Helping Your Small Business Cast a Big Shadow: My top free resources for new businesses

I’m always thrilled to stumble upon a web site, phone app or piece of technology that is designed to help a small business give the image of a large corporation. Small businesses don’t have the disposable income or office structure to support the expense of big machines like faxes and scanners, to purchase multiple business phone lines or to pay for a full time accountant. Instead, we become the Jack-of-All-Trades. Sure we’re the CEO’s, but we’re also the billing department, human resources, administrative assistants and IT. I choose to work from home because I love minimizing my overhead costs (and working from a local park or in my pajamas from time to time). But one aspect I DON’T love about working from home is the reaction I sometimes get when I say I run my Public Relations Firm just a few doors down from the same place I sleep and eat. For some people, I feel like this discredits the professionalism of my business. So I’ve taken an active role in finding completely free resources that allow me to run Bennis Inc as I would a much larger scale firm, while still keeping the intimate communication with my clients and low rates to reflect my low overhead.

CamScan – This single phone app alone has saved me the large investment of purchasing a scanner and fax machine for my home office. Imagine this – any printed invoice, piece of mail or even a magazine article can be scanned by your phone and directly emailed to you or your client with a few clicks of a button. At times, this works even better than a copy machine. If I’m sitting in a meeting and want a copy of a document we’re discussing, I simply CamScan it and it’s there as a document in my phone to refer to as I please. Best yet, this app is completely free, scans crystal clear and takes mere seconds to install. To find it, simply search “CamScan” on your Android or iPhone Market Place app (Learn more here).

Google Voice – When I first started taking on more clients in the Harrisburg area, I was often questioned about my cell phone’s area code which is from a different part of the state. On my business card it was obvious this out of area number was a cell phone and I felt unprofessional because I didn’t have a dedicated business line – but I didn’t have the budget for this. I found my solution with Google Voice. This online feature let me pick a new phone number of my choice (so of course I chose one with a local area code) and connect it directly to my cell phone. Now my clients can call my “business line” and I answer it right on my phone. Google Voice also has a ton of other features like personalized voicemails you can assign to certain numbers who call you and the ability to set “do not call” hours where it won’t roll your business calls to your cell phone….say on the weekends or while you’re on vacation. Google is truly an invaluable resource small businesses (Learn more here).

Boomerang – This is one of the newest features I’ve added to my tool kit. Boomerang connects directly with my Gmail account and allows me to use all sorts of cool features like pre-scheduling emails to send at certain times and on certain dates. I use this to format meeting reminders weeks in advance while they’re on my mind. Boomerang also has a feature to “boomerang” a message back to your inbox if you don’t hear back from someone in a certain amount of time. This is much better than having to mark a follow-up reminder on your calendar – or forgetting to do it altogether. But the most useful feature of Boomerang for me has been the ability to pre-schedule my monthly invoices to clients. I can format them and set them to send on the exact date they’re due. Now, no matter how hectic my day becomes, I know my invoices are accurate and on time. This really helps Bennis Inc to function like a professional business even though, for better or for worse, I am my own accounting department (Learn more here).

WiseStamp – This feature is more “for show” than it is for business function, but it’s one of those areas where you can really help your business to leave a lasting impression. WiseStamp allows me to format my email signature to include my company logo and all my social media links in an organized template. I chose to use the feature that inserts my latest blog post into my signature as well. The week I started to do this, I saw a surprising increase in my amount of web traffic. If I can get my email contacts interested enough to visit my blog and starting reading, I increase my chances of them also clicking on my web site to learn more about me and my business. WiseStamp allows you to add in a privacy disclaimer, your business slogan or favorite quote as well. I’d recommend not using all of these features at once, but design an organized signature with the right touch of special features to create a professional first impression (Learn more here).

Here’s what my WiseStamp signature looks like

 

I could continue listing the various other free resources I utilize on a weekly basis to help Bennis Inc function like a big PR Firm. But instead, I’d like to ask you to share even just one of your favorite no-cost technologies that make you more efficient or make your business more professional. The millions of other entrepreneurs out there thank you!

