Business card printing: On the run!Written by Marlon D. Ludovice
It is very difficult to create a business card that will definitely look different among rest. Something that will give person whom you have handed down your business card a reason to consider and appreciate message you wanted to deliver from them. For most of business card looks all same and they all go in same place…in trash!So how can you do a business card that will give an edge among rest? Many clients always consider fine artwork or aesthetic design on business card itself, something that will give them an impact to give it a second glance. They are looking for a high-tech company, or a particular design service, that will tend to hang onto those business cards that seem to represent visually type of company they are seeking. Always consider that if possible, try not to mix fonts when you design your business card. This essentially gives a busy and confusing look to card. Remember, you're dealing in a small space, and you don't want card to look crowded. It should be easy on eyes.
| | Creating a Winning Staff TeamWritten by Shaun Kirk
As a business owner, I’ve had staff come and go over years: some have done extremely well, and others not so well. During time I was involved in running my business, I found some weaknesses in myself that tremendously affected things that were going on, especially from a negative point of view. It was not uncommon for me, whenever something was not going well, to ignore it. Sometimes I would hope it would go away, or maybe ask somebody else to solve it for me, whatever was going on. As time went on, I started to actually think negative thoughts about a certain staff member or staff members that I had difficulties communicating to. I would have thoughts that perhaps they should move on — why don’t they just quit? If I wasn’t happy somewhere, I would just quit: why won’t they? As time went on, these people would usually just end up leaving or I would be forced to fire them.As I learned more about how to better run my business, I realized that nearly every one of these situations of unfortunate firing or employee quitting directly pointed back to my inability to communicate. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t as though I was completely and utterly responsible fully for what other staff members were doing that led to their termination but prior to things getting so bad that somebody needed to be fired, I needed to act and did not. As an example, let’s say that a staff member walks in 20 minutes late for work. As they walk in door, you glance in their direction. They now know you know that they were late. But yet you don’t say anything about it. Let’s say it happens again very next day, and you notice it too – you see him coming in, and they don’t say anything and you don’t say anything about it. Do you think after a while, that employee might think it is acceptable to come in 20 minutes late — that you already know it, and since you don’t say anything it must be alright? That’s possibly just first time where things were not okay with a particular staff member but it created a license on part of a staff member to kind of push edge of envelope since it doesn’t seem like you’ll do anything to exert proper discipline. If you just would have said to staff member who came in late: “Hey, what happened? You’re late.” in a very friendly manner and heard what they had to say and just acknowledged it, that might have handled it all by itself and things would have been fine. But you didn’t, because it was a little uncomfortable for you. But it is a whole lot easier to confront it at that time than it is to deal with more serious disciplinary actions later, because you wouldn’t hold your position as an executive. When you have a staff member situation that you are not quite handling way you should be, you usually go home and talk to somebody, like your spouse, about that staff member. You usually are not saying great things about that staff member and you consider that they are not as valuable to you. Well, those critical thoughts and comments regarding that staff member will likely not get them to advance in their profession. If you look over your years as a business owner you may find that any staff member that ever quit, you knew that they were going to quit before they quit. You start noticing that more negative thoughts that you have about staff member, less likely they have a chance of making it. It is pretty interesting. If you start thinking that you have best staff -- that these people will do anything for you -- and you start considering that to be true and you start treating them as though it is true; well guess what, it will become true. But if you consider that you have staff, that quite honestly, are less than ideal, who won’t go to bat for you, who are just trying to put in their time and get a paycheck versus be loyal and dedicated to expansion and purpose of your organization, you’ll get exactly that too. It is all up to you, as it always has been.
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