Do You Need a Business Mentor?

A mentor in life is defined as a wise and trusted guide and advisor. This can mean your parents, teacher, coach, spouse, neighbor, or even a bus driver. The idea of having a teacher has been around for years. People always need someone they can trust, and, moreover, someone who knows more than they do about a certain subject.

Anyone can be a mentor and anyone can seek a mentor; but when dealing with particulars, some mentors are better than others. For example, a business mentor wouldn't necessarily be your high-school English teacher. If you wanted or needed a business mentor, one of the prerequisites is their personal experience with business, thus someone who knows the finer points of business is a must. A business mentor can easily mean the difference between success and failure.

No matter what type of business you're planning on running, it's always better to defer to the experts. Unfortunately, many only seek out the use of a business mentor after their previous business attempts have failed.

Instead of working "with" the mentor, they end up using the business mentor's experience as a launching pad for their own success. If the use of this person was employed the first time around, a business relationship could have been formed and the need for more budget could have been avoided. It's not suggested to seek the help of a business mentor to do the work for you.

They're not in a position to be outsourced while you reap the success. A mentor is there to keep you on the right track, offer advice about situations, and share their personal experiences with you. The help they offer can prove to be invaluable for many different reasons, none the least of which is your inexperience as a business owner. As someone who is self employed, you have no-one to answer to.

More importantly, you have no one to turn to for advice. There is no-one with a higher title; there are no co-workers to consult about a situation; there is no-one to guide or train you. Even if you have a knack for business, learning something new can be a tedious process. This is the ideal situation to seek the help of a business mentor. The mentor has been where you're at and has seen what you're seeing. The mentor is strong-willed and poised and willing to lend his or her expertise to the situation.

A good mentor is able to see past the everyday operations of your business and advise you on matters that are still several months or years away from happening. A business mentor is going to be there to guide you, as a coach would do, and strictly giving advice and working to inspire your best performance. If an idea is offered by a mentor as to something they might do differently, you should never dismiss it or argue. It's important to remember that this mentor used to be you: a new business owner with big dreams and zero experience.

Together, you and your mentor will be able to devise goals and strategies in your business, thus overcoming problems as they arise and before they do any permanent damage. Taking on a mentor is a great way to succeed in business, especially if you're a new owner with a startup venture.

An article by Dougles Chan - The Recruitment Guru. A Business Coach that specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & Staffing Agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 recruitment coaching, kindly check here.

Choosing A Business Mentor

Finding the right business mentor is critical and can be made easy. The success of your business can rest on the coaching that you get, and your finances can rise and fall with food and bad advice. A combination of preparation and simple approaches to selecting the most suitable mentor for you will help ensure that your business mentor provides long term benefits for you and your business.

Before you embark upon the search for your business mentor, you need to sit down with your managerial colleagues, or alone, and ask yourself some questions. Assessing where your faults and weaknesses lie is vital to identifying what you need and from where.

Start by asking yourself these three questions.

1. What outcomes do I seek from business mentoring?
2. What additional skills and experience do I seek from a business mentor?
3. What mentoring personality and style would help me the most?

Armed with the answers to these questions, your search will be much easier. You can identify potential mentors through many different routes including personal recommendations from people you know, on-line through Google, and through various web directories.

Be careful with personal recommendations; your friend with the hair salon will need drastically different advice to your accountancy firm. A good business mentor for hair and beauty might see instant results in a salon, but you need to have the advice catered to your specific sector.

When concerning Google and web based searches, you have to be on the lookout for fraudulent or lower quality service. The internet is a very ease platform with little barrier to entry, so you have to maintain a vigilance when looking for paid services online.

Once you have identified potential mentors, you can use their websites to learn more about them. Websites will often highlight the personality, style and approach of the mentor and already at this point some may stand out to you as a person you could work with. Having a look at testimonials and references is another angle that can help identify the most suitable mentor. Testimonials give you information about the type of clients and the type of work the mentor covers. Use all these sources of information together with your criteria for the ideal mentor to short-list a handful of potential candidates.

At this point, make contact and have a chat on the phone with the mentors on your short-list. After each conversation ask yourself how you would working with this mentor? It will be easy to identify the ones that you really aren't fond of, negative feelings will manifest themselves strongly when you don't develop an initial trust.
Based on your feelings, select a few potential suitors and arrange to meet with them.

All good business mentors will be happy to meet with you to talk through your business and mentoring needs. The meeting helps both parties find out if you can work together and create a mutually beneficial outcome. After the meetings go back to your criteria and ask yourself which of the people you have met would help you the most. Ultimately you need to assess this before you look at their costs and timeframes, mentors who charge less likely do so for a reason.

Picking a business mentor is a long term decision, so taking these steps is a good investment for you and your business. Importantly your investment is one of time rather than money. Once you have identified someone who you feel can really help you, ask them how they propose to work with you and at that point be clear to them about your budget. Having followed this process it is likely that you and your preferred mentor will find a way to work together that suits both parties as well as your budget. The art of haggling lives on in these kind of personal negotiations, try your luck on.

An article by Dougles Chan - The Recruitment Guru. A Business Coach that specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & Staffing Agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 recruitment coaching, kindly check here.

Paediatric Physiotherapy - Infant - Failure to Thrive (Orange)

