What a blast to spend time with the Women of the Curio Market in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe last year through Suzanne’s Global Empowerment Journey project. I knew it was going to be an inspiring trip, but I had no idea how much I would learn from these incredible and fascinating ladies.

I came away with such a new perspective and realization that sometimes we forget some of the simple ways we can rejuvenate, motivate and even inspire ourselves….For example:

Celebration:

Whew, did these women love to celebrate. At even the slightest moment of  “good” news, they would break into song out of gratitude for us being there to work with them.

This would happen frequently whether they were singing a song about “working for the gold” or another song we heard called “I thank you for the rest of my life.” Come on…don’t you just love that?!

It reminded me that so often we take things for granted…like getting a new client. That’s I am so adamant about doing a happy dance every time we here at SEC bring on a new client, every time a home study is sold…really any time money comes into our business. That sense of celebration and excitement creates a joyful and grateful place to do all our work from.

Giving:

At the end of our journey, the women passed around a big bag and each of the shop owners placed one of their curios they normally sell in the bag as a symbol of their appreciation. It brought nearly all of us to tears. Realizing, that should they sell one of these items in their shop, it meant money to feed themselves and their families for at least a day or two…  but they were willing to share what they had with us… oh… so beautiful.

It was a great reminder how important it is to not wait until you have “enough” to give, before you actually do give. The power in giving is when we give from a place of knowing there is always enough and that whatever we do give to others will come back to us many times over.

Community:

You could feel the sense of support and community even though these women pretty much sold the same items from shop to shop in their Curio Market. Their shops were small little sectioned of squares of space, each full of African bowls, carvings and batik cloth.

It was so exciting to see the love they had for each other and to discuss with them new ways they could further support each other in promoting each other’s shops so they could all thrive as a whole.

I came back with a new sense of my own community, not just the incredible group of entrepreneurs I went to Zimbabwe with, but also my connection to you… the Suzanne Evans Community… as well as my colleagues, friends and family.

We aren’t meant to do this all alone and the more we can celebrate with each other, give to one another and support each other in our growth, the more all of us succeed and truly create the change we want to see in the world.

So here is my question to you…are you taking time everyday to celebrate, give and build your community? If not, start right NOW.

What is one thing you can celebrate right now in your life and in your business? Did you get a new client? Did some unexpected money come in? Do you have food in your refrigerator? Do you have a refrigerator? Whatever it is… Celebrate it!

What is one piece of giving you could do today? Can you donate some time or money to a cause that is dear to your heart? Can you give some canned food to the food shelter? Can you go online and donate $25 to Kiva.com and help an entrepreneur in a developing country?  Whatever it is… Give It!

What is one thing you could do today to build community? Can you connect with your accountability partner? Can you reach out to a friend or mentor who understands building a business? Can you connect with a facebook friend and offer some support? Whatever it is… Build Community around it!

Make sure you are bringing these 3 things into your business and into your life EVERY day, and who knows, you may just burst into song too!

-Paige Stapleton, SEC Director of Client Development

One of the most important elements in creating a successful business starts with the culture you create. In reality if you think about it. You spend more time at work than you do anywhere else. Therefore creating a culture that takes your employees and creates them into your work family is essential in the longevity of your employees and business. Below I have listed Jay’s top 5 essentials to getting your culture on the fast track to creating your work family.

1.) Hire The Right People – I know it sounds simple right? We will call this the groundwork for creating your work family. Always remember that somebody who was a great fit at a previous work place might not be the perfect fit for your company. Find people who care about your business and you, and more importantly have personality. As Suzanne always says, “You can teach skill but you can’t teach personality.” Hire people that you can connect with that also have a passion to learn! If it takes longer to find the right person or more interviews just remember that this is the groundwork for the perfect company culture.

2.) Communication – Now that you took that extra step to find the right fit for your company you need to create and grow an on going relationship with them. Taking the time to sit with your employees on a regular basis to discuss both the good and the bad shows that you genuinely care about your employee and will ultimately lead he/she to learn and work harder for you. Any employee who cares about their boss will go that extra mile for the company.

3.) Transparency – This is such an important component to keeping employees happy and motivated. I mean in reality who is going to be motivated to work towards a goal when they don’t even know what is going on or better yet what the goal is? Always keep your employees in the loop on what is going on with the company. You never know what you can learn from your employees. Being Transparent will also build trust and create that team vibe you have always dreamed of!

4.) Celebrate – Rewarding your employees does a great deal in motivating them onto the next success of the company. One thing that you need to find out is what type of reward motivates your employee the most; the same reward could have a different effect on a different employee.