 

The Essentials for A Successful Blog

This is where I’m blogging from this week–a park on beautiful May day in Pennsylvania!

Almost one year ago, when I first started publishing ramblings about my ambitions, struggles, triumphs and personal philosophies around starting my own business, I had no real idea what I was doing. I wanted a platform to share my ideas, but to also keep me accountable for continuing my creative writing on a regular basis. And for me – this meant blogging. At that time, I had no real plan for where this would go, or if it would go anywhere at all. All I knew was that this was the first time I could really write for myself and not have the pressure to “perform.” This was a wildly new feeling which allowed me to access a whole new level of creativity and improve my own writing over the course of a single year by simply making me do it weekly.

While there is still much for me to learn from some of the Master Bloggers out there, I do feel like I’ve picked up on several tips that allowed me to enjoy the prestigious WordPress honor of being Freshly Pressed and to continue to steadily grow the Bennis Inc blog week after week, month after month. The following are what I consider the prime essentials for my blog’s success:

Consistency. Every Monday morning around 8am you can expect to be greeted by a Bennis Inc blog post in your inbox or blog feed. This takes planning, and sometimes pre-scheduling posts weeks in advance, but I’m a stickler for not leaving my readers hanging. For you, a different day of the week or a different frequency might make more sense, but whether you’re posting weekly, bi-weekly or monthly, loyal readership comes from consistent content.

Tags. Tags are what get your blog before the eyes of potential followers. In WordPress you’ll see that you can browse blogs by an endless number of topics. How do the blogs you see get placed on these topic pages? Tags. I familiarized myself with the most popular, overarching topics such as Life, Business, News, Photography and Writing (you can pick them out by the size of their font on the Topics page). I incorporate these powerhouse tags into my posts as much as relevant. That’s the other key to tags is to keep them relevant to your post. Overtagging is treated like spam to WordPress and that won’t get you any further ahead. Pick just the 10-15 most relevant tags for your content. Tags are also how a lot of search engines pick up on my blog. So when I use a Thomas Edison quote, for example, I’m sure to tag him because his name alone has brought many people to my blog because Google includes it in its search suggestions.

Quality Content. If you’re going to make the time commitment to start a blog, also make the commitment to write to the best of your ability. I can remember one busy week over the holidays when I just knew I couldn’t make my Monday blog deadline with a post to which I was proud to sign my name. Instead, I took just a few minutes and included a photo and a fun message to my readers about how even bloggers need a holiday. First, this kept me consistent with my weekly posts. Second, this allowed me the extra time I needed to come back the following week with quality content. I want to WOW my readers every week – and some weeks I do a better job of this than others – but I never want to take their readership for granted. So by offering you something worth reading I’m letting you know that I value your time!

Make it Genuine. So often blogs that are started by businesses fall into the trap that their posts should focus solely on promoting this business or its services. While a blog is a great opportunity to self-promote, it shouldn’t be a sales pitch. Just as I mentioned about quality content, give your audience something worth reading. Establish yourself as an expert in the field, but be sure to include personal stories, humor and even give people a look into some of your own struggles from time to time. My underlying point is – be human. We have enough social media being run by spammers and software. A successful blog gives readers a window into your life.

Make it visual. Adding a picture, graphic or embedding a video clip into your blog posts creates immediate interest for readers. When you browse through a topic on WordPress you’ll see an entire feed of new posts – too many to fully process. So what stands out? One of two things, an attention grabbing title or a picture to accompany your words. Both should accurately represent your blog with minimal thinking or reading. It’s the 0.5 seconds you have to pull a reader in, so don’t willingly give up this opportunity to grab their attention!

Become a part of the WordPress Community. WordPress is very much a social network; it’s a community of writers and readers made up of every demographic imaginable. But you can’t simply publish a blog, sit back and wait for people to swarm it with likes, comments and 5-star ratings. Most often, you have to actively pursue new readers. I personally comment on 5 other WordPress blog every day with something more meaningful than “Great post!” I show them that I took the time to read what they wrote and I share how it relates to me personally. WordPress is a very interactive community and 4 times out of 5 I get a reply for my comment. Most often, 2 out of 5 times I’ll get a new subscriber to MY blog. Multiple this by 5 days a week over the course of a year and it’s easy to consistently grow your blog. It just takes a few minutes of meaningful interaction every day.

