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An Old Favorite

The term brainstorming may remind you of an out-of-date practice used by the corporate masses a couple of decades ago, but it’s worth taking a second look at the advantages of this exercise when contemplating your next big move.  Guy Farmer from Unconventional Training takes a fresh look at brainstorming, and reminds us what all the hype is about: The Overlooked Leadership [...]

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Creating a Nurturing Culture

Do you have a pulse on your organization’s culture?  Take a look around – what are the conversations about in the break room?  What kinds of Dilbert cartoons are posted on bulletin boards?  Better yet – which direction are employees’ cars parked?  These small observations can tell us a lot about the culture that we [...]

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Infusing Company Culture into New Employees

Many companies spend a great deal of time and energy attempting to create that perfect culture they want their employees to associate with their business.  What some of these organizations fail to realize is that a culture begins taking form before new employees are ever hired.  Building and maintaining your ideal culture begins from the [...]

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Choose Your Words Wisely

Customer, client, patron, consumer…no matter what you call them, these folks keep us employed.  They pay our bills, challenge us to create new and better products, and demand that we meet their ever-changing needs.  Without them, our organization fails.  They are, in fact, the lifeblood of what we do every day. That’s a lot of [...]

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The Unapproachable

Most of us look for potential employees who are friendly people.  We expect them to smile, greet, and engage the customer.  Because this behavior comes naturally for many, it’s easy to consider it a basic skill to master.  In reality, this skill comes easily when the customer is smiling back, but not so effortlessly when [...]

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The Hardest Thing to Say

Why is it that, “I’m sorry” seems to be the hardest thing to say?  In a world where the customer is always right, apologies can seem to be a necessary, even daily, evil.  This can be a hard pill for employees to swallow, especially when they don’t feel particularly sorry for a client’s disappointment.  Let’s [...]

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What’s Your Story?

Every company has a story.  Maybe it’s the inspired beginnings of an organization’s founders who created a company fueled only by a dream.  Maybe it’s the rags-to-riches tale of someone who lost it all before creating an empire.  Maybe it’s a business that endured a disaster but bounced-back after its employees rallied to its aid.  [...]

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The New Efficiency

In the not-so-distant past, the word efficiency brought to mind thoughts of doing more in less time – a stressful task for many already stretched to their limit and beyond.  The word itself means the power to accomplish, but what are those accomplishments really worth?  In today’s business environment, the new efficiency is reevaluating tasks, [...]

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Social Media Mastery for Event Planners

Social media can make an event the must-attend meeting of the year or keep it from even showing up on an AskJeeves search.  Here are five simple concepts you can use to make your event a social media success. Solid Technology Wifi and charging goes without saying, but this simple check will save you plenty [...]

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The One Word Solution for Great Customer Service

What is the most important word in any person’s vocabulary?  Their name of course! Whether it is a given birth name or a nickname, hearing ones name makes a person feel important and special.  Using a person’s name is key to developing meaningful emotionally charged relationships. Customer service is about more than providing a tangible [...]

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