Infinite traveled to Miami for an annual retreat hosted by its client broker. The weekend was hosted at Miami Beach's Eden Roc Hotel. In addition to client hosted dinners, talent contest and awards ceremony, attendees participated in a charity dodgeball tournament.
The tournament raised $3600 for Operation Smile.
Operation Smile, a non-profit organization founded in 1982, is an international charity for children. The organization is a mobilized group of doctors and nurses who provide reconstructive surgery for children born with facial deformities such as cleft lip and cleft palate.
Since inception, Operation Smile has created a presence in over 60 countries and has helped more than 2 million people with evaluations as well as conducted over 200,000 free surgeries.
The dodgeball tournament involved several teams of 6 competing in a best out of three bracket style competition. Each team paid an entry fee of $100 to play. One hundred percent of the donated entry fees went to Operation Smile.
Showing posts with label operation smile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label operation smile. Show all posts
Monday, October 1, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
Infinite Plays in Charity Kickball Game on Ford Field
While attending a leadership conference in Detroit, the executives of Infinite were able to join consultants from across the country to play in a charity kickball tournament on Ford Field.
Having fun and giving back at the same time!
Having fun and giving back at the same time!
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
What's Going On With Infinite This Month
Congratulations Lindsey and Eric on your
recent promotions. We are excited to see you take on your new
responsibilities as the company grows. Keep up the good work!
Fun times at Infinite! We went to Minor Tavern last week and were surprised to be joined by The Drive radio station. Kaitlin won two seperate rounds of most puts sank in a minute AND 2 seperate rounds of golf to Bowlingbrook golf course. Great times. Looking for another great week of team outing fun this week!
Congratulations Lindsey and Eric on your recent promotions. We are excited to see you take on your new responsibilities as the company grows. Keep up the good work!
Congratulations to executives at Infinite for being rewarded with a trip to visit a client office in Indiana.
Fun times at Infinite! We went to Minor Tavern last week and were surprised to be joined by The Drive radio station. Kaitlin won two seperate rounds of most puts sank in a minute AND 2 seperate rounds of golf to Bowlingbrook golf course. Great times. Looking for another great week of team outing fun this week!
Congratulations Lindsey and Eric on your recent promotions. We are excited to see you take on your new responsibilities as the company grows. Keep up the good work!
Congratulations to executives at Infinite for being rewarded with a trip to visit a client office in Indiana.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Olympic Athletes: 7 Skills They Use for Success by Linda Durnell
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-durnell/success-tips_b_1687173.html
While we were watching the Olympic trials, my husband asked me, "Could you have done this when you were younger?" I thought about what it took for these athletes to make it to the Olympics. If you believe we all have the ability, given the right conditions, to have an extraordinary life -- whether it is as an Olympic athlete, scientist or teacher, what can we learn from Olympic athletes to turn our dreams into reality?What skills do Olympic athletes use to succeed?
Unrelenting movement towards the goal: The sustained effort of these athletes is a perfect example of the concept of "massive action." They never lose sight of their goals and every moment of every day is focused in some small or large part toward action, which in turn allows them to achieve the goals. If you never looked at the clock or the calendar, how long would you work? If you were passionate about what you were doing or creating, my guess is that you would work harder and longer -- as Olympic athletes do.
Knowledge is only useful when incorporated with action: The amount of knowledge these athletes have is impressive. They have trained to become experts in nutrition, their physiology, psychology and the mechanics of their sport. These athletes are constantly learning and when they take this knowledge and apply it, they become stronger, faster and more prepared. Most of us know that knowledge needs to be followed by action, but we don't apply it. Our lives are going to stay the same if we are only reading or watching TV more. We can't turn our lives around until we decide to make use of our acquired knowledge and take action to make things happen.
Tap into the state of unlimited possibilities: For Olympic athletes, the impossible becomes possible. There is a Chinese proverb that states, "The person who says something is impossible should not interrupt the person who is doing it." If we allow miracles to be available to us, there exist infinite possibilities every day. If you have limiting beliefs about what you can or cannot accomplish, work diligently to let those beliefs go.
Sacrifice: There are many things we enjoy that are sacrificed by these athletes in order to attain their goal. Their singular focus leads them to choose hard work and dedication above vacations, parties, hobbies and participating in other leisure sports. For us to succeed in our lives, we need to become comfortable with short-term sacrifice for us to enjoy long-term success. As many a coach has repeated, "keep your eye on the prize."
Can't go it alone: Athletes have an extensive support team that works with them, for them and because of them. Teamwork is essential in the success of every endeavor and whether you call it mentoring, parenting, teaching, investing, managing or coaching, it is the support that most success requires.
