Constructive Grumpiness

Do you have an idea and want to start a business from it but is an idea enough? What happens when you have a wonderful idea but no clue about what your next step should be? This article will cover different ideas for starting a business as well as other things you will need to obtain a business loan.

What Do I Need to Start a Business?

Almost all businesses start with an idea. This idea can be new or can improve upon something that is already out there. It is not always necessary to start a business from the ground up.

There are franchises out there that already have a business plan and model that owners can follow that may lead to success. Once you decide on whether or not you are going to buy a business, start one from scratch, or buy a franchise then you need to determine the location of your business. Some people have started small businesses from their homes in the form of a home-based business then have moved it to an outside location as the business grew.

Continue reading “Fell like Starting your own Business?”

This post looks at the second of four excuses people often use for their lack of success – intelligence. People worry whether they are clever enough. This article explains why some of the most successful people have been the least educated. So let’s see, are you clever enough to work from home?

In some circles, working from home has, undeservedly, a bad reputation. Just listen to Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom in the following TEDxStanford video talking about productivity data of people who “work at home in their pajamas or on their couches” in comparison to people commuting every day and work in a cubicle for 8 hours every day.

In his book The Magic of Thinking Big, David Schwartz starts with the four main excuses people use as reasons for accepting their position in life. Once you accept these excuses they become like a disease, you begin to believe your own press and stop trying. Many people feel they lack the “intelligence” to be successful. However, what many people do is confuse education with intelligence.

An educated person is different from an intelligent person. To be very educated you need to be of average intelligence only. However, you can be very intelligent and have little or no education. This is because education is about learning a skill or facts and memorizing them. As long as you are of average intelligence you can learn most skills, provided you decide to and stick at it and become an expert.

Continue reading “Are you clever enough to work from home?”

Having worked from home for almost 13 years, I get asked all the time how I do it. There seem to be two camps of people, those who think working from home is their dream and a ticket to–well–not actually working, or those who know they don’t have what it takes to stay disciplined and get the job done. So, in this post addresses how to increase Work-From-Home Discipline – Business Development Skills.

For my family, working from home means I get to have a productive career that contributes financially to my family and I’m still here for my children and my husband when I need to be. Working from home allows me also to be a volunteer. Recently I am helping people from Best GED classes to answer questions from GED students about financing their exam. It’s rewarding.

Working from home gives you more power and independence in your work schedule. It also lowers work-family conflict and increases job satisfaction, performance, turnover intent, and role stress, according to a 2014 American Psychological Association study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

Continue reading “How To Increase Work-From-Home Discipline – Business Development Skills”

Are you looking for an easy way on how to build a free website, that will bring you a lot of success online? Here’s how to do that.

It doesn´t matter if you are going to build a website for yourself or if you are going to create it for a local business or a client. These days, it’s very easy to set up a fully themed website! Who doesn’t want a good-looking and successful website that converts well if you are going to promote something or a blog that stands out from the rest?

The Most Important Aspects of a Website

If you have a website, then you also need to have hosting, which is the place where you store all your websites and where people visit you online. Today, you can easily make a website really fast, and I will show you how to do that.

Continue reading “How To Create Your Own Website For Free”

Next Year. A chance to start over. A chance to re-invent ourselves. We were ready to make Websites that were customer-centric places, where customers come first. Well, the fact of the matter is that today, customers want answers now, if not sooner. Don’t you just love naïveté?

Now the old year has almost come and gone. Was is the best year ever? Not even close. Still, here are some things we have learned when it comes to online customer service.

Customer expectation inflation

Customer expectations are rising faster than gasoline prices. Customers want answers now, if not sooner, and from a human being. To their credit, marketers this year started putting real people in the online loop. BestGEDClasses.org (a GED practice website) got involved in Ask Jeeves (Ask.com), Ask Dudley (Dell Computer), Ask Maxwell (Microsoft), Ask IRIS (Toshiba), Ask Alex (Drug Emporium).

Human contact is so popular and so needed that there are third parties who will perform the task for you. Among them: LivePerson, LiveAssistance, and eSupportNow. If you want to do it yourself, you can even hang a “The Customer Service Rep is In” sign on your homepage.

Continue reading “Customers want answers now, if not sooner”

First things first, what is business development?

There are many definitions out there. To sum it up, business development comes to revenue generation. To reach that goal, there are many hats contributing to the task directly or indirectly.  The Director of Business Development is responsible for effectively implementing these five key elements in the entire business process.

There are five key elements, Marketing, Sales, Customer Retention, Product evolution, and New business opportunities.

The direct impact comes from marketing and sales hats.

