Business: Focus On Soft Skills: A Leadership Wake-up Call

Focus On Soft Skills: A Leadership Wake-up Call

Written by Carole Nicolaides

By Carole Nicolaides, Copyright © 2002, All Rights Reserved http://www.progressiveleadership.com The rules for succeeding in business are changing daily. Yet people are still asking for repparttar

magic formula that contributes to a successful organization. Is it talented, knowledgeable people plus innovative products? That's a great start, but something vital is missing from this equation. More and more corporations around repparttar 106288

world recognize that, in order to gain a competitive advantage, they also need to make sure their people know how to handle themselves at work and how to relate with their customers and peers. From showing empathy and optimism to extreme self-awareness to knowing what's going on around them, these vital competencies are an integral part of a progressive organization. They fall under repparttar 106289

umbrella of Emotional Intelligence (EI). These soft-skills, or emotional intelligence skills, revelations open repparttar 106290

door to a lot of discussion. The western civilization and our traditional management theories tend to lead us in repparttar 106291

direction of individualistic promotion. They display our strengths rather than repparttar 106292

demonstration of our humanness. These ideas have been so tightly woven into our leadership mentality that they can be challenging to break. Unfortunately, most graduate schools don't teach you how to cultivate your soft skills. While courses such as Business Writing and Public Speaking are offered, I have never seen a course entitled, "The Effective Art of Listening to Your Customer." We live in a society that measures intelligence through quantifiable metrics. A professor will give you good grades once you know XYZ, but he or she will not increase your grade for being able to deal with a difficult situation, showing compassion, or solving an unexpected problem. Yet most compliments that you or your employees receive deal more with repparttar 106293

use of soft skills than with your actual knowledge about a particular situation. Most customers appreciate a "willingness to help" and repparttar 106294

fact that "she listened to my complaint." The use of these skills is what elevates your organization above repparttar 106295

competition. You don't compete only with products anymore, rather with how well you use your people. Too often we focus on what employees need to "know" when evaluating and hiring them instead of "who they really are." I will illustrate this with an example. John was promoted to Technical Project Manager at his consulting company. Some people wondered why John had risen to this level of management. His educational level was lower than others in repparttar 106296

firm and his degree wasn't in an area that pertained to consulting. However, one of repparttar 106297

strengths that was nowhere on his resume was his ability to be positive in all situations and to naturally motivate people. He was quick to smile and see repparttar 106298

positive side of every project. He was generous in praising people and was consistently happy. These were his strengths - his natural attributes. They made up repparttar 106299

sum of who John was. These soft skills are just as important as what John knows. The challenge nowadays is to introduce a program that will allow your leaders to learn and capitalize fast on their soft-skills competencies. Soft skills are important and always have been. It seems we have laid them aside and opted to emphasize too much on expertise and credentials. Let's get back to our values and repparttar 106300

basics of good internal and external customer service.

10 Effective Advertising Tips!

Written by BB Lee

10 Effective Advertising Tips! by BB Lee (c)2002

(500 words)

Writing a classified ad to sell your product isn't as hard as you might think, if you spend time researching effective copy writing strategies.

Here are a few to try NOW!

1. Never try to sell expensive items from a small classified ad. Use repparttar two step method. Request repparttar 106287 reader visit your site for free information or email an auto responder address for more details where you will respond with longer ad copy to effectively sell your product.

2. Study how other marketers write their sales copy. This is a no brainer. Simply study repparttar 106288 ads in newsletters you are subscribed to. Or surf to a few of repparttar 106289 free classified ad sites and study repparttar 106290 ads placed there. Don't copy their ads word for word but use them as an effective design to write your own adverts.

3. Advertise in repparttar 106291 right Newsletter. That's right. This is basic stuff. Don't place your ad for cooking lessons in a Sports Trivia Newsletter. Or High Tech Ebooks on Java-Scripting in a Romance Writers Newsletter.

4. Target several appropriate publications. Subscribe to repparttar 106292 publications and study their classified ads for several editions before placing your ads. Practice writing adverts following their basic ad writing guidelines.

5. Advertise in more than one publication at a time. Why? You want to pull in as many interested readers as possible in order to make sales.

6. Change your ad copy if it's not working. If people read repparttar 106293 same old ad copy in repparttar 106294 publication every month they will get bored and probably ignore your copy. It's human nature to do this. Freshen up your copy with new headlines, different lengths, new wording, power words, appropriate humor, details, interesting facts, testimonials.

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