Altameroy Blog

Standing out at a Job Fair can make a difference in your job search. Career Faires are starting to pick up, and Dice is running some nice ones, called Targeted Job Fairs. At a SF Bay Area Job Faire in early 2010, 10 companies as showing up, and Dice has 82 job faires scheduled for this year across the United States.

How do you stand out at a Career Fair? The contention can be considerable, but you can help yourself surpass from the crowd with early preparation. At AA-Careers, we have a simple 6-step process to prepare. Plan to go? Here’s how to prepare:

First, investigate the organizations that are going and pick your objectives. Use the internet to check out the companies that are there before you even decide to go. Go to their sites and see if they have their jobs listed. Pick a reasonable number to go after, and get ready to spend an hour researching each one. It’s hard to do more than ten in a day, and five or six is a much more reasonable target. For each hiring company, you want to know: recent news, key product lines, and exectuve names. Try to see if you know anyone at the target companies. You should end up with a page or two of research for each company/job.

Second, if there are job postings on the web, read them to see what the hiring department is looking for. Create a mapping of your achievements and skills to the demands of the job. Make the language match. If the hiring organization calls customers "clients", your resume should do the same thing. The accomplishments should be written in the style of the hiring company.

Third, create a ‘thumbnail sales pitch’ for each potential company/position combination. Write down a sixty second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat out loud depicting why you are a key candidate for that job. You’ll use this in your resume and when you meet the team from the company at the job stall.

Fourth, modify your resume for each position. The objective on your resume should exactly match the job you’re want. The executive summary should be a written form of your “mini sales pitch” for the job. Then choose the achievements and skills that most clearly match the job prerequisites. Especially at a Career Faire, the purpose of your resume is a sales tool for you – to get you on-site job interviews. It should be quick to see that you’re a match based on your resume.

Fifth, rehearse your ‘mini-sales-pitch’. Collect your research and the resume for each spot - bring a couple of copies for each – and put each in a clearly tagged folder. Keep them in a light briefcase or folio.

Finally, dress and prepare as if you’re doing on-site interviews. Dress nicely and be fittingly groomed. Avoid strong cologne or perfume…use any eau de cologne or perfume sparingly, if at all.

Remember to smile, and good hunting!

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Given today’s economic state, saving money and making the most of your assets is the most effective way to boost profits. Business performance management software, while often forgotten, provides a significant asset for firms wishing to do this.

It is common knowledge that a smart company adjusts its procedures to the specialties of each staff member in order to get the best out of them. Discovering and making this information ready to use can be where things can become tough, however.

Simply keeping track of employee appraisal and identifying progress in that performance is a huge amount of work. The first step is to bring employee performance appraisal systems into play. This allows you to track the work of each worker. Should you be employing conventional methods, the next move will be to analyze all the raw data points you have gathered just to be able to track future development and define goals. Employing performance appraisal software you’ll find that this analysis is taken care of and you only need to examine the different metrics and factors to know what the right set of targets for this staff member would be. It also makes charting the staff member’s progress much simpler. This eliminates the demands on your time and may even be more accurate. There is the possibility to analyze the raw data yourself and use the system only to collate and record everything.

And improving the efficiency of your staff is simply one of the achievements you can make using performance appraisal software. Both suppliers and clients can be studied using such software programs, giving you even more performance appraisal tools. For example, when looking at suppliers you can demonstrate the weak points such as poor delivery times, bad loss records, and so forth. Clients are measured on their own set of metrics, and just as with suppliers and internal questions it’s possible to streamline your business practices and benefit your bank balance. Then, you can tailor your orders and stock handling to increase your profits while minimizing spending. As well as this, the better understanding of your market will make for easier planning for your marketing.

You can analyze your sources to reduce costs and watch your target market so that you can boost profit employing performance appraisal software. It renders employee performance management quick, simple, and more effective in addition to helping encourage staff by determining precisely defined targets greatly. All in all, what you can achieve with this software is incredible!

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The current economy demands that profit can most effectively be improved by scrutinizing outgoings, rather than by generating more income. This brings us on to the benefits of performance appraisal software.