Nothing lasts forever: Olympic athletes' skill in planning, preparation and execution does not end once the Olympics are over. They continue to plan for what is next and switch their energies to the next challenge in their lives. Kerri Walsh, the Olympic gold medalist in volleyball, planned on having a family, and then took her children to her workouts as she trained for the 2012 Olympics. Peggy Fleming, the 1968 gold medalist in ice skating, uses her Olympic fame to support many non-profits and her community. I dated a three-time Olympic athlete, and once he stopped training, he used his drive and knowledge to help others in the fields of training, athletics and coaching. As parents, we experience 18 years of dedication to our children, and eventually we must prepare to move forward into another cycle of accomplishments. Change simply means something new: Start-ups eventually are sold, companies merge or close, we age, relationships begin and end. Accepting the changes and the subsequent new opportunities is essential for continuing the success in our lives.
Everyone has a genius: We may not all choose to be an Olympic athlete, a Steve Jobs of high tech,
or a world leader, but we all have a spark that can be nurtured, supported and worked on until we create our gold medal in life -- it is just waiting to unfold and be recognized.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Great Article About Lessons in Leadership From Bo Schembechler
5 Leadership Lessons: Bo's Lasting Lessons
If you have to make a decision they’re not going to like, it’s better to tell them why you’re doing what you’re doing. They still won’t like it but they’ll always appreciate being told instead of being left in the dark. And if you don’t tell them why, they’ll feel abandoned, and start coming up with all kinds of crazy conspiracy theories. 
You start cutting corners for this guy or that situation, and before you know it, you’re spending all your time playing judge and jury, deliberating over every little incident, when you should be leading your team. It’s painful sometimes, but you create a lot fewer headaches for everyone, including the players, when you simply stick to your guns. 
If you don’t have leadership inside the ranks, you’re not going to be successful, because you will spend too much time policing that small things yourself, and create an “us against them” environment. 
If you’re a leader, your ultimate responsibility is the training of your people, because every job requires training. If it’s a job worth paying someone, it’s a job worth training. And it’s your job to make sure they’re trained well. Make your training as close to the real thing as possible. Sounds easy, but from what I’ve seen, not many companies do. You get what you emphasize. Plain and simple. 
If you do not like people, you will not take the time to get to know them, and if you don’t get to know them, you will have no idea what scares them, what inspires them, what motivates them. If you don’t listen to what your people have to say, you will not know when they have a problem with you—and you will not know when you have a problem with them, either. You cannot lead if you cannot listen. Even if you’re doing everything else right, if one of your people comes to you with a good idea—or a personal problem—and it just goes in one ear and out the other, YOU WILL FAIL. You can have a tremendous impact as a leader just by taking a little time. Your people have to know that their value to you and your organization is not determined just by what they do, but by who they are. I can’t make it any clearer than that.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Infinite Lands Comcast As A New Client
We are excited to have landed Comcast as a new client. Comcast has outsourced Infinite to help increase their market share. We are excited for the new partnership and look forward to a long working relationship.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Leadership Development Needed For Success of a Company
http://www.womenintechnology.co.uk/news/leadership-development-needed-for-success-of-a-company-news-801304189
Proper management and leadership development training is needed in order for a company to be as successful as it can be, a new report has found.
Research from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and Penna shows the relation between a company's performance and the effectiveness of its managers. High performing organizations spend on average 36 per cent more on management and leadership training per manager every year than low performing ones.
The report also revealed that 43 per cent of managers consider their line managers to be ineffective, suggesting that people in IT manager jobs and other roles should be offered regular training.
Accredited learning and qualifications were rated by those surveyed as having the most impact on workers' performance.
"A culture of bad management continues to damage UK Plc," said Christopher Kinsella, acting chief executive for CMI.
"But the good news is that organizations who are investing strategically in management and leadership development, are far more likely to be reaping the benefits through higher performance."
He said that businesses should not take a one-size-fits-all approach to training but focus on "developing specific line manager skills and behaviors that will help achieve business results".
Last week the Bank of Scotland's Report on Jobs showed a positive year so far in the recruitment market.
Proper management and leadership development training is needed in order for a company to be as successful as it can be, a new report has found.
Research from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and Penna shows the relation between a company's performance and the effectiveness of its managers. High performing organizations spend on average 36 per cent more on management and leadership training per manager every year than low performing ones.
The report also revealed that 43 per cent of managers consider their line managers to be ineffective, suggesting that people in IT manager jobs and other roles should be offered regular training.
Accredited learning and qualifications were rated by those surveyed as having the most impact on workers' performance.
"A culture of bad management continues to damage UK Plc," said Christopher Kinsella, acting chief executive for CMI.
"But the good news is that organizations who are investing strategically in management and leadership development, are far more likely to be reaping the benefits through higher performance."
He said that businesses should not take a one-size-fits-all approach to training but focus on "developing specific line manager skills and behaviors that will help achieve business results".
Last week the Bank of Scotland's Report on Jobs showed a positive year so far in the recruitment market.
Friday, January 27, 2012
The Team At Infinite Travels To Houston To Test Pilot A Program With New Energy Client
The Team At Infinite Travels To Houston To Test Pilot A Program With New Energy Client
Park Ridge, IL, January 25, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Infinite, an Illinois sales and marketing firm, is testing services with a new client in Texas. Members of Infinite are working towards a possible new contract with the company’s Houston market share.
