What Is a Business Mindset?

Have you ever wondered what a business mindset actually is and what it means to have one?

Well, here's a practical breakdown of what a business mindset is.

See how many of these characteristics you already possess yourself.

Aim to work on the ones where you feel you fall short...

Having a Business Mindset Means Knowing What You Want From Your Business

A business should serve a specific purpose and before you create yours you need to know what you want from it.

To achieve this, start with the lifestyle you'd ultimately like to live, then work backwards and make sure any businesses you create can give you the money, freedom and fulfillment you require to live this lifestyle.

With a Business Mindset You'll Never Quit Even When Things Get Tough

Creating and running your own business is tough, especially in the early days. Anyone who tells you any different is only telling you what you want to hear.

There will be many challenges before you succeed and you must accept this. However, if you absolutely refuse to quit you will eventually succeed and with the correct business mindset things will get much easier.

A Business Mindset Enables You to Accept Failures and Learn From Them

Following on from not quitting, you'll inevitably follow some paths which will blatantly fail. Whether it's ideas you have and try out or entire businesses, unless you're extremely lucky then you will experience failures.

Pick yourself up, learn from your mistakes and try again. Failing isn't the same as quitting, as long as you try again. If it becomes obvious that you're going to fail, don't be afraid to fail fast and move on to the next idea quickly.

Having a Business Mindset is Setting Goals, Tracking and Achieving Them

Sometimes the work involved in starting a new business or project can seem overwhelming. Setting yourself goals which are achievable and tracking your progress will help you keep on the right track.

Once you've achieved your goals, set yourself some new more ambitious goals and follow the same process. Repeat until you're where you ultimately want to be, living that lifestyle we talked about earlier.

If You Possess a Business Mindset You'll Focus 100% on What's Important

It's easy to set yourself lots of goals and then try to achieve them all, but you may find yourself overwhelmed again. Use the 80:20 rule and identify those 20% of goals which will give you 80% of the benefits.

Focus on these goals one at a time and you'll cut through the overwhelm and ultimately achieve more with the same effort.

Possessing a Business Mindset will Enable You to Ignore Criticism

Whatever goals you try to achieve, you'll see criticism from all directions. Either ignore it, disassociate with those people who criticise you or do what I do and have fun with it.

I enjoy people's criticism because I know they either don't understand what I'm doing or they're jealous because I'm doing something that they never dare do. I have fun listening to the "what if...", "I wouldn't do that because...", "now's not the right time to...". I've heard it all before.

A Business Mindset Enables You to Streamline, Automate and Outsource

Create checklist for all of your regular tasks which are either complex or important. This improves both consistency and quality. Look at your processes and strip out anything that you don't really need to be doing.

Create systems to automate whatever you can and then finally outsource the rest of tasks you don't want to do. This process promotes the freedom and fulfillment parts of the lifestyle you're aiming for.

To Possess a Business Mindset You Must Become an Expert Marketer

Out of all the tasks you chose to do yourself, either because they're extremely important or you simply enjoy them, I'd highly recommend you put "marketing" into the extremely important category. You don't have to do all the marketing yourself, I don't expect you to be handing out flyers unless you really want to.

However, marketing is such a vital component of any business you do need to learn how to do it really well yourself. Never lose sight of what's going on in your marketing, it could cost you dearly.

Having a Business Mindset Means Creating Money Making Machines

What you should be aiming for is to create businesses which are money making machines, so they can support the lifestyle you want to live. When you own a business or businesses which run with very little input from yourself you should be pretty close to having the freedom and wealth you need to finally do what you want to do with your life.

If a business requires your constant input, it's more of a job than a business. Aim to build largely autonomous businesses and you won't go far wrong.

Possessing a Business Mindset Means Being Passionate About Your Niche

Creating and running any business can be tough at times but it's much easier if you're passionate about what you're doing. If you enjoy and truly believe in what you do your journey will be made much easier. Don't just chase the money. If we all did that I'd be selling weight loss products now, but I'm not remotely passionate about that niche so it's never going to happen for me.

You're customers will spot from a mile whether or not you're really passionate about what you do. Choosing a niche you're passionate about drastically increases your chances of success and fulfillment.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/entrepreneurship-articles/what-is-a-business-mindset-3804509.html#ixzz17TBFdwPp 

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The Lazy Persons Guide To Achieving More By Doing Less

It's a natural human trait to feel a little lazy sometimes. We all want to achieve more by doing less but is it really possible?

