The Language of Grants
Writing effective nonprofit funding requests and for-profit contract bids (RFP responses) takes time, patience, and an understanding of the terminology of grant applications. Carefully studying and practicing [more…]
Quality Control Technique: Trimming Down with Lean Processes
Lean processes are the latest diet craze in the world of quality control! Lean is a quality control technique you can use to identify and eliminate the flab in your company's processes. The [more…]
Avoiding Stage Fright
Whether you're giving a business presentation or delivering a soliloquy onstage, stage fright can rear its ugly head. The fear of getting stage fright can itself cause stage fright to strike you dumb. [more…]
Avoiding Six Sigma Pitfalls
Navigating your business through the Six Sigma methodology can be treacherous. Identifying — and avoiding — common Six Sigma mistakes and perceptions can keep your business from running aground. [more…]
Avoiding Lawsuits and Prosecution under Sarbanes-Oxley
How do you keep yourself, your department, and your company out of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) spotlight? Here are a few tips for keeping the litigators off your doorstep and sleeping soundly with SOX compliance [more…]
Win-Win Negotiating
You are about to end the negotiation, either by closing a deal or walking away from it. If you are going to close the deal, be sure that the deal is positive for both parties, producing a win-win situation [more…]
The Importance of a Financial Paper Trail
Accounting for a company's finances is all about creating an accurate paper trail. You want to track of all your company's financial transactions so if a question comes up at a later date, you can turn [more…]
Copywriting Basics: Giving Grammar a Break
Copywriting doesn't necessarily demand the strictest observance to formal English grammar. Because your objective is to build an empathetic rapport with your readers, you want to write the way they speak [more…]
Considering the Pros and Cons of Rapid Improvement Events
All business processes start out operating perfectly (that's the plan, anyway). Over time, however, things change. Gradually, a simple process becomes more complex, and this complexity can breed inefficiency [more…]
Erecting Your Restaurant on Solid Legal Ground
Your attorney and your accountant can help you decide how to set up your business. You have a number of options from going it alone to setting up a partnership to incorporating your business. Your decision [more…]
Inspiring Team Creativity for Business
The creative outcome of a business team depends on the nature of the group of individuals you assemble (the more dynamic, inspired, and innovative, the better) and the communication skills that the session [more…]
Don't Let Fear Get in the Way of Success
Fear of failure is probably the second biggest cause of failure. The first is fear of the unknown — just watch any horror movie. The easiest way to overcome these fears is to take action. Don't succumb [more…]
Understanding Your Rights on the Board of Directors of a Nonprofit Organization
It's a sad fact of life that volunteer directors of nonprofits run the risk of being sued in the course of carrying out duties for which they aren't paid. Fortunately, many states realize the importance [more…]
Evaluating Your Sales Techniques
Like any serious effort to make positive changes in your life, changing how you sell begins with an honest assessment of your current skills. Until you admit that you could be doing something better and [more…]
Identifying the Seven Buyer Motivations
Until you know what your prospective clients want or need, you're in no position to sell them anything. All you can do is present the product and describe its features. When you know what the client is [more…]
Designing a Better Business Organization
Being a manager is one of the most difficult — and potentially one of the most rewarding — jobs that anyone can take on in an organization. A successful manager must continuously improve systems and processes [more…]
Using Your Voice Effectively for Telephone Sales
When you're making telephone sales calls, the person at the other end doesn't know whether you're wearing a suit and tie or ratty pajamas. The only image that your sales prospects get is transmitted through [more…]
Avoiding Common Meeting Mistakes
Successfully organizing meetings is an under-appreciated business skill. With the umpteen details meeting and event planners need to handle, mistakes are bound to be made, and sometimes heads will roll [more…]
Presenting Financial Reports: Turning Numbers into Information
Often, when the financial types get up and present a business's financial status, it seems like the lights got turned out and everyone went home. Even though you listen intently, it seems like they're [more…]
Writing a Good Business Blog
Early blogs focused on technology and the ubiquitous "this-is-my-life" commentary; an intermediate wave of blogs focused on news and politics; more recently, the hottest blogs are business blogs. Why do [more…]
Budgeting for Fundraising
Raising money costs money. And no organization receives every grant or gift that it seeks. A nonprofit needs to be sure up front that it can afford its potential fundraising costs and that the costs are [more…]
Creating Calendar Templates in Project 2002
If you've ever wanted to make your own time, here's your chance. Although the base calendar templates probably cover most working situations, you may want to create your own calendar template. For example [more…]
Using Stories as a Presentation Tool
Business presentations don't always have to be about numbers, charts, and graphs. Sometimes telling a story can help your audience grasp a concept more readily than staring at raw data. [more…]
E-Mail Etiquette on the Job
A couple years ago, e-mail surpassed postal mail as the highest-volume carrier of messages. Its popularity has been booming ever since and shows no signs of stopping. Though volumes have been written about [more…]
Seeking Financial Foundation for Your Restaurant
Most people can't completely fund their own restaurants, so they need to look for outside investors. Investors can include partners (both silent and not-so-silent), people looking for a new investment, [more…]
