Category Archives: business

business

Security Stress at Work, What is the Cost?

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Just recently security failed at work. This meant that all the doors had to be kept open. For the first time one could walk freely from one side of the building to the other side unimpeded without having to use a security pass. It was wonderful for a couple hours it was pure bliss.

Industrial WorkersWhat is the cost that security is placing on our businesses and our personal movement? George Orwell never had it so right. I am not talking about the physical cost of these systems and running them. More the emotional side of it. For example if someone forgets there pass. They are effectively stranded at work. Resorting to having to wait for colleagues who have their passes or leaving doors unlock.

We may not notice but it builds up stress. It is well known in the security industry particularly prison guards that retirement is short. Due to the pressures of work there is a high percentage that die with in a couple of years of hanging up their keys.

Are we more secure with all this security? What’s your opinion?

Could we better spend money on others things, or do we need to build better working secure systems that cause us less stress?


business, development, ideas, Relationship

Think like a Director Walk like a Director

One of the biggest problems with running a company is having the chance to think like a Director. If you are busy with everyday work so that you never have the chance to focus on how to grow and develop your business. You will be effectively shooting yourself in the foot. Leading your team to victory does require a clear strategy and understanding of the markets. Less work and more time thinking. It is not what you do it is how you do it. The work will always be there.

brand, Marketing, Relationship

Dogs of Oar – Charity & Company Promotion

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Having just participated in a charity event over the weekend. I can say there is no better way to raise your company profile and do some good for community. I was part of 4 man team that participated in a raft race to raise money for RNLI Most of the teams where made up by different companies on the Isle of Man. Here is a list of some of the companies that entered:

2e2

Paragon Recruitment

Steam packet – Did not show as they had a gearbox problem.

Sefton

Scottish Life

Bradford and Bingly

Central Software – Who sponsored and organised the event.

There were in total 21entries. We came in 6 after a good hard paddle. A good T-shirt design, loads of team spirit, and a good sporting performance and you are away. Some of other notable entrants were the Paragon Ninjas for costume and team idea. Thanks to every one for a great day.

business, development, Relationship

Competitiveness of Sport used in Business

We all like winners, We like people that excel at something. Sports people are a good demonstration of this. Last night I was watching the ladies Wimbledon Tennis. The game I was watching intrigued me due to the amount skill, dedication, pursuit, and always fighting for that last point. Here were two woman quite clearly prepared to do anything to get that ball over the net. People can say that women are less competitive than males but last night at Wimbledon nobody would have believed it.

I do believe that we are competitive. Even are first journey in the womb to fertilise the egg is a big race. (apparently one in a million chance). Like the chick that can not break out of its shell the picture is similar in human survival.

As customers we will choice what we consider to be the best product for our needs. It is competitiveness that drives successful economies forward.

Competitiveness has the following positive traits for business:

A Dynamic Culture

A Positive Atmosphere

Not afraid to make mistakes

Employees keen to develop there skills

There are some down sides to competitiveness when it becomes individually orientated with teams starting to disintegrate as they try to out do each other. I would personally view this as not being competitive but more focusing on the mistakes one makes and general negativity.

We can learn a lot from sport, if we are able to produce outstanding work more times than not we will succeed in growing our business and customer base.

business, Consultancy

Winning The Argument, Saving Time, and Getting the Job Done

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A fundamental key to getting the work/job done is insuring that you carry your colleagues/customers support and if your work in the public sectors then the general public too.

What is winning the argument?

If you are responsible for implementing any sort of change with in an organisation than you are going to have to convince different parties of your intentions and that the project is going to benefit them so that you can gain there support and help in implementing the project.

It is necessary with all projects to go through a consultative process and allow the people that will be effected by the change to contribute to the process. More than lightly you will face some resistance to your ideas. Your job is to demonstrate how your ideas will be effective and calm the user fears. If you are confident about project one can prepare for this by listing potential problems/fears users may have. By setting this out on paper you will be saving your self time in the future and will prepare the path for a smother transaction.

When I talk about winning the argument. I am talking about rational working through of concerns and demonstrating the effects of the concerns people may have. Some people may say that different opinions mean that both parties are right. While this may be the case with some moral issues. Implement projects has nothing to do that with that. If the goals are clearly defined. For example: The goal of this project is to implement a new security systems for five thousand employees in unobtrusive way. One would have to make decisions that insured these goals are met. While there may appear to be much scope in the process when it is refined down it is quite distinct and clear.

The end result of this, is that time is saved, you win the argument and the job gets done.

Consultancy, Relationship, sales, service

Who Is Your Audience?

I am sure there are some people out there who interested in widgets and can spend twenty years talking about them. That is great if I need help to understand widgets I will go and visit a blogger or a professional who can help with that. The widget blogger has a defined audience he knows who it is and the widget lovers know who he is. One could say a perfect Marriage.

Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it. I have a wide lens and am interested in wide variety of subjects. Which is fine. For each subject I run a blog helping my users in just that area. The problem is business development is quite a big subject area, possible too big. So should I just focus on a few niches like sales, or telephone sales?

Then comes the second question how to market to that market. If I have chosen my area than maybe face to face marketing is better than using twitter or plurker. But Selling to the converted is easier than selling to the newbie.

Food for thought indeed?

 

business, development, E-Commerce

How to Grow Your Online Business

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To grow an internet business it is much like any business in the physical world. The more contacts you have the more business you can do. So attending networking events, Keeping in touch with related bodies, companies, and individuals is going to keep your name fresh in their mind. In the online world this is done by the same method. I recommend spending an hour a day, subscribing to sites, posting adverts, having a blog, leaving comments on other peoples blogs. It is also important to build up a relationship with any likeminded people. If you like what they do then send them an email, or leave a comment. As the relationship develops you will be able to do reciprocal links. The name of the game is linking. The more links you have pointing to your website the higher your page rank will be, the more traffic you will get, the more business you will do. This is the most ethical way to increase web presence and fundamentally is what the Work Connexions site does.

If you have leanings to the dark side of the force, he he J you can try SEO’s (Search engine optimization). They will do all of the above but not usually by ethical methods. They will set up a bogus site for example http://eaby.com/ which will automatically have links to their customers and will open up a number of windows. (quite often used on porn sites) when you try to close the windows you end up clicking the site. Google and Alex registers this click as a visit. What Google sees is the higher traffic to the website and thus decides that the website is important and gives it a higher page ranking. It also adds up all the links in its database to decide the sites relevance.( A method that is closely guarded and regular changes) So when someone types in a word related to your site on Google you will appear on the first page of results. The risk is with such techniques is that Google will eventually catch you out and ban your page to the salt mines in Siberia never to be found again. In till you sincerely apologise to Google and promise not to use such techniques again. That’s it in a Nut shell. I hope it makes sense……..