Starting a home-based business can be both challenging and rewarding. As your business takes off, you’ll face several challenges, including how to create an effective workspace. Although your new, home-based office may have little space for anything more than a desk, credenza, bookcase, and file cabinet, remember that it’s not about how much space you have; it’s about how you use that space.
• Set up your home office using the arrangement that’s best for your space. Choose among the L-shape, parallel, U-shape, corner, or reverse-corner arrangements. The one you select depends primarily on the size of your office, the type of furniture you have, and how much work surface you’ll need.
• Save space within your home office by using all-in-one equipment that faxes, prints, copies, and scans documents in color. The smaller footprint of these machines makes them ideal for most space-challenged home offices.
• Make each piece of furniture serve two purposes. For example, a lateral file cabinet can contain important documents while supporting your equipment, along with a desktop file holder on top. A storage stool can hold files or supplies inside, as well as provide extra seating.
• Add shelves above or next to your desk to gain more storage space and reduce desktop clutter. A tall bookcase with adjustable shelves can serve as a room divider in a family room or guest room, if necessary. Adjustable shelves make more sense than fixed shelves because they eliminate wasted space above and below the shelves.
• Set up your home office in a way that fits your working style. If you follow "out of sight, out of mind" thinking, use a desktop file holder for your active files. Keep track of supplies by storing them in decorative containers on your bookshelves.
• Reduce piles of magazines in your office by keeping only a year’s worth and storing them in magazine holders by type of publication. When a new issue arrives, recycle the year-old issue. Consider eliminating magazines altogether by subscribing to online versions.
Lisa KanarekAuthor and BloggerHomeOfficeLifeDallas
Sep 29, 2010
How to go up your career ladder
Many people are unhappy with the progress they have made in their careers. They look back and say ‘maybe I should have done things differently’. But there are a lucky few who seem to have the Midas touch. They have risen to the top echelons of their firms. What makes them different? Actually there are a number of things.
A Great MentorA mentor makes rising in your career easier. He will guide you through the treacherous obstacles that come in your path. Helpful suggestions will come your way. Remember, he has been on this path before. Hence he is wiser in many ways. Sometimes a situation might flummox you. Here he will show the way. If you do not have a mentor, seek one.
Be a Challenger SeekerThe thing that separates the successful employee from others is his willingness to take up challenging assignments. If you are like most employees you would avoid something that is either difficult or unpleasant. The go getter thinks differently. He likes challenges and rises up to the occasion. It is true that when the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Build a NetworkYou ought to have a good network within your organization. By this you will be alerted to opportunities before they are officially announced. This is a pearl of corporate wisdom. Also having a good network raises your profile within the firm which is noticed by the key decision makers.
Take the Necessary RisksRisk taking is essential to corporate success. If you exercise caution all the time you are closing the door to growth. If you take the risk you are likely to be rewarded handsomely. Create awareness of your contribution to the organization’s growth. The corporate arena is not the place to display modesty.
Stand Out from the CrowdBe innovative. Don’t flow with the tide. Try to do things differently and things will be different for you. You are sure to get noticed and enjoy success. Change is the name of the game. Those who don’t change get eliminated.
Novel Thinking Think out of the box. Just don’t be preoccupied with the daily work. Introduce changes and ideas that are divergent from the normal process. This quality is rare but very successful.
Never Depend Try to be as independent as possible while also striving to be a team player. No organization prefers people who are dependent on their bosses or peers. This is not to say that you should not seek advice or help. But rather creating an independent identity that will shine and convey positive energy.
Everybody desires success. But few are willing to do the things that lead up to it. Be proactive and strive to be a valuable asset for your organization.
A Great MentorA mentor makes rising in your career easier. He will guide you through the treacherous obstacles that come in your path. Helpful suggestions will come your way. Remember, he has been on this path before. Hence he is wiser in many ways. Sometimes a situation might flummox you. Here he will show the way. If you do not have a mentor, seek one.
