Building Awesome Creative Teams

Let's talk about pulling together the right creative team. That's important because it's your team who are going to drive the creativity of your business and get the results you need. If you get the wrong team in place, it just makes life harder and getting things down becomes somewhat of an uphill battle. Get the right team in place it makes life easier and everything just seems to fall into place.

Getting the team right in place is paramount. You can have a team of the most talented, creative people, but if that team doesn't cohere or is not aligned with each other, and with your overall vision and goals, then you're not going to get 100%.

Building an awesome team of creative people is not about getting the right people on board. It's also not about getting the best people on board. It's about getting both the right people and the best people on board. In other words getting the right mix of the right, best people.

You see you can have the best talent available in your team, pay them a fortune and you will, of course, get results. But you may not get the best results. If they don't get on with each other, then you get personality clashes and bad energy flying around. If they're not aligned, then you also get disharmony

You can also pull together a team of the right people. By that I mean people you love what they do, take ownership and are aligned to your vision and your values, and yes you will, of course get results, but if they lack the expertise and star quality in their work, then as a team they won't be as punchy and effective as they could be.

But when you get a team of highly creative people together and it's the right mix of highly creative people, then it's a powerful thing. Not only do you get amazing work but you also get harmony, drive, and alignment in everyone working towards achieving the same goals and in being part of something bigger than them. To put it in pain language, when you get the right, best creative people - it just rocks.

So here are three things to consider.

Alignment: Does you team take ownership of your vision and your values. Are they on the same page?

Diversity: Is there diversity in your creative team? And by diversity I don't just mean in skills, but also background, industry and life experience.

Skills: Does your team have the right skills and the best skills? Yes you need a team of experts but you can encourage them to build upon and expand those skills?

20 Reasons You Shouldn't Use A Broker When You Sell Your Business

Nearly 80% of all business owners, even highly successful ones, admit that they don't have a plan for exiting their businesses.

Owners often fail to make succession plans because they have assumptions about the future which may or may not be true.

For example, a business owner may believe that his business will naturally pass to his spouse or other family member. What happens, though, if that designated family member is unwilling or unable to take the reins?

Another common assumption owners make that causes them to avoid succession planning is the idea that they will be able to run the business until they die. They don't put a plan in place because they don't like to think about the possibility of having to leave the business sooner than planned, perhaps due to ill health or family problems.

What happens in the absence of proper exit planning is that am owner can find him or herself in the unanticipated position of having to sell quickly, perhaps for less money than they need in retirement.

Frustrated, tired, stressed, and sometimes ill, business owners who need to sell make what they feel is a logical decision and turn the process over to their local business broker.

Over the years, my partners and I have reviewed over 300 selling deals and have come to the conclusion that using a business broker might be the worst decision any seller can make.

We began to question the entire sales process, wondering why most businesses in America never sell, and those that do sell often do so under extremely unfavorable terms for the sellers.

Looking for common threads in those deals, we eventually came to the conclusion that a major culprit hindering the business selling process is the typical business broker.

This came as a surprise as we initially assumed the logical fallacy that someone with the title "broker" is sctuslly experienced in facilitating deals.

The vast majority of business brokers we have run across, however, have disproved this assumption time and again.

Here are just a few of the reasons that I believe you should NOT engage the services of a business broker if you are trying to sell your successful business.

Most business brokers have never owned a business themselves.

They are often more motivated by commissions than they are by doing what's right for both buyer and seller.

In most states, brokers are not required to have any training, licensing, or continuing education, unlike real estate or insurance brokers.

Many of them are super at selling their services, but poor at actually providing those services once you've paid.

They could care less if they get referrals, so they don't care if clients complain about them to others.

A lot of times they are simply lazy and don't do much of anything to help the seller.

Many brokers lack basic financial literacy, business intelligence, and organization that is essential to a successful outcome.

They don't know how to plan and excute a successful sales strategy.

They try and cover their lack of knowledge and training with slick self-serving rhetoric that makes them look better than they really are.

Many brokers get into business because they've failed at other ventures.

They often have no clue of how to properly valuate a business, thus potentially cheating the seller out of thousands of dollars or causing the sale to drag on longer than necessary.

They don't understand risk.

Often business brokers let sellers think a business is worth whatever the seller wants, however unrealistic that figure may be, just to get the listing. They then pass the buck to the potential buyer, who is made out to be the bad guy for showing the seller the business isn't worth anywhere near that much.

Business brokers often ignore confidentiality agreements.

Many are willing to lie, as long as it serves their purposes.

Commission-hungry business brokers are obsessed with getting mass listings because they know that without a listing there is NO possibility of getting a commission.

Focusing on mass listings means they don't have the time to push the listings they get, causing listings fall through the cracks.

Many business brokers don't understand due diligence.

Most brokers will never tell a seller the truth about their success rates: 87% of listings NEVER sell at all, and of those that do, 3 out of 4 FAIL to meet the sellers initial goals. Sellers have less than a 4% chance of a successful exit.