So what are some of your successful blogging essentials? Have you discovered the tips I mentioned to be same as the ones you currently use? Since we are a community after all, share your blogging Do’s and Don’ts with me!

 

The Key to Time Management: Increasing Your Personal Bandwidth

Have you ever had moments in your life when you think “There is no way I will ever be busier than I am right now!” Then months or years later, you take on more projects, a new job or maybe a hobby and you again think, “No, now is the time in my life when I’m at my absolute busiest—I will never be able to fit even one more thing on my schedule.” But somehow we do. And so this gradual adjustment to an ever-increasing list of commitments continues on. It’s interesting for me to think back on times in my life when I felt the busiest and most stressed. My task list of those days now appear mild in comparison to my current schedule – but then again I was a college student who made afternoon naps a standing appointment on my daily agenda.

So how do some of the busiest people in the world continue to take on more tasks and always seem to find the time to accommodate them? I’ve concluded that it’s only possible through the well-refined skill of “increasing your bandwidth.” Just like the bandwidth on your internet determines the amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time, we each have our own bandwidth for the amount of work we can individually take on in a single day.

Think of the well-known saying “If you want something done, give it to a busy person.” Us “busy people” know that in order to possibly accomplish all of our given tasks we need to work quickly, efficiently and stay organized. There’s no room for procrastination or second-guessing; we have to keep the projects moving through the pipeline in anticipation of the new projects that will be added to our agenda whether we like it or not. You might be able to think of a few people right now – that when a task is asked of them, they dive in head first with how they will tackle it and are already on step 2 before anyone else has picked up a pen. These are the people who are fortunate enough to have learned the skill of increasing their bandwidth, or gradually easing into taking on more and more tasks so that one or two rush projects thrown in the mix doesn’t even break their stride.

I truly believe we can all learn to increase our personal bandwidth, but unfortunately it’s not as simple as calling up our internet provider and asking for an increase on our account. It can’t be bought with money, it can only be learned through time and practice—and simply getting comfortable with processing more data more quickly. For me personally, this has become a critical component for success in my business. In addition to my continual clients, I receive many one-time projects that come with little notice and a short window of opportunity to say Yes. If I let other projects build up, when this unplanned business comes my way, I’d be forced to turn it down. It has proven invaluable to me to keep my bandwidth as open as possible so that I can always take on these projects. It’s also amazing the way we can adapt to stress and a high volume of work. I’ve found that during slow periods of work, my motivation to tackle even the most reasonable task list diminishes. Yet, when I’m busier than ever, throwing family obligations and even planning a wedding into the mix and I knock these tasks off my list with ease.

At the end of the day, we’re only ever as busy as we make ourselves. You’d be surprised where you can find extra time in your day to accomplish something if you really want to and you’d also be surprised the unnecessary items you can take off your list because they’re inhibiting your efficiency. What’s most important is to never assume you know how busy or how free someone’s schedule is just from looking at them. Just because a busy person can get the task done, doesn’t mean we should expect them to pick up the slack. This might be a golden opportunity for us to practice expanding our own bandwidth and to become a more valuable member of the team.

 

Panic Does Not Equal Passion

For better or for worse, I seem to be pulled toward career paths that are not for the faint of heart. Just when I caught my breath from a whirlwind statewide gubernatorial election, it took merely 4 short months before I needed that adrenaline rush again. I craved the feeling of having meaningful tasks to keep me so busy that I was racing against the clock, not watching it countdown until quitting time.