Business optimization calls for an understanding of the specialties and weak areas of its employees; where do they do their best work? How can your system adjust to use their strengths and cover their weaknesses? This is the important question. The main issue lies in identifying and metricizing this data. Determining and keeping track of development through employee evaluation alone can be a huge task. You first put employee performance appraisal techniques into action so that you can appraise all work carried out by each staff member. And if you’re using established approaches, you will need to examine all of that data manually simply to set goalposts, and keep track of future advancement.

With performance appraisal software, all you need to do is look at the different analyses and factors to pinpoint what these goals should be and subsequently follow the member of staff’s advancement. In this way you remove a major demand on your time and probably also find yourself with more useful information. It’s also possible, of course, just to use the software to keep track of raw information like performance review forms and to analyze these items yourself.

Performance management software doesn’t just work for employees. Such software can also be used to examine your suppliers as well as your clients. Knowing the suppliers that offer the higher grade and lowest priced products can cut costs greatly. When it comes to your retailers the software can still offer a sharper picture there telling you exactly who sells the most of your products, their loss percentage and similar fallout, and acting as a reminder of any payment issues. Then, you can tailor your ordering and stock handling to increase your income while reducing spending. With this data you can determine a priority demographic. With this in mind marketing is free to become more effective and easier to plan.

Watching both market and suppliers is effortless with performance management software. It renders staff performance management quick, simple, and far more effective in addition to helping encourage staff by assigning them realistic goals dramatically. There may be no upper limit with performance management software backing you up.

To learn more, you are advised to visit this vast prime resource for employee assessments information

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The banking chain, HSBC, intends to raise three billion Euros by selling off three of their largest commercial premises. The three buildings include their London headquarters in Canary Wharf, some offices in New York and a building in the Champs Elysées.

The conclusion was drawn a few days after a rights issue was approved worth a colossal £12.5 billion. The sale process is to be supervised by the real estate organization, CB Richard Ellis with help from Jones Lang LaSalle. HSBC intends to trade and lease back the properties concerned for a minimum of ten years.

In a relatively good position to take advantage of the new opportunities, HSBC plans to sell a number of its assets that have lost their values during the economic slump.

HSBC is surviving the global economic crisis considerably well and avoided the need for government aid. With the solution to the rights issue, the banking group is now one of the strongest in its industry and is continuing to prepare for any possible future acquisitions.

Finishing last year, HSBC’s market price was almost thirteen billion pounds lower than the value held on the books of the bank. Partly because of this, Moody, the ratings agency, gave a negative outlook for the bank, doubting its way of dealing with the rights issue.

HSBC’s Canary Wharf headquarters were bought only a few months after the bank purchased the premises from Metrovacesa, a failing Spanish real estate firm that was hit hard during the economic crisis. The profit made by the bank as a result of this sale was around £300 million.

The HSBC Tower is a 100,000 square meter office premises which was sold by the bank in the middle of 2007 during the peak of the real estate boom in a £1.1 billion sale and leaseback deal. Unluckily, for Metrovacesa, the deal proved rather too ambitious and HSBC ended up buying it back for £800 million.

In the face of the powerful financial position of HSBC, there are still concerns regarding the bank’s Household division in the US in which keeping up the $100 billion loan portfolio to the US housing market will not be easy. Investors in the bank are also still anxious regarding the bank’s traded debt securities.

If you are looking for more information on commercial property trade or office design, Claremont Group Interiors offers a complete range of design & contracting solutions for commercial and office interiors

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My parents were out of town last week, so I decided that I would throw a party to thank everyone for being so supportive of me. I am the captain of the varsity football team and they do so much for me. After school there is always somebody there to do my work, and take me home. Our party was very successful, but the place was trashed. I didn’t know if i’d ever get that place cleaned, but my friends knew just what to do. They called the California janitorial cleaning service to come and clean. They did an amazing job and my parents never knew it happened.