Infinite, a Park Ridge based firm, specializes in client acquisition and retention for national service providers. The company is hired by these larger organizations to act as a middle man between them and their account holders.
Infinite’s first client is a leading supplier of electricity and natural gas products. The client is one of North America’s largest competitive energy suppliers of electricity, natural gas and related services. The company has approximately 6,000 employees and has a goal of helping customers effectively manage all of their energy needs. The client operates in 10 Canadian provinces and 46 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia, with more than six million customer relationships.
At the close of 2011, Infinite took on a new client in the energy industry. This time, Infinite began working with a nation-wide provider of low-cost electricity and natural gas. This client specializes in offering significant savings to homes and businesses from California to New York. Infinite’s second client was founded in 1999 and credits itself as being one of the early pioneers in the retail energy business. Since inception, the client has grown to become a nation-wide company of more than 250 employees supplying affordable electricity and natural gas to thousands of residential and business customers.
This month, having seen such success with its current clients, Infinite has caught the interest of one of Houston’s energy providers. The client is a reliable fast-growth retail energy company that delivers competitive products, customer service and a commitment to the communities it serves. It is led by an individual the previous Head of Operations of one of Australia’s fastest growing companies, which has grown to over 270,000 electricity and gas customers since 2007. The new CEO and his Texas-based leadership team have 23 years of a combined experience in selling de-regulated energy in and a team of over 100 employees and contractors.
Executives and members of the Infinite will be traveling to Houston for a month. The goal is to see if the program can sustain a win-win-win relationship between Infinite, the client as well as the customer. At the end of the month, Infinite and the client will decide whether to pursue the venture further.
“I am excited about the test pilot. We have such a strong team here and even though we just took on a new client, we are ready for the added business. It is exciting to have the ability to test the program prior to officially signing a contract. It is important that the programs with our clients be mutually beneficial so we can maintain longevity of our relationships. It is the key to our stability. I am looking forward to the results the team comes back with this month,” explains an executive of Infinite.
Infinite expects to take on add two new members to its executive team in the first quarter of this year. In addition to the leadership growth, the company expects to expand with an additional location opening in the spring.
Infinite, a Park Ridge based firm, specializes in client acquisition and retention for national service providers. The company is hired by these larger organizations to act as a middle man between them and their account holders.
Infinite’s first client is a leading supplier of electricity and natural gas products. The client is one of North America’s largest competitive energy suppliers of electricity, natural gas and related services. The company has approximately 6,000 employees and has a goal of helping customers effectively manage all of their energy needs. The client operates in 10 Canadian provinces and 46 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia, with more than six million customer relationships.
At the close of 2011, Infinite took on a new client in the energy industry. This time, Infinite began working with a nation-wide provider of low-cost electricity and natural gas. This client specializes in offering significant savings to homes and businesses from California to New York. Infinite’s second client was founded in 1999 and credits itself as being one of the early pioneers in the retail energy business. Since inception, the client has grown to become a nation-wide company of more than 250 employees supplying affordable electricity and natural gas to thousands of residential and business customers.
This month, having seen such success with its current clients, Infinite has caught the interest of one of Houston’s energy providers. The client is a reliable fast-growth retail energy company that delivers competitive products, customer service and a commitment to the communities it serves. It is led by an individual the previous Head of Operations of one of Australia’s fastest growing companies, which has grown to over 270,000 electricity and gas customers since 2007. The new CEO and his Texas-based leadership team have 23 years of a combined experience in selling de-regulated energy in and a team of over 100 employees and contractors.
Executives and members of the Infinite will be traveling to Houston for a month. The goal is to see if the program can sustain a win-win-win relationship between Infinite, the client as well as the customer. At the end of the month, Infinite and the client will decide whether to pursue the venture further.
“I am excited about the test pilot. We have such a strong team here and even though we just took on a new client, we are ready for the added business. It is exciting to have the ability to test the program prior to officially signing a contract. It is important that the programs with our clients be mutually beneficial so we can maintain longevity of our relationships. It is the key to our stability. I am looking forward to the results the team comes back with this month,” explains an executive of Infinite.
Infinite expects to take on add two new members to its executive team in the first quarter of this year. In addition to the leadership growth, the company expects to expand with an additional location opening in the spring.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Members Of Infinite Travel To Houston To Test Pilot A Program With New Client
http://www.free-press-release.com/news-members-of-infinite-travel-to-houston-to-test-pilot-a-program-with-new-client-1327374414.html
At the close of 2011, Infinite took on a new client in the energy industry. This time, Infinite began working with a nation-wide provider of low-cost electricity and natural gas. This client specializes in offering significant savings to homes and businesses from California to New York. Infinite’s second client was founded in 1999 and credits itself as being one of the early pioneers in the retail energy business. Since inception, the client has grown to become a nation-wide company of more than 250 employees supplying affordable electricity and natural gas to thousands of residential and business customers.
