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Apr29
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 Some of the fastest growing and successful companies have been developing along the lines in certain sectors. While every industry has some good companies, certain industries, because of the demand and growth, offer much better chances at success.
The top four sectors that were found is consumer goods, information technology, financial services and health care. Each of these particular sectors have great opportunities to grow huge companies, but that's not the point of this post. If they have enough opportunity to grow huge companies, that means that there is great demand in them and chances for numerous niche markets to take advantage of.
Some other areas that could offer a lot of opportunity in the years ahead are luxury and leisure items, anything health related, and a number of larger things like energy, natural resources and probably anything that will help people save time.
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Apr28
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In management there are two things needed in all circumstances, no matter what it entails, and that is a manager that handles the overall big picture and another one that takes care of the day-to-day operations. Within that reality, there...
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If you are considering adding mobile's to your workforce strategy, here are four things to consider. * First of all, you must identify if there is truly a business need for the devices to begin with. It can be a...
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Apr27
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Barry Motz, director of retirement planning at Lord Abbett recently commented "With 84% of the 10 [employee] and under market still not having a retirement plan, and with two out of every three millionaires in this country owning their own...
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CRM Today (crm2day.com) talked about a recent report by analyst firm Yankee Group2 concerning the future of customer support. "This report states that the number of Web self-service interactions are anticipated to increase by 86% through 2007, while live phone...
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Apr26
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One of the problems steadily faced by small business and departments are managing cash flow. With a commitment and discipline to keep track of the variables involved in the process, you can have an up-to-date snapshot of where things are...
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One of the great strengths that the Internet offers to day is the wide variety of service channels that can be added to enhance your customer's experience. With the endless problems and situations that arise that a manager needs to...
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Apr25
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Andrew Shain of the Charlotte observer reports: "The N.C. Utilities Commission will fine Piedmont Natural Gas Co.(PNY) Inc. $100,000 a month if the Charlotte company fails to improve customer service next winter. "Piedmont faces another $100,000 monthly fine for exceeding...
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Apr24
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In a number of studies it has been shown that when management has a good plan in place, it is the consistent application of that plan that produces the superior company results. There are two things to be aware of...
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No matter what type of work you manage, you don't have the luxury to act like you're always tired or depressed. Most of us know that the better the attitude you and your employees have, the higher the altitude...
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Apr23
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When I used to own a business supplying an array of foods to various outlets, one of the areas of knowledge we had to know was the mircronutrients that had to go into each product we grew. Now on the...
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Apr22
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In coming across this word today, it made me immediately think of how it related to managing and management. Have you ever thought of what life would be like without gravity? On the positive side there wouldn't be any plane...
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Last post we talked about the importance of quality of a hire and how they will fit in with the company culture and team as being a far better way of looking at who to hire. Let's look at one...
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This is one word that is thrown around so much that in my estimation it has become about meaningless. You hear about the need to secure "talent," the competition for "talent," and the need to aggressively pursue "talent." I think...
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When it comes to the issue of being a great manager, one can read and hear about so many discussions that it becomes really impossible to put together something coherent to grab hold of. Yet there are some management traits...
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Apr21
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A seemingly benign set of press releases. An announcement of a partnership. A seemingly simply deal that is interesting but not really that impressive with the numbers thrown around. What am I talking about? The announcement by Major League Baseball...
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I remember Stan Davis and Bill Davidson commenting in their book 2020 Vision, about letting the "form of the organization follow the function of the business (p. 115)." Another time in my personal experience, when others and myself were considering...
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As a manager, how many times to you crave to be able to be alone so that you can simply gather your thoughts, deal with subjective situations objectively and be in a quiet atmoshere where you can let solutions come...
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Last post we talked about the importance of teleworkers, especially for companies that have the great majority of their work done through computers. We are using the Patent and Trademark Office growth in this area as a case study. This...
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With the growing number of patent and trademark applications, the Patent and Trademark Office growing the number of employees that are working from their homes. There are two factors that contribute to this being deal for the PTO employees working...