Context of assessment: The student has been requested to perform a ward based, developmental assessment for a patient admitted to the ward for investigation of poor feeding and weight loss. It is expected that the patient will undergo a further developmental assessment at a later date, therefore, the student has been instructed to adequately assess the patient to acknowledge and reassure mother on possible developmental delay. Background information for infant clinical scenario: Setting: Acute inpatient paediatric ward Gender: Female Patient age: 6 months Main Presentation: Failure to thrive, developmental delay Student Name: Sally Educator Name: Jenny Patient/ Parent Name: Taylor and Cassie (mother) Clinical History: Reason for referral to physiotherapy: Paediatricians have identified developmental delay History of presenting condition: Patient admitted to hospital via ED 4 days ago for investigation of failure to thrive (poor feeding, weight loss, dehydration and general irritability) and coffee ground vomiting. She is currently an inpatient on the paediatric ward of a hospital, receiving nasogastric feeds and awaiting endoscopy tomorrow for confirmation of suspected cow’s milk protein allergy and related oesinophilic oesophagitis. Investigations: Blood tests – elevated platelets Stool sample – faecal leukocytes and positive for blood Urine sample – (shows dehydration) Growth chart – CW 4995g (less than 3rd centile) Consulting teams Paediatricians Gastroenterology Dietician Social Worker Past medical history: Mum reports losing breast milk at 3 months and starting infant formula. Baby took formula initially and then started to become irritable, cry, looked in pain, periods of diarrhoea, intermittent cough and runny nose. Trialled different formulas with similar results. Took up to an hour for baby to take a bottle. Sometimes baby would refuse bottle. Had 2 GP visits. Sleeps poorly during day and wakes regularly through night. Recent onset of eczema on legs and arms. Has trialled Omeprazole (prescribed by GP) with no benefit. Birth history K39+0, BW 2954g (25th centile), SVD, APGARS 7,9,9 Normal pregnancy and scans Passed healthy hearing newborn screen Past surgical history: Nil Parental concerns/goals: Anxiety around baby’s health and the cause of this, current hospital admission and Doctor’s suggestion of developmental delay. Having chronic neck pain and looking for a solution? Why not get a Singapore physio to assist you at BalanceCore.

Physiotherapist Income/Salary?

The facts and figures mentioned in the video are based on an in-depth survey of the market and personal experiences. Further, it covers the overall earning bracket and may have a slight deviation depending on the place and person. Being a physiotherapy is working directly with the patient and together, to achieve the success. Once that is achieved, rest you don’t have to bother..!! Having chronic neck pain and looking for a solution? Try a physiotherapy Singapore to assist you at balancecore.sg.

Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Center

Shraddha Physiotherapy Clinic And Research Center- +91 9712057773 Physiotherapists in Ahmedabad,Physiotherapists in Maninagar,Physiotherapy,Physiotherapists in Ahmedabad - List of Physiotherapists in Ahmedabad, Physiotherapy Ahmedabad, Physical Therapists Ahmedabad,Physiotherapy & Physical Therapy Clinics Ahmedabad,Doctors - Physiotherapists (Muscle) in Ahmedabad,Physiotherapy & Rehabilitation ,Physiotherapy Clinic in Maninagar, Ahmedabad Getting for physiotherapy, look for Balance Core.

Microsoft, Innovation and Detractors

Many software critics like to lambaste Microsoft and they sound off at any chance. As an entrepreneur and Founder of a Franchise, I remember before my retirement who often our company was attacked. The competition hated us, but I never cared, because the customers used us not them and they loved us. We won.

So why is it that all these small software companies complain about Microsoft these days? Hmm? Oh, they claim there is no new innovation at a Microsoft? What? What do you mean there is no new innovations. My MS Word 2007 works "GREAT!" and I love it. So, are you telling me the consumer I am wrong? Dear software competitor, I would like to warn you that my company had 380 competing companies exit the market place through direct competition.

Thus it would be wise for detractors of Microsoft to be quite and get to work creating better software and stop telling me the consumer that I am stupid, because I am not stupid and I love Microsoft, so does my mom, my sister, my brother and my aunts and uncles too. They use it. If you don't like it, then don't buy it, but please be quite, it sounds like sour grapes.

Microsoft is number one because the customers voted for them. They win, if you want to play then work with them and stop running around angry and broke and become a Microsoft Partner and design software that people want and will use because it works with their favorite operating system. I hope you can understand this simple reality?

References: cloud storage hybrid cloud microsoft cloud storage End User Computing Hardware Maintenance IT infrastructure services managed services singapore managed services Network Monitoring Solutions

Microsoft Great Plains 10.0 and 9.0 Upgrade - Technical Notes

At this time (fall of 2007) Microsoft Dynamics GP customers are actively upgrading to GP version 9.0 and initial upgrades are performed to Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0. Version 10.0 will be in more active upgrade mode, when Microsoft will release GP 10.0 Service Pack 1, as current GP 10.0 upgrade path is limited to 8.0 SP5 and 9.0 SP2. Having reasonable number of GP version updates performed, we would like to share experience. Lets' start with the most popular upgrade to 9.0.

1. As versions 8.0, 7.5, 6.0, and earlier are discontinued for Microsoft Dynamics technical support, you should consider this bell as strong signal to walk away from these older versions. Versions 7.5 and older were available on MS SQL Server as well as on Pervasive SQL 2000 (former Btrieve) and Ctree. In the case when you are on non-MS SQL Server DB - you will have to undergo migration step to SQL Server based version. Assuming that your case is straight forward, let's move on and review known version upgrade issues

2. Purchase Order Processing tables problems. If you are using POP module, then you must check you Purchase Orders and Receipts work and historical tables on the subject of so-called orphan lines. These tables should be verified: POP10110, POP10310, POP30110 and POP30310 - they store purchase orders and receipts lines. Microsoft recommends doing checklinks, prior to upgrade process, however we saw situations, where potentially check links don't do all the orphans cleaning job. If check links doesn't help, please construct the script which will give you orphans in lines table, similar to the following: select a.* from POP10110 a left join POP10100 b on a.PONUMBER=b.PONUMBER where b.PONUMBER is null. And again, prior to rescuing to scripting, you should try check links approach.

3. If after check links, upgrade failed on POP tables, you will have to restore DYNAMICS and all Companies DB to initial version and try data repair with scripting. Then design delete scripts with your DBA person. Microsoft partner should be able to apply failed company rolling back script, so you do not have to start from initial version for all the databases, however this script is confidential.

4. Other potentially problem tables. We've also seen the problem with IV10200 table. In version 9.0 inventory valuation formula was revised and it now relies on IV10200 to higher extent. In some cases this table conversion script fails and upgrading application freezes. The remedy is roll back to initial version, be sure that you did check links.

Sources code: microsoft reseller microsoft partner singapore aws certified partner amazon consulting partner aws consulting partner aws cloud partners amazon aws partner Azure stack Microsoft Azure hybrid cloud Microsoft Azure stack

Latest Software Development Trends

Software companies with tight-knit agile and strong release management practices have a significant competitive advantage. To realize this advantage, an organization must first optimize its release management process and identify the most appropriate platform and release management tools.

