Tag Archives: Strategy

4 Writing Tactics from Desperate Housewives (+ Audience Analysis template)

Can one hour with Eva Longoria really make you a better business writer? I guess it all depends on the angle you take. Here’s what I mean. Let’s say you feel a little bit guilty when watching your favorite TV show. You can’t help wondering if there is ANY way you could apply what’s happening […]

5 Ways to Write Action Plans that Get Results

Here are five ways to write an Action Plan to make your business more competitive. Action Plans fail if they are too difficult to use or too hard for readers to understand Who does What and When. Make your Action Plan simple to follow, with clear goals and concrete deadlines.

7 Strategic Action Plans Mistakes to Avoid

Need to create a Strategic Action Plan? Your business will benefit from using an Action Plan to link your business goals to your strategies. This plan lets your develop a series of tasks that you can assign to targets and review as they are accomplished.

Business Negotiation: Learning To Say ‘No’

Roger Fisher best-selling business book on successful negotiations, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In focused on how to gain mutual agreement between parties without confrontations. Its premise was that both parties want to get to “Yes.” You’ve read hundreds of article along the same lines. But not everyone is into win-win. Today, we’re going to look at getting to No.

How to Give Your Boss ‘Upward’ Feedback

I never give advice. Let me rephrase that. I never give unsolicited advice. If you don’t ask for my opinion, I don’t give it. It’s not because I don’t want to help you. I do. It’s because people value what they pay for. And the ‘ask’ in asking for an opinion is a type of payment… and Trust is the currency. This brings us to the tricky subject to giving feedback to your boss. When do I give my opinion? How do I phrase things to avoid offense? What happens if I get it wrong? Here are a few ideas.

Why Bill Gates Chose Warren Buffet as His Role Model

Should you use a role model to develop your business? Maybe you should: the top business magazines say, ‘be yourself, be authentic, share your story’ Or maybe you shouldn’t. For entrepreneurs, using a role model creates a dilemma. Does it mean you’ve sold out? Do you lose street cred? Can you really copy someone else and be true to yourself?

Why Middle-Age Waitresses Get Bigger Tips

Like experiments? Try this the next time you go out. Keep an eye on the waitresses and see who they touch, where they touch and when they touch. Understanding the power of touch, both inside and outside the office, can make a significant difference to your career. If you get it right! And you’d be forgiven for thinking that the leggy blondes, (or tall handsome waiters) would get the bigger tips. Doesn’t work like that. Here’s why.

How to create a Social Media budget

The terms social media and social networking have been tossed around for quite some time now, but businesses are struggling with how to implement these strategies in their budgets.  How much is too much, how much is too little?  There are many factors on how to plan a budget, and the same goes for social […]

3 Case Study Writing Tactics For First-Time Writers

As mentioned earlier, a case study is a soft-sell sales document. Its role is to highlight your abilities without resorting to market-speak and sales clichés. An effective approach to catch the reader’s attention (who is frequently a potential client) is to explore how the solution helped end-users and the target group.