This month, having seen such success with its current clients, Infinite has caught the interest of one of Houston’s energy providers. The client is a reliable fast-growth retail energy company that delivers competitive products, customer service and a commitment to the communities it serves. It is led by an individual the previous Head of Operations of one of Australia’s fastest growing companies, which has grown to over 270,000 electricity and gas customers since 2007. The new CEO and his Texas-based leadership team have 23 years of a combined experience in selling de-regulated energy in and a team of over 100 employees and contractors.
Executives and members of the Infinite will be traveling to Houston for a month. The goal is to see if the program can sustain a win-win-win relationship between Infinite, the client as well as the customer. At the end of the month, Infinite and the client will decide whether to pursue the venture further.
“I am excited about the test pilot. We have such a strong team here and even though we just took on a new client, we are ready for the added business. It is exciting to have the ability to test the program prior to officially signing a contract. It is important that the programs with our clients be mutually beneficial so we can maintain longevity of our relationships. It is the key to our stability. I am looking forward to the results the team comes back with this month,” explains an executive of Infinite.
Infinite expects to take on add two new members to its executive team in the first quarter of this year. In addition to the leadership growth, the company expects to expand with an additional location opening in the spring.
Infinite, an Illinois sales and marketing firm, is testing services with a new client in Texas. Members of Infinite are working towards a possible new contract with the company’s Houston market share.
Infinite, a Park Ridge based firm, specializes in client acquisition and retention for national service providers. The company is hired by these larger organizations to act as a middle man between them and their account holders.
Infinite, a Park Ridge based firm, specializes in client acquisition and retention for national service providers. The company is hired by these larger organizations to act as a middle man between them and their account holders.
Infinite’s first client is a leading supplier of electricity and natural gas products. The client is one of North America’s largest competitive energy suppliers of electricity, natural gas and related services. The company has approximately 6,000 employees and has a goal of helping customers effectively manage all of their energy needs. The client operates in 10 Canadian provinces and 46 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia, with more than six million customer relationships.
At the close of 2011, Infinite took on a new client in the energy industry. This time, Infinite began working with a nation-wide provider of low-cost electricity and natural gas. This client specializes in offering significant savings to homes and businesses from California to New York. Infinite’s second client was founded in 1999 and credits itself as being one of the early pioneers in the retail energy business. Since inception, the client has grown to become a nation-wide company of more than 250 employees supplying affordable electricity and natural gas to thousands of residential and business customers.
This month, having seen such success with its current clients, Infinite has caught the interest of one of Houston’s energy providers. The client is a reliable fast-growth retail energy company that delivers competitive products, customer service and a commitment to the communities it serves. It is led by an individual the previous Head of Operations of one of Australia’s fastest growing companies, which has grown to over 270,000 electricity and gas customers since 2007. The new CEO and his Texas-based leadership team have 23 years of a combined experience in selling de-regulated energy in and a team of over 100 employees and contractors.
Executives and members of the Infinite will be traveling to Houston for a month. The goal is to see if the program can sustain a win-win-win relationship between Infinite, the client as well as the customer. At the end of the month, Infinite and the client will decide whether to pursue the venture further.
“I am excited about the test pilot. We have such a strong team here and even though we just took on a new client, we are ready for the added business. It is exciting to have the ability to test the program prior to officially signing a contract. It is important that the programs with our clients be mutually beneficial so we can maintain longevity of our relationships. It is the key to our stability. I am looking forward to the results the team comes back with this month,” explains an executive of Infinite.
Infinite expects to take on add two new members to its executive team in the first quarter of this year. In addition to the leadership growth, the company expects to expand with an additional location opening in the spring.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Interesting Input On The Unemployment and How To Boost Chances Of Finding Employment in 2012
3 tips to boost your chances of finding work in 2012
Updated: Jan 12, 2012 7:29 AM PST
With free trade a significant feature of the U.S. economy, exports and international business have emerged to spur significant job creation and support more than 10 million positions of employment, according to Trade and the Economy: A Small Business Report created by the House Committee on Small Business. Given that the total U.S. exports for goods and services also reached $1,800 billion and accounted for about 12% of the GDP in 2010, the importance of international interaction cannot be underestimated now that the job market is growing steadily. Social media is helping to create an increasingly global and tightly woven community of trades and businesses, resulting in multilingual skills being highly sought after by U.S. employers.
With this increasing demand for employees who can converse with international clients and consumers, there has never been a better time for job seekers to develop multilingual skills. With the adult brain also being increasingly responsive to retraining and mastering foreign sounds, there are any number of part-time or vocational courses that can teach you additional languages. Learning a second language can create many employment opportunities in a diverse range of industries.
When it comes to acquiring skills that suit modern business practices, it is important to consider outsourcing and how it influences organizations. The process of outsourcing work to independent firms and contractors has grown increasingly popular over the last two decades, as numerous organizations have looked to save money while also engaging the services of knowledgeable industry professionals to complete tasks. It is especially popular within the information technology sector. Halogen Corporation found that approximately 28% of all outsourced jobs belong to this market, while the professional and business services sector also boasts a high demand for independent contractors.
