Managing People

There is no “Magic” in managing people. If you want to be more effective with people, you must understand that substantial increase in effectiveness have substantial costs and risks. Those costs and risks are both subtle and ego threatening; but if you are willing to accept them, there is virtually no limit to your potential for human influence. If you are not willing to accept them, then you must be content with your present level of influence because it will not increase.

Values are the Key. People do not engage in behavior because it will be good for the organization or because it will serve your values. They engage in a behavior only if that is the best behavior for them to engage in to take care of what is important to them. Your challenge in influencing others is to show how what they perceive best serves their values. These values include: self-esteem, acceptance, affiliation, friendship, security, freedom, autonomy, recognition, success, and fun.

Power is the ability to affect the allocation of resources. Authority is an organizationally granted privilege to engage in certain behaviors and expect to be supported in those activities: e.g.: to hire, fire, make policy and direct procedures. Power is not authority, and authority is not power. If we want to influence others we must spend more time thinking through our words and gestures, our timing, and our approach. To do so might seem unnatural and forced. (Behaviors that feel natural are merely behaviors we have repeated many times). What seems reasonable may be reasonable only to us. If we want to influence other we must take the time to find out what best serves their values and what is reasonable to them.

Most of the effective techniques for human influence require you to make the first move and to accept vulnerability to failure. Effectiveness requires persistence through rejections and repeated failures. To acquire such persistence we must overcome well-worn beliefs about failure and well-worn, emotional programs that have played thousands of times in our heads. You must give up rationalizing, subject yourself to charges of unfairness, take on costly and risky behaviors, give up some long standing feel good behaviors, and overcome your deeply entrenched fear of failure in order to increase your effectiveness in managing people. This is neither easy nor pleasant, but no other route is as powerful. No other route may be possible.

People have multiple values, many unrelated to money, and as long as they see those values will be served in an accepted way in exchange for the behavior you want, you can get anyone to do anything you want.

Copyright © Donald N. Lombardi

http://www.HomeBasedBusinessWizard.com

Donald N. Lombardi, Is A Business Consultant, As Well As,
Expert Author on Home Based Business

Why Develop A Mission Statement?

A mission statement communicates to employees, vendors, customers, and competitors what top managements overall expectations, direction and focus are. Goals, policies and procedures are developed within the confines set forth in the mission statement. The basic function of a mission statement is to convey to the public and employees the direction for the existence of the business.

The Strategic Plan begins with the mission statement. Long range objectives are formulated from this statement. Short and long term goals are then developed for each department, product, and function. Project schedules are the timetables added to the goals to perpetuate and measure the progress throughout the business.

The mission statement is a written description of the ownerships vision and direction in terms easily understood by all employees. The vision is the personal way the company plans to do business. Management and employee decisions are guided by, but do not violate the mission statement. The mission statement provides a company wide bond and a single minded direction and focus.

The mission statement should be a clear and succinct representation of the business purpose for existence. It should incorporate socially meaningful and measurable criteria addressing concepts such as the moral/ethical position of the business, public image, the target market, products/services, the geographic domain and expectation of growth and profitability

The mission statement should be reviewed annually with employees, serving as a constant reminder as to the purpose of the business existence. The vision for the company rarely changes. However, since the mission statement is the foundation from which the strategic plans take root, the statement must be structurally sound.

The mission statement should be posted on large placards or in frames in conspicuous places as a reference for employees and managers. It should also be placed on all advertisements to show customers and vendors that there is a framework for decision making and performance expectations.

The Ownerships is the keeper of the vision and the designer of the mission statement. Other management may be involved in the statement formulation but the responsibility of the complete mission statement belongs to the ownership. Management is responsible for maintaining adherence and awareness of the mission statement throughout the company.

Copyright © Donald N. Lombardi http://www.HomeBasedBusinessWizard.com

P.S.: Download This FREE eBook Dotcomology-The Science Of Making Money OnLine"

Cash Is King!

Cash is the lifeblood of your business. If you manage it well your company will be strong and healthy. If you do a poor job of managing your cash your business will probably fail. The single fact that a business fails is lack of money.

If you haven't considered cash management an important issue, then you are probably undermining your business's short-term stability and its long-term survival. But how can you manage business cash better?

You must first start with understanding how good cash-management practices can influence your company's growth. Then dive into forecasting your business-cash needs and learning how to handle a cash crisis. Assembled here are practical pieces of advice,that you can use to get a handle on business cash.