5.) Be Positive – Building your business is not always going to go as planned or always go the right way. Remember that your employees are mirrors of you. Once you become negative and nasty it will unmotivated them from there jobs. Find ways to communicate loses in a positive way as hard as it might be. Positivity goes a long way!

Now it’s time for you to create YOUR culture!

Jason Gasbarro, Client Enrollment Extraordinaire

In a recent survey by Deloitte Consulting and the International Society of Certified Employee Benefit Specialists, a nonprofit educational association, 75 percent of corporate respondents identified the ability to attract, motivate and retain talent as a top five priority for their annual agendas, up from 69 percent in 2006 and 56 percent in 2005. This growth was even more pronounced among companies with revenues exceeding $1 billion; 77 percent of respondents in this category identified the issue as a top five priority, slightly higher than the control of health care costs (73 percent).

One way that employers may attract, motivate and retain talent is by providing desirable or attractive benefits.  However, benefits are costly and the costs are rising.  In order to balance the competing objectives of providing benefits that will be attractive to employees and controlling costs, employers need to consider a number of issues.

First of all, companies should consider employees concerns about equity.  Equity is when executives receive substantially better benefit packages than a company’s “rank and file” employees.  Employee dissatisfaction may result and significant disparities between executive and employee benefits can sometimes become an issue in labor union negotiations.  As an example some company executives can receive what is called a golden handshake or golden parachute.  A golden parachute or handshake is a clause put in an executive’s contract to grant them large benefits if their employment is terminated.  This type of package can be viewed as a benefit to the executive receiving the contract, but a disadvantage to those employees at a lower level.  The view from the employer’s side is that they secure work for high-paid executives, but the downside is that the contract does not specify the executive to perform well.

Next, employers considering benefits to attract, retain and motivate employees need to take into consideration economic issues.  According to National Underwriter Life & Health magazine, in a 2006 study, 90% of the benefit managers surveyed rated “controlling costs of both health and welfare benefits” as the most important factor they consider in making benefit decisions.  As benefit costs appear to be increasing exponentially, employers are trying to control those costs.  In addition to paying some share of employee’s benefit costs, companies must pay costs of administrating the plan.  Administrative costs are those costs to the employer via fees from equity companies who are the initial benefit provider.  According to the survey listed above, reducing human resources administrative costs was significantly lower in importance this year compared to a similar study constructed in 2002. This is perhaps a sign that concerns of increasing costs in medical plans are taking precedence over reducing administrative costs.  While controlling costs may improve a company’s bottom line, going too far in this direction by reducing benefits or by shifting more of the costs to employees may reduce job satisfaction or motivation on part of employer’s workers.

Employers designing benefits plans may also run into certain political issues.  For example, Wal-Mart recently experienced a surge of negative public opinion and political outcry when memos came to light that revealed that the company had contemplated cutting benefit costs by dismissing elderly workers and those with health problems and limiting employees eligibility by restricting many to part time schedules.  Another political issue is if married employees with families receive benefits for their spouse or daycare benefits for their children.  Offering coverage for controversial or experimental medical treatments, or denying such coverage could have political repercussions as could the denial of benefits to unmarried life partners.  Lastly, the Starbucks article could bring up a point on politics.  This article speaks how employees are eligible to participate in the company’s 401(K) plan if they are full time or part time and receives over 240 hours of work.  It would seem that the misappropriation could be seen that a full time worker is getting similar benefits as compared to the part time worker.

Competitiveness may be a key factor when employers are deciding what benefits to contribute to employees.  The attractiveness of your benefits package can make a difference, with regards to attracting new hires, between pulling in star candidates and having to settle for average performers, especially when the labor market is tight. (Potter and Youngman)  The disadvantage of using employee benefits to attract new applicants is it may take additional effort to make them feel that your benefits are better than the next interviewing company’s.  The key to competitiveness is differentiation.  Even when particular benefit elements are seen as desirable or almost universally offered, employers could still differentiate their programs.

“More experienced” applicants may be the ones most likely to place the most weight on a company’s benefits package in considering whether to accept a job offer.  According to Employee Benefit News, much is being written about the value of retaining and recruiting older workers. The advantages of having mature employees-baby boomers and members of the Silent Generation preceding them-are well known, they tend to be stable and loyal. Most are highly skilled. Workers with long tenures possess workplace experience and institutional knowledge that is difficult, if not impossible to replace.  If there is a downside to employing a veteran workforce, it’s higher health care bills. There’s no getting around the fact that older human assets break down more often and require more costly maintenance.

Lastly, employers looking to make benefit decisions based on employee attractiveness, retention and motivation need to look at overall employee satisfaction.  Again, according to the National Underwriter Life & Health magazine, in a 2006 study found that attracting and retaining employees and increasing employee job satisfaction continue to be the two most important goals of benefit plans among over 500 employers with 10 to 2000+ employees.  They said, “Helping employees plan for their financial future is also key.”

