Remember growing up and being dared to do something? Remember how often you actually accomplished it, in spite of your own self doubts and fears? Let me tell you the quick story of a young man named Bill, who responded to a personal DARE and changed his world and perhaps ours as well.              

Bill was not a healthy boy. His family moved from the country to the city where he encountered a teacher who was serious about health. As he wrote later, ‘It was like he had singled me out.” His teacher, George Krall challenged him and said, “I dare you to be the healthiest boy in class!“

Young Bill responded and soon built a body that equalled and outlasted the strongest boys in his class. He never lost a day at work because of illness and lived a healthy and productive life. He passed away in 1955, at 85, when the average life expectancy was a good 20 years lower, in part because he responded to that dare.

Bill launched a company which grew to be one of North America’s largest corporations, providing employment for thousands of people. People who were challenged or dared by their president and later Chairman of the Board to push themselves to be strong, to be creative, to take risks, to build character, and to share with others.  For nearly 40 years, Bill wrote a weekly inspirational “Monday Morning Message” for his employees, colleagues, and associates.  

In a 1955 Monday Morning Message, when he was 84, he pointed out the personal significance of some of these unchanging fundamentals. “Some folks are continually making changes,” he said. “I flatter myself that I like new ventures and new experiences. But when it comes to fundamentals, I believe in finding the right foundations and building on them. I’m a poor changer.

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As a manager, executive or business owner your top priority today is exceeding company goals. You can’t do it yourself, so the best way to exceed your goals is to have what we call “High Performance Teams” working for you. Your goals may include growing your business, increasing revenue, improving business efficiency, doing more with less, creating competitive advantage, improving customer satisfaction, reducing costs or leveraging intellectual assets. Your team, which may include (sales, marketing, finance, strategy, HR, IT, operations, shop floor, etc.) represents a very powerful mechanism for getting significant results in organizations today.

High performance teams are a special class of team that has the ability to easily adapt in a rapidly changing environment and is an essential element for highly successful organizations. The first step in building a high performance team is understanding the essential team ingredients that create a recipe for success. Building high performance teams is a top priority for many executives. The benefits and value produced by these teams are very clear and being viewed as essential tools in their business strategy. High performance teams produce many benefits.

1. Increased sales revenue
2. Increased productivity
3. Improved customer service
4. Ability to do more with less
5. Increased innovation
6. Ability to quickly adapt to change
7. Ability to solve difficult, critical problems

Sales Team Essentials – The Ingredients

So where do you begin? Like a great chef making the perfect soufflé, you must follow a recipe that will deliver the best possible outcome. This recipe includes the ingredients, preparation and the process for making the perfect soufflé.

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Buy Business Today - Profit When?
There’s an old saying that states, “Free advice is worth [only] what you pay for it.”  While this is true in many situations in life, how does this homily apply to buying a business?  After all, anyone who wants to buy a business will need some serious advice on the matter.  They will want answers to such questions as, “What kind of business should I buy?” and “What’s the advantage of a franchise over an existing business?” and “How do I know it’s a good price?” and so many more.  Additional concerns arise once the reality of buying a business starts to sink in.  Then buyers will want to know, “How much money do I need to operate the business properly?” and “When will I start to show a profit?”  The novice may not even know which questions to ask, not to mention having a clue about the answers.  In this situation, free advice is both available and worthwhile.  Even the cost of paying for such advice is nominal.

Advice on Buying a Business
So do you settle for free advice, or pay someone for it?  In either instance, where do you turn to learn more about buying a business?  There are a number of resources available to prospective business owners.  You simply have to know where to look.  Here are some places to start:

• Entrepreneur Forums at GlobalBX.com - Our business forum is for entrepreneurs and small business owners.

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“Have no fear! Doc Savage is here!” - Monk, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975)

Admit it. You missed Steve opening WWDC (Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference). You missed him walking out at the end of Phil Schiller’s keynote where Steve walks from behind the curtain and says , “One more thing!”

No Show - Despite all of the wild speculation, Steve Jobs didn’t show up at WWDC and according to his earlier statements plans to be back at 1 Infinity Circle late this month. Oh yes, the team put on a very good event focusing on business, not personalities. There was no colored water to dazzle folks. No one sat down on the chair, whipped off the shoes and socks, held them in the air and said “today we’re unveiling iSox.” And five million people ran to the Apple store scooping up pairs at $50 per. There was no rush to roll-out matching laces, iSox cases, a dizzying array of toenail colors mixed. My gawd you had to focus on the announcements rather than the man. Maybe - just maybe - the PC/CE/communications industry has passed thru another stage of growth, dare we say maturation?

The business world goes through phases and the technologies industry has gone from techie gee whiz stuff to fashion statements. The business and consumer industry today changes fast. It changes more frequently than skirt length. In the ‘90s Jack Welch said the wind was at business’ back and he admits it was pretty easy to run GE.  Jeff Immelt is having a tougher time.

Team Behind the Man

While Jobs aura overshadows the fact, he has built an executive team other firms want to use as a recruiting pool … ok so Palm did but they need every little edge they can get. What the industry needs is to dip into the talent pool to find some new crusaders, some new standard bearers.

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So, were you, like me gripped to the Apprentice final on Sunday night? I don’t know about you, but I was routing for Kate who I thought developed the best product and executed better than Yasmina. Why then, did Yasmina emerge as the ultimate winner? 