Be a Challenger SeekerThe thing that separates the successful employee from others is his willingness to take up challenging assignments. If you are like most employees you would avoid something that is either difficult or unpleasant. The go getter thinks differently. He likes challenges and rises up to the occasion. It is true that when the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Build a NetworkYou ought to have a good network within your organization. By this you will be alerted to opportunities before they are officially announced. This is a pearl of corporate wisdom. Also having a good network raises your profile within the firm which is noticed by the key decision makers.
Take the Necessary RisksRisk taking is essential to corporate success. If you exercise caution all the time you are closing the door to growth. If you take the risk you are likely to be rewarded handsomely. Create awareness of your contribution to the organization’s growth. The corporate arena is not the place to display modesty.
Stand Out from the CrowdBe innovative. Don’t flow with the tide. Try to do things differently and things will be different for you. You are sure to get noticed and enjoy success. Change is the name of the game. Those who don’t change get eliminated.
Novel Thinking Think out of the box. Just don’t be preoccupied with the daily work. Introduce changes and ideas that are divergent from the normal process. This quality is rare but very successful.
Never Depend Try to be as independent as possible while also striving to be a team player. No organization prefers people who are dependent on their bosses or peers. This is not to say that you should not seek advice or help. But rather creating an independent identity that will shine and convey positive energy.
Everybody desires success. But few are willing to do the things that lead up to it. Be proactive and strive to be a valuable asset for your organization.
Sep 21, 2010
Empower your employees to deliver excellence
Ensuring your employees have the tools they need to be successful is critical. But empowering them to make decisions that could affect your business is just as important, if not more so. Guaranteeing that your employees have a voice will lead to a more cohesive, results-oriented team that is constantly pushing toward a common goal. If you’re looking for ways to empower your employees, here are some tips that will jump-start your team:
1. Listen to your employees. You should expect your employees to have a depth of understanding of their respective roles in the organization to a degree you never will. While you’re reading this, your employees are thinking of ways to perform their job more efficiently and effectively. Your employees have your next game-changing idea—but they have to know you want to hear about it.
2. Go to work for your employees. While your employees may formally report to you, it’s important that you consistently demonstrate you are working for them, too. One important way to do this is to be sure their good ideas are implemented and that proper credit is given where it is due.
3. Don’t micromanage your team. Trust and support their decision-making even when it may not be the decision you would have made. Constant second-guessing will erode the relationship and will likely dry up your greatest resource for improving the organization.
4. Failure isn’t necessarily failure. Allowing your employees to fail occasionally will only strengthen their decision-making ability and perhaps, more importantly, allow you an essential opportunity to coach and improve your—and their—skill sets.
Tim KryszakExecutive vice-president of operationsProxibidOmaha
VOCABULARY
empower: otorgar poder
empower: otorgar poder
jump-start: hacer arrancar
tip: recomendación
decision-making: toma de decisiones
second-guessing: tratar de cambiar
erode: corroer
dry-up: agotarse
Sep 16, 2010
Sep 13, 2010
Your perception of business growth is wrong
Don't assume that bigger is always better, says B-school professor Edward D. Hess. Steady improvement is much more crucial than expansion
By Karen E. Klein
Much of the perceived wisdom about business growth is mythology, says Edward D. Hess, professor of business administration and Batten-Executive-In-Residence at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business. The former executive has spent years studying the concept of business growth and written myriad articles and books on the topic, including Smart Growth: Building an Enduring Business by Managing the Risks of Growth (Columbia Business School Publishing, 2010). He spoke about his latest research with Smart Answers columnist Karen E. Klein. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow.
Karen E. Klein: What interests you about business growth?
Edward D. Hess: What most business people think about growth, like "grow or die" or "growth is always good," is not supported by research. Most business executives accept without question that bigger is always better and that they should have growth that is continuous and linear. But that's just flat wrong. The data show that consistent, above-average growth is the exception, not the rule.
How did you do the research for your new book on growth in private companies?