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Apr20
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A long time ago I listened as an experience man in his field talked about success in that specific area. The simple words and phrase he used changed my entire life in its various segments and interests. He made the...
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Here is a resource has been around for awhile, it made me think of something that would be good to talk about. While there are some helpful references there, it reminds me of an aricle I wrote recently concerning metrics....
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We've been discussing consistency in its importance to a business or department. I found some excellent comments by John Jantsch at ducttapemarketing.com concerning this very subject. He says that: "The reason people resist change is because they like to have...
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When it comes to your business, your customers want to know that they can count on you being consistent. I remember that I used to go to a resaurant quite often, after a while I started to get disatisfied about...
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Apr19
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In this study concerning self-awareness and it's ability to be switched off, I found myself thinking about how this could apply to various parts of a business and its employees. From the very beginning of a process I could see...
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We all read about the fight that certain special interest groups along with the union thugs wage against Wal-Mart. Do you want to know something? It's a joke. You know why? Because the customer is king! What does that have...
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Apr18
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One of the things we have to watch in our customer service strategy is its consistency. This is one of the reasons I love to use Wegmans stores and their service as an example to hold up. Wegman's has been...
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When asked what the keys to providing truly great customer service really entailed, customer service consultant Peggy Morrow, author of "Customer Service: How To Do It Right" had this to say "I'm pretty good, but I can't take someone who...
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Don't look down on your day of small things. When you are in management the easiest way to advance is to take those types of jobs handed to you and be faithful and dedicated to accomplishing them. This is almost...
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Bill Swanson a Having a management team that flows and blends together, is one of the most crucial elements to business success. How can there be a close guarantee that they will fit in to the current team? How...
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Apr17
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An interesting thought concerning innovation, is that many companies, as a matter of fact over 60% of managers don't use metrics to hardly any degree to know if their innovation suggestions and efforts are really paying off. This is according...
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Southwest Airlines(LUV) is always inspiring, thought provoking and plain fun to read about. Recently they developed an initiative Southwest recently gathered people from its in-flight, ground, maintenance, and dispatch operations. For six months they met for 10 hours a week,...
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An area where I think the metaphor of an orchestra director fitting the manager, is when you identify and direct your employees' expertise. It is a worthwhile exercise to go over the history of your employees in their files once in a...
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Apr16
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Sometimes we can be so overwhelmed by the things swirling around our businesses or departments, that we can really lose sight of things that are going on in relationship to the big picture. Here is a simple tool you...
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There has been a saying that I've heard of throughout the years that I agree with and live by: You can't do as much short-term as you think, and you can do much more in the long-term than you would...
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The one thing that can be more destructive to a company, than possibly anything else, is being exposed for purposefully and deliberately deceiving your customers about your product's safety. A major problem that always comes up in this particular issue...
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Apr15
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As a business leader, how resilient are you? Is it an increasing burden and load to be able to bounce back from glitches, problems, unexpected hours, employee disipline among many other things? One of the insights that studies and experience...
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Apr14
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There are some companies that I have worked with, especially in the retail sector, that I have went round and round with concerning one specific issue: what takes precedence, a live customer standing right in front of you, or someone...
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On another blog I write for, I mention a lot about creating sites that are "user-friendly"...it made me think of applying that same concept to us as managers. For example, one of the characteristics of a user-friendly website is that...
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Apr13
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Lifestyle continues to be the number one concern of the great majority of workers in the western world. Even among business owners it is far and away the biggest reason for being in business in the first place. In a...
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A wonderful thing to think about but very little practiced, is the genuine caring of managers for their people. In the continuous balance between representing what those over you want done and the views of your employees, there can come...
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Apr12
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One of the temptations a manager can run into is the desire to overprotect their employees. More than once I've watched an employee struggle through something that I knew the answer to. I stealthly watched and observed as they went...
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Apr11
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I know for some of you that have been in managment awhile, that this particular problem is an ongoing one that you always have to watch and keep an eye on - the lack of communication between a sales department...