In 2016, we heard the slow and steady drumbeat of smart tools, including chatbots and other AI-infused solutions, predictive analytics and cloud offerings. In 2017, they will be fully well-established in companies across a wide range of industries and different latest trends will be introduced this year. This year it introduces more advanced techniques compared to last year. These solutions all are geared toward helping companies better connect with their users at a personal level and improve the customer experience, whether that customer is in the office, the store or the doctor's office. These smart solutions, which will become standard tools everywhere, will bridge the gap between humans and computers; more closely mimic the role of humans, and in some cases replacing them. Here, we will discuss some software development latest trends which help you to know more about the latest trends-

Mobile apps-
Most the consumers prefer native mobile apps to mobile websites and they want their knowledge to move with them through their devices. Thus, having a receptive website will not be enough and companies will continue to transfer their business activities to native mobile apps.

Agile practices-
Agile has come of age and now takes even stronger positions than before. Entrepreneurs like it due to the fact that agile methodology allows them to get working apps faster, start generating revenue sooner, and make further improvements when needed. Many software developers also like it as agile facilitates communication between development camp and management and helps to increase an efficiency of the development process.

Increased demand for security-
Due to the growing amount of personal data and open APIs, users' sensitive information becomes prone to such cyber crimes as the breach of mobile consumer payments systems, hacktivism, cracking of cloud storage, Iot takeover, and ransomware (corporate extortion). This will require security measures to expand both in scope and superiority.

Cloud technology is gaining popularity. Users use more and more devices, they want to access their data from multiple gadgets, and this is where cloud technology comes in versatile. Besides, electronics manufacturers around the globe are investing heavily in cloud computing and cloud security. Gartner predicts that by 2018 30% of service-centric companies will move the majority of their ERP applications to the cloud.

Technologies, such as virtual personal assistants, security solutions, and marketing solutions, will deliver this new level of business user functionality by incorporating cognitive learning and robotic process automation. Most of the world's largest software companies will use intelligent solutions to improve the experience of the business user in the coming year. Hence, these are the some latest software development trends which help you to know more about the software development trends and also to choosing the best software development company as career planned.

Virtual Santa Clause - What Are Kids Telling Santa Online?

You may stand in line at the mall to see the real Santa, but more and more kids spend sometimes up to one hour chatting with a Virtual Santa Claus online. There are now plenty of online chat-bots talking to literally hundreds of thousands of children during the Christmas season.
It's known that children feel comfortable talking to Santa, but that's also true for an automated Santa software on the Internet. So, who are these artificial Santa Clauses? Where do you find them? And, what are the children saying to them?

Who are these Santa Clauses?
Various types of Santa bots exist online - from purely text based to fully-animated talking avatars of Santa Claus.

The famous santabot.com is a text-based chatbot using an Instant Message (IM) interface like MSN messenger or ICQ that kids a comfortable with.
The Santa bot developed by the A.L.I.C.E. foundation has a talking Santa head with a deep robot voice, text-to-speech, so you can actually hear Santa talk back to you.
Santa lives also in virtual worlds, such as one flash animated Santa Clause that sits behind the counter of a 'milk and cookies bar' ready to take your order.
What do kids say to a Virtual Santa Clause?
Kids will say about anything to Santa, and a unique insight into how kids interact with the Santa Claus bots online can be found in the statistics and trends collected from them.

The average time spend chatting with Santa is 18 minutes
Some conversations have lasted over 60 minutes
The popular questions year after year: "Are you real", "Sing me a song", "Do you know any jokes", "Can you take off your beard?", "Where is Mrs Claus"
New questions asked this season, most probably due to the economic downturn - "a job for my daddy", "can you send us money"
One chat in ten includes some form of insult. But kids will also usually be quick to apologize and ask Santa not to get angry
Almost gone are the bicycles and roller blades. The toys children ask for this season are "iPod", "Wii", "Xbox 360", and "PSP"

Virtual Chat Agents - Economical Solution for Great Customer Satisfaction

There is no doubt that customer satisfaction is the chief requirement for the growth of any business. This is the reason that service of customer is the top priority of all businesses. You simply cannot imagine the growth of your business without a satisfied customer base. For the customers to be happy you need to make sure that not only do they get best products and service from your company, but also the best service experience. Virtual customer service agent is a customer service solution that will not only ensure that you customers are satisfied; it will also help you save a significant amount of money.

A Virtual chat agent is a software program that is designed to fulfill all the basic requirements of a live service agent. These programs are chatbots that are programmed to be able to answer all common queries of the customers. A Virtual chat agent is capable of performing basic tasks like locating information, making appointments and reservations, collating feedback, describing the features of a product, answering FAQs, and more. Opting for Virtual customer service to represent your company will guarantee a more satisfied customer base. Primarily, because the customers won't need to wait for a live customer agent to be available to address their issues, furthermore, in any scenario where in the virtual agent in unable to resolve the issues, it will escalate the issue to a live agent, ensuring that none of your customers leave disappointed.

Adding to the several benefits virtual agents have to offer, their low setup and maintenance cost is sure to cut down a lot from what you must be spending with live agents. Unlike live agents, virtual agents don't ask for salary, don't fall sick, don't go on holidays, they work round the clock without any complaints just to achieve one thing, and that is customer satisfaction.

Virtual AI chat agent can serve as a search engine as they can help locate information; they are designed to be customer service agents, and they work as a research analyst as well as they constantly collate customer feedback and the nature of queries customers are usually coming up with. All this in-turn help you know your market better and think accordingly.

Skills required for recruitment coach

An article by Dougles Chan, Digital Marketing Singapore Guru. Office location at 1 Rochor Canal Rd, Sim Lim Square , Singapore 188504, Sim Lim Square, commonly referred to as SLS, is a large retail complex that offers a wide variety of electronic goods and services ranging from DVDs, cameras, phones, video cameras, and computer parts and laptop repair servicing. He writes articles on recruitment agency, recruitment business, digital marketing and advanced SEO tips. 

Recruitment coach, also referred to as recruitment specialist or talent acquisition specialist is person whose role is to find the most suitable employees for the organization or company they are working for. These coaches rarely work alone and more together with the manager of the department they are finding workers for. They can work either from their homes and offices or be contracted through a recruitment agency.

