By MJ Plaster
We’ve hammered at the theme of disruption on this blog, but we’ve avoided going full-tilt crazy—until now. Today’s your lucky day because, in the spirit of the holidays, we’re spreading around crazy—crazy ideas that paid off big time.
Category Archives: Business
Helping Your Employees Be More Productive
As an employer or a manager, it is your job to make sure that your employees are doing their job. Furthermore, it is your job to make sure that they are working to their highest potential. Let’s take a look at some ways that you can figure out if your people aren’t working their hardest and how to help them get more done.
How Do You Know That There Is a Productivity Issue?
There are many ways that you can determine if there is a productivity issue in the workplace. First, you may notice that some employees are able to get more done during the day than others or that they have accomplished more in previous months or years. Second, you may notice that orders aren’t getting fulfilled or that items aren’t being delivered to clients on time. Finally, you may notice that workers seem listless or otherwise not engaged in their work, which could indicate that they are burned out or overwhelmed. Continue reading
Insane Business Advice That Sounds Interesting—Part Two
By MJ Plaster
In Part One, we looked at age-old business and why it doesn’t always (if ever) apply. Be sure to read it before you feast your eyes on the “Gawker version” of what passes for today’s business advice.
Insane Business Advice That Sounds Interesting—Part One
By MJ Plaster
In our crazy world where up is down and down is up, big risks can net monstrous results—but not always to the up side. It’s easy to confuse novel with insane and disruptive with destructive. I was tipped off to an article a few weeks ago that led to several nights of burning the midnight oil to bring you this menu of insane business advice. By the end of this article, you will look at everything through the risk vs. reward lens and make decisions based on facts, not stale clichés.
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Does the Big 40 Mean “You’re Fired”?
According to Bloomberg TV, the median age of the U.S. worker is 42. In the established tech industries, the median age is around 31 and, in tech startup companies, it drops to around 22.
Many of us who have passed our 40th birthday feel it was a watershed moment when we came into our own. We will tell you, “At 20, we knew it all; at 30, we realized we didn’t; and, at 40, we had gained enough maturity to know that the more we thought we knew, the more we had to learn.” Yet today, 40 can signal the approaching end of a career. What’s wrong with this picture?
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How to Regain Your Team’s Mojo
By MJ Plaster
Remember the pizzazz your team had when it first began to come together and click? It was electrifying, like Fourth of July fireworks set to the 1812 Overture. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but just like all relationships, teams go through stages. What started out with a bang is bound to go stale unless you reinvigorate it from time to time. Team players who lose their mojo are detrimental to your business, so let’s look at symptoms of complacency followed by prescriptions for regaining the spark.
Who You Gonna Call When Your Brand Fails? BrandBusters?
By MJ Plaster
When your brand turns on a dime and loses its luster, who you gonna call? BrandBusters? There are firms that make a fortune restoring a damaged brand. However, the object is to maintain your hard-earned brand rather than restoring it. First, we’ll look at a few brand failures. Then, we’ll look at the single best way to avoid busting your brand so you don’t have to restore it.
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Are You Hiring the Wrong Employees?
By MJ Plaster
Last summer, I attended a conference and had the opportunity to listen to leading human resources professionals expound on hiring and promotion practices. What I learned surprised me because I haven’t been involving in the hiring process for over two decades. We’ll look at common, 21st-century hiring practices and why you should adopt them as part of a winning hiring strategy.
How to Gain the Best ROI From Your Email Marketing
By MJ Plaster
The reports of the death of email marketing have been grossly exaggerated! Lately, I’ve heard people talk about email as old tech or low tech and, therefore, ineffective. This is a misconception, as you’ll see. In fact, it’s one of the last best effective marketing avenues, since people have tuned out ads—physically and mentally. If you’re one of the millions of internet users who use ad blockers, then you know how easy it is nix ads from your view. If not, then you’ve probably blocked the ads mentally.
The Magic and the Madness of Networking
By MJ Plaster
Networking is what you make of it—it can raise you to new heights, or it can destroy the efforts of your entire career in the blink of an eye. It can build trust, or it can earn you the label of “untouchable.”