In 2008, as part of the Darden Private Company research project, we identified 54 high-growth private companies in 23 states. Their CEOs agreed to participate in surveys, interviews, and case studies. They included product and service businesses that had been in business 9.6 years, on average, and at the time had average revenue of $60 million.
One result of that research is the warning that growth can destroy a business. How did you determine that?
Many of the CEOs we interviewed were on their second try at building a successful business. Their first try had imploded because they took on too much growth and found that they had quality, people, management, and financial problems as a result.
Are you against growth in general?
I am not anti-growth, but I do know that growth that's not managed properly can lead to dilution of your customer value proposition and risks to your reputation and brand. I think you should approach growth not as an assumption but as a well-thought-out decision. Understand the difficulty involved and go into it with eyes wide open, knowing that you can stop at any time. We found that companies don't necessarily have to grow or die, but they must improve or die, meaning they have to continuously improve their customer value proposition or risk going out of business.
What is the downside if growth is not managed prudently?
If you take on too much growth, it can overwhelm your processes, people, and controls. What we recommend is managing the pace of growth with something like a gas-pedal approach. You push on it, then let up, and let your company catch up to that growth. You can't simply take on all the growth possibilities that walk in the door.
You make the case that growth is particularly risky for smaller companies. Why?
Smaller, privately held companies usually don't have the financial safety net to withstand quality control issues or negative publicity or a legal downside. They have to be even more sensitive to risk than the big companies, and they have to manage it better. Gold is glittery, and it can blind you, but small companies that take on too much growth and mishandle it can't always recover, because they don't have the resiliency of larger companies.
How does growth typically happen in a small company?
There are four basic ways to grow your business. You can improve, innovate, scale, or do acquisitions. Innovations and acquisitions represent low probability, high-risk growth. Improvements are a given—you must make them in order to stay in business.
Scaling, the key to growing a private business successfully, means doing more of what you're already doing with better distribution and more customers. But you can't scale correctly unless you've got the right processes in place and you've done the right hiring and training of your personnel.
Your research shows that hiring mistakes are one of the high costs of growth.
Yes. I was surprised at the number of times it took CEOs to find the right culture and competency in their technical hires. Many of them took two to five tries to get the right CFO in place. They couldn't properly evaluate individuals' competencies coming in, so that led to a lot of churning, which is very costly.
As a company grows, the people often do not grow as fast. Sometimes the personnel that manage fine at a company of 25 employees can't manage in a company of 75 employees. But continuously upgrading your staff creates loyalty and morale issues.
What's the solution?
One CEO told me, "I have learned that I have to hire slowly and fire quickly." Most people do the opposite. Also, in order for a company to grow, the entrepreneur must grow. He must learn to delegate, manage, lead, and change roles nearly every day. Many whom we interviewed found those transitions difficult.
The other thing we heard was that the bigger the company, the more time the entrepreneur had to spend solving emotional problems and personality conflicts. Many of them told us they did not enjoy that kind of thing and were not good at it. The basic entrepreneur is a pretty driven, my-way-or-the-highway type. Dealing with people takes emotional intelligence and a different set of skills, maybe a more feminine mentality.
Did you include female CEOs in your high-growth cohort?
At least 10 percent were women. One had taken on too much too fast, and she struggled. But the others were very successful—even though they were not all great relationship people.
By Karen E. Klein
Much of the perceived wisdom about business growth is mythology, says Edward D. Hess, professor of business administration and Batten-Executive-In-Residence at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business. The former executive has spent years studying the concept of business growth and written myriad articles and books on the topic, including Smart Growth: Building an Enduring Business by Managing the Risks of Growth (Columbia Business School Publishing, 2010). He spoke about his latest research with Smart Answers columnist Karen E. Klein. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow.
Karen E. Klein: What interests you about business growth?
Edward D. Hess: What most business people think about growth, like "grow or die" or "growth is always good," is not supported by research. Most business executives accept without question that bigger is always better and that they should have growth that is continuous and linear. But that's just flat wrong. The data show that consistent, above-average growth is the exception, not the rule.
