, when given the choice between crucial and not crucial items, we will most often end up doing the not crucial items. They are generally easier and quicker than crucial items. Prioritize your To Do list each night. Put the #1 next to the most important item on your list. Place the #2 next to the second most important item on your list, etc. Then tackle the items on your list in order of their importance. You may not get everything done on your list, but you will get the most important things done. This is working smarter, not harder, and getting more done in less time.
5. Control Procrastination. The most effective planning in the world does not substitute for doing what needs to be done. We procrastinate and put off important things because we don’t sense enough pain for not doing it or enough pleasure to do it. To get going on something you have been putting off, create in your mind enough pain for not doing it or enough pleasure to do it. I prefer the pleasure approach. Take a procrastinated item and turn it into to a game. Work with one thing in front of you at a time so other things won’t distract you. (”Out of sight, out of mind.”) Break it down to little bite-sized, manageable pieces. Get it started, take the first step and you will likely continue it to completion.
6. Run an Interruptions Log. The average person gets 50 interruptions a day. The average interruption takes five minutes. Some four hours each day, on average, are spent dealing with interruptions. Many are crucial and important, like new orders, and are what we get paid to do but many have little or no value. Run an Interruptions Log to identify and eliminate the wasteful interruptions. Just use a pad of paper and label it “Interruptions Log” Create six columns: Date, Time, Who, What, Length, Rating. After each interruption is dealt with, log in the date and time it occurred, who brought it to you, a word or two about what it related to, the length of time it took, and finally the rating of its importance: A=crucial, B=important, C=little value, and D=no value. Run it for a week or more to get a good measure of what is happening in your life. Then evaluate the results and take action to eliminate some of the C and D interruptions that have little or no value.
7. Delegate It. We all have 168 hours each week and when you ubtract 56 hours for sleep and another 10 hours for personal care, that doesn’t leave a whole lot of time to get done what needs to be done. Delegation permits you to leverage your time through others and thereby increase your own results. The hardest part of delegation though, is simply letting go. We take great pride in doing things ourselves. “If you want a job done well, you better do it yourself”. Every night in Daily Planning, look at all that you have to do and want to do the next day and with each item ask yourself, “Is this the best use of my time?” If it is, do it. If it isn’t, try to arrange a way to delegate it to someone else. There is a lot of difference between “I do it” and “It gets done”.
8. Manage Meeting Time. A meeting is when two or more people get together to exchange common information. What could be simpler? Yet, it can be one of the biggest time wasters we must endure. Before a meeting ask, “Is it necessary?” and “Am I necessary?” If the answers to either are “no”, consider not having the meeting or excusing yourself from attending. Then prepare a written agenda for the meeting with times assigned for each item along with a starting time and ending time. Circulate the written agenda among those who will be attending. There is no sense in holding a meeting by ambush. Let people know in advance what is to be discussed.
9. Handle Paper. It’s easy to get buried today in the blizzard of paperwork around us. The average person receives around 150 communications each day via email, telephone, hard mail, memos, circulars, faxes, etc. A lot of time is wasted going through the same pile of paper day after day and correcting mistakes when things slip through the cracks. Try to handle the paper once and be done with it. If it is something that can be done in a minute or two, do it and be done. If it is not the best use of your time, delegate it. If it is going to take some time to complete, schedule ahead in your day calendar on the day you think you might get to it and then put it away.
10. Run a Time Log. If you want to manage it, you have to measure it. A Time Log is a simple yet powerful tool to create a photo album sort of overview of how your time is actually being spent during the day. Simply make an ongoing record of your time as you spend it. Record the activity, the time spent on it, and then the rating using A, B, C, and D as described in #1 above. Some examples of how your time might be spent: Made telephone calls, 35 minutes, A; Made baskets, 48 minutes, A; Attended meeting, 55 minutes, C: Telephone call from Janis, D. Run this for a few days to get a good picture of how your time is being spent. Then analyze the information. Add up all the A, B, C, and D time. Most discover a lot of their time is being spent on C and D items that have little or no value. Finally, take action steps to reduce the C and D items to give you more time for the really important things in your life.

By: Lee David

When people decide to set goals, most of the time they follow a basic pattern: 1) they decide what they want, 2) they come up with an action plan to get what they want, and 3) they work the plan. 90% of the time, this method works - people generally set pretty low, short-term goals, and this plan of attack works best with goals that aren’t complicated. If a goal isn’t achieved by this method, people will throw the goal out the window, citing it was “too much work” or a variety of other excuses.

But what about that other 10% of goals? Surely there has to be a way to achieve those goals - many people have set tough goals that were achieved. What were those people doing differently than the others? The answer is simple: they were assessing their resources before they made their plan.

