Business: Terrible Meetings - Ten Ways to Spot Them!

Terrible Meetings - Ten Ways to Spot Them!

Written by Martin Haworth

Continued from page 1

The Leader Doesn't Lead
Here there is free-for-all, with no leadership from repparttar

chair. Poor behaviours, timekeeping and outcomes riddle this sort of meeting, with and end no-result and frayed-tempered, frustrated people

Environment
Too hot, too cold, no water, no breaks, too big, too small. Have you ever been in one of those meetings? And aren't they awful, so awful in fact that you can't do your best. This is a meeting where repparttar 102822

organisers do not respect repparttar 102823

participants

Nothing Happens
A lovely chat, a few disagreements and 'see you next month'. This is repparttar 102824

nice-to-have meeting which does nothing and goes nowhere. As Peter Drucker said, 'Meetings are a symptom of bad organization. The fewer meetings repparttar 102825

better'

Side-tracked/New Stuff
With an agenda, people know what repparttar 102826

meeting will be about - or will they. Even with repparttar 102827

best agenda'd meeting weak processes tend to leave to new issues, side-tracking and wasted time. This is solvable with effort from repparttar 102828

facilitator

No Review and Growth
Meetings come and go and are always awful. They are unproductive, boring, overrun and people are there who shouldn't be. If there is no review of just how good or bad repparttar 102829

meeting has been, there will be no improvement. The leader/facilitator can add in meeting feedback as repparttar 102830

first agenda item and stick to it - tough at first but gets easier.

Step by step, you can work, with a facilitator or not, to unravel just what needs to change. You will make a big difference, not only to meetings and how productive they are, but also to your capacity to build great relationships with repparttar 102831 people who show up.

That's Leadership!

© 2005 Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach. He works worldwide, mainly by phone, with small business owners, managers and corporate leaders. He has hundreds of hints, tips and ideas at his website, www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com. (Note to editors. Feel free to use this article, wherever you think it might be of value - with a live link if you can).

Million Dollar Idea Maker.

Written by Gary Durkin

Continued from page 1

This is a perfect example of taking something which already exists, and remodelling it, re-branding it, re-marketing it, finding a niche for it - and away you go.

Look at repparttar music industry. It’s rife with similar concepts, which make millions. Bands, groups, singers, performers…. often do ‘cover versions’ - that is they will copy a song or track previously done by another artist.

Sometimes music is a ‘fusion’ - a mix of existing styles, but blended together to create something new. How about ‘sampling’? Taking a beat, rift, chord, chorus, few lines, track….. From another artist, and remixing it to create something different.

All they have done is to use something that already exists, make a few changes, amendments, alterations, improvements - and RESELL IT.

Unless you can reinvent repparttar 102821 wheel, or perfect ’cold fusion’ - repparttar 102822 World is jam packed full of existing markets, products, systems, services, concepts, ideas and customers - all of which can be used as your drawing board to get started.

First of all, where to locate great concepts?

Look around. What do you like? What do you dislike? Can it be improved? Can you take a hot product and improve it? Can to take a mediocre product and develop it? Can you take a completely useless product, and turn it in something better? Listen to what others say.

Can you re-package something? Bundle it? Deliver it differently? Re-brand it? Find a different, untapped market for a product which already exists, but is focussed on a different customer-base?

Can you add more value, more options, better support or service?

Do you use a product and think to yourself…. “Wow…. That’s great… but if only it did this too….”

Here are repparttar 102823 vital tools and tips which you will need to start you off creating your own Million Dollar Ideas.

1. Your Eyes - seems obvious, but always be aware and on repparttar 102824 ‘look-out’. 2. Your Ears - keep them open listen to people, those around, what they say about products, especially repparttar 102825 things they dislike, as this could be a great start for you, if you can remove repparttar 102826 problem with an existing product, you may just have a seller.

3. Your Mind. Keep this open too. And try to think ‘laterally‘. 4. A notebook and a pen / pencil (write your ideas down - don’t forget them!) 5. Go back to number 3 and remember to do this! 6. A ‘sounding board’ - a way of discussing your ideas with a few trusted others. 7. Patience. It may take a little time, repparttar 102827 best ideas don’t necessarily come instantly -stick with it. 8. Don’t get down-heartened if some of your ideas don’t pan out. Just start again. 9. Don’t’ spend too much time over ideas. Give yourself 60 seconds (no more) to think of a product, service, system etc., Then Stop. Then spend 9 minutes writing down as much as you can, all repparttar 102828 pros and cons of repparttar 102829 ‘idea’, how it can be improved, simplified, delivered - just write as much as you can in those 9 minutes. Then STOP. Take a break. A good break. In fact put your notes away till repparttar 102830 next day. Then review them.

When you do finally come up with a really hot idea for a product, service, system etc., don’t tell repparttar 102831 World until you’ve taken a few steps to protect yourself! Get advice from experts - Lawyers, Business Professionals…… Patents…. Copyright…….. It’s important to get these right, or else someone may steal your idea, register it first and make HIS/HER fortune from YOU!

That leads me on to repparttar 102832 last area. Don’t outright steal someone else’s idea, product etc. Breach of Copyright can be serious, Patents are relatively easy register, but a little care is needed - and plagiarism is just downright nasty!

In summary, Million Dollar Ideas can be found in TWO PLACES.

1. Everywhere in repparttar 102833 outside world. 2. Inside YOU.

It’s just a case of putting them together. Some of repparttar 102834 best ideas, really are repparttar 102835 simplest.

An article by Gary Durkin Founder of the Internet Advice Center® http://www.InternetAdviceCenter.com

Gary has more than a decade of offline international business success behind him and has been doing business online for 6 years.

You are free to distribute this article, providing it remains unchanged and with the resource / bio box attached.

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