Project management is among a top skill to master in any business; especially one wanting to grow.
Why?
Because without project management, business owners will unnecessarily run into common issues:
You often get derailed by "the unexpected.”
It’s inevitable.
You get interrupted an unexpected number of times daily. Those interruptions come at unexpected times. They each take an unexpected amount of time with which to deal.
That’s why it’s "the unexpected."
These interruptions kill your flow, destroy your focus, and force you to work on the urgent instead of the important.
So how do you deter, prevent, and deal with the problems these unexpected interruptions incur?
I was shocked, hurt, and felt like my idea had been stolen. Though I had the idea first, Nintendo would be the star. Nintendo would make $millions. It took years before I was old enough to recognize the important lesson in this experience...
Are you second-guessing your next great idea? Are you downplaying the value you could provide to others? Are you upset that you found a competitor in the market who seems to be offering everything you want to (and seems to be finding great success doing it)?
It might be time to step back and realize a few important things.
At 35,000 feet, it’s unnerving when your 737 spins sideways like a fighter jet dodging a missile. On a routine flight, you don’t want to feel your commercial airliner shudder, violently, as if the pilot drove you through a field of boulders in a convertible.
But that’s what happened to me on a recent flight, halfway between Washington Dulles and San Diego.
In the early ‘90s, when personal computers could only beep and boop, you had to buy a sound card to hear realistic sound effects or music. By all measures, Creative Labs, Inc. was the undisputed king of PC sound cards, selling their Soundblaster hardware to video game enthusiasts across the country.
Soundblaster touted 16-bit audio (later 32-bit) and multiple channels of sound as their “drool-factor.” But when I first picked up a sound card from the shelves of Circuit City (remember that store?), I was interested in it’s hidden secret: Dr. Sbaitso.
Dr. Sbaitso may not have been the first chatbot ever created, but he was the first chatbot with whom I ever spoke. Hearing his canned digital voice tickled my geek feathers. But it wasn’t all kittens and unicorns. Dr. Sbaitso had an unrecoverable problem...
He was quite possibly the worlds worst chatbot posing as an even worse clinical psychologist.
Dr. Sbaitso... you were cool, but not very helpful.
More recently, chatbot have entered into consumers lives and minds with force. And for good reason. In an age where instantaneous communication is valued over human interaction, getting the answers you need from a chatbot makes good business sense.
Given my historical interactions with Dr. Sbaitso (and equally dissapointing interactions with Amazon Alexa’s chat service), I doubted chatbots would have a positive influence on business owners. Then I came across this comprehensive infographic...
Check it out and let me know in the comments below if and how you think chatbots can help your business succeed in 2018 and beyond!
(Posted with permission from Josh Wardini, 16Best.com)
With my body aching from head to toe and hands covered in fresh blisters, the thing that hurt the most was my pride.
I tried to hide the pain from my two sons. But they could see right through my stiff posture and a fake smile.
Anybody could have.
When you run out of strength and have to ask for help, it hurts.
When you hear people laughing at you, it hurts more.
When you realize that you were rowing a boat with the anchor dropped while dragging 75 pounds of seaweed through the mud, you feel like a complete and total dunce.
3 Hours Earlier…
The rising power of consumers is perhaps the biggest game-changer in the world of modern business.
People are well-informed, less tolerant of shabby service, and more specific in their demands. Digital technologies have empowered them and transformed the way businesses perceive and deal with them. Nowadays, attracting customers is just one part of the success equation.
The real work starts once you need to keep their attention and win their trust. ..
If you're reading this, you may have dealt with angry and difficult customers too. Maybe you’re dealing with one right now?
These customers seem to suck all your time, energy, and happiness right out of your business. They complain, make demands, and force you to spend an inordinate amount of time fixing their problems so nasty word doesn't spread about your customer service.
It's a firefight. And since you’re the business owner, someone handed you the hose.
Say the wrong thing, and it just adds fuel to the fire. Let it burn too long, and it spreads.
So how do you keep it from spreading? More importantly, how do you keep the next one from starting so you can focus on building a business instead of controlling damage?
That's what we're going to look at today. And it all starts with creating a customer focused organization, from the top down...