With these facts in mind, it is clear that learning information technology, software development and remote administration skills could be a valuable step forward for job seekers in 2012. In addition to creating new opportunities for long-term employment in prosperous industries, these skills also allow those seeking work to earn money and remain financially independent while juggling responsibilities. This would not only be a huge boost to the well-being of the economy in 2012, but also create an improved workforce that can adapt to the changeable and often vulnerable employment market.
With these facts in mind, it is clear that learning information technology, software development and remote administration skills could be a valuable step forward for job seekers in 2012. In addition to creating new opportunities for long-term employment in prosperous industries, these skills also allow those seeking work to earn money and remain financially independent while juggling responsibilities. This would not only be a huge boost to the well-being of the economy in 2012, but also create an improved workforce that can adapt to the changeable and often vulnerable employment market.
The key to remaining in viable work is to retain skills that are relevant to prosperous industries, especially when it comes to retraining or undertaking long-term vocational courses. The financial planning and management sector came into its own during 2011. According to Business Insider, the average U.S. household struggled with debts of approximately $6,500 at the end of 2011 and turned to industry professionals to help remain solvent. As we enter 2012, these services will be in even higher demand as consumers look to improve their spending habits and make long-term savings.
The improved economic portents of 2011 led to an increase in the total level of disposable income boasted by U.S. citizens, and this trend is forecasted to continue into 2012. This will mean that with more capital to spend, consumers and small businesses will require additional guidance with regards to their budgeting, spending habits and long-term financial planning. Acquiring qualifications as financial advisors and accountants should hold job seekers in good stead, and afford them the opportunity to grow into a plethora of secure and rewarding careers.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Infinite Relocates Wordpress Blog
http://theinfinitebizillinois.wordpress.com
We have upgraded our wordpress. Our new improved blog can be found at http://theinfinitebizillinois.wordpress.com
Enjoy!
We have upgraded our wordpress. Our new improved blog can be found at http://theinfinitebizillinois.wordpress.com
Enjoy!
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Six Steps To Getting Ahead in Your Career Bayt's guide to vaulting up the career ladder.
http://www.bayt.com/en/career-article-78/
A good mentor is that special someone who will take the trouble to see things from your point of view, take your side and guide you in the right direction. The best professional mentors are people with experience in your own industry who can give sound professional advice, help you brainstorm and solve problems, put matters in perspective and sometimes open doors for you. Mentors however need not be from your own industry. An old college professor, an entrepreneur friend of the family, a family banker with a good overall business sense or even someone in a completely unrelated field whose integrity, judgement and intuition you trust, can all serve as allies and sounding boards as you progress up the career ladder. Try to find that someone you can learn from and who can help you through the uncertain patches in your job and overall career.
2. Effective Time Management
Effective time management boils down to setting specific goals and meeting them. Plan ahead both in macro terms and micro terms. Set deadlines for projects and then break the projects up into individual milestones with separate deadlines which you can tick off as you accomplish them. Delegate along the way. Dina in graphics, for example, may be better equipped to draw those Excel charts and make them visually appealing than you, so allocate that particular microtask to her. Make your deadlines reasonable and aim to over deliver rather than over promise. It is always better to have some slack time at the end of a project to check for detail and presentation rather than have to rush the next item on your agenda.
You will find that this kind of planning is so attractive that it will spill over into your personal life. Little Johnny's life will be so much fuller when you see how many activities you can schedule for him on paper and when you can allocate that half hour between your lunch break and that meeting to paying him a surprise ice cream visit at school. You will also find yourself scheduling more 'fun' and 'relaxing' activities for yourself when you take control of your time by planning ahead.
3. Manage Your Boss
Bosses have lives, career roadblocks, deadlines and worries of their own and a smart employee will learn how to ingratiate themselves to their boss amidst all the noise and create an ongoing professional dialogue that achieves both parties' objectives. Proactivity is the key to a successful employee/ employer relationship. Take control of your career and communicate your goals, aspirations, ideas and concerns to your boss on an ongoing basis rather than hoping he will make plans that suit you and notice all the work you get done. Effective communication in the right tone at the right time is a very important component of this relationship as is full transparency, making it easier for your boss to see and appreciate your work and efforts and promote you.
4. Negotiate for What You're Worth
There's nothing like feeling underpaid and undervalued to put a damper on your career aspirations and stifle your motivation and productivity. Take control of the situation and try to negotiate a compensation package that is more in line with what you feel you're worth. Refer to articles on negotiations in the Career Center of the Middle East's #1 job site Bayt.com if you are new to the field of negotiations.
Remember, there are specific rules to successful negotiation. First of all, make sure what you are about to negotiate for is realistic. Arm yourself with some knowledge of what your peers in the industry and in the company are making and a sound judgement regarding how much you feel your boss really values you.
