TODAY INDIA

The Real Difference Between Job Hunting and Job Search

Any active job seeker will find that these terms are used interchangeably in articles, blogs and other literature. There is in practice a fundamental and distinct difference.It is important to embark on both a structured and a more flexible approach to job hunting to secure a new role successfully.

In a recent study, a group of executives were studied prior to making a presentation. By observing these executives at an evening party, prior to making their presentations the following day, researchers were able to correctly predict the winning presentation, just by observing and listening to the way these executives. Their language, the way they talked and listened were all valuable clues about the level of the effective interaction and communication skills.

Job search can be defined as the systematic and structured process of searching for a new role, as a result of outplacement or the desire to change roles or careers. Common methods include job search engines, job boards, newspaper ads, recruiters and company web sites.

Job hunting is a more creative, unconventional and non-rational process by using a variety of effective methods to find new employment, but relying more on informal networks and unconventional approaches to find jobs in the hidden market.

Let me share with you one example in my own career of using job hunting effectively to secure good roles. Years ago I decided to immigrate to New Zealand and during my first holiday trip I was talking to my immigration agent. When I mentioned I had a strong interest in technology she suggested I meet with an IT company. After a couple of meetings the company created a new position and offered me this role, which I held for three years. It was never advertised and I was the only applicant. All it required from my side was effective sharing of my skills and connecting with the right company, using effective networking skills.

Since that role, I have also been appointed into two other roles that were never advertised:

(1) As part of my consulting practice I was doing a strategic assignment for a large recruitment company. After the assignment, they mentioned to me that one of their clients was looking for a new head of HR. After a meeting with the MD and another meeting with the Board, I was offered the role and worked seven years for this company.

(2) After being invited to complete a strategic consulting assignment with a listed company that took six months, they asked me to join their executive team. I was known the MD and Board, there was little due diligence required, and again the position was never advertised.

Let me close off with a good example of job hunting. If you have ever been to Africa, one of the things most people on a wildlife safari strive to do is to take pictures of the Big Five (elephant, rhino, lion, buffalo, and leopard). Finding these five animals on an African safari is no mean feat.

How would you go about making sure you get these five animals in your sights? Well, first of all you would want to go to a safari camp that have all these animals in their reserve. Then you would want to get a good tracker and game ranger to help you find these animals. You would need to bring with you a good camera and ensure you are in the right position to take your picture, so that months and years later you can still savour the memories of taking those perfect pictures.

As you embark on your job search, ensure you incorporate a bit of the primitive hunter in your job hunting, using your instinct and gut feel. In today’s competitive market, it is really survival of the fittest.

Noise Control-Passing City Noise Ordinances

The Cambridge Chronicle recently ran a report titled “Neighbors make some noise over noise: Company seeks variance to keep rooftop machinery going.” All parties involved in this noisy proposition might have saved themselves a lot of aggravation if a noise control product had been part of the equation.

As it turns out, a “Hampshire Street pharmaceutical company’s plan to skirt the city’s noise control ordinance” has residents all up in arms. After all, what’s the point in passing such ordinances if they’re just going to be bypassed? The debate resulted in Idenix Phamaceuticals being fined $300 a day for violating the ordinance for its loud rooftop equipment, a sanction the company didn’t take lightly.

The newspaper went on to report, “Representatives from the company are seeking approval from the License Commission to sidestep the city’s noise control ordinance, but neighbors said the city’s current limits on noise should stay for the sake of a good night’s sleep.”

In the company’s defense, “Idenix spokesperson Teri Dahlman said they have made an effort to muffle most of the facility’s sound, and hopes the city will recognize it.” On the opposite side of the fence, “Peter Lindquist, a Market Street resident and direct abutter of Idenix, said the noise – generated from heating and cooling units and exhaust systems – has been a 24/7 ordeal.”

Companies that are in a position like Idenix might want to make sure that their equipment is armed with custom molded rubber and rubber-to-metal bonded parts to control both noise and vibration. That way, they can avoid noise ordinance issues altogether. The Vibro-Insulator line of isolators and mounts, which are used for the control of noise, vibration and shock, are a particularly good option for companies like Idenix, whose buildings are located in cities where their equipment generates more noise than the locale allows.

From insulator pads, mounts, isolators, bobbins, buffers and bumpers, a whole range of vibration and noise control products are available. Best of all, these custom molded rubber and rubber-to-metal bonded parts can be tailored to the precise needs of the equipment involved.