Assessing what resources you have at your disposal before you plan out your goal aids you in several ways. You’re more likely to make informed decisions and better plans to achieve your goal quicker. You’re also more likely to get better, more specific help from others than if you were to blindly run head first into a plan.
Assessing resources comes in two main steps:

1. First, you have to take a good look at what resources you have to work with.
2. Next, you have to decide on if you want to improve what you have, or get another resource that you need.

Look at what resources you have to work with.

The resources at your disposal will always fall into one of five categories: your personal skills, your personal resources, other people’s skills, other people’s resources, and your environment.

1. Your personal skills. Your personal skills are the skills that are unique to you. This can range from things like self discipline, to mastery on the bass guitar, to being great at calculus.
2. Your personal resources. Your personal resources are the material objects (and related items) that you personally own. This includes things such as owning TV, having a high speed internet connection, and so on.
3. Other people’s skills. Other people’s skills are just that - other people’s skills. When assessing what resources you have, we normally look at what skills other people have that you don’t have.
4. Other people’s resources. Same as above - this category consists of other people’s resources.
5. Your environment. The last category is your environment. It includes the city you live in, what kind of weather you encounter throughout the year, what kind of people you run into, and so on.

When people claim there are a variety of ways to achieve the same goal, it’s because they are looking at solutions through various resources. For example, if I wanted to take a set of great pictures of myself, I could filter my problem through the different resources:

1. My personal skills: I can set up a timed camera to take the pictures and do it myself.
2. My personal resources: I can spend money and buy a new, updated camera to use.
3. Other people’s skills: I can pay to have my pictures taken at a professional place.
4. Other people’s resources: I can borrow somebody else’s camera and take pictures myself.
5. My environment: I can leave the city and find somebody who can take the kind of pictures that I want to have.

Most of the time, after assessing what you have, you can get a pretty clear idea of what would be the optimal action to take. This method can also be used for brainstorming - you can brainstorm three different solutions, and get an even wider variety of solutions. (As a side note, each category isn’t all inclusive; as you can see, there’s a little bit of overlapping in between.)

How can you improve on what you have and get what you need?

Sometimes the resources we have aren’t up to par. We might be lacking in something to make our dreams come true. If I wanted to be the world’s best public speaker, but I have severe stage fright, that’s a severe handicap that I need to overcome before I can continue.

Finding the solution to overcome your problems can be tricky, but often times the solution is right under your nose. For improving personal skills, there are a variety of ways to achieve a level of competence. You might take guitar lessons if you would like to be a folk singer. Or, you might join Toastmasters if you want to become better at speaking. The library is full of books devoted to anything you want to learn; perhaps a trip out to your local one is in order. Improving personal resources normally involves money - it’s all about getting or upgrading what you own. If you want to become a top chef and you’re cooking ware is looking falling apart, maybe an upgrade is needed before you can seriously go on.

Improving other people’s skills is a bit trickier. Sometimes this includes shopping around at different places - as with the example before, if you want to become a folk singer and need to learn guitar, maybe you have to go around to six different guitar teachers before you find one who’s skill and experience is what you are looking for. The same applies to other people’s resources - you may have to knock on five of your friend’s doors before you find the item that you’re looking for.

Changing your environment is the easiest category to immediately change - anybody can get in their car and start driving anywhere, whenever they want to. Becoming a famous actor or actress is a dream for many, but you probably won’t have much luck fulfilling that dream in Kansas; you’d have better luck in Los Angeles or New York City.

Take a moment now to look at one of your main goals, and brainstorm different solutions based on the five types of resource categories I’ve listed. Are there several different solutions you can employ to achieve your dreams quicker?

Motivating Others . . .
Motivating others is not giving rewards. There is a clear distinction between RECOGNITION and REWARDS.

• Recognition is given as acknowledgment of something that has been done well or in appreciation for good performance. It is normally unexpected. It can include praise, thanks and both tangible and intangible gifts.
• Rewards are previously known benefits that are expected when a certain level of performance is achieved. They include, wages, salaries, benefits and incentives.

Of the two, recognition is by far the more powerful motivator in both the short and long term. Additionally, managers always have control over recognition, but not always over rewards.

Tips for providing recognition . . .

