As the year draws to a close, the end of year reflections are beginning. I saw this post of 45 of the most powerful images from 2011. I encourage you to take a few moments to view them.
These are all some very powerful images. It shows us how much we have to be thankful for in our every day lives. The people in Japan and Joplin did not expect the total destruction that entered their lives on those fated days.
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Here is a great poem I thought I would share. It points out that the fact that we can choose, makes us very powerful. The author is unknown. Enjoy – and Choose.
I am very powerful!
Whatever I set my mind on having, I will have.
Whatever I decide to be, I will be.
The evidence is all around me.
The power of my will has brought me precisely to where I am right now.
I have made the choices. I have held the thoughts.
I have taken the actions to create my current reality.
And I have the power to change it into whatever I want it to be.
With the choices I make, I am constantly fulfilling the vision I have for my life.
If that does not seem to be the case –
then I am deceiving myself about what I really want.
Because what I really, truly want, I will get!
What I truly wanted in the past, I already have.
If I want to build a billion-dollar business, I will take the actions necessary to do it.
If I want to sit comfortably watching TV night after night –
I will take the actions necessary for that.
Don’t be disappointed in my results –
they’re just the outward manifestation of my priorities.
I will be sure of what I truly want,
because I am sure to get it!
This might not be something that my white female readers can understand, and the men certainly will not have a clue. But black women have a challenge with our hair when it comes to working out. Our beautiful, thick tresses that can be coiffed in a different style each week – from Nubian queen to sassy diva, conservative corporate chic to casual and comfortable – they require lots of care and attention. Most of us, unless we are Oprah, do not wash our hair daily and we spend lots to have our hair dressers give us the perfect “do.” Rain, sweat, pool water, or any other kind of moisture are devastating to these finely crafted pieces of temporary art.
So, you can see how working out regularly – the kind of workout that gets you really dripping with sweat, the kind that is great for your body - can be tough on our hair. Who wants to spend $60 – 75 dollars and at least two hours having someone create the perfect style only to sweat it into a thick bushy mess the next day from a work out? Doesn’t sound like desirable thing to do, and many of us choose the hair.
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Earl Nightingale, a recognized founder of the personal development industry, reminds us that we should be careful about what we plant in the fertile ground of our minds. Our minds work to return whatever we plant in it, success or failures, clear goals or confusion. It’s up to us to decide.
The Real Reason You May Not be As Profitable As You Would LikeEveryone goes into business with the stated intention of being profitable. (Even nonprofits need to generate enough income to continue and expand their operations.) We are also flooded with information on what to do with our money – yet, so often we are don’t take the steps in our personal lives or in our businesses to ensure profitability. Perhaps our internal belief system around money has something to do with it.
We live in a culture that encourages debt and denies the lost art of delaying gratification. And, like color that fades on a cheap paint job, the repercussions of this lifestyle are beginning to show in both our economy and our personal lives.
Our current U.S. and global financial crisis is clearly the result of excess reliance on debt to fuel excessive growth of business regardless of whether the underlying economics could support it. Predicated on a model that requires consumers to spend more money than they have, our national economy has been crippled with the tightening of credit. Remaining content is for Partners InPower members only. Please register
Richard Branson shares sentiments on role of entrepreneurs in current recession.
Many people are aware that their businesses should have multiple streams in income so that if something happens – say that one really big contract is reduced or eliminated all together – they and their businesses can still survive. In today’s business environment, with so much marketing being done on the internet, traffic plays a huge role in generating income.
It is just as important to have the multiple streams of traffic to your website(s) as it is to have multiple streams of income.
In a recent post on ProBlogger.com, Darren Rowse answered the question What to Do When Your Search Rankings Drop. One of the points he makes is to ensure that ALL of your traffic isn’t coming from Google or any other one source. This is akin to having all of your revenue coming from a single contract.
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When starting a new business, most people can only think of all the challenges and disadvantages they have relative to established players. Here is a helpful blog post written for new software companies that I think is true for all companies.
While many people are using Facebook for social purposes, small business owners are trying to use it for business purposes. Having clear goals and a strategy for engaging in social media for business purposes is important. On Facebook, there is an opportunity to grow connections to people in your targeted niche. The following video covers why you might want to do business on Facebook, what some of your goals should be, and how to connect with your target market.
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While social media may be all the craze these days, it is important to link your approach to using it back to your business objectives. Just because something can be done doesn’t mean it should be.
There was an article in USA Today on how Social Media Like Twitter Change Customer Service. It covered how more than half of the Fortune 100 companies use Twitter to provide customer service. Now, while I am a fan of social media and embrace its use in business, I believe companies must be careful in how they do it. In order to meet the expectations of the Twitter-sphere, to provide customer service on Twitter means having lots of people on the watch for a mention of something said that should be addressed immediately.
Comcast has 11 people and Microsoft, just for their Windows 7 product, has 7 people responding to customer service related posts. Companies are spending millions to do this. While it is only a fraction of the multi-billions of dollars spent on customer service, it seems to be moving the trend in a direction that is not so good for business.
Social media can, and often does when applied appropriately, drive down the cost of doing business, and in particular customer support costs. Support communities with both the company and, more importantly, other customers and product experts can provide answers through forums seems more efficient for everyone. Everyone learns and has their needs met faster when common questions are shared, suggested answers are proposed, near real time fee can be shared, and solutions are verified. Better yet, the next person with the same issue can benefit instantly from early exchanges.
The use of Twitter to provide customer support has the potential to do just the opposite of what is good for business and their customers. Instead of the cost going down, using Twitter can drive more one-on-one requests for support and therefore higher costs. It can make it difficult for other user of the company’s products to provide their experience (there is a low probability of someone having a group of people they follow on Twitter just because they use the same cable TV company.) Additionally, as the tweet stream vanishes over time, so does the knowledge with it.
In contrast, support communities allows others, including non-paid employees, to handle questions that arise, retains the knowledge, and makes the knowledge search-able by others with the same issues.
It might be interesting to learn a little more about how Dell is using Twitter. In the article, although they have multiple Twitter accounts, they weren’t the ones to respond to the tweet. Someone told them how to get in touch with a Dell expert. Was that expert a Dell customer service rep or perhaps someone active in Dell’s support community? In this instance, it appears as though Twitter was used as intended, to pose a problem and have someone, not necessary the company, help point them in the direction of a solution.
Sending people to the support community with your 140 characters might train people to go to the most helpful and cost effective place first instead of starting with Twitter.
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