After campaign life, where showers and haircuts were a luxury and 5pm wasn’t quitting time – it was merely the half point mark of your day, I swore I was done. Once was enough for me. I earned my badge and can say I did it, but I wasn’t going back. I was ready for a steady 9-5 job where I could make plans with friends and actually keep them. But then the boredom crept in. At first it was a pleasant boredom, the type you’re happy to get used to. But then even my best time-wasting tasks were leaving me with hours of the day unfilled. Slowly but surely I was developing “cubicle fever.” My maximum workload had been pushed to such limits on the campaign, that this has become the only work pace I now know. As much as I craved a normal work schedule, I had been trained to function like a one-person department and there was no going back. It’s like riding a train going 80mph and suddenly falling off and coming to a complete stop. When dropped back into the real world, I could no longer relate. So as many of you who have followed my journey thus far know, I took the leap and created my own Public Relations business as a way to again find that whirlwind work pace that has become my metric for normal.

Almost a year later and I’ve found myself ramped up to campaign speed again. The biggest difference is, this time around I call the shots. I can take unlimited time-off so long as I plan ahead and get my work done or take it with me as I travel (yes, from time to time I still have to call upon my envelope stuffing skills, but you won’t find me doing door-to-door voter polls anytime soon). I’m working now harder than ever, and depending on the week, am even busier than I was the week before Election Day on the campaign; however, I’ve realized one profound truth from these two experiences.

Panic does not equal passion.

On the campaign it was normal for people to be run around like a chicken with their head cut off and there were certainly circumstances that called for panic. But in many cases I believe people would overact with stress and drama as a way to declare their passion for their work. I’m a calm person by nature and I handle stress best internally. This led to one or more occasions on the campaign where my commitment was questioned. But I can assure you – anyone who is NOT committed on a campaign would not last more than a week. It’s a frustrating position to be put in. Do you give in and act panicked just to declare your passion? Or do you do nothing and risk your dedication and hard work being written off as less than your very best? The only answer I’ve been able to form came years later….it was starting my own business where the proof of my passion is my quality of work and my cool head and calm demeanor has become the signature characteristic of Bennis Inc.

I know that the panic vs. passion struggle is not limited to campaign life. I saw it emerging in various forms in my other jobs. Two people can get the same amount of work done in a day even if one leaves at 5pm and the other at 9pm. The late worker shouldn’t be award a medal of honor for staying late if he took a 2 hour lunch and surfed the web for an hour. So much is dependent upon your leadership style and how you react under pressure. In a salaried job and in campaign life, there is no reward for working efficiently – more work is simply piled on. I’m grateful that if I work smarter and get my task list done for the day, I am rewarded with a flexible afternoon or the ability to take on more work and earn more money. But more than anything, I’m grateful that I don’t have to give in to panicking just to prove my passion.

Keep calm and carry on.

 

The Two-Day Truce: Reclaiming Respect for the Weekend

I can’t be the only one to confess that my blood pressure raises and eyes dilate when I hear the all too familiar “Ding!” of my phone when a new email comes in. I’m like one of Ivan Pavlov’s dogs, except instead of salivating, I’m overcome with the urge to immediately check my phone and respond instantly with an answer to or acknowledgement of the pending request. This mindset can make for a stressful week, but apply it to the 2-days we’re supposed to allow ourselves for rest and relaxation each weekend and this flirts on the brink of insanity.

As a new business owner, I’m told – this too shall pass. But what if it doesn’t? What if fate should have it that my obsession with instantaneous answers isn’t linked to my young entrepreneurship, but rather the growing trend in technology? Now we’re no longer flirting on the brink of insanity, we’re outright courting it with a fancy dinner and bottle of wine.

I can’t help but fantasize with the idea of living in a 1950’s office environment just for contrast. What was it possibly like to lock the door on your business at 5pm Friday and be unreachable until 9am Monday? Moreover, what was it like to wait around for a written memo to be passed from office to office until an answer was returned hours…or days later? The TV show Mad Men might give us a glimpse into this lifestyle, but we will never truly know what it is like to live it. What some might see as a business-stifling, slow communication process, I see as the key to a work-life balance. With the aid of ever-connecting technology, we have officially become accessible at all hours of the day and so we have trained ourselves, and our peers, to expect immediate responses regardless of weekends, holidays and once in a lifetime occasions like weddings, funerals and even the birth of our own children.