• Ensure people have variety in their roles
• Personally praise people when they perform up to or beyond your expectations. Thank them in person, write them a short note; send them an email or publicly (as appropriate to the person) thank them at the next team meeting
• Provide extra responsibility to those who seek it
• Include people who are good performers in prestigious events (e.g. visit to a customer/supplier, another city / state / country)
• Select people who are performing well to attend prestigious / exclusive training courses

  ©2006 The National Learning Institute

Self Management for the New Manager
The new manager’s role is challenging. Suddenly, you have moved from being a technical or professional expert where you knew most of the answers and how to really problem-solve, to being an “expert” people manager. Well, that’s what most of the people around you expect you to be - and generally straight away! Some tips …

1. Monitor your work hours. Set a limit and stick to it.
2. Recognise and manager your signs of stress. Find someone who knows you and ask them to give you feedback at least every two weeks.
3. Learn to delegate. Failure to delegate is the most common failing of new managers.
4. Communicate, communicate, communicate! This means regular meetings with your team members and your boss. It also means talking over work issues with a partner, friend or trusted colleague (from another area).
5. Give praise and recognition. Even “Thank You’s” are important. Look for the things people are doing well and praise them. If appropriate, also give public recognition.
6. Focus on what is important, not what is urgent. In particular, talk with your manager about the three most important priorities he/she has for you in your role. Make sure you focus on these at all times.
   Finally, find yourself a coach or mentor. This should be someone who has been or is a successful people manager. Meet regularly with them to dicuss your issues, challenges and ways that you can learn and develop.

©2006 The National Learning Institute

Communication for the New Manager
You’ve been communicating all your life - so what’s so different about communicating as a new manager?
The most important thing to keep in mind, is that now that you are a manager, other people are relying on you (your team, your manager, peers). They are watching you to see what you say and do to get some clues as to how it will impact them.

Tips for communicating …

• Always do what you say you are going to do. If you can’t (for some reason), say so and if possible, why. This builds respect and trust.
• Look to include everyone in your conversations, particularly those who are quiet or not actively participating (this is one of Nelson Mandella’s key attributes as a leader).
• Speak in terms that others will understand. Avoid jargon. Keep your language simple (politicians who fall out of favour, often make this mistake).
• Develop your presentation and public speaking skills - you will need them. Undertake a training program.
• Ask people for feedback on your ideas and suggestions.
• Admit your mistakes.
• Develop a colleague who can regularly give you feedback on your communication style and content.

©2006 The National Learning Institute

Setting Goals & Performance Standards

The critical aspect of this management strategy is to gain COMMITMENT rather than COMPLIANCE. This can be achieved by involving your people in the setting, measuring and evaluation of their own performance.

Tips for setting goals and performance standards with your people . . .

• Hold an individual meeting with each team member to seek his or her input and agreement as to what constitutes “effective performance”. The following process shows how to turn inputs (activities) into outputs (results):
• Take a sheet of paper and divide into 3 columns. In the first column, list the responsibilities, duties or accountabilities of the role.
• In column 2, turn each item in column 1 into an output by adding “… so that …” or answer the question ” Why?”
• Ask your team staff to list how each output will be measured-include quantity, quality, cost & time.
• Hold a team meeting to discuss how everyone can assess, evaluate and measure his/her performance. Use the agreements as a basis for evaluating individual performance at a later date
• Hold brief performance review sessions with each staff member at least quarterly
• Let people know immediately when they have done well or not so well. There should be no surprises at appraisal time.

©2006 The National Learning Institute

Building Relationships . . .
Developing personal networks by building relationships across the organisation (and externally), is another aspect that sets successful managers apart. Not only will it help you in your role as a new manager, but these networks can survive throughout your career. They provide you with three distinct advantages:

• Access to private information
• Access to diverse skills, knowledge and advice
• Power (personal as opposed to formal, i.e. positional)

Starting your Network . . .

• Take a sheet of paper and split it into 3 columns. In column 1, list all the contacts you know
• In column 2, list “Who introduced me to this person?”
• In column 3, fill in “To whom did you introduce this contact” (the person in 1)

Tips for developing your network - become a “networker”

• Look for the person whose name keeps recurring in column 2 - these are good “networkers”. You need to develop more of these to increase your own network
• If “Self” appears frequently in column 2, you do not yet have enough “networkers”
• If you do not have many names in column 3, then you yourself are not yet networking hard enough

©2006 The National Learning Institute

Developing Leadership . . .
Leading is the one aspect that sets really good managers apart from the ordinary. When you have “arrived” as a leader, your people will do things for you because of who you are, not what you are.
Once you have been in the role 12 months, ask yourself; “Would people do this for me if I were not their manager?” If you can answer “Yes”, then you have made it!

Tips for developing leadership . . .

• Hold regular team meetings.
• Meetings should always be 80% future oriented and 20% past. i.e most of the meeting should be discussing what we are going to do, not what has happened.At each meeting:
• Update the team on what is happening outside the team.
• Pronote discussion on what the team can do to meet its goals.
• Ask for suggestions on how the team can maintain harmony and work better together. Give praise.
• Look to provide opportunities to give people more responsibility, particularly freedom to make their own decisions.
• Provide an update on how you see the team as a whole performing and yourself as a manager - be humble and admit mistakes.