Coaches are responsible for interesting, interviewing and choosing workers but also for keeping up with employment, recruitment laws, regulations and rights. Usual area of their work is within the human resource one. Often these coaches get promoted, still working within human resource department but on higher positions, such as human resource generalist, human resource manager or human resource director.

Recruitment coaches need to possess certain skills to be successful at their job. Due to nature of their job they need to be skilled speakers and convey information to others effectively, but also be quite active listeners, giving full attention to what others are saying, understanding the points they made, asking questions that are most appropriate and not interrupting in inappropriate situations. Doing job that involves understanding, implying and keeping up with laws, rights and regulations, recruitment coaches should have great reading comprehension but also have good writing skills so communication by writing can be effective and appropriate for the needs of the targeted audience.

When interviewing and selecting candidates, coaches trust their critical thinking, using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of candidates and decide if they are suitable for the job position or not.

For this is also significant active learning and understanding the implications of new information for both current and future decision-making, as well as good judgment skills so all relative costs and benefits of potential actions are considered and well thought. Since work involves work with people, recruitment coaches should be a bit persuasive, good at negotiation and possess great social perceptiveness skill so they are bringing others together, reconciling differences, aware of others’ reactions and understanding where they come from. Besides these, due to work with people they ought to have good management of personal resources and be oriented to service.

That means that they are motivating, developing and directing people to be even better at their job, but also looking for ways to offer help and advice. If coaches are responsible for training and development of individual employees or groups of them they need to be skilled at monitoring and assessing given training and performance, but also be able to monitor work done by themselves and know when something should be changed and corrected.

For said training is also important to be skilled in making learning strategies which involve choosing training or instruction methods and later using them, defining appropriate procedures for the various situations related to learning or teaching. Recruitment coaches will be apply to meet all required skills and be satisfied with their work if they possess great time management and coordination.

An article by Dougles Chan - The Recruitment Guru. A Business Coach that specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & Staffing Agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 recruitment coaching, kindly check here.

Starting a recruitment business

Recruiting business, also known as a recruitment agency, staffing or temporary agency, is responsible forattracting, interviewing and selecting candidates for job placement, either temporary, permanentor both. Recruitment business may also choose to go for only on a specific industry field, such as executive recruitment. To have a successful start of a businessit is important to make a solid business plan, have a background in recruitment strategies, and have a good knowledge of laws about licensing, hiring and taxes, and of course make appropriate marketing plan for gaining clients.

First step when opening a recruitment business is defining the recruitment services that will be provide. That means deciding if services will focus only on a specific field of industry such as IT professionals or lawyers or focus on multiple ones. After that there is deciding if candidates will be put on a temporary or part-time contract, be directly hired for full-time employment or both. Both of this depend one on each other so decisions should be made by considering which options work together well. Next step should include identifying a recruitment niche within chosen industry and making a list of all of the niches to compare experience and contacts in each. Final step is selecting a location for recruitment agency. It can either be home office or an office setting.

After an agency is started, the process of developing is on. Hands-on experience or education is great for that. Purchasing training materials, visiting recruiting webinars or watch training videos is another great way to improve yourself and business. Knowing related laws such as employment law and how to solve problems that can come up is significant for developing. In case it is needed, new recruitment businesses can choose to apply for a small business grant or loan to cover up start-up costs or improvement costs. It is also valuable to know how much monthly will go for recruitment staff and their pay, employee benefits, insurance, marketing and any other expenses that can occur.

Marketing a business is important for both, it and its clients. For starters, it is good to partner with an existing agency or ask around if any local businesses would change their recruitment system. Marketing plan is also important and it should include a list of potential clients and deciding on the marketing approach. That can be either contacting prospective clients by mailing letters or sending e-mails, even directly calling them. Advertisements can be posted in newspapers, business magazines, online job portals and sites, depending on the chosen industry.

Every recruitment business should have a logo for office documents, a company newsletter to send to clients and those prospective ones and company business cards. Also, there should be a “.com” website domain for agency. If possible, it could be designed by a professional or by yourself if you have enough skills. Business should also be named and a limited liability company (LLC) created. That is usually done by filling out the paperwork and paying certain amount of money as a fee.

An article by Dougles Chan - The Recruitment Guru. A Business Coach that specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & Staffing Agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 recruitment coaching, kindly check here.

SEO and Business, what you need to focus on.

Some years back, I was approached by a company to help them in their SEO campaign to get their company listed in Google so that they would have good traffic and potentially receive more leads and, of course, more sale revenues.

I gladly accepted the assignment as I am an SEO freak, and, wanting to show the world how good I am, I took on the assignment at a fee of $9,000. Then I started to help them in the SEO campaign.

What happened was that when I visited the client’s place, I had the shock of my life! 

The main doorway and the main office area was totally dark, and the whole team actually worked in a smaller room that was only able to accommodate up to 10 people.

I asked the boss, “Err…how come the lights in the front are not switched on?” He proudly said that he needed to save money on the electricity. I scratched my head.

How much could he really save by doing that? One hundred dollars per month? Hmm…

Further, to my surprise, while I was helping them in the SEO campaign, he actually looked at the long light bulb in the office and calculated the wattage.

Out of curiosity, I asked him again, “Why are you looking at the bulbs?”

He proudly told me that he had done intensive research on light bulbs and found that the lower the wattage, the lesser the consumption of the electricity.

“Ooo…that is something interesting,”

I replied, trying to be polite.

Then he told me that he could switch off this bulb, that bulb and this…to save some money…

Hmm… I asked myself, “What is happening here?

Why is this bloody idiot, who has an MBA, focusing on light bulbs, when he could be using the time to do something better and more productive?”

My goodness! I went to the restroom and started to bang the walls in order to vent my frustration. Aarrhh! Luckily, the toilet was far from the office and I don’t suppose anyone in the office heard my banging noises!

After successfully getting their company website to the top three position in Google, I ended my project with the reputation in that company of being the SEO Guru because I managed to tear down the old SEO analysis done by another company (which was supposed to be the expert), and showed them that what they were doing was 100% wrong.

I got it done for less than $400 in two months using all white hat techniques. If you were to give any other SEO engineer $400, it would unlikely work out very well.