Usually when someone goes into business they feel that all they need is a checking account and a package of Quicken software to keep track of sales and key financial results. But after about a year or so, they realize that there are all kinds of questions. Like, what should we do with whatever excess cash exists, and how would we really ever know for certain if we do have any excess cash?

If you have not considered such questions, you may be undermining your company's long-term prospects. There may be no financial discipline that is more important, more misunderstood, and more often overlooked than cash management. Business owners should be thinking about this issue from day one. But most do not because they have other issues on their minds. So long as more money seems to be coming into the business than going out, many company owners don't give cash management a second thought. And that leaves them vulnerable to all kinds of cash flow dangers.

Luckily, the first step to improved cash management is not exactly nuclear science: just start maximizing cash flow. There are often ways for businesses to improve their cash position simply by making certain that their billing, collections, and payables systems are operating as efficiently as possible. Aim to bring cash into the company as quickly as possible: bill promptly, aggressively follow up on overdue invoices, and, if possible, require up-front deposits when making sales. Then hold onto your cash as long as possible by managing your payables. That means, quite simply, take as long as you are allowed--without incurring late fees or interest charges--to pay your company's bills.

To practice a more elaborate form of cash management, you must be able to accurately assess your current cash position and make fairly reliable predictions at key intervals about how much you will need to meet the company's expenses.

Start preparing more finely detailed and meaningful monthly financial statements that include cash-flow forecasts. Once you understand your cash position, you can often follow a course similar to the one families follow when building up an emergency nest egg: put small amounts of extra cash in a money-market account, on either a monthly or quarterly basis. Granted, you will not earn a fortune, but you will earn some interest while keeping the company's funds accessible.

If your company's cash flow becomes so predictable that you can set aside sums for several months or more, you might be able to make a slightly greater commitment by purchasing certificates of deposit. Although there are penalties for cashing in CDs early, those penalties should be manageable in an emergency. To minimize the risk, buy smaller CDs and try to stagger their maturity dates.

In any and all cases, exercise judgment. The biggest cash management mistake a business owner can make is to take huge risks when investing spare cash. That's because it's all too easy to lose your company's cash cushion, and possibly even to jeopardize your business's survival, by making inappropriate investments.

Copyright © Donald N. Lombardi http://www.HomeBasedBusinessWizard.com

P.S.: Download This FREE eBook Dotcomology-The Science Of Making Money OnLine"

RSS Feed

It Is The Product, Stupid!

Your product is the hero of your website and marketing campaign. Visitors to your website want to know what you can do for them. The answer to this question trumps everything else. Only after they feel that you can satisfy their needs will they continue to research what you have to offer. Getting the product right and consistently keeping it right is at the heart of any successful business.

Whoever develops your website and marketing campaign must keep this idea in mind. While company information is important, the first question that must be answered to a new visitor to your advertisement or site is whether or not your service or product meets their needs. In response you must answer “YES”, loud and clear.

The images or banners that represent your service or product on your site should be secondary in attracting attention only to your web site’s headline. Marketing images of your product or service in your layout should be larger that the other elements.

Presentation and layout are important because if you do succeed in convincing your site visitor that you have what they need; they will immediately begin evaluating your layout for image marketing. Are you a real and reputable company? Then say so with your layout.

Present the service or product immediately on your home page. Internet users are both intelligent and impatient and they do not appreciate being delayed in anyway. You must learn to work with your site visitor completely on their terms as much as possible. If you succeed, they might trust you with their business.

If you are part of an affiliate program you want to be sure that the destination page follows all of these guidelines because that is where the sale is to be made. The product features and benefits must be prominently displayed. Professional services are more challenging to represent graphically, but it is still possible using a series of elements blended into a professional layout. All of your hard work in setting up the sale with your marketing efforts and site will go for naught if the destination page is not professional in featuring the product and service as the hero in every possible way.

Sales Is The Name Of The Game. The business success depends on the customer purchasing the product or service. All business efforts must be focused on the sale being made, without it there is no business. So, be sure to get the right product or service for your business and consistently keep it right.

P.S.: More information on how to make money online is available in this FREE eBook now Dotcomology-The Science Of Making Money OnLine"

Copyright © Donald N. Lombardi
http://www.HomeBasedBusinessWizard.com

Discover How To Build Your Own
Turnkey Home Business With 5 Steams Of Revenue

Affiliate Marketing Makes You Money!