©2006 The National Learning Institute

Assessing Performance and Providing Feedback
There is now substantial research data on performance appraisals and performance reviews that indicates that both managers and staff are in the main, unhappy with the process. Why is this? There are three main reasons

• Performance is reviewed too infrequently (normally annually) and it thus becomes a “big deal” rather than normality
• The standards for measuring and assessing performance are unclear
• Comments on poor performance often outweigh the good results that staff have achieved

Tips for assessing performance and providing feedback . . .

• Ensure performance standards are discussed and agreed at the start of the review period. In particular, be very clear about defining with the staff member “How am I going to know when you are doing a good job?”
• Correct poor performance as it happens and do not include it in the annual review
• Conduct informal performance reviews regularly - at least quarterly
• Ask staff members how the performance review sessions can be improved
• Be sure to include discussion on career /professional development in the review sessions

©2006 The National Learning Institute

Managing on a Day to Day Basis for Continuity of Performance
This is about the day-to-day role of managing. It includes:

• Communication (both individual and teams),
• Keeping up to date with organisational and work aspects that may affect the team,
• Ensuring harmony within the group or team is maintained,
• Being clear, decisive and consistent,
• Addressing poor performance issues immediately and taking appropriate steps to resolve them.

Tips for maintaining the continuity of your’s and the team’s performance

• Seek feedback on the effectiveness of your team meetings (regularly use the Team Process Evaluation Form - email us for a copy).
• Ensure a regular item on your team meeting agenda is “What’s happening in the world outside of this team”.
• Address any sign of conflict between team members as and when this arises rather than waiting for it to “clear up by itself” - it won’t!
• When you make a key decision that affects the team (after careful consideration and discussion), stick with it unless there is a compelling and fact-based reason for change.
• When a person is not performing, hold an immediate discussion with him/her to find out why.

©2006 The National Learning Institute

Project Management . . .

The four-step approach to Project Management is a useful way to approach any project planning situation.

• Defining
• Planning
• Implementing
• Controlling

Step 1: Defining

• Analyse the facts of the Project and define key terms.
• Set Project objectives.
• Consider alternate courses of action.
• Identify the negative consequences of each course of action.
• Decide on a basic course of action.

Step 2: Planning

• Develop strategies.
• Determine measures of success.
• Identify and analyse the necessary job tasks.
• Define scope of relationships, responsibilities and authority of team roles.
• Determine allocation of resources.

Step 3: Implementing

• Assess skills of team members.
• Develop skills as required.
• Assign roles / responsibility / accountability.
• Develop individual performance objectives.
• Coordinate day-to-day activities.

Step 4: Controlling

• Measure progress toward and/or deviation from the project goals.
• Measure individual performances.
• Take corrective action.
• Evaluate project on conclusion.

by: Charen Smith

If there’s one thing that really irritates a lot of readers it’s getting a print ad or any other copy that has so many misspelled words and grammatical errors that you would want to get a red marker and edit and then send them back to whoever wrote the content.

If you want to repel your clients, then a copy that is full of errors would do it. In fact, misspelled words and grammatical errors in your print ads such as your custom booklets reflect an unprofessional attitude and non-expertise in your business. Hence, it is of vital importance that you proofread your booklet printing copy for instance, before you send them out to your target clients.

The main reason why proof-reading is important to your advertising campaign is because with a clear and concise copy, your ad can provide a clear picture of what your business can actually do. When you send your clients and potential customers your color booklet for example, do they understand completely and without any uncertainty your business and what you do? Does your copy clearly describe your business?

It is a fact however, that despite all the suggestions and advice both online and offline regarding how to improve on your ad copy many still have difficulty providing a clear description of their business. What’s more, most ad content often has errors in them that you would have a hard time understanding what it is their saying.

When after reading your ad your target clients still have no idea what product or service you are actually offering, then I believe it’s time for you to look at your copy and make changes to it.

First of all, you have to understand that using jargon on your ad copy doesn’t make you look good. In fact, it only confuses and annoys those who are not actually jargon-proficient. Avoid using these words then. You have to make sure instead that your copy would be understood and appreciated not only by your target clients but even those that are not part of your market. You’ll never know who you might catch along the way.

Moreover, jargons only make your copy more complicated. The purpose of the exercise is to help your target readers easily understand and get your message right away. If they have to sift through so many words and meanings before they could even get to what you are talking about, then the whole objective of your ad is wasted.

Second, always make your ad copy simple and straight to the point. Your target audience has limited time to understand what you are trying to say. If they can’t get it the first few seconds, then they will definitely go to the next provider.