I acknowledge that I’m somewhat at fault for this. I check emails on my phone with the same repetition in which I breathe or blink. And answering emails on the weekend only encourages conversation because I voluntarily make myself accessible. So this weekend it stops. I want that 2-day break; I earned that 2-day break – and so did you. So why do we continue to choose to watch our phones rather than watch a movie with our significant other? Why do we use our weekends to pitch to a potential client when we could be pitching to our son or nephew on a beautiful sunny day?

Let’s call a truce. Let’s work hard this week so we can designate this weekend for rest and relaxation. But I can’t do it alone. I challenge each of you to limit your emails this weekend to urgent communication only. Ask yourself, “Can it wait until Monday?” And then get out there and enjoy an entire Saturday and Sunday to yourself. Lock your email, just as you would your office door, at 5pm on Friday and open it again Monday at 9am. I promise you that calling a Two Day Truce, won’t result in the demise of your business, but more likely will result in allowing others to also reclaim the respect for their own weekend.

 

The Yes List: Finding Meaning in the “To Do” List (Guest Blog by Amy Gaines)

The following blog post is part of the Bennis Blogger Battle. Support Amy by “Liking” this post, leaving a comment and sharing it on your social media! The blog with the most hits, wins.

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In a recent battle with the ever-growing To Do List, the relationship between completing TDL tasks and building a personal brand developed new meaning: that of being a concrete, comprehensive, collected list of commitments.

Commitments are just that – something we have committed to complete by saying “Yes.” When we complete these tasks, our integrity, trustworthiness, and personal marketability increases because our word turned into our action.

And yet, maintaining the perspective that every item on that list is an opportunity to grow and improve our personal brand takes work. It takes work to guard the items to which we commit, work to keep track of those commitments, work to follow through on those commitments, and work to give 100% of our effort to those commitments. And in the midst of all that work, the tie between our word and our action is easily buried.

However, investing in the effort needed to maintain that perspective reaps significant benefits. Let’s take a closer look at the work involved in building your personal brand by making your word equal your action.

Guarding the TDL

If we are quick to say yes to everything, our commitments become unruly. Even high performers that churn through tasks quickly will eventually be overrun by an unkempt TDL. Learning to say “no” to certain commitments creates an opportunity to limit what goes on your TDL and allows you to focus on specific tasks. Good guidelines for identifying what goes on the TDL include: basic job responsibilities, direct requests from managers, [your] special interest projects, and personal favors.

Organizing the TDL

Many, many resources exist for taking and maintaining stock of commitments on the TDL. A personal favorite is the “Getting Things Done” series by David Allen. Regardless of the method, keeping track of the madness is mandatory.

Acting on the TDL

Break your commitments into actions and act. Keep stock of the resources you need to act on your commitments. Analyze the time a commitment will require before adding it to your TDL to ensure you have the time to complete the actions needed to follow through with the commitment. Above all else, learn to take your word (your commitments) and turn it into action.

Shifting our perspective to recognize the direct connection between our word/our actions and our personal brand is crucial to both success and sanity [especially in the professional world]. Recognizing this connection reminds us of the meaning and importance of each and every task on our TDL because that task is ultimately linked to a commitment. Completing our commitments sets a foundation of integrity for our personal brand that gives us added encouragement and footing to move forward successfully.

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Amy Gaines is a functional software consultant in the higher education industry. Her specialties include recruiting, admissions, and enrollment management. She loves to travel, read and write, and chase a thought to completion. Helping customers improve their processes, efficiency and reporting gives her the most satisfaction. Please support Amy by “Liking” this post, leaving a comment below and visiting her personal blog “This Imperfect Life” at greyceiling.wordpress.com

 

Your Brand is Your Identity (Guest Blog by Cheval John)

The following blog post is part of the Bennis Blogger Battle. Support Cheval by “Liking” this post, leaving a comment and sharing it on your social media! The blog with the most hits, wins.

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Most people understand and implement the concept of branding in their business every day. It is also most people that only associate branding with a product or business. While this is certainly one aspect to branding, what most fail to realize is that the most important brand you have control of is yourself.