We're always told that you get out what you put in, nothing in life is for free, you have to work hard to make your business succeed.

Well, this is generally true. However, there's usually an easy way and a hard way to do everything so why do things the hard way?

Allow me to give you a few tips to help you achieve more in your business by doing less...

Be Laser Focused

Ok so you have your business up and running and you have a million things to do. You're head chef and chief bottle washer as they say.

You're trying to do everything at once and better still, every new marketing idea, every new tip, trick, fad, trend, you're trying to do all those at once too.

No, focus on one thing at once wherever possible. I cannot emphasise enough the importance of this.

Instead of trying to adopt every new idea at once. Write them down and filter out the least important ones. Then focus only on what's important right now in your business.

Concentrate on one at a time until you've achieved it to a satisfactory standard before even considering moving your focus to something else. Don't be distracted.

I use a spreadsheet myself which quantifies my key goals, tracks where I am at any point in time and automatically highlights the goal I'm performing worst against.

That's the one I focus on 100% until it's doing well again. Then and only then do I move to the new lowest performer. This works exceptionally well for me. I don't even have to think about where to direct my focus, I automated it.

The lesson here is focus on one thing at a time to avoid overworking and trying to be a master of everything but actually achieving very little.

Take Tiny Baby Steps

Leading on from the last section, if you take things one small step at a time you'll be amazed at the measurable progress you make with relatively little effort.

Even if you have a part time business and you only spend a few hours a week on it, if you're focused progress will be made and you will achieve your goals.

Try not to be overwhelmed by what seems like a massive task ahead of you though. I've taken on projects which last over a year and at the beginning I can barely imagine reaching the end.

However, by taking small manageable steps you will get there. It's not a race but you'll need to be persistent because it will take time.

As they say, "Rome wasn't built in a day", "Slow and steady wins the race", etc. All true.

The lesson here is that you don't have to achieve everything in a week. Give yourself more time and you will get there eventually. It might take a little while but seeing consistent progress towards your goals is very fulfilling and should keep you going.

Let Other People Help You

Finally, don't spend unnecessary time and effort trying to do everything when there's other people out there who can help you or even do the stuff for you.

There's no shame in asking experts for help for something you have no idea how to do or simply don't want to do.

Have you considered joining mastermind groups, either locally or in on the Internet? Groups of like minded people can give you a wealth of free advice and even do work for you in their area of expertise.

If you've read Think and Grow Rich you'll already understand the importance of mastermind groups.

Why try to guess what your customers want, then offer it to them only to find out they didn't really want it after all?

You could save a whole lot of time and effort simply by asking them "what products or services would you like the most?" or "what's your biggest gripe in this niche?"

This takes away the guess work and the wasted time and effort. I myself plan to do another little survey soon on my website to make sure I'm delivering the content that people really want.

Then there's always outsourcing. For the tasks you really dislike doing there's probably someone nearby who would happily do it for you.

The lesson here is if someone else can do some of your tasks better than you, for free or for less money than you think your time is worth then maybe you should let them.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/entrepreneurship-articles/the-lazy-persons-guide-to-achieving-more-by-doing-less-3804492.html#ixzz17TB6iH6o 

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Analytic Tools for Successful Lean Manufacturing Implementation

A lean manufacturing implementation has as one of its major goals reducing and eliminating waste. The waste that Lean solutions seek to eliminate takes several forms. And for each form of waste there is a specific tool that lean manufacturing consultants use for identification and analysis and, ultimately, elimination. Let's look at just a couple.

Because the goal of Lean implementation is, among other things, to eliminate waste, the first object is to identify the areas or forms of waste in a particular company. Generally, though, here's what lean manufacturing examines first with respect to waste: unnecessary human motion, non-value-added conveyance of product, over-production, excess inventory, under-utilized space, over-processing, unneeded waiting, and poor utilization of talent. Two of the most easily addressed and corrected involve human motion and conveyance of product.

Unnecessary Human Motion

Whenever employees are engaged in non-value-added motion, within the context of production, waste occurs. Very often, both managers and employees are unaware when this kind of wasteful activity occurs. And that's why a spaghetti diagram can be so useful.

This is a tool/technique used to identify and so eliminate the waste of unnecessary human motion. It involves, in the initial stage, a consultant's following an employee for between 30 minutes to two hours. In order for this to work properly, consultants have to explain to the employees, in order to obtain accurate data, exactly what is being done and why, making sure to emphasize that processes and layouts—not individual employees—are being evaluated. What happens is that that the work path taken by the employee(s) during this period is mapped out to determine efficiency and contribution to value-added activity.