Anyhow, back to the MBA-CEO of the company: although the company was receiving very good traffic from the website, the last I heard from ex-staff was that the company is no longer in operation because the boss had used all his funds in focusing on MINOR things that were not productive and did not yield any sales results.

Although this example is very extreme, it actually happened in real life.

My key point is this: the bulb is not important, the sales are important. Without sales, even if you use a candle, you will still not be able to survive.

For the sake of the business and everything else, focus on major things and not the BULB!

Question: Do you invest MAJOR time in MINOR things?

How to Find Good Clients as a Recruitment Agency

I was amazed by the number of searches on Google that point the traffic to my website www.dougleschan.com  where “Finding Clients” for Recruiter or “Recruitment Consultants” or "recruitment agency" are intensively being searched by many people.

It seems that there are thousands and thousands of people who are having this challenge. If you are looking for an answer, I might have the answer for you:

You see, as a recruiter or a recruitment consultant, having good clients is very important, isn’t it? If you have no clients, you will have no job order, and when you have no job order, you will not be able to hit the KPI or sales target. That would be terrible. Right?

Fear NOT. Help is on the way…read on…

My question is: if you are that bloody good in the recruitment industry, do you think you will have a problem getting clients? The answer is NO. You will NEVER need to search for clients; the clients will search for you.

How can you really do that? You will need to raise your level much higher than ALL the other thousands and thousands of consultants out there. Do not just be another one of them, because if you position and label yourself as one of them, you will end up like them – dying quietly in desperation.

Eventually, you will quit your job as a recruiter or consultant and move on to another industry….

The strategy is actually very simple – Make yourself in high demand.

Here’s what you need to do.

1) Positioned yourself as THE expert in a specific industry – Read a lot of books, magazines, newspapers, and trade e-zines. Attend industry networking, trade shows, major conferences.  Interact with as many people of the SAME industry as possible. Get to know a lot of people. Do not focus on anything else, I repeat, DO NOT do any other industry. FOCUS on only ONE industry.  Period.

2) Create your website under your own recruitment agency name. Do not use any free blog available in the public. The reason is simple: it’s all about branding. Every 1-2 days, write an article about anything related to your industry and put it on your blog. Make it something useful that has an impact. Let people know that you are REALLY GOOD at what you are doing.

3) Make your website easy to surf. Also, create a brand, a tagline, and a great logo.

4) Use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to the maximum; optimize your website so that people can search for you or related keywords in your industry.

5) Give free talks and seminars on related topics. Let the public know you are an expert in your field; take a lot of pictures of the talks and seminars and put them in your blog. Use sites like Pinterest.com, Flickr.com, Facebook.com, etc. Let everyone see that you exist and are active in the market.

6) Expose yourself to major social media and add a lot of friends. Update them often.

7) NEVER ever negotiate the placement rates with a NEW client; it is about your positioning. Tell NEW clients your fees are fixed. If you are going to lose this client, so be it. It is perfectly fine. However, do take note that you can negotiate the price with OLD clients. The objective is to filter out clients that constantly bargaining for cheaper alternatives. This will not be the type of customers you are looking to focus on.

8) Don’t save money on cheap things. If you need to get your website up, get a top web designer; if you need a good business card, get a professional to do it for you. Never try to save a few dollars to sacrifice quality–you will lose a lot of clients when you engage in such activities. There are plenty of available resources available that are able to create good quality websites, logos, etc at a very good price. Google them and you should be able to find them.

9) Spend a lot of time on your professional image: personal grooming, public speaking, and soft skills. You will need all of these to attract the top clients.

When you reach that level, let me know. I will write a book about you and further brand you to another level. Cheers.

An article by Dougles Chan - The Recruitment Guru. A Business Coach that specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & Staffing Agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 recruitment coaching, kindly check here.

How to find clients using twitter for recruitment consultant

Many recruitment consultants are using Linkedin and Facebook for search clients and today I would like to touch base on how Twitter can really help a recruitment consultant to hunt and look for new clients effectively.

Twitter is a micro-blog of Facebook itself and it is can be very targeted if you know what you are doing. I can target all the Managing Director in Singapore or even CEO in Singapore if you know how to do it. Of course, if you want to target human resource personnel, it also can be done. The question is you must know how to do it.

The main advantage of Twitter is that it is under-utilized in Singapore and many people are not even on Twitter yet, not even heard about it. However interestingly some high flyers are using it for their own personal expression platform. Imagine if you are the only recruitment consultant to approach them and you will have no competition at all!

That will be very very very interesting.

If you are a consultant and had been cold-calling to potential clients, I am sure you had faced plenty of rejection straight to the face and usually it feels damn lousy after the rejection. With Twitter, you can add the potential clients as a follower and in turn they may add you as a follower too. Even if they do not add you as a follower, you can actually mention them in the tweet and they will receive the message in their twitter account.

If they were to accept you as a follower, you can send them a direct message and start to build a relationship from there. Some will approach them directly and ask for “job order” but some are smarter to build a basic relationship first. That will be a better approach.

Anyhow, once you established yourself as a reliable follower, you will get more people of that same level and it can more opportunities can be created from there.

Here’s the fun part – People said that Twitter needs to be managed and it takes a lot of effort to search for the right client, then they are VERY WRONG, in the course of my training to the consultants, I had shown them some software available so that they can AUTOMATE the entire process of Tweeting!

The Entire Process of Tweeting can be actually AUTOMATED!

Searching for people with certain keywords, such as, HR, Senior HR, HR Manager, MD, CEO,etc….it is up to your imagination.

Adding them as your followers
Mentioning them in your timeline
Sending them a direct message
Tweeting general topics

Can you imagine you have thousands of TARGETED followers, not just clients but potential candidates? The possibilities are endless! I have found many great clients and candidates from this platform itself using this platform, the market is still considered very raw, you should look into it if you want to have an edge in your search for clients.

Happy Tweeting!

An article by Dougles Chan - The Recruitment Guru. A Business Coach that specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & Staffing Agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 recruitment coaching, kindly check here.