When you join an affiliate program nothing happens until you help your merchant partner sell his goods and services. This will be done through your website and your advertising. It is only after a sale is made that you receive a commission for your assistance in making the sale.

It is therefore necessary for you to have a well designed website and a well thought out marketing plan that generates a regular flow of traffic to your site. Most of the work you will have to do in any affiliate program involves creating, improving, and tweaking your website and advertising so that you can achieve more traffic and sales.

Advertising will bring traffic to your site. Creating a better site will enable you to make the sale, and in effect, generate superior returns for your efforts.

Some suggestions you might want to consider when building and upgrading your web site.

Understand your market. Your site should cater to a target market. You do not want to have a site that caters to everyone. It gets too confusing and expensive. Instead, analyze the current market and decide on the area where you can make the most profit. Avoid spreading yourself too thin. Instead, concentrate on learning everything about the products and services that you offer. By so doing you will be able to better merchandise and market the products and services. You will be much better off choosing a topic or product that you know and love, than choosing five topics or products that you do not know or understand. You will not make money online if you do not specialize.

Advertise intelligently. When you build your website you must have your product and visitors in mind. Will your product and finished site be something that people will want to come back to on a regular basis? Will they want to visit regularly, or will they be turned off by what is there? Many site builders make the mistake of just putting up banners and links wherever they can. Put your shoes on backwards and look at your site as a prospective customer. Would you actually bother to click on these ads or banners, especially when they are nothing more but a nuisance? Remember it is your customer’s dollars that make your business successful. Try to build your site with your customers in mind, and provide for what they will need and want.

Customer satisfaction is important in affiliate marketing, as in all other businesses. You want to build long lasting relationships by adopting the strategies that satisfy your customers and keeps them coming back. You owe it to yourself to apply these strategies and intelligence to your efforts so that you can be included in the elite few who make money online. As long as you stay committed to excellence, making extra money online will not be difficult for you.

P.S.: Download This FREE eBook Dotcomology-The Science Of Making Money OnLine"

Copyright © Donald N. Lombardi
http://www.HomeBasedBusinessWizard.com

Get More Information On How To Build Your Own
Turnkey Website With 5 Steams Of Revenue

Keep It Simple and Make Tons Of Money!

By now I am sure you have heard about the “KISS” principle (Keep It Short and Simple). The best approach in any business is to keep things simple. If you focus on the simple things that have worked for others, you will make a killing in just about any market.

Here are some simple things you can do to be successful in a home based business.

You need to capture the names and emails of your website visitors and email them continuously. Any person who knows anything about marketing online knows that the money is in the list. I bet you’ve heard that a million times. That is because it works.

Yet, if you look around at many sites in different markets you’ll see that there are many people who still do not have an email signup form on their sites. If they do have a signup form, they usually have the form tucked away in some little corner where no one sees it.

If you do a search for the major keywords in your market and you find that many of the websites do not have optin forms then you know that your competitors have poor marketing skills. Having an email form is one of the most basic and effective marketing techniques ever.

The second step is to learn about your target market. That’s because you need to know what buttons to push when it comes to writing sales copy. It does not take much to get your prospects interest and attention. You don’t have to know the deepest psychological tricks to get visitors to buy. In fact, if you are part of an affiliate program, the affiliate’s sales page will have some of the things that your target market is interested in and they will gear their ad copy towards the concerns and interests of the prospect.

The third step is to pump money back into your business. That is a fundamental factor for success in any business. When you’re selling something on a website and you have measured conversion levels, those numbers will remain the same no matter if you have 100 visitors or 1,000 visitors a day.

Let’s say you have a conversion rate of 5%. For every 100 people who visit your site, five of them become customers. Now you need to take the money from those five sales and drive more people to your site. Now you have 1,000 visitors and you get 50 sales. Take a portion of that and reinvest in your business. Know your numbers and keep tossing money to fuel the fire.

There are tons of niches online that are begging for you to step in and dominate. Simply find the markets where people obviously have little marketing skills and take over the market. You can even offer to buy out another business and pick up where they left off.

In a home based online business, marketing is the name of the game! So keep it simple and make yourself a ton of money.

Copyright © Donald N. Lombardi
http://www.HomeBasedBusinessWizard.com