Stephanie LH Calahan

APRIL 15, 2011

"Can't you just tell me what tools to buy? I just don't have time to DO anything." She was frusterated when I talked with her on the phone.  Busy business owners often are.  However, there are no "magic beans" that you can buy to make more time and often buying more tools just clutters up your space.  If you are not willing to take action, it does not matter what you buy.  You will likely still be in the same position a year from now.  Tough

Phones 193

Phones UPS 193

Productivity Bits

APRIL 12, 2011

Copyright © 2011 Marlon Ribunal. Visit the original article at [link]. This is a quick review of Erik Calonius ‘ latest book, “ Ten Steps Ahead: What Separates Successful Business Visionaries from the Rest of Us “ Erik Calonius is a former foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and a writer for Fortune. He collaborated recently on the best-selling Predictably Irrational.

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2011 Copyright Collaborate Email 179

Eco-Office Gals

APRIL 9, 2011

You’ve worked hard making your WordPress Site look great online, but how does it display on your smart phone? Is your site a fast loading mobile site, or a slow loading mini version of itself? Smart Phones are being used to access websites more and more these days and a slow loading version of your site may not cut it in this fast paced, digital world.

Forms 178

Forms Phones AT&T UPS 178

Eat Your Career

APRIL 13, 2011

While working at a bank many years ago, I approved a $10,000 fraudulent transaction. When the FBI showed me pictures of the man who had pulled a fast one on me, I didn’t even recognize him. In fact, the whole situation was kind of a blur. At some point, they pulled the footage from the branch security cameras and, as I flipped through photos of myself smiling and giving what appeared to be excellent customer service to a man on the FBI’s watch list, I could hardly believe my naivety.

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Learning Stress Customer Service Google 168

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

💢 Do you find yourself stuck in never-ending review cycles? Are you wondering if your Subject Matter Expert actually got that last review request? Are you having trouble trying to decipher impractical or conflicting feedback? 💢 If any of these scenarios sounds familiar, you may benefit from a crash course on managing SME relationships!

Collaborate

Stephanie LH Calahan

APRIL 13, 2011

Today's guest post comes from Jacqueline Sinfield.  This was originally published in her newsletter.  Enjoy!      On Monday, Marcia Hoeck and I interviewed Stephanie Calahan.   Stephanie is a productivity and organizational expert.  I was already impressed with Stephanie's style and knowledge about productivity.   However, when she mentioned the importance of drinking water for productivity, I thought wow she really knows her st

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Interviewing Purchasing AT&T Email 165

Office Organization Success

APRIL 15, 2011

One area where business owners are seeking more and more support in is that of social networking – they find it overwhelming and don’t know what to do, so engage the services of a social media expert to manage it for them. Whilst on the surface this strategy sounds great there is one major flaw with it – social networking is a way for YOU to engage with your audience and networks so that they can get to know YOU, not your assistant!

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Networking Social Media 2011 Forms 157

The Small Business Blog

APRIL 10, 2011

The top 5 tips weekly post is always full of hints and tips for small, home & micro business owners. 1. Try to write down every idea that pops into your head while working. Getting into the habit of formulating ideas makes it more likely that you will come up with something great. 2. Decorate your home office in a way that will inspire you personally, whether it be with family photographs or classic artwork. 3.

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Home Office UPS 154

Stephanie LH Calahan

APRIL 11, 2011

When you look at your business, what grade would you give yourself?  Today I am sharing a video from a conductor of musical students that will demonstrate how an A is not necessarily what you should be shooting for.  Watch the whole video, consider its message and then let me know your thoughts by commenting. You can see the video here: Why an "A" Is Not Enough.   So, what do you think?

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Email 156

On The Job

APRIL 13, 2011

When you were a child and a lamp was broken at home, you may have pointed your finger at a sibling. Placing blame on someone else is hardwired into us and begins at an early age. But as we grow and mature we should stop the finger-pointing and look for solutions instead of blame. Ben Dattner , an adjunct professor of psychology at New York University , says that much of the stress in today's workplace from a difficult economy has caused us to go back to our childhood roots — and that means blami

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Stress Learning 141

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Interviewing

Office Organization Success

APRIL 14, 2011

Running a successful business is all about creating systems and processes, particulalry if you do the same thing over and over again. As soon as you do an activity/thing/step more than once, you need to create a system for it. For example: if you find you keep sending the same email again and again, create an email template – it’s very easy to set up in Outlook and is a huge timesaver (I’m all for that!).