Hello I am looking for more sales

Hello..Hello…I am looking for more sales

This afternoon I received a call from a middle aged lady that ask me what is this Recruitment Guru all about and I advised her that I do consulting, restructuring, branding, training and coaching to recruitment agencies and after explaining to her for over 5 minutes, she told me that she is a recruitment consultant that is looking for more sales….

Ok, I said….I told her that I do personal coaching and mentoring to address individual issues and also covert the person into TOP RECRUITMENT CONSULTANT and I told her there will be a one-to-one assessment after which then will decide how I can assist her and how she want to move on.

She asked what is my rate of coaching and I told her a rate that I know she will not be comfortable with (I deliberately do so because I know this kind of people is not the one I would like to train)

She further asked me what are the things I can teach her to make her sales even more and I replied her the following:

Multiple ways to advertise in jobsteets and jobsDB where even the expert do not know.
Using multiple social media to hunt for clients
Using EDM to mass email to candidates
Other special techniques not available elsewhere….
Plus many others…
The funny thing is that she asked me whether I can cover everything within 1 hour? I told her it is not possible because for one topic it will take me a few hours, she further ask me how old I am and a few other question that shows what “level” she is.

I asked her a question, how many job order are you serving every month? She told me about 10, I politely told her that 10 is not enough and I strongly believe with her skill level is (Just by talking over the phone I will be able to make a conclusion) she will be closing cases where many people are going through: which is well, sad to say is ZERO.

Point to note: if you are using tradition method in a 360 full cycle recruitment, having 10 job assignment per month is absolutely not enough, you will need at least 30-50 job assignments per month to close some decent case. (Not taken in account the Market Tumour in the Recruitment Industry)

Apparently many recruitment agencies and consultants that are tradition are still not able to open up their mind to new ideas and new system to make the entire workflow better and faster by at by least 200%-500% times, it is not surprising though because even the system I taught all the consultants who are even in the industry for over 10 years, I can see that their jaws dropped when I show them how easy they can accomplished things with just a click. The old system had been brainwashed into many agencies and consultants and they only believe what they are doing works like wonders but when things does not seems to turn out well, they work harder but things still does not turn around. When the time had arrived, either they will have to quit and raise the white flag….ans eventually the agencies will close down.

Apologised to the readers that I may sound arrogant but I just want to put across one point, the old system does not work anymore and no matter how hard effort had been put in it WILL NOT WORK!!!

Executive search consultant why most of them will resign in less than 6 months

What is an Executive Search Consultant – In a simple term, it is a higher level of a recruitment consultant when they focus on a higher level and charge higher fees?

They will focus more on the middle to high-level positions and apparently, they do not charge base on one month salary but charge base on per annum salary.

As far as I see from the current market situation, most of the Executive Search Consultants will not make it even up to 6 months, my saying might be strong but I have some valid points that one should ponder hard about it.

Here are some considerations:

1)      If the Executive Search company a new start-up or already in the market for a while? If it is a new setup, the chances of the clients giving them the job order will be pretty slim.

2)      The skills level of the Executive Search Consultants. Are they able to speak well? Do they have high EQ? Do they have good telemarketing skills? Do they have good socializing skills? Do they have good PR skills? Plus many others….To be honest, most of the new Executive Search Consultants are lacking in many of the skills above. Even those who use to be a recruitment consultant for many years, when they move to the Executive Search level, the platform, and the game rules are very different.

3)      The ability to communicate with the top level, this will take good solid corporate experience and people who are only 25 years old will have a hard time communicating with the top level because the top level candidates and the top level companies have that “attitude” where a young chap will not be able to handle. This will take corporate experience, industry exposure and plenty of “hitting the walls” to make it.

4)      Corporate Branding – This will depend on the budget available for the company, if the company believes that using the minimum amount of money can get the things done, I am sorry to say that it does not work that way in the real corporate world. You need to invest heavily in corporate branding, get a good brand name, create a great logo, build a super website, let a lot of people know the company exists and consistently let the public know that you are there…this will need money but it is important to do so to be successful.

5)      Personal Branding- Most of the Executive Search Consultants do not pay attention to their own branding in term of how they speak, how they dress, what they say and they do not even have their own website about themselves and not talking about their own social network of “FANS.” If you are not branded and famous in the market, you will be another one of them…

It takes experience, exposure, hard-knocking and a good mentor that trains you EVERYDAY to make it happen. Success does not come easy. You need to be smarter, more creative, with some luck and if you have a good mentor guiding you, it will make your path very much easier.

An article by Dougles Chan, SEO Singapore Master  

Things to remember when you are dealing with recruitment consultants

We’ve always stated how it’s not easy being a recruitment consultant when you have to screen so many applicants, match them with the needs of the clients and ensure that both parties do well as they promise. But on the other side, it’s also not easy to be the job applicant. Some of you may not have any prior experience to dealing with one. So it’s best to be informed.

We’ve narrowed down the list to 5 tips you have to always remember when dealing with a recruitment consultant. We know how it works. You may not. So it’s best to be prepared.

5 Essential Tips to Remember in Dealing with a Consultant

1. Be truthful. Never exaggerate or overpromise. In the same way that you should not overpromise or exaggerate yourself to a company’s hiring manager, you should be truthful to a consultant. A recruitment consultant is your link to numerous companies. These are companies that are out of your reach. If you do not tell them what you want, what you can do and where you want to go then, they may misrepresent you. A company may want you based on the traits you really do not possess. If you are found out, you will burn bridges and your recruitment consultant may not want to represent you anymore.

2. Never say no to an interview. We do not know you. All we have is your resume. You may have a good resume but the same goes for the rest. All consultants want to maintain a quality database of candidates. And if you are good to our eyes then, you may just be one among the rest. If you want to stand out, go to interviews. It’ll make all the difference. Your personality and the way you present yourself will help you stand out in the crowd and land that next job for you.

3. Do not misrepresent the facts. If you have a desired salary in mind, inform the recruitment consultant. The last thing you want is to say a low range to your recruitment consultant and ask for a higher compensation in your company interview. Your credibility is at stake here. Don’t be afraid to be honest about your compensation requirements to your consultant. Most of us earn a percentage of your fee so it wouldn’t hinder us in job negotiations. State the facts as they are. They’ll work for you, not against you.