Well, having given this some thought, I think Yasmina displayed some of the traits that we can all learn from when we run our businesses. 

Firstly, she didn’t give up. Her chocolates ended up not tasting how she had hoped, but still she persevered and carried on through regardless. She explained this in the Boardroom by saying that her team only had 30 minutes with the chocolatier and she would have spent a week with them if she was doing this properly. 

Also, even when she realised that her idea of selling chocolate to men wouldn’t work, she didn’t fall over and refuse to continue - she simply picked herself up, tweaked the idea and got on with it. 

Secondly, she got on with things that pushed her comfort zone. Yasmina hated giving presentations to other people and yet, she stood up there and gave it her all. Yes, ok it wasn’t the best presentation in the world, yet she still gave it and got on with the task at hand despite not looking forward to it. 

Thirdly, she showed her passion to want to succeed. She had already achieved by creating a successful restaurant, but she showed how much she really wanted to win which shone through in the final. 

Also, she understood her target market, really doing her research and then pitching her prices at £5 rather than Kate’s over the top £13! 

Finally, she understood her costings and was able to explain how she’d got to these and what profit the manufacturer would make from the sales. When Kate was asked the same question, she brushed over the answer and didn’t make it clear. 

So, what skills have we got there? 

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This morning I received an email from a contact of mine. It went something along the lines of “Just listened to your new audio. I have some feedback if you are interested.” Oh dear, I thought. That doesn’t sound good.  I’m pretty sure that if the feedback was positive, the email would have sounded like another email I got recently – “just listened to the audio. Fab by the way. Can’t wait for parts 2 and 3).” So, I sat there this morning, having a really good think about whether I wanted to hear this feedback or not.  You see, as small business owners we’re taught that any feedback (good or bad) is a good thing. And bad feedback is actually brilliant news because it helps you to improve. But, here’s my take on things. I don’t believe that receiving every bit of feedback is helpful or useful to your business.  

The reason I say that is this.  I think there are three types of people who give feedback to businesses and that you should generally only be listening to one of them: 

Type 1 are people who are genuinely angry and are making a complaint about you or your business. These are the people who you should listen to and go out of your way to sort out. This sort of feedback, while usually not good is definitely worth listening to and doing something about. 

Now here are type 2 and 3 which you should be very careful about listening to:

Type 2 are people who want to sell you their own products and services. They will deliberately criticise what you’re doing and tell you that they can do it better for you. Listen to these people at your peril.  

And type 3 – well they are just people that like a good moan. Nothing will ever please them and they delight in passing back their negative feedback to make themselves feel better. Of course, they’ll never admit that though! 

Why shouldn’t you listen to these people? 

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In recent years, self-help has become a way of life for many people in the United States. Drawing on the advice, philosophies and help of others has undoubtedly enabled many individuals to make it through tough times in their lives. There are certain individuals that have taken full advantage of this and Tony Robbins is perhaps one of the most successful. Grasping onto the patterns and trends in modern society, the entrepreneur has made a fortune and a career out of helping people.

Tony Robbins The Man

Anhony J Mahavorick was born in North Hollywood, California in February 1960. His home life was anything but perfect because his parents divorced when the entrepreneur was just aged six. Although his mother took a husband once more before settling down with husband number three (which is how Robbins got his surname) it undoubtedly affected him deeply. He made a vow to help others that were suffering in the same way that he did. This was compounded by the fact that there was a gap in the market for it later on. Noticing the demand and the small number of self help gurus and motivational speakers out there, Robbins took to attending lectures and seminars before launching his own career.

Tony Robbins The Guru

Tony Robbins started his career by listening to and then promoting self-help seminars for one of the most popular gurus of that era, Jim Rohin. As a result of that element of his career, Robbins made a lot of contacts and was soon able to meet John Grinder, an expert in neuro-linguistic programming, or NLP. NLP was one of the most popular methods of helping individuals deal with their issues. As Grinder had founded NLP, he was able to teach the budding entrepreneur everything he knew so that it was possible for Robbins to branch out and teach it on his own.

Tony Robbins was a huge success when he began teaching NLP and his notoriety soon spread.

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At this critical time in the economy, it is important to reduce costs and avoid mistakes – especially when it comes to hiring new employees. Finding the right recruiter to help you sort your way through job applications is a cost effective and logical solution for all businesses.

An outsourced recruitment agency will assign a consultant to find the right person for your organisation, freeing up your valuable time to concentrate on what you do best - your core business activities, whatever they may be - mining, contracting, consulting or architecture.

Here are seven tips to help you find the right recruiter:

1. Get to know the agency – spend some time with the consultant who will be working for you to ensure they understand your individual needs, the industry in which you operate and the role you need filled. It’s also imperative that the consultant knows exactly what you need in an employee, including interpersonal skills, education level and salary expectations.  The most important information that is needed cannot be found on a website, it is the culture and environment of your business that makes the difference with finding the “right fit”.  It is a waste of your time and money if the candidates the agency sends to you are completely wrong for your business.

2. Check the agency’s first impression – it is a common phrase, but we all know first impressions count. Look at how quickly the agency responds to email and telephone enquiries and the language and manner used by the agency staff. How do the agency staff dress and are they punctual and reliable? Assess how this reflects on your business because, after all, this will be your prospective employee’s first introduction to your organisation.

3.

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