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Email 2007 UPS 149

The Small Business Blog

APRIL 14, 2011

Servers. Hardware. Software. Installation. Support. Upgrade. Hardware Drivers… I guess I don’t need to go on, these are all nightmarish terms of a long bygone time in IT history, or are they? It isn’t if you still have your server under your desk. You probably think “ Cloud Computing &# is something geeks do. Nothing to do with you and your small business!

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Stephanie LH Calahan

APRIL 13, 2011

Every other Wednesday, I share links to a number of different blogs and sites.  Today, you can see content on: Coaching. Letting Go.   Everyone Needs a Coach. When the Guru Smacks You on the Head, Take it Like a Man -  [link] --  @ PerryMarshall shares some great examples of why you should consider working with a coach. Letting Go.

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Email 154

Ian's Messy Desk

APRIL 15, 2011

Image via Wikipedia. We had somewhere between 10 and 15 centimetres of snow yesterday, with more in the forecast for Sunday. I think this is the sixth straight month with snow in Edmonton. It’s time for a change. Edmontonians have and odd perspective on cold. It goes something like this: + 10C = People in Vancouver turn on the heat. Edmontonians plant gardens. + 5C = Residents of Victoria shiver uncontrollably.

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UPS 137

Advertiser: Aggregage

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Policies

Small Business Labs

APRIL 14, 2011

Interesting survey from Google on tablet PC use.  Google surveyed over 1400 tablet PC owners and found: 68% of tablet users spend at least 1 hour a day on their tablet. 77% of respondents report that their desktop/laptop usage decreased dut to the tablet. 82% of respondents said they primarily use their tablet at home. More than 1 in 3 respondents uses their tablet more than they watch TV.

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Google AT&T 131

The Small Business Blog

APRIL 15, 2011

Much is being said about so called APIs, software bridges, mashable technology an other little innocent sounding descriptions like – “our software plays nicely with this software&# ! IMO – truth is – there is nothing “nice&# about it! Let’s back up a little, what does it all mean? What it means is this, the software vendors are asking you, the client, to connect their online software to another vendors software, in order to enhance your software functionality

Legal 140

Legal AT&T UPS 140

Andrea Kalli

APRIL 11, 2011

Feeling overwhelmed? Here are a few ways to systematize and simplify your Social Media efforts. Three years ago, the internet’s most popular thought leaders were heralding Web2.0 as an opportunity to increase connectivity and improve communication. It was a chance to listen to each other, spread a message, and create connections without losing our time researching.

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Social Media Facebook Twitter 2008 125

Ian's Messy Desk

APRIL 11, 2011

Image via Wikipedia. In the current business environment, productivity is a key to success. Principles of time management at work not only help you do your job more effectively, but practicing time management principles can lower your stress levels. Putting together a time-management plan takes time, but will pay dividends later. A good time-management plan will offer you more flexibility in the long run.

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Management Goals Stress Environment 124

Speaker: Tim Buteyn

Let's set the scene: you’ve identified a critical performance gap in your organization and need to close that gap. A colleague suggests training, but you suspect there’s something going on that training can’t address. How can you determine if training is the right solution before you commit your budget and resources to a new training program? In this webinar, you will learn how to determine if training is the right solution using the Behavior Engineering Model.

Training

Small Business Labs

APRIL 12, 2011

Intuit recently released a new report on The Future of Financial Services.  Intuit and Emergent Research partnered on this research, which included interviews and workshops with a mix of financial services industry participants, analysts and academics. We have a blog post on Banking.com with more on the report, which covered 4 broad trend areas: 1.  A New Playing Field for Financial Services : Regulatory pressures will increase and competition will grow from both traditional competit

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2020 Purchasing Collaborate Interviewing 127

Make or Break Moments

APRIL 14, 2011

I am clearly in a customer service funk this week. And just when I thought I’d heard the worst, I read this comment: I received an interesting email yesterday from my office internet provider (and phone provider) spelling out their new terms and agreement regarding their internet service. What I found interesting is there’s a [.].

