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Balancing Personal and Professional Effectiveness |
Issue 126 |
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Dear Tricia,
Please accept my sincerest "thanks"
for your readership throughout the year. I am truly
privileged to communicate with you every four weeks
and I will continue to do my very best to bring you
the valuable information you need to be successful in
your hiring efforts.
If this is your first issue, then welcome! I
appreciate the opportunity to share best practices in
leadership, management, personal and professional
growth, recruiting, retention, and other areas critical
to your success.
Again, thanks for your readership. Enjoy your
newsletter!
Tricia Neves
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The Three C’s Of Collaboration |
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This is part three of a three part series on effective
collaboration. If you missed any of the previous
articles please contact us today.
Collaboration will be most effective
when there is communication, coordination, and
cooperation. Thinking about how they interact and
what distinguishes one from the other helps us
understand collaboration better.
Communication is the cornerstone of
collaboration. It can be established through written
words, sound, signal, or body language. How well the
communication is received – seeing it visually,
hearing it audibly, or feeling it kinesthetically – is the
ultimate measure of the transaction.
Communication is understanding.
Feedback is the only way we know what the receiver
heard, or what they think we have communicated. It
is important to note and evaluate verbal and
nonverbal communications.
Verbal and nonverbal should always be sending
the same message. When verbal and nonverbal
conflict, whatever is being communicated nonverbally
will be what is "heard" and remembered. Make sure
you pay attention to both your verbal and nonverbal
messages. Written communications are excellent for
reference or clarification and should be concise,
clear, and easily understood. Verbal communications
should also be clear, concise, and easy to
understand. When communication does not exist, or
there are mixed messages or unclear understanding,
there will be poor coordination and cooperation for
the
task at hand.
Coordination starts with practice for
mastery of individual skills – running, throwing,
catching, blocking...or selling, managing, resolving
conflicts, computing, or analyzing. These skills are
studied and mastered individually before interacting
with others in a coordinated activity. Then the
individual skills are practiced with others. Some
activities take a great deal of interactive practice to
find coordination. Fortunately for us, coordination
itself is a skill that may be transported to new
disciplines and can be developed with practice.
Cooperation is a less explicit contributor
to collaboration, it results from conscious intention,
just like communication and coordination, but
cooperation is the ingredient that gives meaning to
collaboration. The outcome is determined by the
complementary use of talents and skills by two or
more collaborators. Collaborators may work together
at the same time, or they may work separately at
different times. Either way, in a smooth collaboration
all efforts are coordinated through cooperation to
achieve tangible output.
Adapted from Executive Leadership, Resource
Associates Corporation. All rights reserved worldwide.
Permission granted to and adapted by Sorrell
Associates, LLC.
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How To Maintain A Positive Attitude |
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Many sales professionals know that a positive
attitude is a key element, perhaps the most
important element, to success in sales. Even though
they know this, most sales professionals find it
extraordinarily difficult to maintain a positive attitude
all day, every day. The reason? Most likely because
they believe that their attitude is the result of
external circumstances rather than something that is
within their control.
Here are some tips to help you stay positive:
1. Create a new definition for yourself
of "external circumstances." You might think
that hitting a few red lights on the way to an
important meeting with a prospect could be seen
as "bad luck" and put you in a bad mood. Definitely
not a mood you want to convey to your next
potential client! However, if you view those red lights
as an indication to yourself of how wise it was of you
to leave early, they take on a whole new meaning. If
you are late because of those lights, take it as an
opportunity to collect yourself and brainstorm a
damage-control strategy.
2. Begin every day with 15 minutes of
positive input. If you fill your mind with positive
thoughts, you'll have a larger library of positivity to
pull from when your day might not quite go as
planned. Read an inspirational book or listen to
motivational CD's in the morning. We happen to know
where you can get a few of those! Might we suggest
popping in your Sales Development CD's on your way
to prospecting meetings? (If you need one contact
us today)
3. Choose your news. You get
bombarded everyday with a news media that believes
in the mantra, "If it bleeds, it leads!" followed by
commercials designed to make you feel better. Our
media strives to ramp up your feelings of anxiety by
highlighting horrific stories and follows them with
advertising that helps you to buy comfort food or
medications to relieve the pressures of everyday life.
Unplug yourself from this negative imagery. Find
alternative sources to keep yourself up to date with
the day's events, such as public radio or print news.
It's easy to choose what to read and listen to.
4. Surround yourself with positive people.
Business associates, friends, and relatives who
have a negative view about life can make it hard for
you to maintain your positive attitude. These people
can drain you mentally and physically. Wherever
possible, avoid them or at least limit your contact
with them. If you cannot avoid them, don't get
drawn into lengthy gripe sessions. Listen
empathetically and turn the conversation to a more
positive topic as soon as you can. On the other
hand, positive people can enhance your life and help
to keep you upbeat and with a good outlook on your
world.
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IRS Announces 2006 Standard Mileage Rates |
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WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service issued
the 2006 optional standard mileage rates used to
calculate the deductible costs of operating an
automobile for business, charitable, medical or
moving purposes.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2006, the standard mileage
rates for the use of a car (including vans, pickups or
panel trucks) will be:
- 44.5 cents per mile for business miles driven;
- 18 cents per mile driven for medical or moving
purposes; and
- 14 cents per mile driven in service of charitable
organizations, other than activities related to
Hurricane Katrina relief.
The new rate for business miles compares to a
rate of 40.5 cents per mile for the first eight months
of 2005. In September, the IRS made a special one-
time adjustment for the last four months of 2005,
raising the rate for business miles to 48.5 cents per
mile in response to a sharp increase in gas prices,
which topped $3 a gallon.
“The IRS took the extraordinary step of
temporarily increasing the standard mileage rates in
the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina,” IRS
Commissioner Mark W. Everson said. “We promised to
continue closely monitoring the situation. The 2006
mileage rates reflect that gas prices have dropped.”
This announcement will help companies prepare
their budgets for the upcoming year.
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The Customer Is King |
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"The service we render others is the rent we pay for
our room on earth". Wilfred Grenfell
Last evening I saw a stand up comic go through
his customer service routine. He was very funny and
had the audience of about 200 people roaring with
laughter. But I found myself thinking of his basic
premise as being very different from my research and
experience.
He said that, by definition, a customer needs
something (I would add, or wants something). And
that anyone who needs something is vulnerable.
Therefore customers are vulnerable and you (the
business or organization) need to treat them with
care because of this vulnerability.
Yes, customers may need or want something;
but in this day and age, that makes them anything
but vulnerable. (Unless you are the only one selling
water in the desert.) Customers are actually
empowered: they have the power to give or take
business from you; to give you a piece of their mind;
to go somewhere else for what they want; to bargain
for prices; to cost you business with a careless
comment; and other forms of customer power.
So, as I see it, the element of customer service
is more about surviving in business than it is about
acting out of the goodness of your heart for
the “vulnerable” customer. Although the paradox is
that sincerity and genuine care are critical for the
best customer service.
This boils down to identifying customer needs;
providing solutions; keeping the focus on the
customer; dealing with complaints and bad moods
without taking things personally, and most of all –
not taking yourself so seriously.
Source: Dr. T. Elaine Gagné. © Copyright 2005
Engaging Change. All rights reserved.
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BALANCE RESOURCES |
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Assess your candidates in the same 37 factors
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