Here, then, are the well defined steps in producing a spaghetti diagram to eliminate unnecessary human motion:

1. The date, the time(s), and the specific process being mapped must be noted.
2. The group should be informed about what is going on and a volunteer called for.
3. The actual work paths of this volunteer taken throughout his shift are traced out on the map.
4. Any stops are noted and sequentially numbered, as well as the time duration for each stop.
5. Anything involving over-reaching or "non-comfort" motion is noted.
6. Any inherent disruptions in the work path and flow should be especially noted.
7. The reason for trips must be recorded.

By means of this spaghetti diagram consultants can determine where motion is wasted and formulate a plan to eliminate that waste.

Non-value-added Conveyance of Product

The analytic tool used in a lean manufacturing implementation to find and eliminate the waste that results from the non-value-added conveyance of product is most often a "process walk." In this, the movement of a product is followed across all processes— from initial quality inspection through compounding through filling through all successive segments of the process to the final product ready for shipment. And here's what the process walk entails:

1. Literally walking at a brisk pace to follow the product through its production processes.
2. Asking questions of the people involved to find out origin of the part/ingredient, its next destination, and the means of conveyance.
3. Having employees assist in the observation of processes.
4. Recording delays for preparation and meeting requirements in moving the product from one location to the next.
5. Making a point to mark on the record material-handling delays.

With this tool consultants can locate waste and bottlenecks and propose Lean solutions to promote process efficiency.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/industrial-articles/analytic-tools-for-successful-lean-manufacturing-implementation-3804606.html#ixzz17TB1IMDD 

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Generate Better Quality Server Virtualization Sales Leads; Find A Good IT Telemarketing Firm

Many businesses today are beginning to understand how essential server virtualization is. Among its benefits are reducing hardware maintenance expenses, enhancing data centers' space usage, preventing application to application impact, and allowing companies to utilize different OS technologies on one hardware platform.

Due to the rising demand for server virtualization services in today's high-technology business environment, many enterprise IT vendors are seeking for the best way to market their solutions and generate sales leads. Technology business owners use different marketing methods like direct mailing, email advertising, telemarketing, social networking, and print/radio/television advertising. Among these methods, telemarketing is widely preferred by technology companies.

If you have never engaged in IT telemarketing in the past, you might seriously doubt its effectiveness and ask why a lot of enterprise technology businesses are using this method. The reason is very simple. It works, and it works very well even in a recession because it's direct and extremely effective for contacting CIOs or CTOs.

Since marketing high tech products and services involves taking huge risks, the prospect's decision-making process is found on seeking objective data from reliable sources. This is something that must be done by a team of lead generation professionals who have vast knowledge and experience on Information Technology. Sure, telemarketing works. But for generating sales leads for complex technology services and products, you need to partner with a reliable IT telemarketing company.

The primary reason why you should hire an IT-focused lead generation firm is because their marketing and sales people know the technology industry very well. Unlike generic telemarketing companies that use standard lead generation and appointment setting methods for different types of clients from various business sectors, IT telemarketing firms have designed and developed their strategies to suit the complex marketing demands of technology vendors. They are more capable of helping your organization to:

1. Determine and choose a market segment that has the strongest need to purchase a new IT product or service ASAP. Cold calling can help you and your sales team to identify why the prospect's need is so imminent.

2. Identify what makes the service or product a "total solution" in your prospect's perception. Through experience and expertise in calling key IT decision-makers, IT-focused phone representatives have honed their skills in pinpointing aspects of the decision-making process to see if your solution fits a particular application or business objective.

3. Help you position and advertise your service or product as the market leader compared to what is being offered by your competition. Professional IT phone marketers utilize communication strategies that a particular prospect you are targeting is familiar to.

Many IT organizations and MSPs have had little or no success in obtaining sales leads through teleprospecting because of inappropriate telemarketing company selection. A reliable IT telemarketing agency enables your business to adequately generate leads for your server virtualization service or product by collecting data from prospects like similar applications running on different servers, the number of servers that could and should be integrated, plans of undertaking other large-scale technology projects, etc. These are but a few aspects of lead generation that an IT-focused cold-calling campaign covers in terms of server virtualization marketing.