But what does that mean? It means that when you go out and do your day-to-day duties, the rest of the world will view you either positively or a negatively depending on how you treat people. You are constantly forming your own brand based upon your actions.

For example, if you act consistently like a jerk to people, whether at work, school, recreation, etc, then you develop a reputation (brand) of being an unpleasant person to be around and that reputation will often precede you. Even if you do recognize this character flaw and make efforts to change your behavior, it will take a very long time to repair that trust with the people that you hurt. For better or worse, your brand is more a constant that it is a variable.

To translate into business terms, if you are the CEO of a large company, how you treat your employees and clients on a daily basis determines the perception the world develops about your company and whether they support your business.

Take this real-life example: Sir Richard Branson turned the Virgin Group into one of the most recognizable brands in the world. They have over 300 products ranging from cell phones to airlines. Branson first started this enterprise as Virgin Records in 1970 with successful music acts that made the company millions of dollars. With this capital, he then started Virgin Atlantic with the first transatlantic flight from London to Newark in the 1980’s. When the airline began to struggle as the result of a “dirty tricks” campaign by their competitor, British Airways, Branson sold his record company in order to save the airline. The decision made him realize that he was the Virgin brand that ultimately influenced and determined the fate of the company and whatever he put his mind to, he had the control to make happen. With the realization of the power of his personal brand, he has since turned Virgin Atlantic into the second largest airline in the United Kingdom.

The lesson from Branson’s story is that if you make the effort to form a strong, positive brand and learn how to harness this power, you have the ability to take your business to level far beyond just a product or a service.

Cheval D. John started “Vallano Media” on February 6, 2012. Previously, it was a blog called “What’s The Word?” and it remains vital to the website. In addition to running the site, Cheval is a freelance reporter for The Huntsville Item, a daily newspaper in Huntsville, Texas and a team member of Priority One Public Relations, an on-campus public relations firm. Please support Cheval by “Liking” this post, leaving a comment below and visiting his personal blog: http://vallanomedia.com/.

 

Taking Control of First Impressions (Guest Blog by Britany Wallace)

The following blog post is part of the Bennis Blogger Battle. Support Britany by “Liking” this post, leaving a comment and sharing it on your social media! The blog with the most hits, wins.

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First impressions are important, but another person’s view of us is ‘outside our control’. So what can we control? The most important thing in our control is our personal commitment to ‘leading ourselves’. If we can’t lead ourselves we can’t lead others. The first step is recognizing that ‘Everything We Do In Life Counts’. This is a constant process and includes everything we do both public and private.

Every choice we make must have a purpose. There are no insignificant choices in life. The small things always matter. What are some other things that COUNT?

 

• Self-discipline in every area of our life
• Developing Personal Character
• Personal Development
• Commitment to Excellence
• How we invest our energies and time
• How we treat others

If we take this approach in life our ‘first impressions’ will be driven by a set of core beliefs that stand on their own. It is said that we become the 5 people we spend the most time around. Look at your 5 closest friends (their character, habits, attitudes, etc) and you will see yourself. If we are committed to developing the character qualities of a leader, we will draw to ourselves people who are just like we are. The ‘lasting impressions’ of those closest to us are the ones that really count. First impressions will take care of themselves.

What is a First Impression?

We know what first impressions are but we DON’T know how much they can help or harm you and the relationships you try to build. A first impression is formed between the first 10 seconds and 5 minutes you are in someone’s presence. PROBLEM: They are private and we have no idea what other people are thinking about us.

First Impressions:

• Can improving or degrading
• Are private
• Can be informed and influenced by personal values and biases; therefore preempting the impression to a particular state (before the meeting even occurs)
• Are formed based on our actions and reactions, language, tone, appearance, even environments (i.e. what or whom we surround ourselves with)

We may not know or want to believe it (Wizard’s First Rule), but people are watching us… Yes, WATCHING… Scary, right? But true.

Can I Control the First Impression Formed?