Lastly, avoid having a vague and ambiguous copy. Do you understand your copy? Do you think your target clients will have an easy time reading it? If there’s even the remotest chance that your meaning is vague, then marketing-wise, your ad just lost you the opportunity to make a sale. Remember that an ad that doesn’t get results is a waste of your time, money and effort.

So make sure that you have a clear and concise description of your business. A proof-read and easily understood ad copy can make a huge difference in getting you the profits you need to grow your business.

For more information, you can visit this page on http://www.printplace.com/printing/booklet-printing.aspx

by: Dan Herman

About 95% of what executives in competing companies do is pretty much the same all around. This is good management. If you are CEO’ing a wireless communication services provider, you strive to put up an advanced technological infrastructure with a promising future, cool end-user phones, other devices and accessories, a great service system and competitive prices. Well, this is precisely where your competitors put their efforts as well. The 5% (give or take) that you do differently constitutes your strategy. The CEO of Southwest Airlines, the revolutionary domestic American airline, most of the time does exactly what her colleagues do. But her firm offers Ticketless travel, and serves meals in the airport during waits, and not on the plane.

Doing well what you are supposed to be doing - is a prerequisite for competing. It is definitely not a strategy. Being better - is a deserving effort, yet it is not a strategy either, especially not in the long run. How, then, are you supposed to compete? Well, you could offer your clients more than what your competition offers, for a higher price, for the same price, for a lower price, or - offer them less value for a lower price. All of these options can give you an edge, but usually not for long.

You could also offer something different than what your competition does. You can cater to a need not formerly satisfied by your category. Nokia, for example, did just that when it decided to treat cellphones as fashion accessories and later as entertainment devices. Even this approach could not be considered as an insurance policy. There are no insurance policies in the world of business. But, if it is difficult or impossible to imitate, or it is something not likely to be imitated by your competition - then you might just have created for yourself a mini-monopoly of your own. Well, this is surely an accomplishment that should not be underestimated in a competitive market.

So, what really is a strategy? By definition, a strategy is the way by which you are planning to obtain your goals. In a competitive environment, your goal is that the consumer will prefer you to your competition. That is why the strategy is, in fact, the way by which you plan to achieve an advantage over your rivals - in the eyes of your consumers. Almost always, preference can be achieved only by differentiation, by either doing something other than what your competitors are doing or by doing things in a markedly dissimilar manner.

There are three types of differentiations and only one of them constitutes a strategy (or strategic differentiation). The transient differentiation is often achieved by promotional activities, such as a big sale. The circumstantial differentiation consists of things like a historical monopoly, or some kind of personal connection between the consumer and someone in the firm, or a convenient store location etc’. However, the differentiation we want to focus on is the strategic differentiation, such that provides a long lasting, circumstance-crossing advantage.

Is differentiation absolutely necessary? In any case where the consumer must choose between options - the answer is definitely yes. Why? Because the consumer chooses between alternatives on the basis of the differences as he or she perceives. Zoom-in on that sentence for a second. Do not fall into the most common trap of all: the consumer makes choices according to his perception of differences between alternatives, and not on the basis of what he values most in a product of that kind.

Competitive strategy is always a simultaneous answer to two questions.

The first one is: in which consumer group do you identify a potential for buying your product? By ‘group’ I do not mean necessarily shared socio-economic and demographic characteristics or even a similarity in personality or life style. What I mean is that they have in common some factor, enabling you to make them an offer, which will be more attractive to them than the options they already have, or at least a refreshingly new one. The second question is: what could you offer them that would help you realize that potential?

The goal is not to reach a consensus, nor is it to be OK by everyone. Experience has taught us that the key is to make a specific group of consumers, even a small one, think that you are irreplaceable. They will act as your success engine, even amongst consumers who are not as definite in their attitudes. BMW fans do not believe that Mercedes is a bad car; it’s just that it is not a BMW. For them, Mercedes is simply incomparable to BMW. That’s how Apple fans feel about IBM.

What has all this to do with branding? A brand is the consumer’s anticipation for a unique and defined experience, or for a certain unique benefit obtainable solely through consuming/owning a specific product/service manufactured/offered by a specific company. Thus, the anticipation from a trip to Paris would be to experience a romantic vacation. The anticipation from Ikea would be “state of the art design at a reasonable price”. It is fair to say that a brand is really a brand only when there exists, among its consumers, such anticipation. If this anticipation is both exclusive and attractive, you might say that it is a strong brand. A familiar name or logo - do not suffice to make for a strong brand.