Marketing is responsible to create attention to the product in the big market jungle. Doing branding, organizing events, creating campaigns, announcing your presence in the digital world, doing a press release etc…

Continue reading “What you should know about the job of Director of Business Development”

B2B sales challenges are piling up as the clients are becoming more and more difficult with their purchasing decisions. Sales goals are getting higher and higher and the organization is challenged with beating up low-performance results. So read on if you want to learn more about 5 roadblocks of B2B sales and B2B sales jobs.

Why?

There are many challenges if you are in B2B sales because you deal with complex organizations and decision cycles. B2B customers are difficult to please and hard to convince. This is because they themselves deal with all internal procedures, budget limitations, and company politics.

As a startup, if you are operating in B2B, you need to organize your sales force and moreover put in place a proper sales enablement, especially after the early adapter acquisition phase.

Out of early adopter phase, your mission is to prove sales repeatability to fuel the growth.

Not an easy mission

Continue reading “5 roadblocks of B2B sales and B2B sales jobs”

Que es el Tiempo?

Time can be defined as the continued, indefinite progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future when regarded as a whole. Einstein referred to time as the fourth dimension, intertwined with our other three space dimensions, making one giant spacetime sort of thingy (his words), and then something about black holes. I don’t know, what, do I look like some sort of him?

Back when I was a stupid teenager, I had a realization that, since the past and future are intangible events, there cannot really be a present. How can there be a middle with no ends? And if there’s no middle, there’s no definable present, so there’s no such thing as time. My head exploded and I died shortly after.

Some would agree that time is an illusion, and others describe it as one constant event, everything happening all at once, but perceived by our dumb brains as separate and discernible. Whatever time is, we all need it, but never seem to have enough of it.

Continue reading “To Do or Not To Do – Is that The Question?”

Working from home can be difficult — you’re surrounded by the distractions of your everyday life, from paying bills to cleaning. You can use feng shui to create a productive and comfortable space to work in to maximize your output. Here are some tips about Feng Shui Principles – Apply then to your home office to create a perfect working environment.

Create Separation

One important element of working from home is making sure that you have a completely separate space for doing work. If you are tempted to check your email in the bedroom or do a little work while watching television in the living room, resist those urges. Designate an area of your home for your professional life.

Choose a space that is as far away as possible from your bedroom, and only allow yourself to work there. It is best if it is a separate room with its own entrance, but if your home does not have that space, try to create division with your decor. Use a screen, plants, etc. to give your workspace its own feel of separation from the rest of your home. Be careful with furniture though; a floating couch can create bad energy.

Continue reading “Feng Shui Principles – Apply Them To Your Home Office”

Depression drains your physical and mental energy and can make it almost impossible to do anything. Feeling better when you are depressed is the goal but the journey can often take more than just sheer willpower.

There are some steps that you can take to improve your odds and if your depression is severe you should definitely consult a physician. By making small daily changes you can start to increase your happiness and energy day by day capitalizing on the momentum gained from the previous day.

Depression has also been thought of as your body’s way to make you focus on a spiritual or mental issue that you have been avoiding. By viewing depression as a natural function it becomes all the more important to reflect and try to understand why you are feeling the way that you are. Keep also in mind that people who are overcommitted may develop similar symptoms quite easily as well.

Continue reading “Tips for improvement when you feel depressed”

I was recently asked for a recommendation of a GED course so I went on a shopping spree. I learned about several GED programs but so far, the best is Covcell GED prep. It’s effective, it’s designed with simplicity, it’s for adults (not some stupid cartoon). Here are the details.

Let’s start with general information about the GED test. When passing the GED test (actually four independent tests), you receive a credential that takes the place of a high school diploma. It is the equivalent of earning your high school diploma.

While you cannot take the GED online, you may very well take an online course to pass the GED. Taking a good GED preparation course can help you pass the test in one try. This will save you a tremendous amount of time, money, and stress.

Additionally, taking an online GED prep course means you can study during your free time instead of taking time off from work while commuting or trying to retain information when you’re tired. You can learn and study when it suits you best.

I checked 5 different courses and without any doubt, Covcell.org is the best. The price is friendly: $9,90 per month or $74 one time payment. The yearly renewal is just $1.

Continue reading “Covcell GED Prep Review – What You Need To Know”

The opportunity to work from home: One of the greatest benefits of working for yourself. Or is it? Let’s take a closer look at the Pros and Cons of Working from Home.

If you have space, setting up as a freelancer or starting a company in your own home can save you a significant amount of money on office space and purchasing additional equipment. You get to work the hours that you want, at a pace that you want.

However, there can also be drawbacks involved and there are a number of things you should consider first if you are contemplating working from home.

Work-life balance. If you’re just starting out in the world of business then for a while at least that company may become your life, the object of your attention and what you pour all your efforts into. Nevertheless, at some point, you are likely to want you social and personal life back and there is a lot to be said for the separation between the home and work environment. At the very least it can help you keep your sanity and maintain that valuable balance in life.