In the case of Idenix, the Vibro-Isolator pads would be a good choice. These square molded pads can be used to effectively control noise and vibration, particularly in applications involving heavy machinery and equipment. The pads are available in both single and double sided ribbed construction. They can be easily cut to any desired shape and can be used in multiple layers to increase deflection. They are available in 60 durometer Neoprene.

Low frequency ring mounts might also be an important consideration. Your Dictionary defines audio frequency as “the band of audible sound frequencies or corresponding electric current frequencies, about 20 to 20,000 hertz.” Under most city ordinances, anything above around 60 decibels, depending on the time of the day, is considered a violation of the noise ordinance. At about 120 decibels, one starts to feel the sound as a tickling sensation. At about 130 to 140 decibels, sound starts to produce pain. Ring mounts can help prevent the reaching of such levels.

How to Apply Think and Grow Rich to Change Your Life!

Napolean Hill is a very intelligent man who dedicated 20 years of his life to study multi-millionaires and see with his own eyes how they become successful. Not only did he become very successful at accomplishing his goal, he also applied what he learned into his life and became extremely wealthy himself.

I have read Think and Grow Rich over five times and I have to say five is nothing compared to those who have read this book over sixty times. The power this book contains can change your life forever and I want you to get started today without any confusion and have a clear mind to where you are headed.

If you have read this book only one time, I suggest you to read it more than once in order to get a better understanding. When reading it the second time, keep a highlighter next to you and underline the best parts in the book.

For those who have already read this book more than once, I want you to take a pen and paper and draw a line on the paper. On the beginning of your line, put the year we are in. Below or above that line write how much money you want to make and put a deadline at the end of the line so you will know when that goal is going to be achieved.

Add what you will give in return to you accomplishing the goal. For example, I will imagine and believe myself already being in possession of the money, and I will take action every day until my goal becomes a reality.

Once you got your goal written down, take the paper and tape it somewhere in your bedroom, so when you go to sleep and wake up every morning, the written goal will be in front of you. Read your goal outloud to yourself three times every day with a very strong and positive feeling.

Next, take another piece of paper, and write down why you want to earn that much money. This will create a burning desire in you so you will burn the bridges behind you so there will be no going back.

Like Napolean Hill said, it is not just about hard-work. Of course, hard-work is a big part of being successful. But, there is vision, burning desire, faith/belief, and than the will to take action will come along.

Pros and Cons – Commercial Paper Towel Dispenser Versus Electric Hand Dryer

Commercial paper towel dispenser or commercial electric hand dryer – there has been much debate going on about which type is the best. There are actually plenty of good and bad points for both devices, so it’s quite important that you weigh the following pros and cons before buying a commercial towel dispenser or electric hand dryer.

The first point to consider is the costs of these devices. By cost, we are talking about the initial purchase price, maintenance and repair services fees. A commercial towel dispenser is pretty inexpensive depending on the type you buy: center pull, multifold, single fold, lever, C-fold, and touch free dispensers. The average cost of manual paper towel dispensers is approximately $21-$115. Electric hand dryers are priced around $37-$500 or more.

Towel dispensers don’t operate on electricity, so you don’t have to deal with expensive energy bills. But electric hand dryers are more cost-efficient and cheaper to maintain because these don’t need continuous refilling of paper towels.

Electric dryers promote cleaner restroom surroundings and prevent wastage. Paper dispensers are prone to wastage because employees or customers tend to pull more paper towels that they really need – the extra paper towels just get thrown in the waste basket. But touch-free dispensers give out customized towel lengths on specific intervals.

The length of drying time is another very important issue among people. Electric dryers might be cost-efficient, but they’re definitely not time-efficient. It takes about 43 long seconds because electric hand dryers are able to remove all excess moisture. People don’t even bother to wait and line up for their turn with the hand dryer. But paper dispensers are quicker and only take about 12-14 seconds to finish the job.

Paper dispensers are not eco-friendly because of the simple fact that these use disposable towels. As you all know, trees need to be cut down to make the paper towels, which get dumped on landfills after you use it.

Disposable towels are found to be most effective in removing bacteria compared to hand dryers. In fact, bacteria thrive on the outlet of these hand dryers. Since these draws air from the surroundings, there’s a big tendency that the air blown on your hands contains plenty of bacteria, which are the reason why you perform hand washing in the first place.

After all the discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of a commercial paper towel dispenser and hand dryer, the best one would still depend on your preference and current need. Just make sure that you explore your options before making up your mind – visit your local shops or home improvement centers to get a first-hand look at these products.

Invoice Creation and Capture – Paper Invoices Creeping Through the Backdoor!

This article considers the true cost of processing paper invoices, examines a variety of e-commerce alternatives and proposes a flexible and innovative solution for the REAL world.