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Customer Service Phones Email 122

Step It Up VA Coaching

APRIL 14, 2011

by Donna Toothaker. As business owners, each of us has to hold a strong vision of what we want our business to be in order to create that reality. Sometimes, we have such a laser focus on what we want, that we are thrown by the inevitable issues that come up with clients, finances, technology, or our own occasional missteps. Things are bound to happen that seem to put a kink in our plans, and, the truth is, we can’t control that.

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Stress Social Media Negotiating Finance 116

Ian's Messy Desk

APRIL 14, 2011

Image via Wikipedia. The woman who looks after children’s programs at our church gives out a thank you treat every week to her helpers. It’s usually a candy attached to a slip of paper, with a punny note. For example, she tapes a Hershey’s Hug to the paper and the note says, “Here’s a hug for all the good work you do.” It’s a simple gesture. The time and money involved is small, but the recipient feels great.

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Phones UPS 122

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

We’ve all been there. You’ve been given a pile of dry content and asked to create a compelling eLearning course. You’re determined to create something more engaging than the same old course that learners quickly click through, but how do you take this “boring” content and create something relevant and engaging? Many instructional designers will say, “Boring in means boring out.

Policies

Laughing all the Way to Work

APRIL 14, 2011

Hello everyone, Once again I am giving an effective minute-taking webinar. If you are able to join me, please do on April 26. For more details, please click on the link. See you on the Web. Patricia.

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Make or Break Moments

APRIL 11, 2011

Where have I been, you ask? Trying to pick myself up from utter despair. Two weeks ago I was hired to talk about make or break moments to the managers of a chain of auto repair shops. I had researched the company and their website shared customer focused words that led me to believe they [.].

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Management UPS Customer Service Training 122

Brilliantly Better

APRIL 13, 2011

Tweet I know you’ve been through this, we’ve all been. Minding your own business, peacefully, things going on smoothly and then, out of nothing, something incredibly bad happens. The shit hits the fan. Of course, I’m not talking about the physical phenomenon (nor do I advise you to try to replicate that exact setup). I’m talking about “unpredictable” crisis.

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Email Stress ASAP Forms 87

Small Business CEO

APRIL 12, 2011

Social media is an all - important avenue for all business types since business owners realize its worth. When it was a new trend, not many people thought that it was going to live up to its hype in the world of business but just look at how it evolved from connecting old friends to connecting business contacts. One could not count on their fingers how many gurus, specialists and trend setters there are in the world of social media.

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Social Media Etiquette Networking AT&T 64

Speaker: Chester Santos – Author, International Keynote Speaker, Executive Coach, Corporate Trainer, Memory Expert, U.S. Memory Champion

In October, scientists discovered that 75% of patients who experienced brain fog had a lower quality of life at work than those who did not. At best, brain fog makes you slower and less efficient. At worst, your performance and cognitive functions are impaired, resulting in memory, management, and task completion problems. In this entertaining and interactive presentation, Chester Santos, "The International Man of Memory," will assist you in developing life-changing skills that will greatly enha

Networking

Men With Pens

APRIL 14, 2011

I got my first rejection letter as a freelance writer when I was 19 years old. I remember tearing open the letter from Random House expecting a contract of some kind and instead staring at a scrap of paper addresses to ‘Dear Author’ The publisher didn’t even want to spend money on a full sheet of paper on me. I was crushed and determined that if the largest publication in the stratosphere didn’t want me, then I was worthless.

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AT&T Confidence Social Media Lifestyle 52

Make or Break Moments

APRIL 13, 2011

After my most recent blog post, basically giving up on our ability to make a difference in the customer service experience, I read this response from a group member on LinkedIn: This is a great conversation to show how the bar of customer service keeps being set and re-set…lower and lower. That makes it [.].

Customer Service 116

Customer Service UPS 116

Denise Aday

APRIL 15, 2011

Cloud computing is quickly becoming the business norm — with good reason. There’s generally a much lower cost per license, it’s accessible on the go, keeps you synced up across devices, provides easy off-site backups, is always updated, facilitates easy team collaboration, evens the playing field, and more. Check out InfoStreet Small Business Blog’s “Top.

Collaborate 50

Collaborate UPS 50