Do Business Well

The performance of his product was his best publicity! Let it also be yours.

If you are the first in the right market you may need little advertisement. Sun Microsystems’ workstations were the first on the market with the new UNIX operating system and needed no advertisement. They became the world leaders with their Sun workstations and in the early nineties were voted the fastest growing company on the Fortune 500 list, with a phenomenal 114 per cent compounded annual growth rate. Continue Reading »

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• You may want to donate a portion of the proceeds of your business to a good cause like the church, medical research, a university or a charity. Money and knowledge are the same. They mean little if you simply collect them, but mean everything when you employ them, share them and put them to work.

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Guided by their own beliefs, and supported by recent scientific advances, great managers can now dispel two of the most pervasive management myths.

MYTH #1: “TALENTS ARE RARE AND SPECIAL“

There is nothing very special about talent. If talents are simply recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior, then talents are actually rather commonplace. Everyone has certain recurring patterns of behavior. No one can take credit for these talents. They are an accident of birth, “the clash of the chromosomes,” as the ethologist Robert Ardrey described them. However, each person can and should take credit for cultivating his unique set of talents. Continue Reading »

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Getting focused on outcomes is one thing. Figuring out which outcomes _are right is something else entirely. So how can you define the right outcomes? Of all the things your people could be doing, how can you know which are the few things they should be doing?

Well, as you would expect, we can’t offer you a step-by-step solution. First, it takes a certain talent to hear the siren song through the clamor. Second, even if you have this talent, this talent to focus, to discriminate, then you will undoubtedly have your own way of deploying it. What we can offer you are some deceptively simple guidelines from some of the world’s great managers. Continue Reading »

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As you might expect, great managers take a welcomingly pragmatic view of our innate imperfection. They begin with an important distinction, a distinction between weaknesses and nontalents. A nontalent is a mental wasteland. It is a behavior that always seems to be a struggle. It is a thrill that is never felt. It is an insight recurrently missed. In isolation, nontalents are harmless. You might have a nontalent for remembering names, being empathetic, or thinking strategically. Who cares? You have many more nontalents than you do talents, but most of them are irrelevant. You should ignore them. Continue Reading »

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Leadership first, perception second. To try to reverse this sequence is almost impossible.

What if you do everything right? What if you are the first in a new category and subsequently go on to dominate that category domestically? Then you should try to expand the market in the U.S. at the same time that you take your brand to the global market.

Coca-Cola did all of these things. But what’s next? Are there no second acts in branding history? Continue Reading »

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Purchase incidence of home textiles, which includes rugs, throws, pillows, and table and bed linens, dropped sharply in 2003. While purchase incidence peaked in 2001 at 60 percent, only 52 percent of households bought this class of goods in 2003. Once one of the prime categories associated with nesting and cocooning, consumers‘ new anti-clutter approach to home decor is turning them off this once-vibrant category. Continue Reading »

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Before you even start working from home, it is vital to consider exactly where you will be working and to ensure that you have one space that is always used for your work. The setting up of a home office is considered fun, but some basic points are worth bearing in mind:

Having a space of your own makes it much easier to separate your work life from your home life.’ I tried working in the front room, but it meant that when I sat down to watch the TV, I couldn’t help seeing all my papers and all the things I was meant to be doing the next day,’ says May a medical secretary. ‘It became very hard not to take them up and just have a quick browse through. Once I transformed the back room into an office, I could at least shut the door on my work and walk away.’ Continue Reading »

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The Rules of the Game

As in any game, the “people game” has rules that must be honored if you are to become any good at it.

I’ve included a few here to give you a taste for them. As for the rest of them, you’ll have to discover them for yourself by playing a game of your own. You’ll learn the rules in the process.

1. Never figure out what you want your people to do and then try to create a game out of it. If it’s to be seen as serious, the game has to come first_; what your people do, second.

2. Never create a game for your people you’re unwilling to play yourself. They’ll find you out and never let you forget it.

3. Make sure there are specific ways of winning the game without ending it. The game can never end because the end will take the life right out of your business. But unless there are victories in the process, your people will grow weary. Hence, the value of victories now and then. They keep people in the game and make the game appealing, even when it’s not. Continue Reading »

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What to do if the prospect hesitates to sign up

Your main objective when prospecting is to sign up the new distributor. But sometimes, despite you best efforts, there are still hesitations. You may need to encourage the prospect gently to join your network. How is this done?

Focus on her needs Remind her in a positive way why you are discussing network marketing with her:

• ‘Let’s see, you want money for your child’s education?’ III ‘You have five hours per week that you could give to promoting a small home business?’
• ‘You’re looking for an organisation that can support you
  with training and help you get off to a flying start?’

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