A factor to consider along with job satisfaction is motivation.  To further explain the connection between job satisfaction and motivation and employee benefits, it is useful to take a look at Hertzberg’s theory.  Hertzberg’s theory describes motivation as being based on two factors: motivators that are associated with job satisfaction, and hygiene and maintenance factors, which are called job dis-satisfiers.  Motivators consist of achievement, recognition, work itself, responsibility and advancement.  They are central and related directly to the nature of the work and rewards attainable from work performance.  Hygiene includes company policy and administration, supervision, salary, interpersonal relations with superiors, subordinates and peers and working conditions.  These are extrinsic and associated with the work environment. The important thing to remember is that these two factors are different.  For instance, providing for hygiene needs can prevent dissatisfaction for the employee and disadvantages to the employer, but does not contribute to satisfaction and therefore cannot increase motivation.  The best way to increase motivation is from the central factors, so it is advantageous for employers to identify and utilize effective motivators.

In conclusion, in considering how to use benefits as a means to attract, retain and motivate employees companies need to take into account issues related to equity, cost, politics, competition, recruiting and even job satisfaction and motivation.  Overall it is interesting to see employers who worry more about the benefits that are provided than the employees do.  Although benefits are a consideration of potential employees, the top consideration when deciding to join or remain with an employer is “the quality of coworker and/or customer relationships,” followed by the opportunity for work/life balance and “working for an organization whose purpose/mission they agree with.”

Lindsey Pascoe, Controller

It never ceases to amaze me how few business people make the time to follow-up after they have made initial contact with a potential client. I can think of at least six different situations in my own life that have happened recently when someone did not bother to follow up with me. These included a landscaper who designed plans for one of my properties, two different people who I spoke to me about needing their services at a live event, a sales rep for a water filtration system, and a contractor who was asked to send more specific information. In each of these situations I was very interested in the product or service offered by the person and was willing to spend thousands of dollars! Not one of them followed up with me.

This got me wondering…why don’t people follow-up? I think there are several reasons.

They don’t want to appear pushy. It may be true that following up too frequently will come across as being pushy. However, very few business people ever come close to crossing the line. In fact, one of the few times, a business owner was pushy was more because of his tone, rather than fact he actually followed up. As a business owner, you have to believe it is your responsibility to keep following up with your potential clients until you know for certain if they want to do business with you or tell you to “buzz off”.  A weekly call is more than enough to keep in touch providing you make sure your call is short and to the point. In between calls, how about sending them a video? High touch using high tech!

They forget. It’s easy to forget considering how busy we all are.  You may have every intention of calling your potential client but you get caught up in your business. You didn’t schedule the follow-up and it  doesn’t get done. This is a common dilemma but one that can be avoided by considering the follow-up like a scheduled appointment.  Put it on your calendar for every week.  Block out a minimum of 4 hours week for “follow up”.

They have never been taught. Many people have never received formal sales training like I did in my corporate job and have not learned why they should follow-up and how to make this happen. This is relatively easy to remedy. Start by asking or telling your potential client that you will follow-up on a specific day or time. Tell them how you will follow-up (telephone, email, face-to-face) and record this on your calendar.  We all use Google calendar which includes a reminder so you don’t forget to follow-up.

Here’s the bottom line. You can easily differentiate yourself from your competition by making the effort to follow-up with your potential clients and new clients. Don’t take it for granted that they will call you. “Now, when were you going to call me?”

-Cathi Harley, Director of Coaching

I took my first acting class around the same time I attended my first 3-Day Event in the Coaching World. As I was operating a camera and taking in whatever information I could, I started to see a connection between sales tactics and acting tactics (or “Actics”)

When breaking down a scene as an actor, the first thing we were taught was the concept of Motivation. In this scene, what is your motivation? What do you want? Do you want your Brother to loan to you $1,000? Do you want your daughter to get out of the swimming pool and come inside for lunch? Whatever that motivation is, carry it throughout the scene until you get what you want.

The Next thing to consider is your Obstacles. What is getting in the way of your Goal? Could be the other person in the scene, could be that you are in a public, could be that there is a giant rain storm going on. Based on what obstacles are in your path, you must use different Tactics to get what you want. You can be flattering, debasing, coy, innocent; many tactics will be used within one scene. Almost every scene in TV, Film and Theatre can be tested through these 3 acting methods.

I’m sure you can see already how this relates to making a Sale. There must be countless times when people are interested in your programs or services, but that they throw obstacles in your way like: “I can’t afford it right now” or “I need to talk to my Husband first.” It is then up to you to use different tactics to empower them to make a decision. And at the end of every scene, someone wins or someone loses (I’m sure there are cases of stalemates, but that’s not very dramatic, is it?)

