Second, find out how frequently your clients use your service. How much do they buy? When? This is particularly vital issue for service providers to understand. Often there are opportunities to increase client patronage that you are not aware of now.
- Jean Withers and Carol Vipperman, Marketing Your Service
Topics: Business Skills, Marketing
Continuous improvement, or CI in shorthand, is a management approach that gained currency in the 1980s and 1990s. With a CI culture, nobody in the organization ever thinks, "OK, now that we've achieved this year's cost targets, let's just run things steadily for a bit, no more changes." A CI culture implies there's always a next idea or a next step, however small. And it says that if you're not moving a little bit further forward in some way, there's a danger you'll start slipping back - if not in absolute terms, then relative to your competitors. You have to be paranoid about complacency.
And with a CI culture, nobody ever thinks, "OK, there's more to do, but I'll wait a few months and assemble a good, long, meaty to-do list, then I'll really go for it, I'll make a sprint for the tape." A CI culture says do even a little bit today, don't wait for a major event, a big process - if you do, there's a risk it won't happen, it could become too monumental and hard to handle.
- Andrew Wileman, Driving Down Cost
Topics: Business Skills, Goals, Time Management, Innovation
10 Ways to Reduce Stress at Work from BuzzFeedYellow on YouTube:
Take a deep breathTopics: Business Skills, Managing Stress
You can use three questions on a regular basis to keep yourself focused on getting your most important tasks completed on schedule. The first question is, "What are my highest value activities?" The second question you can ask continually is, "What can I and only I do that, if done well, will make a real difference?" This question comes from Peter Drucker, the management guru. The third question you can ask is, "What is the most valuable use of my time right now?"Topics: Business Skills, Goals, Time Management
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
- Sir Winston Churchill
Topics: Business Skills, Training, Analysis, Leadership and Management
Many people take themselves far too seriously. As kids, we laugh a lot, we dream a lot, but then we grow up and become a heart attack waiting to happen! Researchers have investigated why some people can't cope and found three reasons: low self-esteem, living in the past, and can't laugh at themselves. In fact, one study indicates that we need a minimum of twelve laughs a day just to stay healthy. Laugh at yourself! Laugh with your friends, your family, your co-workers. It will keep you going, keep you healthy, and keep you motivated.Topics: Business Skills, Managing Stress