Prozac for angels

When you are involved with a business it is important that you have a clear direction and that your business has a plan of attack. The business plan is a document that will outline a number of key areas that your business will need to consider to achieve success.
The business plan will identify your businesses goals, and look at how you can successfully implement processes and procedures to obtain those goals. This will draw on a range of business areas, including accounting, HR, marketing and operations.
How you progress with your business plan can be unique as your business; however the key areas that are usually developed for a business plan are as follows.
o Your organizations background

o Management structure and plans for your business

o Organisational marketing plan

o Operations planning

o Financial planning of the business

o Goals and actions to take with the business
Once you have understood these areas are ready to move forward with your business plan then you can consider how to structure it. This is a straightforward process. For those who are great at the ideas generation, but tend to get stuck on the nitty gritty details, a business template is the perfect option for you.
A template for your business plan will outline the priority information that is required, and whilst you can pay someone to do this for you, there are a number of free templates available. Try doing a quick search of the net and plenty of options come up.
Typically your business focus will dictate the precise contents of your business plan, but getting a basic feel for what is required goes hand in hand with the production of a concise plan, tailored just for your business.
The contents page of your business plan may read something like this.
o Executive Summary

o Organisational Goals

o Management Plan

o Research and Analysis on Target Market

o Marketing Plan

o Operational Planning

o Financial Organisation

o Progress Plans
One of the key areas that you will cover in your business plan is the Executive Summary. Again this can be as individual as your business, but it will need to focus on decisions that need to be made by your organization, and sell the reasons for approval of that course of action.
The final thing that you will need to consider with your business plan is who your target audience is. If you are a large corporation with a number of external stakeholders, such as shareholders and board members, then you will need to prepare your business plan to reflect this. A business plan that targets this audience will often be detailed in its financial analysis and its progress reporting.
If you are a smaller business, or you are self employed then your business plan most likely serves a different purpose. Most likely your business plan is focused on distribution to internal stakeholders. This being the case you will want your plan to focus on goals and progress that needs to be made by the key individuals or departments in the company. An example of this is the strategic business plan, which states internal targets for the organisation, as well as giving information about how to reach the goals laid out in the strategic planning.
Whatever you organisation is involved in, a business plan is a vital document. Even in its simplest form, there is no doubt that having a set of guidelines and goals is a key to ensuring success and progression in your chosen field of business.

Are you a leader trying to get your coworkers to change?

Then you need to be aware of a basic motivational, psychological truth.

People only change when they WANT to.

It’s like the little prospector who walked into a saloon, wearing clean new shoes. A big Texan said to his friend standing at the bar, “Watch me make this dude dance.” He walked over to the prospector and asked, “You’re a foreigner, aren’t you? From the East?”

“You might say that,” the little prospector answered. “I’m from Boston, and I’m here prospecting for gold.”

“Now tell me something. Can you dance?”

“No sir. I never did learn to dance.”

“Well, I’m going to teach you. You’ll be surprised how quickly you can learn.”

With that, the Texan took out his gun and started shooting at the prospector’s feet. Hopping, skipping, jumping, the little prospector was shaking like a leaf.

About an hour later the Texan left the saloon. As soon as he stepped outside the door, he heard a click. He looked around and there, four feet from his head, was a shotgun in the hands of the little prospector.

The prospector said, “Mr. Texan, have you ever kissed a mule?”

“No,” said the quick-thinking Texan, “but I’ve always wanted to.”

Obviously, the prospector knew how to pump up the Texan’s WANT-TO cooperation factor. So what can you do to increase your employees’ “WANT-TO” factor?

Leadership and Motivation Training Strategy # 1: Ask brave questions.

If you’re not interested in your employees, you can’t expect them to be interested in you and your organizational goals. But if you show a real interest, they’ll move in your direction. As Dale Carnegie said, “You can make more friends in two weeks by showing interest in others than you can in two years trying to get others interested in you.”

One of the best ways to show interest is to ask more “Brave Questions.” Ask your employees:

• What’s most important to you when it comes to your job, your family, your goals, or your future?
• If you were leading this team, what changes would you make?
• What turns on your motivation, more than anything else?

