Daily links, Tuesday 16 February, 2010
By Helen
1. Sin of entrepreneur: one-person company
People think that having a company is a really easy. That everybody can have a company, because it’s not a problem to manage a one-person company. That’s a bullshit! Setting up new firm is easy. Paying taxes is easy. Having company? No. Why? Because having a one-person company is a myth.
2. Personal Branding: It’s Not All About You
While everyone is entitled to their opinion, I do think these positions are missing the mark on what it means to develop and market your personal brand. Developing your personal brand includes: determining your strengths and weaknesses, and using these tools to best move our lives, our careers or those around us forward. While it does involve marketing your strengths, skills and accomplishments, it should never be unabashed self-promotion.
3. Just Do Something! 6 Ways to Unblock Yourself & Get Moving
Procrastination is a funny word. It’s a long, strange sounding expression that strikes fear and a knowing empathy in the hearts of people around the world. Putting things off until a later date, even important things, is what humans are best at. You have to assume that even our biggest accomplishments and creations as a species came with equally large bouts of “I’ll just do it later” sentiments.
Daily links Tuesday, 3 February, 2010
By Helen
1. I guess we all have good, bright, precious ideas. Right?! How to make sure your idea is valuable?
As entrepreneurs, we come across a lot of folks who poke holes in our ideas. We hear a lot of “No – this won’t work.”
So when should we go full steam ahead with our idea even after hearing all the negativity—and when should we pause and evaluate the idea? The answer depends on who the naysayers are.
2. The Single Greatest Way To Discover Innovation
Here’s the idea behind this. Whenever I am trying to get inspired, original or innovative in my thoughts to add to a presentation, blog post, article, product, service or book, I spend a fair amount of time reading. No surprise there, everyone does that, but what I’ve found is that some of the best ideas come from unrelated texts – if I know how to read them.
3. Question: What to Do When the Client Is Wrong?
Sooner or later most freelancers will have the pleasure of working with a client who seems to have forgotten why they hired you in the first place. This client may ignore or overrule all of your recommendations and even dictate decisions on the project that you, as the experienced professional, are certain will be detrimental to its overall success. Despite your objections, explanations and warnings, the client steamrolls the project toward something less than what your normal standards would require, all the while assuring you that they have a better idea and understanding of what their project needs than you do.
How should you handle this situation? Do you refuse to bend and lose or “fire” the client, refunding any payments? Or, do you submit to their demands and hope for the best?
Daily links Tuesday, 2 February, 2010
By Helen
1. Focus On Your Output, And Restrain Your Input
At any single time, you are only able to either take in input, or put out output. Talking while you are listening is not doable in any useful form, and any variation of this will leave you tired very quickly. Accepting this concept is helpful for you to break up your time into manageable chunks.
2. 8 Ways to Develop Your Employees
One strategy that can improve recruitment and retention is training. Investing in staff training and development can alleviate skill shortages by improving your current staff’s abilities to handle increased or new challenges.
Training may sound expensive, but the cost of turnover is even more expensive. Replacing and employee can cost between 50 and 100 per cent of a positions’ annual salary! With this in mind, take a look at the following eight ways to develop your employees, from AILS.
3. Improve Conversions by Connecting with your Audience
Lots of people design sites based on what they would like to see. However, what makes sense to a designer may not make sense to their target audience. If designers seek to create a conversion-friendly web experience we’re going to have to learn about our audience and what makes them tick.
Daily links Monday, 1 February 2010
By Helen
1. At some point I guess we all had something to present. So, which are the 7 deadly sins for speakers and presenters ?
Listeners don’t give their attention lightly and it doesn’t take much for it to wander. Here are seven bad speaking habits that will guarantee your listeners will be focusing on other things, instead of what you’re presenting.
2. Personal Development: More Than Self-Motivation and Positive Thinking
Personal development happens when you finally decide to change the way you live your life for the better. It must be emphasized that the whole process is not only made up of good experiences or formal workshops. Even bad experiences can help in pointing a person to the right direction in life.
But most, if not all mentors would try to fix on self-motivation and positive thinking as the two most important considerations that ensure personal development success. Well, they may be right, but a holistic approach to self-development goes way beyond these two factors. Read on to know what else is needed to help you attain self-awareness and development.
3. How to Use Personal Development Information in a Better Way
Personal development books, blogs and videos can be a wonderful resource to help you improve your life. Over the last few years I have learned a couple of things that helped me to make better use of that information to get actual results in my life.
I would like to share those things today.
4. Free Consultation: Pros and Cons
In my search for effective marketing strategies for freelancers, I keep running into this idea. Get prospects on the phone for a free consultation with you.
You may have seen it yourself on some freelancers’ websites: an offer of a free 20- or 30-minute consultation to anybody who is interested in hiring them.
Should every freelancer offer free consultation to get more clients? The answer isn’t simple, and there is no one right answer for everyone. To see what the answer is for you, let’s go over the pros and cons of providing free consultation to prospects.



February 16th, 2010