I am the ceo of a company on the south side of town. I am writing this blog to let people know where to go if you ever have a mess that you need cleaned up. I recently hired some landscapers to come in and do some work. They ended up tracking in dirt from outside all over the main entrance area of my office. I didn’t know what to do. I was so appalled that I fired them on the spot and called the California janitorial cleaning service to come in and clean it up. They did an amazing job and really got me out of a jam.

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I hear it all the time. Entrepreneurs are not convinced that they need a plan. And, I have to admit, when I started my first business back in 1999, I didn’t think I needed a plan either. I just figured I wanted a successful business and that was enough to move me forward. I started working with a business coach who gave me quite a few reasons to write a plan. I broke down and wrote the plan. And you wanna know what? It helped my business take leaps toward my goals.

See, before I had a plan, I was just out here floundering around. I couldn’t even really articulate what success meant to me. Once I had a plan in place, I knew exactly where I was headed, and I had a pretty good idea about how I was going to get there.

It doesn’t matter what kind of business you have - your own, or a direct sales business - you will benefit from having a plan. A business plan includes your long-term goals for your business, as well as a short-term plan to get you there. Still not convinced you need a plan? Here are three good reasons to have one.

1. It’s not so much the plan document itself that is important, but it’s the process of going through and creating a plan. When you create a plan for your business, you really get a chance to pull apart your idea and look at each facet of it. You have the opportunity to decide if this is something you are truly passionate about. And, you get to clearly define your business. When you have a Crystal Clear picture of what your business looks like (on paper, and off) you can articulate what you do to your customers. If you can’t tell people what you do and what your business is about, you’ll lose them.

2. Do you know for sure that you have a viable business idea? Creating a business plan will allow you to see how feasible your ideas are. If you do an in-depth plan that includes financial and market research data, you can see in cold hard numbers how your plan will work. You’ll know exactly how big your market is, and you’ll know exactly how much money you need. You will also be able to see if there are places that you need to make adjustments.

3. You business plan is your road map to success. Without having a clear picture of the end result you’re seeking, how will you know when you get there? Your business plan will allow you to set longer term goals, and it will give you a plan that you can follow to achieve them.

It’s possible to create and follow a very simple plan. In fact, your plan doesn’t have to be longer than one page. A good plan includes your vision, mission, your objectives (or goals), and the strategies you will use to reach your objectives.

If you are not seeking financial backing, you can create a simple plan simply by outlining the sections mentioned above. Once you’ve set up your plan, take action. It’s not enough to just write everything down. Follow your plan and update it often. Before you know it, you’ll have a Powerful Business!

Copyright 2006 Jennifer Givler

Jenn Givler is a Business Empowerment Coach who teaches entrepreneurs how to create a Powerful Business. Get her free e-book Be Empowered! http://www.jgivlercoaching.com/newsletter.htm

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Rotation

A smart organization will rotate its annual convention across the map. This strategy not only allows you to meet in all regions where your membership is based, but it also benefits membership growth and recruitment in addition to keeping the meeting fresh in terms of climate, attractions, time zones, and cost of attending.

Member Input

Ask your members both actively attending members as well as those who don’t attend often where they’d like the convention to be held. They may bring to your attention destinations that you haven’t considered. Be sure, however, to give more weight to sites recommended by actively attending members since their attendance is the foundation of your meeting’s success.

First Tier vs. Second Tier vs. Third Tier

While many organizations will always meet in first-tier destinations, many others should be looking more closely at second- and third-tier cities, where they can enjoy being the big fish in the pond and receiving added attention. There’s an abundance of great smaller destinations with first-rate convention facilities that might be a better fit for your organization. However, if your group has a history of maximizing attendance and revenues while convening in first-tier markets, you should probably stay where you can sustain or continue this growth.

Lift

If you anticipate an attendance of 10,000, it’s probably not in your best interest to select a meeting site whose airport can’t handle the large number of daily arrivals and departures that your group will need. Simply put, if people can’t get there, you’re in trouble. Make certain you obtain information on the total number of daily nonstop flights, seats, and feeder cities prior to finalizing a destination with questionable lift. In addition, be cautious of cities where one carrier dominates the lift; some of these cities can be very expensive to fly into.