Introduction

Most companies run a pretty tight ship. A typical manufacturing company may have streamlined its staffing costs, reduced the administration overhead, installed, set up manufacturing partners in China and perhaps started selling products and services over the web. They’ve worked hard to maintain their competitiveness and are proud of their achievements… and so they should be.

But, walk into any company, large or small, and you’ll still find an accounts team processing paper invoices. Ok, some of the large organisations have invested heavily in e-Business initiatives, document management software, electronic trading portals or perhaps EDI (Electronic Data Interchange); but when you dig a little deeper there are still paper invoices creeping in through the backdoor. It’s often the small suppliers and customers who create the problem. They can’t and won’t invest thousands of pounds in new technology and business procedures. They don’t have the volume, the cash or the inclination to make it work. We all accept that processing a paper invoice is crazy in this day and age, but how do you create a strategy to deal with the real world.

The Small Guy
So here’s the problem: we need an e-Business solution which will cope with our largest suppliers but we also need an e-Business solution which will cope with the “Small Guy”, a company with 5 employees running Sage Line 50.

What’s out there?
Before we can consider a way forward, we need to consider what invoicing methods are already out there. So let’s consider the pros and cons of each. The table below isn’t designed to be a definitive guide, more a way of considering each option and the suitability to the “Small Guy”.

Post Paper Invoices
Cost to Send: High – at least £0.5 per invoice.
Cost to Process: High – Everyone quotes different figures but £10 to £20 to process an invoice isn’t far off the mark.
Pros/Cons: Anyone can raise a paper invoice. Simple setup with little technology required. Environmentally unfriendly – paper cost, printing cost and postage. Processing costs are high and automation is difficult.

EDI
Cost to Send: Low – but there can be a transaction charge.
Cost to Process: Low – >£1 per invoice
Pros/Cons: Automated. The use of an agreed standard. Some setup cost both in terms of technology and human input. On-going charges.

Email or FTP of XML files
Cost to Send: Low – no transaction charge (email is free).
Cost to Process: Low – >£1 per invoice.
Pros/Cons: Simple to automate and no transaction charge. High setup cost both in terms of technology and human input. What XML schema do you use? You may have to support multiple schemas.

Email or FTP of CSV, ASCII text or other structured data formats
Cost to Send: Low- no transaction charge (email is free)
Cost to Process: Low – >£1 per invoice
Pros/Cons: Simple to automate and no transaction charge. Low technology cost for sender, but receiver carries the cost of processing. Less reliable than XML.

Web Portal
Cost to Send: Low.
Cost to Process: Low – >£1 per invoice
Pros/Cons: Once setup, the process can be automated and large volumes processed automatically. Can be custom written, which incurs a high setup and maintenance charge.

Data Translation Bureau
Cost to Send: Low
Cost to Process: Low – >£1 per invoice
Pros/Cons: Simple to setup – somebody else does the work! There is normally a setup charge and often a small transaction charge.

Living with Paper
One approach is to accept things as they are and to accommodate paper invoices. In other words, capture the information off the paper and make it available to your AP system (Accounts Payable system). Over recent years, lots of time and effort has been spent on improving document management software and the technology behind scanning and recognition software. The aim of this software is to reliably convert a paper document into electronic text. This type of system combines OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology and contextual logic which looks for key words within the document and associates them with title data on the document. For example, when you find the word “Date”, the data nearest to it is normally a date field. With this knowledge, you can surmise the likely formats and possible values for the field you’ve just captured and can automatically discount some possible OCR results (e.g. a month value will never be above 12). By combining technologies such as artificial intelligence, multiple OCR engines, and contextual/fuzzy logic, these systems give improved results over the use of fixed OCR templates – some vendors claim character recognition rates > 90%. However, they are costly to purchase and often complex to setup and refine. Many use a knowledge base which must be taught to recognise the type of invoices you receive. No matter how much effort you spend implementing your document management software, no system is 100% accurate and errors will always creep in through all sorts of factors: dirty, crumpled or torn paper, changes to invoice layouts or even scanner faults.

Law of Diminishing OCR Returns
As no document management software system will give you 100% recognition rates, do you double check all of your results or do you accept the odd one will slip through the net. Unfortunately, it’s the odd one slipping through the net which costs money to track down. It makes sense to aim for as high a recognition rate as possible, but this type of approach has a major drawback, it follows a law of diminishing OCR returns. The more time and money you spend trying to improve OCR performance, the smaller the increase in recognition.