Brokers have been known to lie about their personal track records. Many brokers are lucky to complete just 2 successful deals in a year, much less the 10-20 about which they will brag to you.

These are only a few of the reasons why I urge potential sellers of businesses to avoid using business brokers.

Instead, it is much better to seek out the advice of a business acquisition specialist; someone who has experience in the process of buying and selling businesses, who thoroughly understands valuation, and who is not focused on getting as many listings as possible but rather on the needs of the seller and buyer.

ow To Get The Best Furniture For Your Office

Every new office needs office furniture and getting the best one that will not cost you a small fortune is not so easy. You can always go to your local furniture store and pick up one, however that is not the best way to go about it. Depending on the size of the business, you might need to buy several furniture pieces for a couple of cubicles. This is when getting the best deal is becoming important in saving money while at the same time getting a good quality furniture ensemble for your office.

Only in the US the office furniture business is a multiple billion dollar industry. This makes it one of the largest manufacturer industries by far. So can you imagine how many options you have to choose from when you want to get the perfect items to furnish your office? You need to narrow down all those options and focus on exactly what you need.

For example, if you are shopping for an office desk, there are several considerations that you need to take into account. You need to know the size of the office and the size of the exact place where you want the desk to be put. Once the desk is in the office there should be plenty of extra place for walking, for a chair and for a couple of other furniture pieces such as a drawer or a set of shelves.

Depending on what there is already in the office, you might want to buy a desk that matches in color, that complements it. I've seen one day in a shop a pink table with a pink matching chair. While it was definitely cute, I cannot imagine such a color belonging to a professional business ever.

Also if you want to save money on your office furniture, you need to locate the store (offline or online) that sells the pieces cheaper than others while at the same time selling you good quality items. You can also go with used furniture as opposed to new ones, however that strongly depends on what type of business you run and whether you are working from home on your own, or you are starting a large corporation where image is a big part of the whole.

One of the most modern types of furniture colors today is white. White desks, white chairs, white drawers and shelves are quite common place in many new offices. They make a small room look larger and they bring with them an open and inviting air that visitors and customers will be sure to notice.

Local Business Marketing Review Tip On How Your Employee Can Destroy Your Reputation

This was not an attempt to get the employee fired we need more people working these days. I stated in fact I would rather you keep him on, with my strategy I have a system that will train every single one of your employees on the importance of your reputation but that's another message this message is about the report only, and I have no plans to put this businesses name on public display.

This is just something I think start-up business owners as well as seasoned businesses should keep an eye on when sections of their business deals directly with the public.

Also for businesses just in the planning stages the problem outlined below could happen in your business one day as well, especially if you are a start up business and plan to grow. The events described below are all true and could be present in whatever business you are in this statement applies to you.

There has been a major shift in marketing, you and every other consumer wants to do business with a reputable business, when you network, you want to do so with a reputable business, right.

People will search the internet and check out your reputation before ever visiting your website or your business and they are doing business with the most reputable business. If your reputation says you cannot be trusted the consumer will just find someone they can trust.

There are many ways to find out if you have a reputation problem, here is just one way. If you type into a Google search any business name and their city, what you will see are the directories and other places their reputation shows up. The person searching may have only your name and phone number and they want to know more about you or they may be simply searching just be looking for directions to your business.

Did you know that all they need to do is type in the business name and the phone number and your reputation is on display for the world to see?

Why is this important? There was a study done not long ago and what was discovered was that consumer opinions posted online are trusted more than businesses realize, and the consumers posting are your customers.

As posted on the 'Nielsen: Global Consumers' Trust in 'Earned' Advertising Grows in Importance says "Ninety-two percent of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as word-of-mouth and recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising."

An Employee Destroying His Employers Reputation and Causing Massive Loss of Revenue With One Simple Act

I was allocating some freight for relocation at a local distribution center for a popular well know business which I shall keep their name private but the city was in Atlanta, Georgia recently and I filed this report with the CEO about the damage that could be done to the business reputation and after reading it what do you think the response was?

The Report

On yesterday 1-6-2014.

This should have been a 10 to 15 minute turn around but ended up being over 1 hr an 45 minutes because of an employee that was unaware that his actions can harm the company's reputation and untimely cause the company to lose business.

I've been picking up freight here for years and have seen the 1st shift shipping clerk first hand do what is stated below to truck drivers and more time after time over the years.

For example if a person let's say it was a "Truck Driver" that approaches the window he/she gets ignored until the clerk feels like it. The astounding thing about this is the clerk with his peripheral side vision he can see you and when he does decide to look at the driver it's like what do you want?

You are bothering me, now consider this the owner does not know anything about this display of attitude being displayed. The shipping clerk forgot he represents the business owner, this is not his business to treat customers how he wants to and when he wants to.

I'm looking for businesses that want to make a change from within, businesses that want their employees to want to give great customer service and build a great 5 star reputation.