Yes, and no. We can control it by preparing for that first meeting. If we do, the first impression will be more stable and likely more positive. However, Geoffrey James cites that there isn’t a logical thought process which individuals experience. Truth is, it’s a reaction both immediate and unconscious. Many sources detail how to form a positive first impression, but they want you to ACT LIKE SOMETHING YOU AREN’T!

David Wygant discusses that your self-confidence is the most important part of your first impression. Low confidence makes it hard for anyone else to believe in you. The best way to market your personal brand is BUZZ marketing. Let people talk about you. LeadershipFreak says that other people will talk about you if you let them. Let other people’s words give you confidence and pride in who you are.

First impressions determine how each interaction proceeds from that point forward. The first impression made on anyone is foundational.

Take Initiative. Research:

• The person
• The company
• Purpose for meeting
• That person’s values
• Their superiors (subordinates)
• Try to find a contact within the company or close to them in the hierarchy

Mark Oakes encourages us to monitor and protect what we can control about our first impressions. You CAN control what you do and say that people will see and interpret; not their thoughts. Be cognizant of those things; use them to your advantage.

How do I Control My First Impressions?

• Stay Positive
• Be yourself
• Be confident
• Let others market your brand
• Pay attention to your actions and words; they can help or hurt you
• Be unforgettable; not memorable
• Ask relevant, interesting questions
• Do preliminary research
• Ask for information to look into and follow-up on

“Wizard’s First Rule: People will believe anything you tell them because A) they are afraid it is true or B) they want it to be true.”   -Zeddicus Zul Zorander, Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind

Credits:
Edberg, Hendrik. How to Make A Great First Impression. Retrieved from:  http://www.positivityblog.com/index.php/2007/03/16/how-to-make-a-great-first-impression/.
Goodkind, Terry. Wizard’s First Rule.
James, Geoffrey. 2011. How Important Are First Impressions? Retrieved from:  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505183_162-28554948-10391735/how-important-are-first-impressions/.
Laskowski, Lenny. 1998. How to Create A Great First Impression. Retrieved from: http://www.ljlseminars.com/impress.htm.
Willis, Janine & Alexander Todorov. 2006. First Impressions: Making Up Your Mind After a 100-Ms Exposure To A Face. Retrieved from:  http://pss.sagepub.com/content/17/7/592.short.
Wygant, David. 2010. How Important Are First Impressions? Retrieved from:  http://www.davidwygant.com/blog/how-important-are-first-impressions/4398/.

Other Resources:
http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/FirstImpressions.htm
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200405/the-first-impression
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/first_impressions/

Britany Wallace is a senior business student at Moravian College in Bethlehem and loves blogging in her free time. She expects to travel for volunteer and learning opportunities during the summer and look for permanent work afterward. She enjoys volunteer work, mostly construction and helping at animal shelters and in her free time she reads for knowledge and pleasure. Please support Britany by “Liking” this post, leaving a comment below and visiting her at kebperspectives.wordpress.com, lifelongstudentofbusiness.wordpress.com or bwallaceperspectives.blogspot.com. (Introduction by Mark O. Oakes, a wonderful contact of KEBPerspectives. Follow him on Twitter @MarkOOakes)

 

Success Versus the Work-Life Balance (Guest Blog by Sam Bessant)

The following blog post is part of the Bennis Blogger Battle. Support Sam by “Liking” this post, leaving a comment and sharing it on your social media! The blog with the most hits, wins.

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In this day and age it is often assumed that one cannot be truly successful at work whilst also being successful in other areas of their life. We hear a lot about work-life balance and in the movies at least, the most successful executives are portrayed as sorely lacking in the social environment. Is this really the case though, and if it is, what can we do about it?

To gain some perspective on the subject, I posed the question to a selection of people I know and the answers that came back were as varied as the people that gave them. They ranged from working for a boss who likes you, having free evenings and turning your work mobile off outside of working hours to loving your work so much that it is your life. It was this last answer that really got me thinking as it’s the one which is most ambiguous. On the one hand, your work being your life might be a great thing if it means that your work flexes to fit into everything that you do. On the other side of the fence, is that top executive whose work is their life as there is no life for the work to flex around.

