| Why "Elevator
Pitches" Help Win Customers
By David Coursey
Reprinted with permission from Microsoft Small Business
Center
If I asked
everyone who works at your company to tell me about
the business, how many different answers do you think
I'd hear? I'm willing to bet I'd hear about as many
different stories as you have employees.
That's
unfortunate because your employees could be your best
public relations machine. They are out in the community,
meeting potential customers, suppliers and others
who can impact your business both for better and
worse. Why not equip your staff with the information
they need to make a good impression? No business can
have too many friends and your employees are just
the people to help make them.
Read More
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Thomas
Friedman the father of managed services!
It
's funny that as a career engineer-network support specialist,
my kindling point for the most revolutionary change
on how I ran my business came from Mr. Friedman's book,
the World is Flat.
There is an assumption here by me that 95% of the brightest
business owners and high level managers have read his
incredible work on the direction our world is taking.
If you have not, and want the single most important
book that will prepare you for the next 20 years, this
is it.
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What
makes this the most important work for us is that Tom
simply states the obvious, and he does it with the skill
of an incredible journalist that makes us understand how
it all fits together. He does it by explaining and showing
how business and market needs could now be met through
world wide connectivity. He shows us how to use newly
developing labor pools, as they come "online"
around the world. By explaining in simple terms, with
little tech talk, he drives a common business theme home,
the art of profit by asset leveraging. Example by example
he shows how even the smallest of our American based businesses
could tap into this wild ride, but more importantly what
disastrous outcomes lie in front of us if we don't.
Faced with incredible competition, and relentless complexity,
I found my own business at a cross road in 2005, wondering
how a pure service driven firm, with under 20 employees
could ever survive. Reading, page by page the plan unfolded,
and choices that never would have seemed possible for
us exploded in front of our eyes.
One day, as I quickly went through the daily mail, another
post card offering, one of the thousands that pass invisibly
on its way to the trash caught my eye. This time Tom Friedman's
thoughts made this particular card stick to my fingers.
In a near mystical way, the words from another side of
the world leaped from the simple sheet, and behind them,
Tom's image screamed for me to give it a chance and read
it again. A simple message, amplified by his brilliance
forced me to make a call, and embark on a global trip,
that nearly 3 years later has changed my entire view of
the world.
Today our daily connection to India, data going like a
boomerang, here to there, and back again, allowing us
to service our clients better, faster and with greater
accuracy than every thought possible. Even my college
daughter visiting Mumbai while spending a semester overseas,
and preparing for a life of global social connections
has been influenced by this world flattening change. My
business and her future are now being moved in directions
never imagined. The results tell the story, we are all
part of the revolution, and if we don't find our place
in it, we will be left behind. Tom Friedman saw it, he
helped explain it, and now it is our duty to ourselves
and our children, to make sure we reserve our seat, and
take the ride.
Your business future and the answers you need to succeed
will not be found in the next great management book. Instead,
as Tom indicates, open your eyes and look at the newly
flattened world in front of you and realize every last
corner of it is now within your reach.
Grab it.
Larry
Shulman
President
L.M.S. Technical Services, Inc.
21 Grand Ave.
Farmingdale, NY 11735
631.694.2034
631.694.2315 fax
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10 Tips for Using Instant
Messaging for Business
By Monte Enbysk
Reprinted with permission from the Microsoft
Small Business Center
| Blame
it on instant messaging. Here's the scene: A couple dozen
professionals at a New York advertising agency quietly
type away at computer screens congregated near each other,
in an open room devoid of office walls and tall partitions.
Quietly
is the key word here. An occasional laugh or chuckle
punctuates the silence. But no one is talking. Why?
They are communicating with one another almost exclusively
through instant messaging (IM).
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"When I'm visiting this firm, I can't help but
notice this [lack of people talking]. Seems odd to an
outsider, but this is now pretty much their corporate
culture," says Helen Chan, analyst for The Yankee
Group, a Boston-based technology research group, who
has friends at the ad agency.
Read on to View 10
Tips
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