The New Reality

Many times over the past few months, I have talked with people that are looking forward to the economy coming back - a return to the way things were. There were times when I found myself feeling this same way. Will things every "come back" to the way they were? I don't think they will.

We are now in a new time. Companies have been forced to reduce staff, look for new ways of doing things and get more results from fewer people, lower costs and less effort. Once a company is able to see there are better ways of operation, there is no need to return to anything that was done before.

The hope of the future isn't to return to some past time. The hope of the future is to improve every process, train everyone in the company to improve himself or herself and continue to do that over and over and over. The future belongs to the companies and the individuals that can do more with less and still improve performance. We plan as a company to be a part of that future.

Building A Network

For the past few months I have been intrigued by the idea of building a large network on LinkedIn. It started to make sense when a friend of mine lost his job and I put a status update that I know someone in a certain area looking for a certain type of job. Within a couple of days, there were seven people that had some input, opportunity or advice. This week I found out that my friend was able to have two potential interviews based on the leads that came from my network. The power of having a large network started to become clear.

Each of us has the opportunity to build large networks in our neighborhoods, our places of employment, our friendship circles and online. I think it is worth connecting to as many people as you can to be able to help others and find good information.

It only takes a few minutes a day to build a strong and large network. I have found it pays great dividends for the people I am trying to help and for the people others are trying to help. If you don't have a good network, now is the time to get started.

Looking For The Yes

One of my favorite blogs to read is the blog by Seth Godin. Recently he wrote a blog about looking for opportunities to say "yes." Here is the blog entry.

This really rang a bell with me. All of us that have customers - and that is all of us because if we don't interact with an external customer we all have internal customers - need to look for ways to say yes. When I am working with a customer that I click with, they almost always see me as a person who fixes problems. When something goes wrong, I find a way to fix the problem. I have heard many stories from customers that have used my competitors and the other company is not quick to fix the problem.

Looking for ways to say "yes" is a much more enjoyable life than looking for the ways to say "no." Monitor your words and determine to look for more ways to say "yes" and when you hear a "no" from your mouth, quickly perform the fix.