So how do you know if your work / life ratio is actually balanced? Well, the first thing you need to consider is what “balanced” actually means to you. What are your priorities and how much do you enjoy your work? If your main priority in life is to get to the top then you might be happy to spend 3 times as many hours working in comparison to how many you have for socializing per week. However, if you work merely to pay the bills and dislike your job intensely, you may want to flip that ratio on its head.

Essentially, a work life balance is as unique as the person whose work and life are in question. A true balance comes from within, from the feeling of contentedness that comes with happiness. After all, regardless of personal differences and aspirations, we all only live once; so for most of us the aim is to be happy for as much of that life as possible. My advice to you would be to weigh how much of your life is spent happy vs. how much is spent in discontentment. If you fall on the side of happy the majority of the time, you’ve most likely got your work / life balance right and that may be working 20 hours per week or working 60 hours per week. It’s really not about work vs. life, it’s about happiness and how you balance the elements of your life to achieve it.

Sam Bessant is 26 and lives in Reading, UK. She currently works the standard office 9-6 whilst trying to finalize the direction she will take to start her own business. Sam’s blog, 20somethingfreak was created to help Sam and others understand what it is to be in your 20s and for Sam to share some of the millions of daydreams she has every day! Please support Sam by “Liking” this post, leaving a comment below and visiting her personal blog: www.20somethingfreak.wordpress.com.

 

Why Success Is More Likely If You Love What You Do (Guest Blog by Rory Alexander)

The following blog post is part of the Bennis Blogger Battle. Support Rory by “Liking” this post, leaving a comment and sharing it on your social media! The blog with the most hits, wins.

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Chinese Character for Success

I have done a lot of things up to this point in my life and only now am I realizing the importance of this statement. “Success is more likely if you love what you do.” I studied economics, then marketing, worked in advertising and moved into print production before packing my bags and moving to China. I taught English for a year and signed on for a second, after which I took all my savings and traveled before returning to South Africa to see what opportunities arose.

I have tried several careers but never loved what I’ve done. It’s been employment and it’s paid the bills but it has left me unfulfilled. It’s not that I haven’t succeeded, but I keep feeling like I can do more. Things are uncertain now as I make the transition from being unemployed to being a freelancer but now I am doing what I love and so this time it’s going to be different. Or at least that’s what I hope.

Sure, you don’t have to love what you do in order to succeed. We probably all know people who don’t enjoy their jobs but drive nice cars and live in fancy houses. So then I guess it’s how you define success. I’d like to think success in life is about being happy. So fast cars and fancy houses might look good and feel comfortable but do they make people happy? I am aware that this could turn into a protracted philosophical argument so let’s consider this hypothetical situation.

If a zoo wants someone to photograph all their animals for a set fee and two people take up the challenge – one who is just after the money and one who loves photography. The one that is just after the money might take a compact digital camera and in the space of an afternoon take a photo of each and every animal in the zoo and hand over a disc to the zoo.

The one who loves photography would probably use a decent camera; take time watching each animal waiting for the best opportunity to take a photo; perhaps arranging to get inside the enclosures of the less dangerous animals and getting some unusual angles. They would probably shoot in the early morning and late afternoons for the best natural light. They may even go the extra mile because they love what they do and produce a printed book of all the photos to hand over to the zoo.

In this example, both people have done what the job required, they both completed the task but who do you think is more of a success? Who would the zoo be more likely to pay? I think it’s obvious that if you love what you do, you will spend more time doing it and the end result will be better than the same thing done by someone who doesn’t love what they do. Imagine what the world would be like if, in our jobs and careers, we all did what we loved.

While loving what you do is no guarantee of success, I believe that at the very least it increases your chances. And to me, the opportunity to following your passion is always a chance worth taking…

After 3.5 years in advertising, Rory Alexander decided to try something completely different and went to teach English in China for 2 years. Now he’s back in South Africa with an open mind looking for opportunities and following his passions which include aviation, photography and blogging. Please support Rory by “Liking” this post, leaving a comment below and visiting his personal blog: www.roryinsouthafrica.wordpress.com. You can also find him on twitter @Rory_Alexander.