Ten Tips for Motivating Employees

1. Say thank you
2. Recognize employee excellence
3. Treat every employee fairly, no favourites
4. Clearly communicate your expectations
5. Create win/win situations
6. Don't micro manage
7. Establish reasonable deadlines
8. When hiring new employees, hire skills and build on the existing base 
9. When forced to lay off employees, give fair notice and give references if they are warranted
10. Be truthful and honest with your employees. They are people who deserve your respect.

Ten Reasons To Start A Business

While many people scratch their heads in confusion when someone suggests starting a new business, others see the challenge, the sense of accomplishment and the future. The following list includes a few of the reasons who people choose to start a new business:

1. Can find a job that they like. 
2. Can find a job.
3. Is tired of working for someone else
4. Wants the autonomy of owning a business and doing things their way
5. See a gap in the services and products available
6. Wants to increase earnings
7. Wants to create a legacy for family members
8. Wants to create jobs and give back to the community
9. Wants to reduce work hours (although that one is usually quickly proved incorrect)
10. Wants the opportunity to work with family, friends etc. 

These are just a few and none of the above are right or wrong in every situation.  If you are starting a business research your options carefully and tread lightly. You may get what you wish for:-)

Enhance your e-Business Practices - Internship program for SMEs

Enhance your e-Business Practices with the Small Business Internship Program

A significant number of established small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are currently only connected to the Internet or are passively on-line, and might not be taking advantage of the possibilities offered by e-business. The Small Business Internship Program seeks to improve the competitiveness of SMEs by supporting businesses to actively market on-line and improve their competitiveness with e-business practices and technologies.
Join the Small Business Internship Program Team, as they explain how the Program could work for your business. Victor Paul-Elias will present the English Webinar and Lynne Antoine will present the French Webinar.
The webinar takes place on Friday, April 15, 2011 at 12:00pm EST in English and at 1:30pm EST in French. If you're interested in attending, complete the English Webinar or the French Webinar registration form.
For more information, please send an email to SBTBWebinar-DGPETWebinaire@ic.gc.ca

Ten Tips for Making Sales

There have been many, many books written about making sales, closing sales and the sales dialogue.  The following tips are what I have found to be the most helpful from all the materials I have read.

1. Be prepared.  Find out about the client and what they are currently using.
2. Know your product and the benefits for your client
3. Answer objections
4. Ask probing questions
5. Make sure you understand what the customer is saying, ask for clarification if needed. 
6. Enjoy yourself, smile
7. Establish trust and consequently an excellent reputation for you and the product or service you are selling
8. People love to buy, they do not like to be sold.
9. Realize that not everyone is your customer, respect that.
10. Talk to the decision maker. You are wasting your time if you are talking to someone who doesn't have the authority to make the purchase. 

And 10.5  Follow up after every sale.  Fix what is wrong.