How did you do the research for your new book on growth in private companies?
In 2008, as part of the Darden Private Company research project, we identified 54 high-growth private companies in 23 states. Their CEOs agreed to participate in surveys, interviews, and case studies. They included product and service businesses that had been in business 9.6 years, on average, and at the time had average revenue of $60 million.
One result of that research is the warning that growth can destroy a business. How did you determine that?
Many of the CEOs we interviewed were on their second try at building a successful business. Their first try had imploded because they took on too much growth and found that they had quality, people, management, and financial problems as a result.
Are you against growth in general?
I am not anti-growth, but I do know that growth that's not managed properly can lead to dilution of your customer value proposition and risks to your reputation and brand. I think you should approach growth not as an assumption but as a well-thought-out decision. Understand the difficulty involved and go into it with eyes wide open, knowing that you can stop at any time. We found that companies don't necessarily have to grow or die, but they must improve or die, meaning they have to continuously improve their customer value proposition or risk going out of business.
What is the downside if growth is not managed prudently?
If you take on too much growth, it can overwhelm your processes, people, and controls. What we recommend is managing the pace of growth with something like a gas-pedal approach. You push on it, then let up, and let your company catch up to that growth. You can't simply take on all the growth possibilities that walk in the door.
You make the case that growth is particularly risky for smaller companies. Why?
Smaller, privately held companies usually don't have the financial safety net to withstand quality control issues or negative publicity or a legal downside. They have to be even more sensitive to risk than the big companies, and they have to manage it better. Gold is glittery, and it can blind you, but small companies that take on too much growth and mishandle it can't always recover, because they don't have the resiliency of larger companies.
How does growth typically happen in a small company?
There are four basic ways to grow your business. You can improve, innovate, scale, or do acquisitions. Innovations and acquisitions represent low probability, high-risk growth. Improvements are a given—you must make them in order to stay in business.
Scaling, the key to growing a private business successfully, means doing more of what you're already doing with better distribution and more customers. But you can't scale correctly unless you've got the right processes in place and you've done the right hiring and training of your personnel.
Your research shows that hiring mistakes are one of the high costs of growth.
Yes. I was surprised at the number of times it took CEOs to find the right culture and competency in their technical hires. Many of them took two to five tries to get the right CFO in place. They couldn't properly evaluate individuals' competencies coming in, so that led to a lot of churning, which is very costly.
As a company grows, the people often do not grow as fast. Sometimes the personnel that manage fine at a company of 25 employees can't manage in a company of 75 employees. But continuously upgrading your staff creates loyalty and morale issues.
What's the solution?
One CEO told me, "I have learned that I have to hire slowly and fire quickly." Most people do the opposite. Also, in order for a company to grow, the entrepreneur must grow. He must learn to delegate, manage, lead, and change roles nearly every day. Many whom we interviewed found those transitions difficult.
The other thing we heard was that the bigger the company, the more time the entrepreneur had to spend solving emotional problems and personality conflicts. Many of them told us they did not enjoy that kind of thing and were not good at it. The basic entrepreneur is a pretty driven, my-way-or-the-highway type. Dealing with people takes emotional intelligence and a different set of skills, maybe a more feminine mentality.
Did you include female CEOs in your high-growth cohort?
At least 10 percent were women. One had taken on too much too fast, and she struggled. But the others were very successful—even though they were not all great relationship people.
VOCABULARY
steady: firme, seguro
myriad: gran número de
enduring: duradero
revenue: ingresos
implode:implosionar
overwhelm: abrumar
withstand: resistir a
glittery: resplandeciente
mishandle: llevar mal
churning: agitación
cohort: cohorte
Aug 25, 2010
Welcome to Gaelia´s English blog!!!
You will have the opportunity of learning and improving your Business English weekly by reading interesting business articles from the most important international business magazines and newspapers.