Continue reading “Pros and Cons of Working from Home”

The purpose of this post it to improve the way you manage your commitments, therefore, optimizing productivity and performance. I took the Covcell GED prep course and at that time, I felt pretty overcommitted, as I took a lot on MY plate at that time.

Do you feel overcommitted? My guess is that a lot of you would say yes.  The real question is, do you have too much on your plate?  Or, do you truly understand what you’ve committed to?  It may simply be that you don’t have the full picture of your commitments (i.e. outcomes/projects) so you’re always running uphill, jumping from project to project, not knowing where you’re headed next.

Let’s face it, you could have five projects going, but it may seem like fifty.  Or, if you’ve managed these commitments the right way, you could have fifty projects, but feel like you only have five.  My point is this….your focus will be compromised if you don’t understand all that you’ve committed to yourself.  Furthermore, your psyche will be in a state of survival and your energy will wane considerably.

Continue reading “Are You Overcommitted?”

I love e-mail candy! I savor it and only open it when I can’t stand to wait any longer to consume it. I look forward to getting it and when I see it all beautiful and bold, my heart skips a quick beat knowing that it has finally arrived.

And I know the best part is not even here yet. When I can’t wait any longer, I open it and hope that it meets (or even…if possible…exceeds) my expectations.

Then I consume it slowly making sure to savor each piece. And when I’m done, I usually have a smile on my face with the memory of it.

At this point you may be asking yourself, what in THE hell is she talking about? I know, usually the words e-mail and candy don’t go together but for me, they do!

E-mail candy is that sweet electronic correspondence that you’ve been wishing for and waiting for and wanting so much that you’ve convinced yourself that you don’t even want it!

Continue reading “I love e-mail candy!”

I recently asked my husband if he would get a tattoo of my name. I know…bizarre question. I don’t have any tattoos and neither does my husband and neither of us have ever talked about it or, to my knowledge, ever had the slightest desire to get a tattoo.

In fact, my family (and I’m pretty sure his) frowns on such an act and I’ve always found the entire notion of burning a permanent life-long mark into your skin absurd. So why did I ask him this question you ask? Angelina Jolie.

Now if you’ve read my previous posts, you might be thinking…man, she’s obsessed with that woman. I didn’t think I was but maybe I am. I just love strong women that are “out-of-the-box” thinkers and doers. And I’m a little obsessed with movie stars in general…I know, please don’t hate me, I can’t help it! Back to the tattoo…

Continue reading “Husband, take note…”

I’m a big fan of The Conspiracy of The Rich The 8 New Rules of Money. I believe in what Robert is doing and I have been a fan of his ever since Rich Dad Poor Dad.

What’s unique about this work is that a) he is writing each chapter in pseudo draft and publishing it on the internet and then asking readers to comment, he then amends it inline with the feedback and b) this is one of the richest men in the world saying the rich have conspired deliberately to keep us from earning our full potential.

This post is a review of the Introduction which when I first read it I thought was truly shocking. All the more so because it was written by a self-made man and not a particularly left-wing person with no experience of being rich or being an entrepreneur. So when Robert Kiyosaki calls something a conspiracy you better listen for your financial health.

Continue reading “Why I believe in Robert Kiyosaki”

Most marketers think selling a brand is a challenge. But there’s an even tougher job: selling a generic commodity. Think about it. You see commercials for Chevrolet and Chrysler but not for the automobile. You see spots for McDonald’s and Pepsi, not fast food and soft drinks.

Yet there’s one popular drink sold mostly as a commodity: milk. Two groups, over seven years, have achieved a marketing feat in making this commodity a brand. In the process, they blunted a two-decade slide in milk consumption and raised sales for producers and processors.

”When it comes to cereal or a soft drink, I could advertise that brand when a competitive product was not advertising, and sales would go up,” says Kurt Graetzer, CEO of the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board. ”Our job is very different: We’re trying to move an entire industry. Our measuring stick involves many more bars to cross.”

Working with ad agency Bozell, Graetzer’s board created the famous ”milk mustache” print ads using a variety of celebrities. The idea is to make milk the ”cool” drink. The ”mustache” still runs, with modern celebrities just like Britney Spears.

Continue reading “Milk does a body good, but ads do the industry even better”

Social sharing is a powerful thing. I’m constantly telling people that social media is a fad! At least the term “social media” is a fad. People are social, and media is always going to be talked about, so social media is just our natural way of talking about things that are happening or things that we like.

Social networking, social bookmarking, and social media promotion are all terms that any blogger or marketer needs to be very familiar with. I’m issuing a special invitation for you to consider joining a social sharing group powered by Posterous through which socially savvy (and unselfish) marketers can mutually share links across a broad range of social platforms.

Here are the rules…

Continue reading “Announcing a New Social Sharing Group”