Climate

Do your delegates expect warm weather? Is high humidity a problem? How about rain or snow? Don’t make the mistake of meeting in the wrong destination at the wrong time of year. Find out the average daily high and low temperatures for each of the cities you’re considering. Also obtain the average number of days with .01″ or more of rain in the month you’re thinking about. This information is available in 40-year averages and is collected by most airport authorities. If outdoor activities aren’t on the agenda, however, then weather becomes less of a deciding factor.

Competition

Too often, organizations wear rose-colored glasses and assume that their meeting is the only one of its kind that their members will be interested in attending. But that’s not always the case. If there are organizations in a field similar to yours, or you simply have a number of true competitors, take the time to check when and where their meetings are scheduled. Sometimes delegates and exhibitors have to draw the line as to how many meetings they can afford or take the time to attend in a given year. And if your convention conflicts by date or location with a competing convention, you’re running the unnecessary risk of losing your attendees and exhibitors to another event.

Keep Options Open

Your chances of orchestrating a successful site selection can usually be improved substantially by creating competition in the marketplace. Whenever possible, strive to find two to three facilities or destinations that you’re willing to contract with and that want your business. (Groups often make the mistake of deciding on one particular facility or destination and then trying to negotiate.) It’s also very important to show date and room block pattern flexibility wherever possible.

As you can see, selecting a meeting site isn’t as simple as throwing a dart at a map. But it can be quite an enjoyable and educational experience. By doing your homework, you will put yourself in the best situation to select the destination that will help give you record attendance, revenues, and reviews.

Jeff Sacks is Vice President, Midwest Region at Conferon Global Services, Inc. in St. Louis. Visit us at http://www.conferon.com for all your meeting planning needs.

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Why is a company culture so important?

I was reading a book call The World is Flat and the author was discussing the importance of a country’s culture in making changes in adapting to changes in the world’s economy. He was referring to a country’s culture as:

• How well the country adapted to change

• How open the country are to other nationalities

• Their willingness the country is to embracing change

• How each country valued education

• How easy each country was to do business with

• How well each country’s political systems responded to change

Being a small business coach I could not help notice how relevant creating a culture is to the success of a business.

Before we go further we must define what culture means. Culture can be defined as the way a company defines and captures what’s important to ensure a company’s success. After the culture is defined, storing that knowledge so it can be passed down to future generation (new employees) takes on a whole new meaning. We can begin to understand why defining and implementing a corporate culture is so important.

Some things to consider when defining the type of culture you want to create would include:

• How do you and how much do you empower your employees to make decisions?

• Do you delegate and what do you delegate?

• How open you are to accepting input for others (employees, clients, suppliers) and how do you act on that information?

• What types of employees do you want to hire (the best and the brightest or people who are expected to leave their heads at home?)

• What are the values you want to embrace and promote to your customers, employees and suppliers (fairness, honesty or just meet the numbers?)

• What kinds of behaviors do you want to measure and reinforce (behaviors that create long term relationships or just make the sale and move to the next opportunity?)

Many companies do not give much attention to their corporate culture. It just evolves through the people they hire. It is usually driven by the attitude and behaviors or the company president and is passed along unconsciously.

When you take the time to define and create your corporate culture you are telling others what kinds of people will flourish in your company; it tells tell the market the companies you want to business with, it defines the behaviors that will be accepted in your organization.

Creating a specific company culture is just as important to the success of an organization as a sound business plan. In fact, the definition of how you want your corporate culture to perform should be a part of your business plan.

Of all the companies I studied, the most successful in the long term, were very clear in what their corporate culture would look like and they took action to see that is was implemented.

Ron Finklestein
Small Business Success Expert
Info@yourbusinesscoach.net

http://www.yourbusinesscoach.net

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Do you ever find yourself making a “BIG” presentation to a group of prospects? This is the kind of presentation that is just begging for some flashy PowerPoint presentation. Watch out or you could make one of two fatal sales mistake.

Mistake One: You don’t understand the agendas and needs of everyone present. This is because you may not have had contact with all the attendees prior to the presentation meeting. If prior to your presentation, you only talked to one or some of those present to gather your information, you won’t understand the full picture. You won’t know the agendas or motivations of all present.