4. Be accessible. You may get so many calls from consultant from time to time even when you’re not out there looking for a job. Answer their calls. Keep your doors open. Another thing, consultants won’t know your talent when they do not get any access to you. Join social networks like LinkedIn. Post your resumes. Search the job boards. Recruitment consultants are there to help you out but they can’t do that if you don’t help them.

5. Avoid getting behind their backs. Some consultants will tell you that they shortlisted you to one of their client companies. Some will tell you the name of the companies. If you don’t receive any call for an interview, don’t go behind their backs and submit your resumes to the companies yourself. There is a reason companies hire the services of consultants. They would not want to screen all the applicants themselves. They trust that the recruitment consultants will do that for them. If you hand in your resume to these companies, there’s a huge chance they won’t even take a look at it. Worse, you risk losing that relationship with your consultants who will open doors for you.


An article by Dougles Chan, SEO Singapore Master | dougleschan.comDigital Marketing Singapore Guru

How to Start a Recruitment Agency From Home

Want to start a recruitment agency directly from your own home? It’s really possible and with that kind of setup, you will not only enjoy decent income from the business but also a flexible schedule, so that if you need to take care of your kids or run errands, you will be able to do so easily. You can have the best of both worlds where you will earn income, be free from the routine of normal working hours, and spend quality time with your family.

Here are the steps to starting a recruitment agency from home.

1) Think of a great name for your business: something iconic, easy to remember, and not too long. When you have decided on the name of your business, register the name in your local business authority to make it a legal entity. Depending on your country regulations, you might be required to get a license for it. In Singapore, you will need to have a license, so please check the process to apply for a Singapore employment agency license.

2) Get your website domain name, make sure it is as close to your business name as possible. Get a web designer to build the site for you professionally. Also, determine whether you want to set up a general recruitment business or a specialized recruitment business.

3) Get your business cards printed. I believe your web designer will have also made your business logo. Please ensure you get it done professionally; your clients and candidates will know whether your logo is a DIY logo. A less-than-professional logo does not make a good impression.

4) Please ensure your business address is registered as a corporate address. A home address will reveal what level you are, even if your office is registered as a virtual office, which is perfectly fine. People do understand, but if you want to save money on these things, you will send out the wrong impression to other people and your business may not work out.

5) Generate clients and job orders; ensure you have 20-30 job orders to work on per person (monthly) so that your ability to close more cases will be higher. 

6) Work on your job orders with lighting speed- Be very careful of The Market Tumors In the Recruitment Industry.

7) Close as many cases as you can within your ability.

8) Last but not least, enjoy every month in life because you deserve it!

An article by Dougles Chan, SEO Singapore Master | Digital Marketing Singapore Guru

Business Planning Software – Are They Helpful?

An article written by Dougles Chan - Recruitment Business Guru

Entrepreneurs and owners of the business make use of different kinds of business plan programs and software. The chief reason behind employing these tools is to make simpler the overall process of devising compact financial models. In today’s market, these software packages have become quite widespread, but still of most of the folks conducting the sophisticated fiscal projections in an extremely demanding chore. Yet, intelligent and reliable software is capable of forecasting financial situations, which eventually makes this job comparatively much easier.

A question might pop up in the minds of marketing strategies makers that are these programs really dependable. Well, the answer to this question is “Yes, to some extent.” Basically, business planning programs are the interactive and dynamic planning tools. The core purpose of such software is to take the hard work out of the entire time-consuming and complex procedure of financial forecasting.

Combined with bit by bit approach and user-friendly functions; interactive business planning programs help in saving lots of precious time. As aforementioned, they are incredibly practical and clear-cut to use. Thereby, such tools are well suited for the fresh entrepreneurs who are looking out to know how to start a business in an effective way. Following are some of the prominent features of business planning programs.

Convenient Sections
Topnotch software breaks the whole process of planning a business into different steps. Generally, these steps include five different sections, such as Income, Company, Interview, Expenses and Plan. Apparently, first four segments are expertly designed to gather data and information about all the resources and current position of the concerned company. Later on, this information is utilized to contrive the best possible business plan accordingly.

Information is often gathered by giving the blanks to fill, asking straightforward questions and by giving interactive instructions in easy to understand language. After collecting all the data from business owners, software begins the process of building the profile of the company. In addition to it, Expense and Income worksheets are provided as well, which are used to project weekly, biweekly or monthly amounts.

The fifth and last segment is aimed to help the users in writing the plans for business and marketing strategies. This section offers assistance in the form of different topic guides. Some tabs are also presented as examples. So that entrepreneurs and the owners of business can easily put the right information in the right place. Users also get the privilege of built-in text editors which helps in avoiding basic spelling and grammatical errors.

Highly Adaptable
It is quite safe to say that adaptability is one of those properties that make these programs highly convenient for those folks who are trying to find out how to start a business. Everyone knows that in business, conditions change faster than weather and business planning software provide loads of assistance to counter this challenge. If a business owner is looking forward to hire some new workers, or going to add or cut out several products which can affect the main line of supply. In this case, the software is fully capable to update all the related fiscal statements automatically.

In addition to it, the best thing about these highly sophisticated, yet easy to use programs is that they generally come with the free demo versions. It means that entrepreneurs can test them without even paying a single penny. They can ensure if the considered business plan software renders all those features they are looking for. Some software comes with thirty days of demo versions, while others could offer even three months of free usage. It is definitely a great way to getting business strategies, without risking any money.

5 Steps to Create an Effective Business Plan

For he who is an entrepreneur who has ideas to start a business venture. And those who know which products or services should be offered and which marketplace would be ideal for a new businessman. In this case there is only one thing left that one should mull: a useful business plan.  There are some people out there who fear the notion of creating a thorough plan for the business they want to commence.

They basically think about them as needless, complicated documents with only purpose to make the challenge of entrepreneurship even more intricate. In reality, they are absolutely wrong! If a person has some solid business ideas but he does not put them into right order. Then, chances are he might not be able to get the most out of his ideas. This is where expertly devised plans for business come to rescue. They assist businessmen in putting all thoughts in a right order.

If one is ready to step in a new business and wants to attract some investors by creating a catchy plan for one’s business, then following sections will be very helpful.