This consumer anticipation is evoked and upheld by the marketer’s consistent execution of a business concept providing the consumer with a unique benefit or with a unique/novel way to deliver a benefit. This concept is the brand strategy, its promise and its commitment to its target consumers. The “third place”, the neighborhood place you frequent in between work and home offered by Starbucks - is a brand strategy. But, wait a minute! It is also the differentiation - the competitive strategy itself! These ARE the 5% that executives do differently in order to gain an advantage. This is why the brand IS the strategy. Or more accurately, the brand strategy is the translation of the competitive strategy into a language of promises made to the consumer.

The brand’s role in the realm of marketing has changed dramatically during the past decade. Today, brand building no longer constitutes a mere manipulation of the consumer’s perceptions and desires, but it is a creation of a system that on the one-hand makes promises and arouses anticipations, while on the other-hand it delivers and realizes the promises that it makes.

by: Dan Herman

I have encouraging news for you: many of your competitors are afraid of strategy. You might call it strategophobia. Strategy has two terrifying characteristics. First, strategy is a choice. “We are going to go for target customers X, and not the rest,” or “The major benefit we will offer consumers is Z and not all sorts of other things.”

It seems that when you choose, you have to give something up. There are executives who are not willing to give up on a target group of customers, as if they “have them” or stand a realistic chance of getting them all. This is one of the sweetest but most dangerous illusions managers have. They aren’t willing to define a particular benefit as the major benefit they have to offer their consumers, out of fear that the consumer might be tempted to try a different benefit elsewhere. Strategizing means choosing to focus and concentrate your energies in order to provide yourself with an advantage. You go about this by establishing your brand as the source of a certain benefit. If you don’t, you probably won’t be identified with any benefit and consumers will have no good reason to think of you and buy from you when they need or desire something.

When you adopt a strategy, you’re “giving up” all sorts of things that you don’t actually have in order to acquire something tangible, something you can sink your teeth into.

The second terrifying characteristic of strategy is differentiation from competitors. To be different, that’s really a possibility that could cause nightmares. Why? Primarily because basic conservatism says that if that’s what everyone does, there must be a good reason for it. And that’s true. The component of “good management practices,” which everyone strives for, is essential. It doesn’t create an advantage over competitors and you should never confuse it with strategy, but it is essential. Beyond this, managers are always so busy dealing with competition that they are more worried about preventing their competitors from gaining an advantage than they are about creating an advantage for themselves. And so those managers are busy trying to imitate their competitors rather than striving to be different. A good defensive game really does help you not lose. But in order to win, you need to score every now and then.

For this, you need a strategy. No alternative, sorry.

The 5 Percent That Makes All the Difference

By definition, strategy is the way you plan to achieve your goals. In a competitive environment, your goal is for your customer to buy from you and not from your competitors. Therefore, strategy is the way in which you plan to achieve an advantage over your competitors, in the consumers’ eyes. Differentiation is almost always a pre-condition for achieving such advantage. You must do something differently from your competitors so that you provide certain consumers with a good reason for preferring you.

Many marketers think that differentiation means that a company has to be different than its competitors from A to Z. Not true. The comforting secret is that you don’t need to be different in everything in order to succeed, only in certain things. If you look at the managers of competing companies in the same market category, no matter what the field, you’ll see that 95 percent of their concerns, decisions and day-to-day activities are very similar. It may be surprising, but in 95 percent of their actions, executives in competitive companies are doing nearly the same things. That’s the “good management” that we talked about.

If you take cellular company CEOs, for example, and interview each of them separately, asking them what’s important to them, you’re likely to hear pretty much the same thing from all of them: “I want an infrastructure technology with a horizon for future developments; I want more exciting phones; I must have great client service, a flexible and efficient billing system, and great added value and content services.” Everyone will say exactly the same thing, because that is what is expected of a good cellular company. But good management isn’t a strategy.

If everyone does the same thing, and everyone is talented enough to do it well, would consumers differentiate between companies? Why should they prefer your company? Because you do it better? There’s practically no chance that “better” is something consumers will notice, nor is it an advantage that you can maintain over time.

The secret is in the other 5 percent. The 5 percent you do differently is your differentiation which is your strategy. If 5 percent sounds too little for you, I suggest that you remember that human beings and chimpanzees are 98 percent identical in their genetic makeup. If 2 percent can make that big a difference, then 5 percent, planned wisely, can do even more. Other concepts you know, such as positioning (your situation, relative to your competitors’, in the consumer’s mind vis-a-vis his purchasing considerations), and “critical success factors” (what you must do in your field in order to succeed) relate to good management, not strategy. Note that positioning and differentiation are not at all synonymous! Positioning refers to the comparison between you and your competitors in all parameters that are significant to consumers, which they use to compare their options. Differentiation refers to what sets you apart. Since it’s something that is true only about you, there’s no comparison in this respect. Good management provides you with the entrance ticket to the competition. Strategy allows you to win the battle for the consumer.