Secondly, target a win-win scenario. Aim to show your job how much better off he will be having a better paid employee who will then exert more effort, take more initiative and live up to the yet untapped potential everyone knows she has. The message essentially is "employee is unhappy, unhappy employee is unmotivated, employee sees no fairness in situation, let's make company more profitable and boss look much better by paying employee to be more motivated and produce more and better work."
Thirdly, make sure the tone is right and that you are flexible so you can win in a number of different scenarios. Listen carefully to your boss's point of view and anticipate his concerns. Be prepared to offer different means for him to meet your justified aspirations. For instance, if after a respectful and well argued dialogue, your boss is unable to meet your demands for a cash raise, ask for a guaranteed bonus, or a raise 3 or 6 months down the road providing you meet specific milestones, or non-cash compensation hikes such as medical insurance, children's schooling or stock options. It may be that you will be happy just with a new title which will more adequately reflect your position and responsibilities. Plan several ways you can proceed towards the compensation package you find satisfactory and aim to leave the meeting having advanced in one of these directions.
5.Delegate
This is not about passing the buck. It's about freeing yourself to do what you do best and achieving maximum efficiency all around. It's not entirely optimal for a consultant with a PHD in Stochastic to spend 3 hours perfecting the pastel shades on his powerpoint presentation when he could have used that time to execute strategy for another client. Effective delegation can spread the workload amongst people so that each is challenged in their own domain and so that others can learn new skills and improve old ones. The whole outfit benefits when everyone is doing what they do best.
6. Take Ownership
Whether it's that filing cabinet you're responsible for keeping in chronological order and safe from natural disasters and epidemics, or a team of 6 bankers that you are in charge of, taking ownership of your work is the first step toward personal and professional satisfaction. If you think of yourself as 'owning' your little domain - sometimes as part of a team - you will take special pride in your output and results. That feeling of 'ownership' will boost your creativity as you look for new ways to indulge and improve your professional terrain and the attitude will almost always communicate itself to your boss and peers. Think of every professional task, no matter how small, as a project worthy of your signature and make sure the quality of the work you produce lives up to your name!
This article and all other intellectual property on Bayt.com is the property of Bayt.com. Reproduction of this article in any form is only permissible with written permission from Bayt.com.
Six Steps To Getting Ahead in Your Career
Bayt's guide to vaulting up the career ladder.
1. Find a Mentor
A good mentor is that special someone who will take the trouble to see things from your point of view, take your side and guide you in the right direction. The best professional mentors are people with experience in your own industry who can give sound professional advice, help you brainstorm and solve problems, put matters in perspective and sometimes open doors for you. Mentors however need not be from your own industry. An old college professor, an entrepreneur friend of the family, a family banker with a good overall business sense or even someone in a completely unrelated field whose integrity, judgement and intuition you trust, can all serve as allies and sounding boards as you progress up the career ladder. Try to find that someone you can learn from and who can help you through the uncertain patches in your job and overall career.
2. Effective Time Management
Effective time management boils down to setting specific goals and meeting them. Plan ahead both in macro terms and micro terms. Set deadlines for projects and then break the projects up into individual milestones with separate deadlines which you can tick off as you accomplish them. Delegate along the way. Dina in graphics, for example, may be better equipped to draw those Excel charts and make them visually appealing than you, so allocate that particular microtask to her. Make your deadlines reasonable and aim to over deliver rather than over promise. It is always better to have some slack time at the end of a project to check for detail and presentation rather than have to rush the next item on your agenda.
You will find that this kind of planning is so attractive that it will spill over into your personal life. Little Johnny's life will be so much fuller when you see how many activities you can schedule for him on paper and when you can allocate that half hour between your lunch break and that meeting to paying him a surprise ice cream visit at school. You will also find yourself scheduling more 'fun' and 'relaxing' activities for yourself when you take control of your time by planning ahead.
3. Manage Your Boss
Bosses have lives, career roadblocks, deadlines and worries of their own and a smart employee will learn how to ingratiate themselves to their boss amidst all the noise and create an ongoing professional dialogue that achieves both parties' objectives. Proactivity is the key to a successful employee/ employer relationship. Take control of your career and communicate your goals, aspirations, ideas and concerns to your boss on an ongoing basis rather than hoping he will make plans that suit you and notice all the work you get done. Effective communication in the right tone at the right time is a very important component of this relationship as is full transparency, making it easier for your boss to see and appreciate your work and efforts and promote you.
4. Negotiate for What You're Worth
There's nothing like feeling underpaid and undervalued to put a damper on your career aspirations and stifle your motivation and productivity. Take control of the situation and try to negotiate a compensation package that is more in line with what you feel you're worth. Refer to articles on negotiations in the Career Center of the Middle East's #1 job site Bayt.com if you are new to the field of negotiations.
Remember, there are specific rules to successful negotiation. First of all, make sure what you are about to negotiate for is realistic. Arm yourself with some knowledge of what your peers in the industry and in the company are making and a sound judgement regarding how much you feel your boss really values you.