If your document management software is achieving an 80% recognition rate, you may have to spend £5,000 to achieve a 5% improvement. Once you get to 90%, that same 5% may cost you £50,000.

Paper = Cost
When you look at the costs of creating and processing a paper invoice, one thing jumps off the page at you – COST. Do you spend time and money trying to read paper, or do you invest your time into grabbing it electronically, and processing it through your backend systems with document management software.
On so many levels, environmental, speed, cost and reliability, electronic trading is the way to go.

Electronic Trading – Don’t Bully the “Small Guy”?
OK, if you accept some sort of electronic trading makes sense, how do we connect with the “Small Guy” who has no investment in document management software? What’s needed is a fresh approach, one which complements the existing infrastructure, but gives us more flexibility. Focusing again on the “Small Guy”, 9 times out of 10, he’ll use a computer system to create an invoice. So why does he covert his computer data into paper, only for the receiver to convert the paper invoice back into an electronic file, or at least re-key it into an AP system, at the other end?

Stipulating, demanding or even forcing an EDI / customised e-Commerce solution on the small supplier won’t go down well. Why should the “The Small Guy” go through the pain and expensive of implementing EDI, when his customer gets all the benefit. The only time this tack works is if you’re a very important customer, with a lot of power!

Is there a simple answer everyone’s missed so far? No, not that we’re aware of! What’s needed is a variety of low cost, e-commerce options.

Sensible Options
A responsible partner must offer a number of electronic trading options and a good starting point is to ask what your supplier can deliver. Have they already invested in document management software and if so, what is it capable of?
• Can your supplier send any of the following formats, XML, CSV, EDI format or ASCII text?
• Can you send an Adobe PDF image of your invoice?
• If the answer to the above is no, then it may be worth considering a simple alternative. A simple, low cost “print capture client” is available, which will take printer data and convert it into an electronic format (e.g. ASCII text) which can then be automatically emailed.
• For suppliers without a computer system, provide them with a spreadsheet to fill in, which can be emailed back or perhaps a web portal/HTML form which can capture invoice data.

Thinking Fresh
If you are going to offer a variety of invoicing methods, you need the tools to process these options efficiently. Output management software (e.g. Formate software http://www.formate.uk.com ) is an ideal “document translation hub” to do this.

When used for simple e-Commerce, output management software (OMS) performs 3 major functions, these being:

1. Import – OMS will collect virtually any type of data be it CSV, ASCII Text, XML, EDI files, data in Emails, data from web pages or even MS XLS spreadsheets.
2. Recognise and Validate – OMS will read the data and check what has been received prior to any further action. Errors will be picked up and resolved through a workflow process.
3. Translation – OMS will translate the invoice and make it available for virtually any back-end business system (from SAP to Sage). It will also create human readable copies for a long term archive, which can automatically be submitted to a document management software archive – UK invoices should be kept for 7 years for VAT/TAX legislation.

Some suppliers can only email an image of the invoice in PDF format. In this instance, most OMS systems can extract the PDF attachment from an email and submit it to a document recognition system. It can then be passed through an approval process before archiving into a document management software archive ( http://document-management-software.co.uk/ ). For those suppliers who can only print a paper invoice, there is even a low cost capture client which will take printer data and email it back to the OMS Server for processing.

For companies who already use EDI software, OMS can be used to create human readable copies of EDI transactions (typically in PDF format) and store them into a document management system. Where errors occur in an EDI process, OMS is an ideal way of picking up the error and starting a workflow procedure to resolve the problem.

Time Line For Starting a Bakery

So what is a time line for starting a bakery?

Well… To start with, it means collecting all the information from your thoughts. Asking yourself questions? Very personal questions!

Can I do this?

Do I have sufficient experience?

Is my family on board with this venture?

Do I have to do everything alone?

Am I ready to put my dreams and desires up front?

Can I put my business first before everything else?

Do I have sufficient money to carry me through?

There are many, many, more questions that you need to ask yourself, but only you can ask them and once those personal questions are answered it is time to create your business plan. That business plan is again asking more questions and collecting more information from many different sources.

Once collected it needs to be installed into that business plan.

The time line for starting a bakery can be from a few days to several months and even years. But, once started the ending is usually very satisfying and quite rewarding. At least it has been for me. And though i never started out to become a baker in 1955, i certainly have enjoyed the 53 years i have been an employee of the bakeries in my life and owner of The Crusty Cottage Bakery.

Now given those years of experience and the knowledge gained in those years, it is giving me as much pleasure to show others what and how much i enjoyed my trade.

I would perhaps suggest to you to budget your time. This can be your time line for starting a bakery.