So if you have a need to implement an efficient and cost-effective lead generation strategy for your high-tech solution, find and hire a reputable IT telemarketing service provider that can deliver exactly what you need and generate high-quality server virtualization sales leads for your business.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/generate-better-quality-server-virtualization-sales-leads-find-a-good-it-telemarketing-firm-3804630.html#ixzz17TAwunKx 

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Don't Get Blinded By Your Own Data

Remember the good old days when products, markets, and industries had fairly predictable lifecycles?

Back then, carefully managing a few key metrics was usually enough to ensure the continued health of the business.  As long as sales and revenues held steady or continued to grow, we could remain reasonably confident regarding the future of the business.  And if we stayed current with emerging technologies and trends in our industries, we didn't get blindsided by unexpected change.

Well, those days are long gone, and I don't see them coming back anytime soon.  In today's uncertain business environment, tracking only internal metrics could lead to our demise due to unforeseen external events.  The U.S. Postal Service, which currently stands poised on the brink of insolvency, offers a compelling example.

Over the past decade, the postal industry tracked a steady decline in the growth rate of the volume of mail it delivers.  An obvious red flag for any business.  But thanks to regular increases in the price of postage, revenues remained steady, leading those at the top to conclude that all remained well.  Meanwhile, growth rates for email, texting and other communications technologies were exploding.  While the Post Office struggled to keep up with traditional competitors like UPS and FedEx, it got totally blindsided by a different industry.

The music industry shares a similar story.

When growth in the total number of CDs sold began to level off earlier in this decade, higher retail prices kept revenue streams steady for a while.  While music industry leaders focused on traditional sales and revenue metrics, digital music providers snuck in and not only stole large chunks of market share, they literally changed the way people buy music.  Ask anyone under age 15 when they last purchased a music CD.  They'll look at you like you're crazy!

It's easy to say these industry leaders got complacent and quit paying attention, but I don't agree.  I think they were paying attention, just to the wrong things.

Obviously, we need to continue tracking traditional metrics such as sales, profit margins, and revenue streams.  But in a world where business models can get "obsoleted" overnight, we need to do more than just track the data.  We need to look beyond our own organizations to see where the next unexpected threats and/or disruptions might come from.

I suggest looking in three specific areas:

Our own industry. Where do we stand in relation to our competitors?  Are we growing faster or slower?  Of the companies growing faster, what are they doing new, different, or better than us?  Are they merely improving the status quo, or are they looking to transform our industry?

Adjacent industries. Which companies that serve our industry are growing fastest, and why?  If they decided to enter our industry, what barriers would they face?  Do they have the people, technology, and resources to overcome those barriers?  Will new technology or ways of working eliminate the barriers in place today?  Do they have the potential to introduce disruptive innovation into our industry?

The world at large. What companies/industries currently enjoy the most explosive growth rates?  What issues and problems do they solve for their customers?  Are those solutions likely to impact our industry or our business?

Most companies ask these questions once a year, during strategic planning, if at all.  To avoid getting blindsided by unexpected competitors or events, we need to make them a regular part of how we review and analyze data.

For example, consider setting up a "We Refuse to Get Blindsided" team that meets at least once a quarter, and task them with researching emerging products, technologies, demographics, and trends in the three areas listed above.  Or, if you have enough people, consider establishing a separate team for each area.  Make the teams as diverse as possible.  Not just in terms of job skills and responsibilities, but also in personality, thinking, and decision-making styles.  The more perspectives you have on the team, the broader the net it will cast.

At the same time, constantly challenge your beliefs and assumptions about the traditional metrics you measure.  Ask questions like, "Do we accept the data at face value or do we dig deeper to identify what's driving the numbers?  What is the data telling us that we might be missing?  What changes in our industry could the data be causing us to overlook?  What if we're wrong about what we think the data is telling us?  Is there anything we are missing from the bigger picture trends and happenings in the world?"

It's easy to say the Postal Service and music industry should have seen it coming.  But without a process in place for looking beyond the data, any business can fall victim to external circumstances and get stuck in doing the things that made them successful in the first place.

What will you do to ensure you don't get blinded by your own data?

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/dont-get-blinded-by-your-own-data-3804641.html#ixzz17TArvZbC 

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Fire Consultants Can Make Fire Safety Much Easier For Businesses

Your business is naturally very important to you and nothing can hurt your business the way that a fire can. You need to be on top of everything that could happen if you own a business, not only to prevent fire breaking out, but to ensure that your premises are safe for your workforce and to make sure you are complying with current legislation. Fire consultants can do a lot of things for your company as they are professional and highly trained people who can give you fast answers to what you need to do to meet your legal obligations.