To prevent this from happening, you will have to do a little homework. Your job is to find out who will be present and create a chance to connect with them prior to your presentation. You must recognize that each person may have their own needs and motivations that may be different from those of your contact. Your job is to uncover and address them.

If speaking or meeting with them isn’t possible ahead of time, try to get your contact or some other ally in the company to supply you with some much needed information. This includes their role, any key issues, what they value, and the risks and rewards your solution will offer them. Sometimes, just sending an email to them in advance asking a few key questions can help you gain better insight and understanding when meeting or speaking to them is not an option.

Mistake Two: Your presentation is one-sided.

Many salespeople, when given the opportunity to do a group presentation, will prepare an elaborate PowerPoint slide show or the like. The lights are dimmed in the conference room and the attendees are lulled into a non-interactive trance. That’s because the presentation is often centered on product features and benefits. It becomes one big sales pitch, something most people instinctively resist. While you may like to hear yourself talk, others are probably less enamored with your ability to pontificate.

Instead of a big fancy production, you’ll have more success with being low-tech and interactive. Find out what’s important to your prospects. Even if you know what’s important to them already, you should take time before your presentation to clarify where everyone is. Something may have changed since your last conversation, or you may get different responses in a group setting. Simply ask the question, “What would everyone like to walk away with as a result of our time together today?” You can go around the room and actually record everyone’s responses on a flip chart or a white board.

Whether you’re presenting to one or ten, you want to avoid “the telling and the selling.” To maximize interaction, try this four-step strategy:

1. Present some information. Focus on providing values and solutions.

2. Solicit opinions and feedback from others.

3. Value the feedback and opinions provided by carefully listening and giving positive responses.

4. Determine and/or reinforce recommendations, courses of action or agreement based on the feedback and discussion.

Of course, your words and your actions must be congruent. You must truly value the exchange of others and not simply solicit feedback in an effort to appease others on the surface only. Your true motives will shine through. If you sincerely want to provide the best solution to your prospects, you have to be open to everyone’s input without making any pre-determined choices.

Will Turner is the Founder and President of Dancing Elephants Achievement Group, a sales training and consulting company. Will has over 20 years of sales and sales management experience and is the author of over 150 sales-related articles and programs as well as the co-author of the book, Six Secrets of Sales Magnets. Will can be reached at Will@dancingelephants.net.

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There are literally millions of words written and spoken each week on enlightened leadership yet the fact remains that low morale, high stress and job dissatisfaction continue to be three of the most serious problems facing the workplace. We seem to be so effectively socialized into top down leadership that we find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to change our autocratic ways. All this in spite of the many workshops and seminars on new leadership paradigms which are rooted in the empowerment of people.

Change is both slow and painful but it is happening. To facilitate this process of change requires both desire and commitment plus a sound understanding of what an enlightened leader looks like. It is necessary to visualize the type of leader we are striving to become.

AN ENLIGHTENED LEADER…

* values the ideas and opinions of others.
* listens attentively.
* affirms generously
* criticizes gently and privately.
* trusts the collective wisdom of the group.
* encourages others to achieve their enormous untapped potential.
* catches people doing things right.
* involves people in decisions which effect their destiny.
* keeps people informed.
* has a sense of humour.
* trusts the decisions of others.
* realizes that his/her opinion is just one among many.

* isn’t threatened when people disagree with them.
* rejects the ” my way or the highway” paradigm.
* cares about the total well being of those with whom she/he works.
* believes that the most valuable inventory of any business is people.
* seeks out and acts upon the advice of others.
* gives credit rather than takes credit.

These are a few of the characteristics of an enlightened leader which, if present in the workplace, result in decreased stress, improved morale and increased productivity.

It is in the best interest of any business to care about the well being of its employees.

Mike Moore is an international speaker/writer on Humor in the Workplace,Humor and Stress Management and Maximizing Staff Potential.

Mike Moore speaks throughout Canada and the United States on the physical and social benefits of humor. ” Humor makes great things happen.” MM

http://www.motivationalplus.com

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