Today buy a notebook or writing pad, start writing down your thoughts and ideas.

Tomorrow, look at other bakeries in your area. Look to see what side of the street their market comes from. What other businesses are close that can complement the bakery or the type of bakery business you plan.

Check their quality and the prices. Look at their decoration and color schemes of the business.

Start compiling your business plan. It doesn’t have to be perfect or in proper order at this stage, but it is worthwhile cataloging into different folders for easy access.

Give yourself say six weeks to compile the business plan.

Be looking for a suitable location to put your business during all aspects of your time line.

You want a realistic time line for starting a bakery. So do not think you can start in one day if you are starting from scratch. Neither do you want to leave anything till tomorrow or next week. That is a sure way to fail.

The old saying “Do not put off till tomorrow, that which you can do today” is so true.

If you are buying into an existing bakery your time line for starting your bakery will be one to three months from start to finish.

The paper work should be seen by a lawyer and an accountant. Discuss with them the legal and accounting ramifications of this new business.

Do not pay any money to anyone till you or your lawyer, have done their due diligence, (just a word to explain investigations).

Believe in yourself first then look at all the information and decide your next move.

By looking at all the numbers from the selling bakery and by your own commitment you will decide one way or the other just what the time line for starting a bakery will be.

The CEO’s Guide To Succession Planning – Managing Risk & Ensuring Business Continuity

Introduction

Once reserved for the upper echelons of senior management, and often viewed as replacement planning should catastrophe strike, today’s succession planning is being redefined. The discipline has broadened in both breadth and scope to become a central component of board-level strategy.

Succession planning focuses on managing risk and ensuring continuity across all levels of the organization – risk of untimely departures of critical personnel, risk of retirees taking their skills and knowledge with them and leaving nothing behind, and risk of losing high value employees to competitors. It does so by helping your business leaders to identify top performers within the organization, create dynamic “talent pools” of this critical talent that other leaders can leverage, and prepare and develop these high performing employees for future roles.

If this was easy, everyone would be doing it. The problem that exists today is that succession planning is barely automated, let alone optimized. This CEO guide provides five key tips for jump starting your succession planning efforts.

1. Automate and Reduce Costs

Today’s succession planning efforts are characterized by fragmented, inconsistent, paper-based processes. Indeed, 67% of companies are still primarily paper-based, according to a global survey conducted by SumTotal.

Conventionally, business and HR leaders will spend weeks or even months manually scouring different parts of the organization for information needed to build lists and pools of nominees and successors for specific job families or positions. The information required to generate the lists often includes self assessments, past performance appraisals (often paper-based), and 360 feedback. After a lengthy period of information gathering and aggregation followed by manual analysis (e.g., nine-box, gap analysis), the results are printed and collated into large three-ring binders for use in executive planning meetings. This time-consuming, inefficient, and costly process is still commonplace today.

To effectively transform succession planning from a manual, paper-based process to one that is systematic and technology-enabled, CEOs must focus on laying a solid foundation supported by strong executive leadership.

Program & Process Foundation

Establish dedicated management function (e.g., program management office) with CEO-sponsored executive leader or council (with senior representation from line-of-business, geography, and corporate HR)
Define core succession process along with key constituents and tasks at each step of the process; Clearly articulate touch points to other business processes (e.g., performance management, career development)
Understand implications of change with emphasis on managers & employees
Align program with broader business strategy
Determine initial scope (e.g., enterprise-wide, divisional)
Define processes independent of technology

Technology Foundation

Must support and enable key processes
Must integrate learning and development
Must link seamlessly to other business processes, especially performance management
Must be flexible and configurable to meet unique needs
Must centralize and consolidate key information and data
Must be easy for managers and employees to use

2. Drive Succession Planning Deeper into Your Organization

Many CEOs still view succession planning as replacement planning to designate successors in the event of a catastrophe befalling senior company leaders. Indeed, succession planning penetrates only the highest levels of the organizational hierarchy, according to survey data. Only 35% of companies currently focus their succession planning efforts on most critical roles within the organization.

Yet a most dramatic transformation is underway: 65% of the organizations surveyed plan to extend succession planning to all critical positions within the two years. Applying succession planning beyond the top layers of management is critical to retaining high performers across all levels of the organization and mitigating the risk of untimely departures of personnel in high-value positions.

The key to extending succession planning into the organization is to provide career development planning to employees. Indeed, fully 97% of business and HR leaders believe that a systematic career development process positively impacts employee retention and engagement. These leaders also believe that providing career advancement opportunities as well as dedicated development planning to employees are the two most important mechanisms for retaining high performers.