One option is to use fire consultants to train your staff to carry out your fire risk assessments. This will give you peace of mind knowing that your have a person on your own team who is well versed in protecting your business against the destruction of a building by fire and will save you money in the future. Fire consultants know building design, and the way that fire could start and travel through your building. Imagine having an employee on staff who shares this kind of knowledge too.

Fire consultants learn about concepts like fire engineering, which is the application of scientific and engineering principals, along with expert judgment.  This includes a wealth of knowledge about fire, how it can start, the way it travels, what effect different chemicals can have, etc, much of which could be passed on to selected people in your team. For many businesses, this is enough in itself to make it well worth while hiring fire consultants to evaluate their building and provide training in fire risk assessment.

Why Are Fire Consultants a Good Idea For My Business?

Safety consultants are highly versed in the effects of different chemicals, and how they effect the burning of a fire.

Fire safety experts will have seen enough buildings and floor plans to make a good plan for your building as part of your emergency planning procedures.

They can train your staff in the art of fire prevention and detection.

They are versed in protecting your business against the destruction that a fire will cause.

They will give you the peace of mind to know the job is done properly and that you have complied with all current regulations.

They are experts at fire risk assessment, which is the starting point for most of your fire safety procedures.

You need to protect those things that you have taken most of your life to build, and your business is no exception. You do not spend more time in your life doing any other activity, then you do building your business, and one fire could destroy your life's work. These are just some things that are so important that you can not afford not to do them, or to go down the cheap route. There is no single thing that is more destructive to your business then a fire. There are more ways for a fire to happen then any other form of destruction.

I will cover just a few of the ways that a fire can start in your business. One of the most common ways for a fire to start is if the building has any poor or worn electrical wiring. Malfunctioning equipment, bad or malfunctioning water heaters or radiators are very common causes. The bottom line here is that you should hire fire consultants if you have any doubt about your own capability to carry out a fire risk assessment or train your staff properly. This decision directly effects the safety of your building and your employees, so it is not one to be taken lightly.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/management-articles/fire-consultants-can-make-fire-safety-much-easier-for-businesses-3804664.html#ixzz17TAnR3TU 

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Organic ways to save the Earth

There are now issues regarding human waste and the way we make our life here on earth. Humans are among the most destructive species of animals that ever lived in the planet. Not only are humans smart when it comes to improving life, but humans have the tendency to think of the short end goal rather than the long term goal of preservation. Now people are faced with the problems like greenhouse effect and global warming. Do these things ring a bell? For sure they do since it is now part of a big problem. The biggest problem humans have is the fact that people could be in danger for the next generations if we continue to live this way. 

Then there came the way how people live and cultivate food. Food, though vital to the physiologic existence of people; needs to be produced in a well mannered way. People's destructive tendencies even appear on the way we prepare food. There are times when even the most endangered of all animals are still being hunted down for food. Either believed to be an aphrodisiac or something else; the bottom line is that people are consuming what it isn't supposed to be consuming. 

Before things get worse, there are actually efforts by people to increase crops and food that somehow found its way to backlash against us. With genetically modified organisms, though pest infestations were eradicated, consuming such products lead to different dangerous things like immunity to antibiotics for humans. Some even claim that genetically modified organisms used on foods could be carcinogenic for the people consuming it. 

Though this is a problem, there are now people who respond to the calls of the times. Now, there are options to be weighed either to go green and organic or go for the old way. Now since backward thinking is already becoming more of a thing of the past, people rather go for the natural ways of nature. Admit it or not, nature is the best when it comes to our needs as individuals. 

Now, even companies are having financial gain with the use of organic means in order to be able to save the world and human race. Now vermicomposting worms are actually getting popular among farms. With organic worms, they help make the soil be healthier in a more natural way. Knowing the nitrogen cycle, worms see to it that organic material breaks down perfectly in order to provide nourishment for the soil and in relation to it create an increase in the crop production in a non harmful way. Now red wiggler worms are being sold among farmers. Worms castings for sale are getting popular because of the harmful effects of genetically modified organisms and pesticides. Now, red worm vermicomposting may well be the home of people heading to the next generation. 

Having food for the table is an important thing for every individual. With food, we keep up with our daily needs. But it is also our responsibility as humans to preserve the planet for the generations of people to come. 

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/organic-ways-to-save-the-earth-3804669.html#ixzz17TAgNSFE 

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