July 21st, 2010 by admin
In the past I’ve always said that you will get out of things the same equal measurement of effort and resources you put into them. I’ve since realized that in some instances I may be incorrect in that statement. I’ve done my best to stop making blanket totalitarian statements thanks to my experiences and some valuable feedback from good friends of mine.
In truth we sometimes get surprised and receive way less or way more than what we expected, but generally when you:
- Work hard, you get consistent results
- Hire a ten, you get a ten’s performance
- Do nothing, problems get worse
- Invest extra effort in researching your client, you close the deal
- Write an agenda, you accomplish it
In general 2+2 always = 4. I don’t know what happens, but sometimes people believe that they can do less and earn more, plan less and receive more benefits, lead poorly but still have a strong team.
Stop the lazy thinking and come back to reality. Our world was built by those who worked hard and dedicated themselves to their passions. There are no shortcuts to success, but when you do dedicate yourself and work hard the benefits are worth it. You can achieve success.
Football is like life – it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority.
Tags: disciple, results, sales, work
Posted in Inspirational, goals | No Comments »
July 20th, 2010 by admin
I was reminded again today of how easy it is to get back on track by simply changing the scenery. I find that I can easily get stuck on one project or problem because I try to focus all my energy on it and this can at times actually cause me to get stuck. One of the downfalls of the technology that we use is that we can be isolated without realizing it.
If you are stuck on something or having a hard time conquering your task, get up, walk around, call up a client you have been putting off seeing and go meet with them. Get out there and interact with the world you live in and you’ll find that you will be renewed and refreshed. You will be able to once more put all your energies into succeeding.
Action is the foundational key to all success.
Tags: change, clients, goals, sales, scenery, tasks
Posted in Inspirational, Instructional, sales | No Comments »
July 18th, 2010 by admin
This past weekend I went shopping with my wife and we ended up at Marshalls. She was looking for a dress for a wedding we are going to next month. We finally found the perfect dress and headed up to the counter to checkout. To most guys this is the greatest moment of shopping, when you get to leave. We weren’t sure what it cost because it was missing it’s price tag but it was on a rack with reasonably priced items so I figured it couldn’t be to much.
When we got to the register to ring out we were informed that the dress was apart of a set so someone was sent to locate the other piece. They returned right away and said that the other piece was not found and so they couldn’t sell us the dress. What!!? I was astonished that they wouldn’t take my money. I explained that I was happy to pay the normal price even though the item was incomplete. Since the missing accessory was just a scarf we didn’t need it because my wife had other accessories that would work with the dress. The associate then explained that the piece would be held for 7 days and then marked down as a clearance item and sold. I then asked for a manager so I could see if there was anyway we could purchase the item immediately since we were leaving town in a few days. I got a generic answer again about their policy and was rudely told I would just have to wait to purchase the item later if I came back when it was on clearance. I was furious.
What a ludicrous policy (incidentally Wikipedia’s definitition says “A policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome(s).“). There was nothing rational about that decision! Why wouldn’t you allow your customer to purchase the item they want to purchase? Even if that was standard policy shouldn’t a manager have enough common sense and authority to allow an exception in order to make the customer happy?
That is a policy that kills customers. I walked out the door and swore I’d never shop there again.
We all make mistakes sometimes when we setup our company and make new rules, policies, and procedures. If you do realize you’ve made a bad policy then CHANGE IT! Don’t allow your bad idea to kill your customers.
Tags: associate, customer service, customers, marshalls, policies, rules, wedding
Posted in Instructional | No Comments »
July 14th, 2010 by admin
Do you know what will happen if you have to leave the provider you are currently with for one of your services? Say it’s the phone company your with and you want to change to a new flexible and low cost VoIP provider. Do you know how that would be accomplished with your existing vendor? I find that 95% of people never even consider what steps are needed when you need to leave a current provider. Here are three simple questions you should ask of every new or existing business relationship:
- How do we enter into and begin a new contractual relationship together? In other words, what are the details of getting started?
- What is the planned duration of the initial contract term? (this allows for us to renew after the initial period and make any necessary adjustments instead of just assuming a perpetual initial contract)
- In addition what is the plan for completion when all objectives are met, or in the unfortunate case where objectives are not met and the relationship needs to change how do we amicably exit our business relationship?
If you can’t answer these questions about your existing partners then you need to take a closer look. At worst, ask these questions in the new relationships you are forming now, so you don’t pay for it later.
Tags: contract, provider, relationship, vendor, voip
Posted in Instructional | No Comments »
July 7th, 2010 by admin
Each day it takes a lot of discipline and focus to do the right thing at the right time. There are two concepts that two brilliant people taught me about doing the right thing at the right time.