Retaining existing employees not only has the potential to minimize the effects of talent shortages, it also provides significant and tangible cost savings (since replacement costs range from 100%-150% of the salary for a departing employee).

3. Establish Dynamic Talent Pools to Improve Pipeline Visibility

Centralized talent pools provide CEOs with global visibility into their talent pipeline and overall organization bench strength. They provide a mechanism for ensuring that the organization’s future staffing plans are adequate, thereby reducing risk and ensuring continuity. To be truly effective, talent pools need to be dynamic in nature. For instance, if an employee is terminated, that person should be automatically removed from existing successor pools. Alternatively, if an employee closes a key skill or certification gap that had previously kept her from being considered as a successor, the pool should be updated appropriately. Talent pools that are inaccessible or not up-to-date are of little use to decision makers.

A key element of making talent pools accessible is in-depth searching for talent exploration. A talent pool is not much good if managers cannot easily view, track, update, and search for potential successors. Dynamic talent pools should take the guess work out of succession planning by aligning employee assessments, competencies, development plans, and learning programs. Proactive system monitoring ensures that as employees learn and grow, talent pools are dynamically updated to reflect the changes. It is this element in particular – supported by robust reporting and analytic capabilities – that helps CEOs make more objective staffing decisions and better plan for future staffing needs.

4. Promote Talent Mobility to Retain High Performers

Industry analyst firm Bersin & Associates defines talent mobility as “a dynamic internal process for moving talent from role to role – at the leadership, professional and operational levels.” The company further states that “the ability to move talent to where it is needed and by when it is needed will be essential for building an adaptable and enduring organization.”[1]

Talent mobility is:

A business strategy that facilitates organizational agility and flexibility
A mechanism for acquiring and retaining high performing and potential talent
A recruiting philosophy that favors internal sourcing over costly external hiring
A method for aligning organizational and individual needs through development
A proactive and ongoing approach to succession planning rather than a reactive approach

A systematic talent mobility strategy enables business leaders to more effectively acquire, align, develop, engage, and retain high performing talent by implementing a consistent, repeatable, and global process for talent rotation. Without a cohesive talent mobility strategy, CEOs face several risks:

Focus on costly external recruiting vs. internal sourcing
Wrong hires (cost can be 3-5x person’s salary)
Increased high performer churn
Reduced employee engagement
Reduced flexibility as business conditions change

CEOs should consider the following integrated processes – and a complete technology platform to support them – to promote and enable talent mobility:

Current workforce analysis:Includes detailed talent profiles, employee summaries, organization charts, competencies, and job profiles.
Talent needs assessment: Assess employees on key areas of leadership potential, job performance, and risk of leaving.
Future needs analysis:Development-centric succession planning to create and manage dynamic, fully-populated talent pools.

5. Integrate Succession Planning to Broader Business Processes

Succession planning is not a silo. It implicitly relies on other talent processes and data, especially assessments that provide a performance and competency baseline. Yet unlike a performance management process, which can be executed in a relatively self-contained fashion (assuming it has access to core employee data), the same is not true for succession planning.

Succession planning requires foundational data (e.g., competencies, job profiles, talent profiles, and employee records) and inputs (e.g., appraisals, feedback). Outputs include nominee pools, successor pools, development/learning plans, and reports. To facilitate the level of integration required to get succession planning right, a single, natively-integrated technology platform that centralizes key talent processes and information is required. With this single platform, the time to develop succession plans can easily be reduced from weeks or months to mere hours. The benefits can be significant: reduce costs, reallocate personnel from tactical activities to more strategic endeavors, and mitigate the risk of untimely departures of essential personnel.

Additionally, a single technology platform promotes the linkage of learning and career development to succession planning. By bridging these processes, nominees who are not ready for advancement can be assigned detailed development plans that guide them to improve the competencies and skills required for new job positions. Learning paths and specific courses can be established for employees to facilitate their career growth. By providing learning opportunities and development plans to employees, CEOs can take a more active role in promoting employee growth, retention, and engagement.

Finally, with a single system of record, reporting and analysis is vastly improved, since all relevant talent data resides within a single data structure. Strategic cross-functional metrics can be readily established (e.g., measure the impact of learning and development programs on performance). Reporting and analysis are key to the CEO’s success in managing employee resources and implementing strategies that support corporate objectives and initiatives.

Conclusion

Organizations can realize significant efficiency gains and cost savings by moving from a manual, paper-based succession process to one that is fully technology-enabled. The shift to a single technology platform facilitates extending succession planning deeper into the organization, since a well-architected solution seamlessly links succession to career development and learning. A complete platform improves senior management’s global visibility into the talent pipeline and bench strength, and promoting talent mobility to retain high performers becomes a viable engagement strategy. Succession planning, done correctly, is all about process and supporting technology integration. Without integration, succession planning becomes just another organizational silo.