After finishing your article you will find a list with the vocabulary you need in order to understand the text. This vocabulary is given to you in Spanish.
Enjoy your readings and practice your Business English. It´s so easy!!!!
Thanks for following us . All your comments about the articles are welcome.
You will have the opportunity of learning and improving your Business English weekly by reading interesting business articles from the most important international business magazines and newspapers.
After finishing your article you will find a list with the vocabulary you need in order to understand the text. This vocabulary is given to you in Spanish.
Enjoy your readings and practice your Business English. It´s so easy!!!!
Thanks for following us . All your comments about the articles are welcome.
Want to Get Clients? Be the Expert in your Niche
Want to Get Clients? Be the Expert in your Niche by Jennifer Davey
If you want to PULL clients toward you, one of the best strategies is to make yourself the expert in your field.
Obviously, if you want to be the expert, you have to have real knowledge and experience in your niche. For instance, since I don’t have a background in accounting, to try to call myself an expert accountant would be ridiculous. Of course, I do have knowledge and experience with getting clients, which is why I focus upon being the expert on this.
What can you do to make yourself the expert?
Be it! Have a little faith in yourself. Be confident that you’re the expert. Own this designation, and believe that you deserve it. If you don’t believe in yourself, others are unlikely to do so.
Emphasize authenticity. Be the real thing. Highlight your training. Have you had an education in your field? Any certifications or licenses? What are your credentials? This is important information for potential clients to know.
Know your clients’ struggles. Have a clear understanding of your niche so that clients will genuinely benefit from working with you. Make sure your clients know that you understand what they’re going through.Write from your expertise. Establish your credibility with clients by publishing blogs, newsletters, articles, e-zines, or even a book! If you can give clients useful, engaging things to read, they’ll be much more likely to think of you as the expert.
Offer your help. Be open to questions, and take any opportunity to share your expertise with your network of clients and associates.
Cultivate a portfolio of work. Be sure that you can show off your past work. Potential clients are much more likely to work with you if they can see your past results with their own eyes.
Gather testimonials. When a client is happy with your work, feel free to ask them to write a testimonial about how you have helped them.
Now for YOUR fieldwork. Think about your expertise and how you can highlight it to help attract clients.
Obviously, if you want to be the expert, you have to have real knowledge and experience in your niche. For instance, since I don’t have a background in accounting, to try to call myself an expert accountant would be ridiculous. Of course, I do have knowledge and experience with getting clients, which is why I focus upon being the expert on this.
What can you do to make yourself the expert?
Be it! Have a little faith in yourself. Be confident that you’re the expert. Own this designation, and believe that you deserve it. If you don’t believe in yourself, others are unlikely to do so.
Emphasize authenticity. Be the real thing. Highlight your training. Have you had an education in your field? Any certifications or licenses? What are your credentials? This is important information for potential clients to know.
Know your clients’ struggles. Have a clear understanding of your niche so that clients will genuinely benefit from working with you. Make sure your clients know that you understand what they’re going through.Write from your expertise. Establish your credibility with clients by publishing blogs, newsletters, articles, e-zines, or even a book! If you can give clients useful, engaging things to read, they’ll be much more likely to think of you as the expert.
Offer your help. Be open to questions, and take any opportunity to share your expertise with your network of clients and associates.
Cultivate a portfolio of work. Be sure that you can show off your past work. Potential clients are much more likely to work with you if they can see your past results with their own eyes.
Gather testimonials. When a client is happy with your work, feel free to ask them to write a testimonial about how you have helped them.
Now for YOUR fieldwork. Think about your expertise and how you can highlight it to help attract clients.
VOCABULARY
pull Toward: Atraer hacia
niche: Nicho de mercado
accounting: Contabilidad
focus upon: centrarse en
own: Ser dueño de
unlikely: improbable
highlight: destacar
e-zines: revistas electrónicas
engaging: atractivo
gather: reunir
fieldwork: campo de trabajo
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