I want to illustrate the principle of 5 percent difference for you with an admittedly unconventional, but very elucidating example. Mind you, I do not mean to glorify this company, just to make a point.

In Canada, there is a news company called Naked News, and it broadcasts upbeat news and current events programs to more than 170 nations daily on the Internet, as video on demand (V.O.D.) on cable and satellite-TV as well as over mobile phones and other handheld devices.

Most of what the managers and other staff in this news company do is exactly what their colleagues in any other news company in the world do. But Naked News does one thing a little differently, and that’s the reason some viewers prefer it (despite the premium price). Tagged “the channel with nothing to hide,” Naked News’ attractive anchor persons (well, mainly young women) cover politics, business, sports, entertainment and the weather - while totally naked.

You may prefer a less controversial approach. That’s fine. As long as you get the principle right.

by: Daryl Cowie

One of the realities of business is that the cost of getting new customers is normally much higher than the cost of improving the value of your offering to existing customers.

Advertising is expensive, and good sales channels demand a big piece of the profits. If you are just starting out then you have very little choice and must put your focus on acquiring new customers. If you already have a good sized customer base, you might want to spend a little more time trying to get the most out of the customers you already have.

Many businesses put a lot of focus on increasing the number of customers and neglect to put in the appropriate effort on another important sales growth method: Increasing the average value of each sale.

There are three management techniques to increase the average value of each sale and in turn increase sales revenue:

1. Raise the price
2. Up-Sell
3. Cross-Sell

Today we’re going to focus on raising the price to increase the average value of each sale.

The Supply Demand Curve

If you raise the price two things will normally happen. First you will make more money from each sale. Second, you will make fewer sales. So should you raise the price or not?

In theory, the decision whether or not to raise price comes from an understanding of the supply demand curve for your market. Simply put, supply is how much of something is available, and demand is how much of something people want. Generally speaking, the more people want something, the more the price goes up because sellers know they can get more money for it. The other side of the equation is that the lower the price, the more people will be able to buy it. The optimum price to be selling at for maximum profitability is where the supply and demand curves cross.

So what does this mean in practical terms? I know I don’t have a graph of the supply demand curve for my markets pinned on the wall. Most of us will never have that level of detail available.

What it means is that you need to test your pricing once in a while. If you find that you are always out of something then bump up the price until you are not. If you have a room full of something else that you can’t seem to get rid of, drop the price. It’s not doing you any good stored in the back room. If you can’t make a profit on it, then at least get some of your money back and move on with different products or services. You need to keep track item by item what is selling and what is not. Push the price on the top sellers up, and bring the price of the bottom sellers down.

Increasing the average value of each sale is an effective way to increase your revenue numbers without the need to get new customers. While raising your prices can result in fewer sales, there is a balance to be struck between the number of sales and the value of each sale. You need to track profitability item by item in order to optimize the amount of money you make from each one.

by: Derek Rogers

Given the ratio of the internet, and given the fact that so many people in the business world use it to further their goals and ambitions, it is shocking how so many people still have issues with using the internet appropriately. Search engine optimization is one powerful tool that many people use when they are looking to increase the level of relevant traffic to their website, but remember, that like any tool, its efficiency depends on the employer. Take a look at a few of the reasons why so many SEO campaigns falter and fall, and often are unable to rise again.

Bad keywords are one of the first culprits. Look at the text on your website and really think about whether it reflects your company. Will the people who are searching for your services know to use those terms? Bad keywords can work in two different directions. Firstly the keywords are too specific. They are only understood by other professionals in your field, and someone who isn’t aware of the ins and outs of your business would never think to search for them. Over-generalization is similarly a concern. With keywords that are too generic, you will simply bring irrelevant people to your site who have no actual interest in what you have to offer.

SEO also means that you have to take into account the format of your page. Are things placed in a logical way that will draw people? Have you made sure that your page has enough content to draw people to it? Part of good page optimization is ensuring that your website has a good place when it comes to link building. The more people who link to you without you offering a reciprocal link, the better your rating goes. Link building is one aspect that the Google search engine uses to push you towards the top of your search page, so make sure that you don’t ignore it when you are thinking about optimization and content.

Some companies who try to avoid these mistakes contract with SEO consultants, but even there they might find that they are working with someone who uses illegitimate means to bulk up your numbers. Some warning signs include multiple names, the ownership of shadow domains and a guarantee of rankings through obscure keyword phrases that you would have gotten anyway. Beware of companies that give you a strange feeling or refuse to explain how your website would be getting the hits. Although there are many of them, the concepts relating to SEO are fairly straightforward, so if you catch someone being secretive, make sure you find out why.