“Ship It” is what I have read over and over on Seth Godin’s blog. He always reminds me that it’s important to get the product out the door, to finish the project, and deliver on time.
“What are you doing right now to generate an invoice?” Is something that Chris Peer asked me every day I worked with him. It is a great question to ask when you need to get refocused. When working on something creative or managing multiple different projects it is easy to get lost in the creative process or overwhelmed with multiple tasks.
Use these two questions to refocus yourself during the critical hours and you will see more effective and timely results. If you can’t tie what you are currently doing directly to a product or to an invoice then it’s time to refocus your efforts to what is important.
“Concentration is the secret of strengths in politics, in war, in trade, in short in all management of human affairs.” —
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tags: focus, invoice, ship
Posted in Inspirational | No Comments »
July 6th, 2010 by admin
Define: Resourceful – Capable or clever; able to put available resources to efficient or ingenious use; using materials at hand wisely or efficiently
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/resourceful
What makes one individual more efficient and successful than another? What makes one win and another fail? What lets one company ship on time and another company fail to deliver? I believe that one of the key’s to success in business is resourcefulness.
No matter how hard you try to prepare with every possible tool and backup plan you will inevitably be faced with a situation you didn’t prepare for. This is when you must choose to look around you and be resourceful with what you have at hand. Don’t let the words “I can’t” cross your mind. Instead ask “how can I?”. When you learn to ask the “how can I?” you will find that opportunities, options, and solutions present themselves more quickly.
We are all capable of infinitely more than we believe. We are stronger and more resourceful than we know, and we can endure much more than we think we can. ~
David Blaine
Posted in Inspirational, Instructional | No Comments »
June 28th, 2010 by admin
You can probably remember as a kid hearing one of your friends yell out “Copycat! Copycat!”. At that time it was just annoying when someone did what you were doing. You were probably trying to be original.
Now we try to be so very original that we don’t always see the value of imitation. Don’t mimick someone to the point that they notice, but do realize that if you model your mannerisms and actions after them you will subconsciously make them like you.
People like others who are similar to them. Pay attention and learn to observe what your prospect is doing verbally and physically. Adapt your style and you will close more deals.
Tags: communication, sales, strategy
Posted in Instructional, sales | No Comments »
June 26th, 2010 by admin
Don’t think for one second that you will never fail. Get over your fantasy and realize that failure is certain. The real question is what are you going to do with your failure?
If you allow your failure to stop you permanently or discourage you indefinitely then you have failed in a big way. Instead of hoping that you won’t fail realize that failure is certain and plan your strategy realizing you will fail. A very wise business owner William Spencer Sr told me that if I wanted to succeed I had better have a plan B, C, and D lined up for every area of my business. He said that plan A will often temporarily fail so it is better to be prepared with more options.
Failure is certain. Whether failure is temporary or final is up to you.
“Behind every successful man there’s a lot of unsuccessful years.” ~
Bob Brown
Posted in Inspirational, Instructional | No Comments »
June 21st, 2010 by admin
When it comes to securely and efficiently backing up data it’s important you have something simple and reliable. I’ve heard nothing but good things about Genie Backup Manager so I decided to use it on my clients last project since I was not only pulling and retaining all their hard drives, but I also wanted a fast and easy way to recover any data that they might be missing after their network upgrade. The backup process was simple and easy, so I won’t focus any of this post on that. My questions arose during the restoration of the files.
I thought I’d share a couple quick tips because I haven’t used Genie Backup Manager to restore files before this instance and my quick googling on my questions didn’t clarify my questions as quickly as I would have liked. I had to experiment and through trial and error come up with what I found here. I’m sure the proficient user will find this elementary but for someone new to the program I hope this will offer assistance.
Backing up is very straighforward, and well documented here, so I am going to skip that. Restoring I didn’t understand as clearly, so I wanted to share what I had to do to restore files.
First I restored my files to a single directory, this didn’t help me, because without the file heirarchy it was rather confusing to find anything I needed. I chose this option because it gives you three options, Restore Files To: “Original Location, Alternative Location, Single Folder”. Original location wouldn’t work for me since I had upgraded OS to Windows 7 and I didn’t want to have files try and copy to old style XP directories that didn’t work. I didn’t know what “Alternative Location” meant, so single folder seemed like the best thing to try first. What wasn’t clearly spelled out was that the Alternative Location option re-created the folder tree and put the contents in the proper folders.
So here is the process in a simple manner with screenshots:
Open Genie Backup Manager:
Browse for the backup file:
Choose “My Folders” if you backed up by folder:
Choose what you want to restore and choose “Alternative Location”:
Restore Files:
After running through this process you’ll find the folders and contents where you placed them.
The only other error I encountered was that some of the directories overall names were too long. This error was explained here.
Tags: backup, files, restoring
Posted in tech | No Comments »
