Tip Booklets, Success Tips, Business Gifts, Sales and Marketing Tools

Walmart--Your Key to Success?

Can shopping at Walmart really earn you a raise or promotion? Yes, says I. How? says you. Simple. Clothes wear out, and I'm not one bit convinced that fancy, expensive clothes wear better than the cheep stuff you get at Wal Mart. Last year, I bought some wonderfully colorful men's dress shirts at a fancy, high-end department store. After only 3 washings, that nice color was coming off the collars and cuffs. Once I bought a $100.00 shirt that was on sale for $30.00. (The label was from some famous, high fashion brand that was so high end I'd never heard of it.) After a couple of trips through the washer the collar started to curl and the cuffs started to pucker. I ended up throwing that piece of junk in the trash where it belonged!

On the other hand, clothes shrink, they loose shape, they wear out and need to be replaced. I believe for a lot of us, buying new work clothes at Walmart, but buying them more often, would improve our look substantially. Give the shapeless, pre-shrunk stuff to Goodwill or Salvation Army and buy affordable replacements at Walmart. You don't need to buy the cheapest stuff available either. Moving from the $8.00 shirt up to the $12.00 shirt often makes a huge difference in fit and style details. But $12.00 is a whole lot less than $24 on sale at that high end store.

Is looking a little better, a little smarter, a little more professional really going to make a difference in your bottom line? It can. Times are tough. People are struggling to find jobs, and I see a lot of people coming to my door looking for work. How often do you suppose I see someone dressed in shiny shoes, wearing new, pressed pants and a sharp looking shirt? Almost never! Almost Never! When I do see that kind of person, they move to the head of the line. If they bring a pencil, calculator and resume they get extra bonus points--double bonus points if they wear a smile along with there new, modestly prices clothes from Walmart.

So, check your finances, and if you have even a little bit extra, go shopping at Walmart today. It could put money in your pocket.

How To Answer the Phone

"Incontinence Hotline--Can you hold, please?"

To Impress Your Boss--Keep Working on It

You already know what YOU need to do better. So, to impress your boss and earn that raise, you don't need an adviser, or a mentor, or a Master Mind group. You don't need a weekend retreat or a trip to see some business guru. Maybe all you need is some good, old fashioned, hard work!

If you are chronically late, work on it! Talk to your doctor about a sleeping pill. Try putting your worries in an imaginary basket (it is called a "pensive") or get some air before bed and leave your troubles outside to sleep--you can always pick them up again in the morning. Stop napping. Start napping (call it meditating, if you want to sound hip). Try to get up earlier. Buy a new alarm clock. Put the alarm in the bathroom and just as soon as you snap it off, turn the shower on. Keep trying different things. Keep trying the same things in new and different ways. Keep after it. Keep failing. Don't be afraid to fail, and fail, and fail, because one day you are going to find out what it takes for YOU to make it work!

The prize you win can be great, but you will never win if you are too afraid to even try!

What Do Employers CRAVE?

What do you think bosses and employers crave? I've been watching employees come and go for years, and I have my own ideas. For now, I'd like to know what you think employers desire most in a good employee. Use the Comment Link below, and tell the world what you think. Check back in a few days, and I'll share my own ideas.

Zombie Cartoon

Tip # 39 Be Willing to "clean up nice" for special occasions. It's not selling out of sucking up to dress well for a big client, an awards banquet or the fund raising ball. Don't let your ten thousand dollar promotion go to someone else because you refused to wear anything but ripped jeans.

Get a New Job (or Impress Your Boss) with Acronyms

In looking for a new job, have you ever read  a want ad and found it loaded with acronyms, you know, the secret coded language or geek speak that shuts non-believes out of the race? Here is a typical example from my field:  "Manufacturing Co. seeks CQM for ISO 9000 company. Must be a familiar with TS-16949 and able to lead major QS effort. $75,000.000." Oh that salary looks great, but what the heck is a CQM? Of course, if you were a Certified Quality Manager, you would already know, but just in case you want to bluff you way into a job interview, or see if you can tag along on a local company's next "major effort," here is good news: There are website devoted to acronyms! Here are some you might try before writing off an interesting job posting or calling about that next promotion.

AcronymFinder.com

The Free Acronym Dictionary

Abbreviations.com

The Acronym Database

The Special Acronym Dictionary

Human Genome Acronym List

Business Acronyms  and most important,

Funny Acronyms, including MBA = Mediocre But Arrogant, PNP = Plug 'n' Pray, MCSE = Minesweeper Consultant and Solitaire Expert.

So, before you call about that job, or say something stupid in a meeting, find out what the heck everyone is talking about.