Secondly, target a win-win scenario. Aim to show your job how much better off he will be having a better paid employee who will then exert more effort, take more initiative and live up to the yet untapped potential everyone knows she has. The message essentially is "employee is unhappy, unhappy employee is unmotivated, employee sees no fairness in situation, let's make company more profitable and boss look much better by paying employee to be more motivated and produce more and better work."
Thirdly, make sure the tone is right and that you are flexible so you can win in a number of different scenarios. Listen carefully to your boss's point of view and anticipate his concerns. Be prepared to offer different means for him to meet your justified aspirations. For instance, if after a respectful and well argued dialogue, your boss is unable to meet your demands for a cash raise, ask for a guaranteed bonus, or a raise 3 or 6 months down the road providing you meet specific milestones, or non-cash compensation hikes such as medical insurance, children's schooling or stock options. It may be that you will be happy just with a new title which will more adequately reflect your position and responsibilities. Plan several ways you can proceed towards the compensation package you find satisfactory and aim to leave the meeting having advanced in one of these directions.
5.Delegate
This is not about passing the buck. It's about freeing yourself to do what you do best and achieving maximum efficiency all around. It's not entirely optimal for a consultant with a PHD in Stochastic to spend 3 hours perfecting the pastel shades on his powerpoint presentation when he could have used that time to execute strategy for another client. Effective delegation can spread the workload amongst people so that each is challenged in their own domain and so that others can learn new skills and improve old ones. The whole outfit benefits when everyone is doing what they do best.
6. Take Ownership
Whether it's that filing cabinet you're responsible for keeping in chronological order and safe from natural disasters and epidemics, or a team of 6 bankers that you are in charge of, taking ownership of your work is the first step toward personal and professional satisfaction. If you think of yourself as 'owning' your little domain - sometimes as part of a team - you will take special pride in your output and results. That feeling of 'ownership' will boost your creativity as you look for new ways to indulge and improve your professional terrain and the attitude will almost always communicate itself to your boss and peers. Think of every professional task, no matter how small, as a project worthy of your signature and make sure the quality of the work you produce lives up to your name!
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Tuesday, December 13, 2011
A New Look At Failure - Crash and Learn: Finding Value in Business Failure
http://allbusiness.sfgate.com/business-failure-lessons/15534702-1.html
It's true, says no less a source than Harvard Business School. An extensive study of entrepreneurs by the school a few years back found that "entrepreneurs with a track record of success are much more likely to succeed than those who have previously failed."
Put another way, most people don't learn from their mistakes -- they just keep making more mistakes.
But not everybody. There are certainly many entrepreneurs who fail once -- or two or more times -- and succeed the next time around. What makes the difference is their willingness to face up to their failure, study it, and take lessons from the experience. In other words, they learn.
In fact, if you're an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, failure is considered a badge of courage. It gives investors an opportunity to probe what you learned from the experience and see how you deal with adversity, says Cynthia Padnos, founding managing director of venture capital firm Illuminate Ventures. "We don't believe you have to have failed in order to succeed, but we have a culture here that believes failure is not a barrier to success. There's a big difference between a project that tried and failed and an individual who's a failure," she says.
What's most important when faced with failure, according to Moltz, is resilience. He makes the comparison to baseball. If you're an entrepreneur, you need to keep going to the plate. The more often you step up, the more hits you'll have. And that, perhaps, is the best lesson any business owner can learn from failure: Past performance is not indicative of future results.
"Don't take failure personally," Moltz says. "Don't let yourself believe it's because of some inherent fault. You can learn from failure but you can't always learn from failure, so often the best thing is just to let go and move on. If you can do that, it gives you another chance at success."
Crash and Learn: Finding Value in Business Failure
Nothing succeeds like success.It's true, says no less a source than Harvard Business School. An extensive study of entrepreneurs by the school a few years back found that "entrepreneurs with a track record of success are much more likely to succeed than those who have previously failed."
Put another way, most people don't learn from their mistakes -- they just keep making more mistakes.
But not everybody. There are certainly many entrepreneurs who fail once -- or two or more times -- and succeed the next time around. What makes the difference is their willingness to face up to their failure, study it, and take lessons from the experience. In other words, they learn.
An Expensive Lesson
Dan Hobin was the classic dotcom flameout. In 1999, he was 30 years old and his digital-publishing startup, SmashCast, had just raised $7 million in venture capital. SmashCast had prime office space in downtown San Francisco, new employees filled the cubicles, and the company threw lavish parties at the drop of a baseball cap."We raised the money before we even had a business plan," Hobin says. "It was like taking a little kid and pumping him full of steroids."
Two and half years later, SmashCast was out of juice. The money was spent, and Hobin had to shut his company down. It was a very expensive lesson, but an effective one.
In 2005, when Hobin launched his next company, he took a different approach. He didn't solicit outside capital. He wanted his new startup, G5 Search Marketing, to be completely bootstrapped.
"This time, I was going to do it the old-fashioned way," he says. "We were going to grow slowly, watch every penny, and do whatever it took to be cash-flow positive."