As you read this article please note how many people dropped what they were doing to deal with this problem.

Here are the facts as they happened on 1-6-2014.

I presented the clerk with the pickup number and immediately left the window to get out of his way because I did not want the same experience happening to me that I have seen happened to other drivers. The shipping clerk looked into his computer system for the load and calls me back to the window and says "that's a bad number it's not in my system".

No argument from me, I asked for a recheck but did not get it, so I call my dispatcher the carrier and asks that he double checks his information, which he did, he calls the sales person who booked the load and they both check the website where the load was booked to confirm it was in fact a good pickup load number and it was. He calls me back and tells me it's good and asks me to once again ask the shipping clerk to recheck.

I had already asked and the shipping clerk would not recheck but I asked again. The clerk says it's not in my system and would not even attempt to look beyond that point.

I once again called and reported that to my dispatcher "the carrier" and from their end they called someone else at the shipper "XXXXX" that was shipping the load and located a second PO#, and the trailer the load was on and once again asked me to pass the information on to the clerk and ask for a recheck but he had already gone home.

Before I got that call, I was watching him leave and as soon as he left I asked the next shift shipping clerk to double check and he found the load within 2 min.

I got the 2nd shift supervisor involved and he did a lot of documentation to reprimand the employee with, another 20 minutes waiting and while he proceeded to get me checked out and said they would handle the problem on tomorrow.

He says this person knows all he had to do was to get up and ask another person just feet's away that had an updated list that had not yet been updated into the system.

There is a dollar amount that is taken right from the bottom profit line for the businesses for every one that spent time on this problem all because one person forgot he works for someone else because they could have been working on other projects.

Let's look at some of the time loss, the terminal yard that I was taking the load to was 20 minutes away, but I spent over 1-3/4 hrs here which should have been a 15 minute turn around.

1. Could not be dispatched on another load

2. Dispatcher spent his time and his assistant's time researching and verifying the load.

3. The customer service for the shipper spent their time locating the load and relaying the information back to our dispatcher who called me back.

4. There was a 2nd clerk doing the same job that had already been entered.

5. The supervisor of the shipping clerk who was busy on another assignment until he was pulled away from that project to help get me going.

6. There was equipment (the truck) that was sitting not being used, just idle.

Imagine if this was your employee and your business that the shipping clerk worked for or a business that you know well.

Can you see how it could easily an employee could harm your business, just imagine it could be another business that you know very well that has an employee doing the same thing and causing your clients to lose money right from the bottom line?

I'm more interested in making a difference that will help businesses get more customers by ensuring every employee understands that this company's reputation is on the line every time they interact with a customer.

Let's switch positions just for a second. Let's take the event a little further; you know how people exploit the bad information online of offline, right.

Some people could be angry enough at the shipping clerk to post this event as a review on the business directory listing, if it's a bad review it's not just going to go away, oh no. That bad review is going to hang around and may even be on the first page for years as the first thing people will see when they check this businesses reputation.

Would you agree with my point here that if this were a published review of the business on their Google + listing and you had no prior knowledge of how reliable this distribution center was that this employee's actions reflects badly upon his employer's reputation as a reputable and reliable distribution center?

This employee probably has already caused customers to find another distribution center that's a given and could cause the company to lose this business and future business and it never crosses his mind that my employer is his customer.

Tools to Remember For Optimization of Search Engine

The optimization is a selection of some keywords which visitors may type while to search.

There are lots of tactics that a business owner needs to apply before optimization or creation of the website. It has been widely discussed about the keyword selection procedure and precautions need to take before that. The necessary research work to be performed is also known by the website owner. Which is not discussed are some more points listed below.

Need of a site-map in the website is necessary. The site-map minimizes the effort to search particular information by the users. Also if the website is big one, the site-map reduces the pain to search for a particular product or information. A site-map helps to redirect viewers to desired page. It is nothing but links provided to go to particular pages when the website is too big.

There are lots of free tools or software which reduces the burden of searching the right keywords. Also reduces the cost to find the keywords. These sites like Google's AdWords helps to find the most appropriate keyword for your business and increases traffic with lots of other technical cost minimization.

Beside there available many software and tools to help you to select correct and appropriate keyword for your website, it should not be forgot that the ultimate end user of the website is the potential customers. Therefore the language of the content article needs to be written in easy and lucid style.

If there is very less differentiation between your and others product and the pricing, then in order to business well you need to have something extra within your process of selling. The content should be useful and attractive and there should be many other facilities to the end users which they can not ignore while to take the purchasing decision. These are may be the securities you are providing them while online money transaction. Or it may the wide product range with their unique pictures and correct and discounted price etc.

The new blog on the marketing of the product is essential. Also the social or network marketing could be done with the help of the social network channels like Facebook, MySpace, Orkut etc. local or niche marketing opportunity is wonderful choice for business well. Let the local customers know your product first and give their opinion about it. The global customers could be treated once the local customers are influenced and satisfied by the product of yours.