Endnotes

[1]Lamoureux, Kim. “Talent Mobility: A New Standard of Endurance.” Bersin & Associates, November 30, 2009.

Sales Training and Prospecting Tips to Increase Sales With Actions I Learned From My Window Fitter

Sales training and prospecting tips from the unbelievable sites I witnessed while watching window fitters working on my house. I recently had new windows fitted and while watching what happened I saw some fantastic sales prospecting techniques that just naturally happened because of how prospects think and act. Forget classroom sales prospecting skills you learn on courses, I saw a steady flow of sales prospects that would fill any sales person’s diary and make their target for the month. I’m now adapting these techniques with my working sales teams and you can fill your diary or grow your small business sales by doing the same.

The front of my house is on a busy lane that leads to the local shops and throughout the day many people passed by and saw the two guys installing my new windows. I saw people slowing down and stopping to look towards the house and the work being done. Some took the contact details from the side of the window fitter’s truck, and many others stopped to ask the guys questions about windows and for prices for repairs or renewals. I have to admit I cringed as I listened to the window guys responding to these passing sales prospects. They were excellent window fitters but not salesmen.

What I learned was the marketing power this situation created. This was far more effective than expensive T.V. or newspaper advertising. It triggered a reaction from anyone passing that had the slightest need for the guy’s services. This was a sales person’s dream, prospects queuing up to talk to someone. It got to the point where it was stopping the guys from working and they didn’t have the time to deal with all these people. What a waste of sales opportunities, I bet there are home improvement direct sales people that work all month to get that many prospects, more on that later.

There are several reasons why these prospects stopped and talked to the working window fitters, and within these reasons we can find valuable sales training and prospecting ideas.

The main reason people felt comfortable was that someone else has taken the first action and decided these professionals were the ones to contact and employ. So the prospects follow some one else’s first action.

Another reason is that these were working tradesmen not salesmen. When a windows salesman knocks on your door they are doing it for their benefit. When you stop a working guy in the street you are doing it for your benefit. Imagine what a sales person could have done with all those leads.

Buyers will always take the easiest actions. Which is easiest, searching through adverts, directories, and the internet and having to make a decision on which company to contact. Then speaking to someone on a sales line and waiting to be ambushed into agreeing to a sales appointment or even a sale. Or, stopping for a casual chat with a working guy that you can see actually knows what he’s talking about? If you wanted information and advice about having new windows fitted who would you talk to. A guy in overalls that fits windows everyday or a smart suited salesperson that knows more about the credit agreement than the windows? So what sales training lessons can we learn from the actions of the passing sales prospects and my window fitters? Without knowing your line of business it’s difficult to give precise sales tips. But consider the following ideas and think how you could adapt them for your sales role.

If you were a sales person for the company my window fitters worked for how about getting your hands dirty and spending some time with the guys fitting the windows. Put on some overalls and talk to all the passing prospects that want information. From what I saw outside my home I guarantee you will fill your sales diary.

Small business sales can be boosted by making all your front line people sales motivated. Put a reward scheme in place and supply every one of your staff with sales and information literature. Give them a prospect pad to take details of any potential sales opportunities, and reward them for every sale that they generate.

Sales people are perceived as doing their job and contacting people for their own benefit. Working people in non sales roles are viewed as being able to offer information that will benefit the buyer. If you’re a sales person how do your prospects perceive you? What can you do to be seen as someone that can benefit the buyer, and how will you get a queue of prospects wanting to talk to you.

Making Money Online – In-Text Keyword Advertising Makes That Message Pop!

It’s been said many times that content is king. This is particularly true on the Internet, where millions of people scramble to and fro for information each day. The most useful, convenient, non-intrusive information delivery systems on the Web are the ones that get the traffic. If your Web site doesn’t make the grade, people will look elsewhere.

The same idea holds true in online marketing and advertising. The Pay Per Click ads you write and the affiliate marketing arrangements you make are only as effective as the content delivered. Once effective ad content exists, the delivery method must be as seamless and relevant to the user’s interests as possible. An exciting way to meet both of these ends is via in-text keyword advertising.

What is in-text keyword advertising? This form of contextual advertising places specific words within the text of a Web page. The word is usually distinguished by a double underline. When a user trains their cursor over the in-text advertising, an in-page window appears with the associated advertisement text. In-text ads for your services appear on sites with related content.