So as you talk to your next possible client, think about your motivation and what tactics you are using when talking to them. If you are having trouble closing, try a new tactic. Selling is an art form same as acting, so it demands experimentation and practice.

BONUS: 3 Performance Tips for Shooting Video

Think about Visualization. If you are trying to get the viewer to imagine a situation or you are trying to tap into their pain points, be sure to visualize what you are talking about. It’ll help create a richer picture for the viewer to connect to.

Own the fact that you are the Expert in your field. In terms of video, characters who second guess themselves and don’t act confidently are less likely to be memorable.

The biggest critique young Actors get deals with Posture. Too many times, actors slump over themselves and don’t hold themselves up. Make sure and check your posture, so your back is straight and there is power in your stature. It’s something we do without even thinking about it. When performances go past Motivation and enter the land of Physical choices, that’s where the really good work lives.

-Daniel Maggio, Editor

Author Michael Law once said, “At its root, perfectionism isn’t really about a deep love of being meticulous. It’s about fear. Fear of making a mistake. Fear of disappointing others. Fear of failure. Fear of success.”
Perfectionism is when an individual has the tendency of being displeased with anything that is not perfect or does not meet their extremely high standards. They demand the highest standard of excellence of themselves and their work.
So, what if you have a perfectionist among your team members? Here we will look at this personality’s unique qualities, how these qualities affect their work responsibilities and performance as well as how to properly manage this type of individual.
First, a perfectionist will show particular qualities. For instance, their attention to details, a perfectionist will consistently miss deadlines in order to get projects “just right” before submittal. In their eye’s, submitting something less then their high standard is not acceptable. Perfectionists also have a difficult time with delegation. If they do manage to delegate, in the end they will take back most projects or re-do them. Feedback from managers as well as co-workers is another quality to watch out for. When a perfectionist is given feedback, they have trouble even hearing or comprehending what you are saying. Perfectionists also have difficulties with decision making. Most times they get so bogged down in the details and facts, they fail to complete the decision making process or analysis-paralysis. The final quality is being critical and doubting of fellow co-workers. No one else can meet or compare to their high level of standards, which in turn can lead to resentment. Continue Reading

I love this quote from Thomas Edison, “Vision without execution is hallucination.” And he should know a thing or two about vision, execution AND persistence.

Chances are probably pretty good that you are reading this with a lightbulb on somewhere in the room you are sitting.

Edison had the vision to “see” the lightbulb as possible (even though it had never existed before).

BUT he didn’t’ stop there, he didn’t just sit in his study and think about how much better the world would be if there were this safe, effective and easy to use light-source.

He moved into execution and actually worked toward creating it, birthing it into existence. And it took him 10,000 tries to actually make a working prototype.

And here’s where the persistence kicks in, after the first failure he kept going… after the 1000th failure… he kept going… after the 9,999th failure he kept going… until he made it work….

Because he had a clear vision, he had faith in it and he took action UNTIL his vision was made into reality.

I’ve got 3 simple “Yes” or “No” questions for you, so please answer them as truthfully as you can.

Question #1

Do you have a killer vision for how you see the world and how you see your world? Do you see how what you have to offer (your service, your product, your idea, your gift) can bring light into the world and make it a better place? Continue Reading

Everyone has heard at some point that first impressions are everything when meeting someone. People judge you by how you dress, the type of haircut you have, the tone in your voice, your facial expressions and so on. Now, have you ever thought about the first impression that your office comes off as? The appearance of an office can say a lot about the type of service or the kind of workers that work there. I’m not just talking about keeping a clean office. That goes without saying.

Some questions to ask yourself when you walk into the office are: Continue Reading

In late January 2013, the IRS announced delays in the processing of over 30 tax forms as a result of Congress not having approved tax law changes until January 2, 2013, most notably Form 4562, Depreciation and Amortization.

What does this mean for you as a taxpayer?  Whether you compile your own return or have a tax professional handle it for you, it is standard practice required by the IRS that you do not submit “bulk” Efiles, or in this case, multiple returns in one batch.  But due to this delay in the availability of forms, “bulk” Efiles will occur and in turn this will most certainly cause a bottleneck as everybody will be filing at the same time.  Let the mad rush begin! Continue Reading

I am the Client Services Manager for Suzanne Evans Coaching. It is my direct responsibility to make sure our clients feel well supported and taken care of and I take my job very seriously.

We have all had both excruciating Customer Service experiences and Customer Service experiences that are so fantastic; they stay with us for a long time. That is my goal for the Clients I have the pleasure of interacting with every day. There are several ways that I strive to accomplish this goal. Continue Reading