Remember, superficiality does not communicate genuine interest or pump up another person’s WANT-To factor. You’ve got to really care about the other person, and that comes through when you ask Brave Questions.

Leadership and Motivation Strategy # 2: Be likeable.

Simply put, people tend to follow people they like. And the more your employees like you, the more you pump up their WANT-TO factor.

Direct sales organizations have tapped into this principle with great success. Just think about the selling power of the Mary Kay or Tastefully Simple organizations. The home-party attendees aren’t being sold a product by some anonymous salesperson. They’re buying a product from a friend they know, like, and trust.

So ask yourself…

• How likeable are you… really?
• Would you like to do business with a person who acts just like you?
• Do you use a warm, inviting tone and smile with ease? Or do you exhibit a hurried sense of impatience?
• Do you listen with undivided attention, or do you glance at your desk and computer screen while a coworker is talking?

Leadership & Motivation Strategy #3: Exhibit authority

Before people can have a healthy want-to-cooperate factor, they’ve got to trust you and your integrity. In fact, from my 25 years of speaking experience in the corporate world, I discovered one of the most sought-after job perks today is integrity.

Here’s how you can exhibit your integrity and your authority…

• Let people know about your educational background, certifications, and legitimate titles, but let them know in subtle ways. No boasting, bragging, or arrogance. When your employees know these kinds of things about you, it increases their respect for what you say and what you are requesting.
• Refer to what other colleagues and customers have to say about your work. Again, be subtle. It’s a known truth that others can brag about your performance whereas you can’t and still be liked.
• Make a conscious effort to dress one or two levels above those you are trying to influence. If you dress higher than that, your employees may not think you can identify with them. And if you dress below your employees, they may not take you seriously.
• Dress in clothing styles and colors typically associated with authority like black, navy, or white. Research shows it does make a difference.

There’s just one caution. You can’t exhibit so much authority that people are afraid to challenge you. That would violate the second principle of “being likeable.” And that does happen.

Do you want someone to change?

To follow you?

To be more cooperative?

Then it all starts when they WANT-TO. And they will WANT-TO… if you follow these three simple leadership and motivation training practices.

This recession is biting hard. So to aid stressed managers in the time of hardship, here is an excellent list of 6 ways to quickly motivate and improve the productivity of your employees now that the economic downturn is upon us.

1. Talk in terms of your employee’s desires

In tough times, many managers or business owners start to fill every sentence with ‘corporate objective’ this and ‘shareholders’ that. It seems like leaders become more focus on satisfying external stakeholders rather than the employees themselves. You must turn this right around. The key to motivating an individual is to speak in terms of that employee’s deepest wishes and desires. If the employee wishes to own their business then you must remind them that by completing the task you have given them, you will be improving their skills that will allow them to pursue their dream in time. This is a brilliant tip that if used on a personal level – can inspire whole teams of workers, one individual at a time.

2. Ensure bonuses are only given on a performance basis.

From individual motivation, we now move on to how policy can motivate staff. This tip will not make you a popular manager, but will increase efficiency and drive up productivity within your workforce, so may be nether-the-less very useful.

Bonuses such as cars, Christmas bonuses and other perks are given as a way of increasing the ego of staff over time. However, periods of excess perks lead staff to believe that they deserve that per forever. And the bonus stops becoming a bonus and becomes a right in their eyes. This is incredibly expensive and costly to a company which needs to desperately cut their overheads and bring about structural changes – therefore these perks must be tightly controlled. Bonuses should become on a performance earned basis. Even the Christmas bonus should only be payable on completion of even a very achievable task. Bonuses are a great tool for boosting motivation, however many companies have lost sight of this, and really need to take control again.

3. Take advantage of the competitive nature of your workers

Workers are inherently competitive and you can take advantage of this by setting tough competitive challenges to inspire your workers. Challenges are easy to set as long as you follow two rules:

- Don’t let employees compete against those in their own team
- Give employees as much support as they need to complete their challenge, don’t leave them alone to try and tackle a tough goal.