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The lowest form of leadership is one that is bestowed by title. How many times have you seen one of the worse possible decisions of putting the wrong person in a leadership position? Everyone but the one appointing the individual...
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Apr10
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You're trained, ready, have some experience and are ready to make a difference in your company. You're comfortable with the culture that you've help create and have set the feel and way the company or division your over will operate....
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Apr 9
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Great businesses are always founded upon a great vision. Great managers will know what it is the company exists for and have a clear idea of where it needs to go and how they fit into the plan and purpose....
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Sometimes it is hard to pinpoint what it is that makes a great leader. At times we hear so much about the traits, behaviors and ability to motivate that make certain individuals great leaders, that it makes someone think that...
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Apr 8
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When going into a new management position, there are certain things you can do to not only make it smooth for you and the company, but can give you an excellent start to build upon. Once you are hired, start...
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Apr 7
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Most of us in management know that we have a certain business culture that we work in. One of the great frustrations I have had, and many others with me, is managing in a way that goes against what we...
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Last post I talked about whether or not you can be too aggressive with your customer service. The major point I was making is that it is impossible and not even desirable to attempt to impose some type of a...
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Apr 6
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I found a good article by Jack Aaronson today concerning customer service. Because of the steady mantra of offering great customer service and so many companies still not knowing what it means, it is interesting to hear an example of...
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Here is a story where technology, and the area of self-service, convenience and what I call 'mass-customization', has really performed extraordinarily well in a historically frustrating experience for the end-users. When I refer to 'mass-customization' I refer to the empowering...
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Apr 5
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Last post we talked about listening. Now we must take a look at what it really is. Listening doesn't mean that you sit taking in the words of someone and then as soon as their done talking to you, walk...
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It is my experience that a great majority of large problems can be resolved in the workplace through the simple, yet powerful art of listening. Listening is one of those attributes that separates average managers from great ones. When I...
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Apr 4
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Have you ever noticed when many businesses get their feedback from customers, and the executives communicate it to their workers, the great majority of time it talks about the failures of employees in relationship to the customer. This is...
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I am reminded of a story that Warren Buffett talks about in the area of buying businesses as investments: “I guess I had too much inclination originally to buy mediocre, or worse than mediocre, businesses at a very cheap...
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Apr 3
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One of most talked about business issues that is repeated endlessly over and over again is the ubiquitous "poor customer service." All the talk in the world will do nothing about this unless there is something very specific, that is part...
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Managers and business leaders will all have to come to grips with the stress and tension that will inevitably come with the job. While techniques to ease the tension are available and need to be used, we still must keep...
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Apr 2
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One of the great complaints and frustrations of managers I have heard throughout the years has been the lack of motivation of employees. Have you ever had this problem? Now think for a minute, what is it that employees work...
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There is a lot of stuff floating around these days concerning the idea that when it comes to the vision of a business and where it should go, managers or executives should center on getting their employees involved in...
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I want to share with you another quote from the annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, from Warren Buffett: "When our long-term competitive position improves as a result of these almost unnoticeable actions, we describe the phenomenon as 'widening the...
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In his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Warren Buffett gave out his usual advice that was simple, to-the-point and invaluable. This is what he had to say about maintaining a competitive position in the marketplace: "Every day, in countless...
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Apr 1
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One of the greatest pressures that a manager can go through, is the "management sandwich." If anyone has been in management for a while, they'll know what I mean. You're put in the place of managing change. The change...
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One of the greatest mistakes that business management makes is to expect all things to go great at once. For example, if you were to implement a new software system in your business, it would be expected that people be...
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In a report by the San Jose Business Journal, it was revealed that by the year 2020, the combination of the United States, China and India will account for 50% of all new economic growth. Quoting the Economic Intelligence Unit,...
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I found a neat idea on the cool business ideas blog that I wanted to pass on to you. It has a lot of great examples of what I believe is an excellent marketing campaign. According to the founders of...
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