Clever Marketing Ideas

Marketing ideas come in all shapes and sizes, but at the end of the year, the best ones get put together in lists. Automotive News magazine recently published their list of the top 10 innovative car dealer marketing practices. Here are my favorites from their list.

Stay open 24 hours

That's what Courtesy Ford did in Syracuse, NY. They ran out of time working banker's hours, and didn't have room to expand on their lot, so they expanded their time. With the shop open 24 hours per day, 5 days per week, they soon had more business than ever. Why? Because working people, like you and me, could finally bring our cars and trucks in at a time that was convenient to us.

Sales Managers Answer the Telephone

Infiniti of Marin, CA (near San Francisco) has the big dogs answer the telephone because they are good at changing telephone prospects into showroom shoppers. It turns out that sales managers who aren't too good to pick up a telephone are actually pretty good at closing sales! (I love it when supervisors do something useful--you know, besides sit in their offices and think of crazy, time-wasting ideas that will never work anyway.) Having manager answer the telephone let's the best people do the most important job. What a concept.

Add-on Spa Sales

Grimsby Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep in Ontario has their very own spa. Now when customers coming in for service, they can also get their nails done, maybe get a fascial or a massage. Oh, and leave a little extra money on the table while they are waiting.

Apply These Marking Ideas to YOUR Job

Could some version of one of these ideas work at YOUR company? Give it some thought, then talk it over with your boss. He may not do it, but he can't help but be impressed with your commitment and imagination.

To Impress Your Boss--Buy a Modest, Thoughtful Gift

Impress your boss with tip #31 from "Rodneys 52 Ways to Impress Your Boss--Without Sucking Up!"

"Buy your boss a modest, thoughtful present. Lavishing money on the boss is sucking up, period! However, something thoughtful for Christmas or his birthday, like a new battery for his favorite  35mm film camera, the one he used on his first trip to Japan, shows you've been paying attention."

I recently used this strategy when buying a gift for a woman I work with. She is left handed, and once bragged to me about how well she could use right handed scissors. As a modest, thoughtful Christmas gift, I bought her a set of left handed scissors. She was thrilled! We enjoyed a good laugh. I showed her that I cared, and that I had been paying attention. I did not spend a lot of money and can't be accused of sucking up. That's a winning combination you can use when buying presents for people you work with. Being thoughtful works well with family too.

Play Fair to Impress Your Boss (and Your Coworkers)

Primates have a sense of fair play and will scream bloody murder when they feel slighted, say scientists. So, to impress your boss, play fair, otherwise your coworkers will turn on you like a money snatching back a stolen banana!

According to Drs. Frans de Waal and Sarah Brosnan of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, monkeys and chimps have built in crap detectors. They will accept some inequity for the benefit of family members, but will scream in anger or beat up a disloyal coworker, or even give up food and walk off in disgust rather than accept a deal they feel is unfair. (For some great water cooler stories, read above links.)

So, for us, I think the key is to play fair. Why? Because even a one year old monkey, hanging upside down in a cage, knows when he's getting ripped off! We all want what we want, so sometimes we forget to take care of each other. But people notice, and they care about right and wrong. Doing right is a powerful way to impress your boss without sucking up or pandering or playing favorites, after all, you're just playing fair.

Do you work with a bunch of monkeys? Have a boss who's a reel chimp? Feel you've had your grapes stolen by that baboon from accounting? Use the comment tool below and share your story with everyone in the zoo (first names only, no company names, please).

To Impress Your Boss--Share Some Personal Information

You won't impress your boss by over sharing every little detail of your personal life. Nobody wants to hear about your every ache and pain. Your boss doesn't care if you had a BM today, or how many rum cokes you had Friday night. Still, people like to do business with people they like. It's a good thing to share a little about your personal life, your hobbies, favorite sports teams, movies or TV shows. If you and your boss both like to dine out, he'll appreciate an occasional restaurant review or a heads up about All You Can Eat Tuesdays. If you want to impress your boss without sucking up, try treating him, and your other coworkers, like friends.

Of course, you don't want to pry into other people's personal lives. If you ask, "Doing anything special this weekend?" and your boss answers, "Yeah, getting my butt hair waxed!" That's one of those big-fat-hints that means it's best just to move on to another topic. "How about those Panthers?"

Like most things, you have to find the middle ground. Somewhere between over sharing and prying is a happy medium that's good for impressing the boss, and enjoying your work life more. You are going to spend most of your waking life at work, so learn to share some personal information, and enjoy your work friendships.

For more on the value of work friendships, visit Jan Yagers website.
For a different take on friendships at work, check out this article by Del Jones.