I love it when I find a feather on the beach. It reminds me that there are angels around and something special is coming. it always takes me back to listening to Paulo Coelho, author of The Achemist, saying that when he finds a feather, it is a signal for him to start a new book.
What does a feather signify for you? – Suzie Cheel
Images of America at work have changed dramatically since the recession started. Things are still not in a perfect shape. The unstable state compels the American workforce is transform constantly. However, something that really has helped small businesses to survive in the recent outburst of recession was outsourcing.
In the tight economy, it’s essential for companies from all verticals such as entertainment, media, energy, healthcare, utilities etc to consider outsourcing paid work. Outsourcing — hiring an outside company complete work that otherwise would been handled by employees — is not a new concept. Small companies have outsourced tasks related to accounting, payroll processing, distribution, and more.
The flat economy compelled many companies to suffer huge layoffs. Still they needed professionals to handle certain tasks for them. Many small businesses opted for outsourcing to survive. They outsource non-critical jobs and enjoyed several benefits. For instance:
Most economists are of the view that though the recovery has started, the recession will accelerate the long-term trends of automation as well as the movement of workers toward different jobs in the service sector. That means that people will still be moving jobs.
Have you tried qualified outsource to help your business better serve your clients and customers?
Have you started an outsourcing service yourself?
The small business with outsource firm partnership can help us grow small business in these hard times.
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Thank you, George. Every freelancer and web design firm knows and shows the value of outsourcing what we’re not good at.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!
Amazing advice, freely given, is a powerful thing. It activates the âreciprocity rule,â it cements a relationship, and establishes trust. Even better than amazing advice? Lessons in how to do it yourself.
Fresh out of college, I was last in the pecking order. Therefore, I was usually tasked with using the copy machine, and unjamming it when someone else tried to use it.
Copy machines arenât particularly complex, but there were legions of my colleagues who actively avoided learning how to use them. Why? Because they didnât want to be stuck doing the copying.
Those people? Theyâre the same ones right now who say âI have no idea what the Tweeter is for, and I donât want to know.â
Whether youâre providing customer support, answering a sales inquiry, or providing consulting services, start to think as a teacher, not just a broadcaster. The essence of great communication is providing a practical application for your message.
If you give fishing lessons, you become someone who empowers the people around you. Much more valuable than someone who just delivers fish.
Are there aspects of your job that you can start teaching?
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Thank you, Rosemary!
You’re irresistible!
ME “Liz” Strauss
Blogging is all about being personal.
It may sound too simple that anyone will understand it not more than a personal online diary. Hence, let me just explain a little bit for you to understand from another perspective.
I may not be the expert to give you an educational answer about branding and marketing. But in my opinion, if anyone can understand the difference between branding and marketing, that person will definitely understand the true meaning of being personal.
Both marketing and branding have different goals. Let me just explain to you in my own understanding after working for a while in the society.
Marketing aims to effect an eventual sales transaction. Hence, it gives the person an instant gratification as he/she tries to tell the world who he or she is. It is very similar to a person who is devoting himself/herself to be extremely sales-driven. He or she will go out there to tell the world through Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, LinkedIn or any other social media that he/she can reach.
Branding aims to communicate by means of “impressing” what this blogger stands for. It is not so much about looking out for maximum exposure. But rather, it leaves an impression to anyone who notices him/her.
This blogger will usually focus a lot on building quality contents, beautifying his or her blog design, and making sure that everybody perceives him/her as who he or she really “is.” Isn’t blog branding about “being personal”?
Some experts believe that perception is everything. Branding — which shapes perception — leads everything!
Some believe that marketing is the key to business viability, especially when it involves product development, market development, channel development, sales force management, etc. Thus, it is more directly impacting revenue.
Both marketing and branding aim to affect higher profitability. In general, marketing has a wider effect but lesser depth (volume, sales, etc). Branding on the other hand usually tries to enable clients to pay a “premium.”
Both are really important in its own way. While marketing is pretty straight-forward and is more like a how-to strategy, I wish to emphasize on this phrase “blogging is all about being personal.”
It’s true of every big and small business that not one can succeed alone. We all need the help of the community who supports us to keep growing. Yet as I work with corporations who hire me and people ask for my help, I find the greatest commonality is that we seem to work on the premise that we have to do everything ourselves.
We’re better at surveying, studying, measuring, questioning, observing, and even psychoanalyzing the people who build, buy, sell, use, and tell others about our products and services than we are at letting them participate as much as they might in helping us thrive. But we’re not very good at connecting with natural advocates when they step up and let us know they’re interested in us.
Here are 5 ways to find and connect with people who grow your business online and off.
The aim of social business is to connect with people around what we’re doing, then to connect them with each other and keep those connections going. If we listen actively when folks tentatively step up, we’ll find we’re surrounded by people who want to participate in deeper ways than just watching us and buying our products.
The first step is recognize the folks who already love us and make a deeper connection with them.
How do you connect the people who help your business grow?
Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
When I was a kid, I wasn’t looking for my direction. No one said to follow my passion. I was a kid. I was on a quest to be extraordinary.
When I was a kid, I wasn’t bombarded with information from every dimension. My social circle was small. Now I have more social network passwords than the number of connections I had when I was kid.
Everyone seems to doing more than I am. Everything seems to be growing faster than anyone could manage to follow. Conversations bifurcate, trifurcate, and splinter off in bit and pieces. Sorting value from spam isn’t always a case of checking whether it came from a friend.
Ideas get kicked around like a soccer ball on the field where I hang out. I’m following echoes down trap of social media noise and deafening conversation straining to hear what my friends are saying.
In the process, I’m losing my own voice.
And the social noise is unraveling my passion one thread at time.
Sheer exhaustion steals the inspiration and the direction that I had when the day began.
It’s a challenge to stay calm when the screen is always updating and we’re always chasing the next link or headline that shows up. Curiosity takes fuel to run. And every generous spirit who does a good turn or sends a good wish seems to be calling us to return a good one now then. Do you find that after some time on Twitter or Facebook, your head needs a long, cool transition? It only makes sense that all of that fragmented data makes a brain want some time to sort.
The social interaction can undermine the strongest determination we have to move forward by using it all just to keep up with what’s going on. Is social noise unraveling your quest?
Do you lose track of the kid in you who wants to do extraordinary stuff?
Here’s my recipe for getting past the noise and distraction and back to doing extraordinary stuff.
I turn it off.
In a minute of silence, I remember my quest.
When I look out the window or stand and stretch, it gets easier to tune into my resolve.
Knowing where you’re going is irresistibly attractive.
It also fuels the noble cause.
Passion needs direction, or it gets lost.
How do you keep the social noise from unraveling your quest?
Be irresistible.
–Me “Liz” Strauss