When you are looking to conduct an SEO campaign, unless you are a specialist in the field yourself, you should consider consulting with a professional. A professional who cares about his or her work and is dedicated to making your site a success can easily save you from the blunders that could cost you in time, resources and money which is important to any business.

by: Tsuyoshi Suzuki

A clean MLM mailing list is essential in today’s internet environment. This MLM mailing list is computer maintained and is updated on a daily basis to assure you of the very latest leads for your direct-mail offers. In this case, obtaining an mlm mailing list is necessary so that you will have people to reach to offer your products to.

Mailing

Mailing lists for direct marketing purposes are often used for catalog distribution. Mailing leads are lists of people’s profiles that include their demographics, buying behavior, product consumption, and more. Mailing list companies can help you in marketing your business may it be online or offline. Mailing list companies have several lists to choose from. The end result of many, though, is an MLM Mailing list. So what is a good MLM mailing list.

Lists

Beware of using unscrubbed address lists that may provide you with addresses to which you can send information or advertisements. Usually it will come from a legitimate MLM business that offers the service of producing lists. And not all lists are created equal, so you need to exercise caution when mailing your offers out. Now if using MLM mailing lists is the way that you want to build your MLM business than okay. And this is what you need to keep in mind when you’re researching which MLM type mailing lists to buy.

Leads

Leads vendors tend to develop generic lists of MLM leads where those people may end up being contacted by dozens of MLM marketers, plus they may not be new leads. A good method of coming up with a consistent source of leads is through an MLM Mailing List. Yet, how do you know that those MLM leads are quality leads. If they are not the best quality, do you have what it takes to make those leads work for your business. Generating your own MLM leads means that you are going to be able to tailor your leads to your specific MLM business. Make sure the questions allow you to sort your MLM leads easily, so that you can qualify and disqualify your MLM leads in a simple manner.

Every name and address on our direct mail MLM mailing list is a qualified income opportunity seeker. Now this isn’t a matter of protecting you from getting taken for a money ride when you are told that your MLM mailing list is the best one out there and that it will lead to many sales and distributor enrollments. You have to establish a system that would allow you to follow up on your leads, and this is why an MLM mailing list is of utmost importance to your campaign. An MLM mailing list is a database of the contact details of the leads you manage to generate for your business.

by: Tsuyoshi Suzuki

Billions of dollars from business-to-business marketing budgets are spent each year on sales lead generation. Something I’ve seen over and over is that many of my clients originally believed that marketing and lead generation is supposed to bring “as many people through the door” as possible. Developing an abundant supply of targeted referrals is the number one lead generation system used by top sales people.

A more effective small business lead generation machine, one that generates the greatest return on investment, is best created through the blending of targeted advertising, consistent public relations and a systematic approach to referrals. I’m going to show you the easiest, quickest and most effective method to grow your business, using word of mouth or referrals. Follow the steps of this lead generation system and you’re on your way to creating an abundance of new target clients and becoming a Master of Referrals.

Organizing your leads and all the information surrounding them will not only lead to a more effective sales campaign it will also increase the time you have creating prospects and selling to your new prospective clients. If, as is frequently the case, the sales department is also responsible for generating their own leads, I’ve frequently seen sales people that are excellent at prospects generation but couldn’t close a deal if their job depended on it, and it does. If there are two different groups responsible for generating prospects and sales, and if marketing success (advertising, lead generation) seems extraordinarily high, while the sales close ratio is way down then the chances are that the marketing efforts are not qualifying the leads.

Again, sales, marketing and management need to agree on the definition of each term, as this will help you avoid confusion later during qualified prospects. If qualified lead in a business-to-business marketing-for-leads program is to succeed, marketing, sales and corporate management must share a unified definition of qualified sales leads. Here is an example of what a well-linked sales lead management process might look like: Research industry, company, decision-makers, and current business situation.

Set up a clearly defined, well-linked sales process, and then use prospects management systems to automate, track, distribute, and report on the results. When ever you contact a potential client, use your lead management tool to keep track of the details of your conversations. A good lead management system allows business owners to organize and streamline the process of converting potential customers into clients.

Successful referral lead generation starts when a marketer or business owner adopts a new mindset about referrals, recognizing the sales potential available through a warm market. If running a prospects generation team is not your core business, the real and intangible costs of doing so may be the most decisive expense of all. An outsourcing partnership with a ‘good’ lead and appointment setting supplier is more effective at getting the quality and quantity of leads you need and in the long run costs considerably less than doing it in house.

The good news is that you are not guilty of wasting your company’s sales prospects investments. Here I’ve found for sales generation that have turned hundreds of sales people into 6-figure sales people. If you want to know more about how to generate target leads to your business, make sure you click the link at resource box below.