4. Inspire through leading by example

Leading through example is a brilliant trait of leadership and will be necessary to help motivate staff in a recession environment. Simply do as you say and behave as you would wish your staff to behave, and soon you will have effectively changed the culture of your business in a small but useful way. How you wish your employees to behave is up to you!

5. Set goals properly.

Performance based targets are dangerous tools if used incorrectly. Impossible targets, or targets that are actually out of an employees control actually de-motivate instead of increasing motivation. So ensure that you set goals with the employee wholly in mind. Rather than setting targets like a wish list of things you’d ‘like’ to happen. Think from their perspective. If they put in a good amount of effort and dedication, what would you expect them to achieve? You should place your target at that level of achievement.

Does not it seem that there is a war for going on? Everyone desires to have a car one day, whereas some take taste according to the upcoming chic four-window conveyance for their convenience. But factor is same to all that is finance. For some, finance remains neutral, whereas some fall short of it. Some car yards offer car financing loans, and individuals apply for them on site at the same time as they are viewing the cars. Many different lending institutions also offer car financing loans, such as banks and money lenders.

There are also companies that specialise only in Car Financing Loans. You can also look for online car financing loans on the internet, which allows you to search many different lenders and products to find the best car financing loans available.

There are some points which should be considered before making any car financing loans. Followings are some advices:

• Car Loan Payment

• Car Insurance

• Fuel

• Car Warranty

• Car Maintenance

• Parking Fees

• Upgrades with accessories

The amount offered under the provision of car financing loans depends upon many factors like duration of the loans, past credit record, repaying capacity, your home, etc. The lenders judge applicants whole financial background, and then offer them car financing loans according to their repaying ability and financial capacity.

If you are looking for car financing loans and are not sure where to get one. Car financing loans can be confusing to find, since there are so many places that offer car financing loans that make borrowers confused simply by the sheer range of options car financing loans.

Nowadays there are several online websites which allow people to compare the loan rates of various car financing loans providers. After you specify your requirements, such as loan amount, repayment period, etc., these websites will help you to compare the quotes of different companies, and suggest you the best offer of car financing loans, within a few minutes. This will help you to choose the best car financing loans without sparing much effort and time.

NEW YORK, NY–(Marketwire – November 2, 2009) – EquiLend announced today that National Bank Financial has selected EquiLend’s services to enhance their securities finance business. Choosing EquiLend reflects National Bank Financial’s commitment to strengthening automation across its business lines as it aims to mitigate operational risk and achieve greater processing efficiency.

“We are very pleased to welcome National Bank Financial to our roster of clients in Canada. This highlights our ongoing commitment to providing innovative securities finance solutions to the Canadian marketplace,” says Brian Lamb, CEO of EquiLend.

About EquiLend

EquiLend is the leading provider of brokerage solutions for the securities finance industry. Owned by eleven preeminent financial firms, EquiLend revolutionizes straight-through processing by using a common standards-based protocol and infrastructure, which automates formerly manual business processes. Used by borrowers and lenders throughout the world, the EquiLend platform creates efficiency and provides access to additional liquidity. EquiLend’s end-to-end solutions, which reduce the risk of potential errors and eliminate the need to maintain costly point-to-point connections, include Availability, AutoBorrow, Trade2O, EquiLend AuctionPort(SM), Contract Comparison, Mark-to-Market Comparison, Returns, Recalls, Billing Comparison and Delivery, Dividend Claims Comparison, and Agent Lender Disclosure (ALD). The EquiLend platform also supports the execution of payment and delivery instructions through the DTCC.

www.equilend.com

EquiLend LLC, EquiLend Europe Limited, and EquiLend Canada Inc. are subsidiaries of EquiLend Holdings LLC (collectively, “EquiLend”). EquiLend LLC is a member of the FINRA and SIPC. EquiLend Europe Limited is authorized and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. EquiLend Canada Inc. is authorized and regulated by IIROC. All services offered by EquiLend are offered through EquiLend LLC, EquiLend Europe Limited, and EquiLend Canada Inc. EquiLend and the EquiLend mark are protected in the United States and in countries throughout the world.