In-text advertising used to be confined to niche sites, such as video game and science portals. Now it is increasingly prevalent, found even in such places as mainstream journalistic Web sites. Some champions of journalistic integrity have criticized this practice on newspaper Web sites, but a growing number of publishers see in-text advertising as a natural extension of advertising techniques used over the years to reach and serve consumers. Considering the current state of newspaper companies, it could be argued that clinging to an outdated notion of integrity and overinflated sense of value to society makes no business sense. When revenue models are considered, online advertising is a must. However, as one reader states regarding the 12/3/07 Businessweek story on in-text ads (“Pitching Between the Lines”), “many companies need advertising, but we don’t need bad ads.” This basic line of reasoning – that better ads serve the public better – should be the credo for any advertising you write or any advertising you host.

Let’s assume you’re ready for the kind of revenue stream in-text advertising can bring through your Web site as a publisher, or through your own ads on relevant sites. Networks like Kontera offer advanced In-Text Advertising solutions. They guarantee the highest degree of relevancy between content, keywords and ads. This equals higher click-through rates and a nice return on your investment (as an advertiser) or conversion rate (as an advertiser or a publisher). Vibrant Media offers IntelliTXT technology, which reads a page and in real-time double-underlines words directly within the content and places sponsored links inside a relevant page’s text. Should the user click on an in-text ad, the site owner will make a commission. Miva MC is another great source for in-text ads that pop. Any InLine ad through Miva MC is 100% user initiated, meaning that a visitor must mouse over the underlined keyword in order to see the advertisement. Ultimately, this leads to a winning equation of added revenue for you without having ads take up too much page real estate. One possible undesirable result in that situation might be that advertising clutter eventually cuts down on page impressions. When it comes to online moneymaking, that is a no-no. Simple in-text links like those available through a program such as My-PayDayLoan are clean and can be highly effective.

Great content keeps readers coming back for more. Great ads that blend with great content can boost your online revenue stream. With in-text keyword advertising, get your message before an interested audience or deliver a highly targeted ad on your own Web site that can net you significant commission per referral. Combine this technique with Pay Per Click advertising and other types of Affiliate Marketing and you are well on your way to mastery of making money online!

You Need a Dream Team

During WW1 Henry Ford sued a Chicago newspaper for libeling him when they called him “an ignorant pacifist.” At the ensuing trial, the defense lawyers grilled with Mr. Ford with a line of questioning regarding general knowledge in an effort to prove to the jury that he was, as they said, ignorant.

Mr. Ford’s response, “If I should really want to answer the foolish question you have just asked, or any of the other questions you have been asking me, let me remind you that I have a row of electric push-buttons on my desk, and by pushing the right button, I can summon to my aid men who can answer any question I desire to ask concerning the business to which I am devoting most of my efforts. Now, will you kindly tell me, why I should clutter up my mind with general knowledge, for the purpose of being able to answer questions, when I have men around me who can supply any knowledge I require?”

The lawyers did not succeed in their intent to prove Mr. Ford an ignorant man. Every person in the court realized that it was the answer of a man of education.

This story, related in Napolean Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, brilliantly illustrates, “It was not essential that he have this knowledge in his own mind.” Rather he relied on the assistance of those who worked in his organization.

This is exactly why you should be building your dream team – starting with a professional virtual assistant. Think about it. You decided to take the entrepreneurial plunge because you were passionate about your vision of what you could offer the world. It may have been inspiring others to live abundantly through life coaching services or assisting your fellow entrepreneur in reaching their goals through business coaching. Most likely it was NOT doing administrative tasks, technical work, internet marketing or any of the other multitude of back-office business tasks that must be done in any business! (Unless of course, you ARE in a virtual assistant!) So, you need to be able “summon to your aid” a team who can answer your questions and supply the knowledge you require.

One of the questions I often get from the business and life coaches I consult with is how do I decide what to delegate to a virtual assistant? A great way to start is to put keep a pen and paper (okay, or your iPad) with you as you go through your day and every time you find yourself thinking ‘I don’t like doing this’ or ‘This is not my expertise’ or similar thought, write down what you are doing. The resulting list is what you need to delegate! That list could include:

– Scheduling appointments

– Responding to routine emails

– Creating opt in, sales and web pages

– Social Media Marketing

– Blog posting

– Newsletter creation and publication

– Content marketing

I’m sure you may come up with many more! The key is that you do not have to have all the “general knowledge” in your own mind when you have a dream team to assist. Mr. Ford had a row of electric push buttons. You have email, phone and internet to contact the right people to supply the knowledge and skills you need!