So far, he's stuck to the plan. Hobin's search engine optimization and marketing company has more than $10 million in annual revenue and is growing fast. It has 56 employees and 100 percent revenue growth over the past four years, and last August it secured $15 million in its first round of institutional venture capital.
Better still, it's almost entirely debt-free.
"I learned a lot when the bubble burst," Hobin says. "I learned that you build a much healthier company when you bootstrap because you can't afford to do things you shouldn't do; you can't afford to make mistakes."
The Missing Link: Experience
Another dotcom entrepreneur who crashed and learned is Reid Hoffman. Like Hobin, he watched his startup flop, studied his mistakes, and came back stronger the next time around. Quite a bit stronger, actually: Hoffman built LinkedIn, the most popular social network for professionals, with more than 90 million registered users and a valuation upwards of $2 billion.
Hoffman's dotcom dud was a networking site called Socialnet. It started in 1997 and was acquired four years later at a fire-sale price; Hoffman walked away with just $40,000. After a stint at PayPal, Hoffman founded LinkedIn. Part of the reason the company is now the immense success that it is, Hoffman says, is the lesson he took from Socialnet. What was that lesson? Be a good learner -- and surround yourself with the same.
"I thought you should hire the exact skill set for every position," he says. "But in reality what you want is people who can learn fast."
And the same principle applies to a company: Like a good entrepreneur, it must be able to adapt and improve as it goes. "I learned you should never be embarrassed by your 1.0 product release," says Hoffman. "Too many entrepreneurs want to release the perfect product and get all those oohs and aahs, but that's a big mistake. It's better to get out there and move quickly and make improvements on the fly."
Bouncing Back
Rudyard Kipling wrote that one key to success in life is the ability to "meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same." In other words, success and failure matter less than the way you react to them.
Author Barry Moltz has written much the same thing, particularly in his book Bounce! Failure, Resiliency, and Confidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success. He calls failure "just part of the roller coaster, part of the cycle of business. You'll have successes and failures -- get what you can from both." In fact, if you're an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, failure is considered a badge of courage. It gives investors an opportunity to probe what you learned from the experience and see how you deal with adversity, says Cynthia Padnos, founding managing director of venture capital firm Illuminate Ventures. "We don't believe you have to have failed in order to succeed, but we have a culture here that believes failure is not a barrier to success. There's a big difference between a project that tried and failed and an individual who's a failure," she says.
What's most important when faced with failure, according to Moltz, is resilience. He makes the comparison to baseball. If you're an entrepreneur, you need to keep going to the plate. The more often you step up, the more hits you'll have. And that, perhaps, is the best lesson any business owner can learn from failure: Past performance is not indicative of future results.
"Don't take failure personally," Moltz says. "Don't let yourself believe it's because of some inherent fault. You can learn from failure but you can't always learn from failure, so often the best thing is just to let go and move on. If you can do that, it gives you another chance at success."
Monday, December 12, 2011
Great Article On Leadership From Deborah Shane
http://www.careerealism.com/12-principles-champions/
12 Principles of Champions
By CAREEREALISM-Approved Expert, Deborah ShaneComing from a mentoring, teaching and training background for 20 plus years has helped me to understand how certain qualities make champions!
There are 12 common qualities I believe underlie “peak performers” or champions in any field, industry, business, or just personally!
I love to study champions. We mostly identify with sports people and teams: Lance Armstrong, Pete Sampras, New York Yankees, Detroit Red Wings, New England Patriots, University of Florida, Babe Ruth. But, let’s not forget about other champions who champion causes: Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, John F Kennedy, Rosa Parks and tireless other “silent heroes” that change people’s lives daily by what they do under the radar.
What is a champion?
By definition, a Remarkable Person – somebody who exemplifies excellence or achievement; Defender – somebody who defends, supports, or promotes a person or cause because they are
“passionate” about it.
It can be anyone, it can be you.
Character is an attitude…
“Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves , some turn up their noses and some don’t turn up at all.” (Sam Ewing)
The process it takes to become a champion includes solid fundamentals, a dedication to discipline, a willingness to practice, a lot of heart, a little luck and perseverance. All great teams and athletes commit to this process and because they are “in it” daily, they succeed and win. This same process is how anyone can become a champion, or champion a cause.
Here are 12 principles that can make you or anyone a champion. Are you ready?
1. Personal and Professional Integrity
2. Industry and Product Knowledge
3. Sincerity of Motive and Intent
4. Enthusiasm for Life
5. Passion for what you do and who you are
6. A dedication to Excellence
7. Commitment to Discipline
8. The Perseverance to keep growing and learning
9. Willingness to embrace new ideas
10. Openness to Change
11. A healthy and active Sense of Humor
12. Awesome Attitude
Opportunities to stand out, make a difference and truly impact people, the community and world you live and work in is boundless.
Become a champion and champion something today, NOW. Small things can make a BIG difference.
They add up over time.
Are you ready to champion your life and business and become the champion you are destined to be?
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Silobreaker Recognizes Infinite For Taking On A New Client This Month
Silobreaker Recognizes Infinite For Taking On A New Client This Month
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