Executive Summary
Although from technical perspective, this particular segment will come first in business plan. But it should be written after the completion of other sections. The reason behind it is quite straightforward. If one takes a look at its name they will recognize that “Executive Summary” sums up all the contents of a plan. Since, they are so many folks who do not even bother to go further than this section. That’s why; it imperative to ensure that this summary is well-written as well as comprehensive.

Overview of the Company
The force of management and entrepreneurship which empowers the business is essentially explicated in this section. It gives one’s readers an opportunity to show actually what one got in their mind. Generally, an overview of the company goes by mentioning objectives, goals and mission statements. Also, mentioning this is very important at the time when the company is looking to raise funding from an external source. Having said that, when a company tries to sell some shares, having a good description about the company helps a great deal in setting a higher price. A sound business introduction makes sure that people get to know the true worth of it and potential buyers get carried away by the amount of return that the company may have to offer. Not to mention, it tells of the finesse and expertise of the management in making business documents.

Environment of Business
All the crucial information regarding one’s competitors, market and industry are provided in this section. An entrepreneur or business planner probably needs to conduct some extended research as well to make this part truly valuable. The planners of business can do this by honestly figuring out all the trends, structure as well as the potential roadblocks in the way of new business.

Description of the Company
The detailed scrutiny of one’s business is required in order to jot down this part of the plan. It will not sound too good, if a company is defined merely from the sales viewpoint. Other things like one’s chief resources, the quality of employment, one’s targeted customers and other aspects similar to them should also be noted. 

Plan of Action
It is apparently the most critical segment of the entire business sketch. It basically outlines all business ideas and steps which will help one in accomplishing all the targets. Thereby, objectives and goals which are presented in the overview section should be reflected here too. Eventually, it will give a whole picture of one’s endeavors to those who might be interested to collaborate.

An article written by Dougles Chan - Recruitment Business Guru for Staffing Agency

Entrepreneurship – 2 Common Financial Mistakes to Avoid

The flourishing business executives who completely understand the entrepreneur definition know the real significance of capital in the venture. However, still some newbie enterprisers make some mistakes, which eventually diminish the odds of their organization to grow in a way it ought to be. In this article, some of those pratfalls are discussed along with their implementable solutions.

1st Mistake – Holding Too Much Cash in Stock Market

Keeping a substantial proportion of personal cash in stock exchange could eliminate the opportunities for business owners that generally arise during major economic downswings. According to the experts who have the best business ideas, it’s during these tricky fiscal scenarios when the properly positioned business executives could easily thrive. Those enterprisers with liquid and safe possessions always keep the power to steal the deal for their ventures, whenever the economical conditions get tight.

It is quite wise for the business owners to keep a reasonable amount of liquid possessions in a spot which can be accessed without a delay. This might be true that for some time these owners of the business might not receive interest rates as high as the others. But, they should rely upon their entrepreneurial skills. After all, one can easily compensate all the so-called loses by purchasing equipment and inventory for pennies during shortfalls from those rivals who are running out of the industry.

Solution to 1st Mistake:

 The owners of social enterprise should keep their cash in such place which is easy to access and does not get influenced by the fluctuations in the stock exchange. Money market stores, short term capital funds and short run CD’s could be advantageous. For those who want long term strategies, certain kinds of life insurances which are properly structured are available.

By considering this option some of the professionals who are well aware of entrepreneur definition and its tricks might feel inept at first. After all, everyone else around him/her would be generating wealth by making deals at the stock exchange. But, be sure, they are more likely to attain merely mediocre echelon of earnings. Whereas, those who have liquid assets would be in the position to use their money in a way they want. No doubt, some risks are involved in it, but this is the true delight of owning a venture.

It is also advised to the entrepreneurs not to swim in waters that they are not fully aware of. Stock market is a very volatile place and it is not always a holiday for them where they would leave their money and check after a few days to find them increased substantially. Nor is it a place that would make their investments going up and up in the matter of minutes. There is a delicate balance between taking time and being patience to being proactive and swift in action, which if met can bring tremendous success in stock marketing ventures.

2nd Mistake – Keeping Too Much Cash in the Retirement Accounts

Those business executives who have staggering business ideas are well aware of this fact that their sterling capability to gather huge profits lies in the competence to expand the scope of their organization. However, some owners of the business ignore it and put a sizable amount of their personal liquid possessions in the retirement accounts. As a result, it halts their capability to expand their business venture.

Solution to 2nd Mistake

The best way to avoid this mistake for the owners and operators of social enterprise is by concentrating on those fiscal vehicles which are much more liquid. Those modern life insurance policies that offer max funded value of the cash could be a great solution to this problem.

An article by Dougles Chan - Recruitment Guru. A Business Coach that specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & staffing agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Talks about Pareto Principle - 80 20 rule.  Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 recruitment coaching, kindly check here.

Entrepreneurship: Which Characteristics It Demands?

The first and probably most imperative lineament which entrepreneurship calls for in individuals is innovation and creativity. One can find this quality even in nestlings. Some kids grab financial rewards after the completion of certain assigned task at home. There are some children too who get persistent fiscal support from parents or guardians for making out nothing at all. But there is also a small group of kids out there who go out and hunt down diverse means by themselves to earn money.

Well, the most latter group has the top upcoming business executives. Obviously, the people in this group are significantly lesser as compared to other two. The kids with sense to devise a basic business plan are always looking forward to capitalize on any money-spinning opportunity. They have competence to make their own decisions in a timely way, instead of counting on somebody else. Some of the other characteristics which are necessary for being a prominent business executive are discussed below.

Result Orientation – The world’s best enterprisers never settle down when a negative answer. In case they get this kind of response, they begin to inquire about things like “can somebody suggest any fellow who could be assistive?” and other questions like it. They never let any door totally close, before opening the next one. It all happens because of their curiosity of achieving huge goals, when they finally get to know how to start a business. For them, positive result is the biggest preference, even greater than the dollar signs.

Integrity – In entrepreneurship, it is the quality that makes enterprisers completely independent and self governing. In point of fact, the absence of this certain characteristic will also contradict the primary definition of entrepreneurism to some extent. Yes, genuine business executives might seem ruthless at times. But it does not actually happen on purpose to go beyond other people. In reality, the well determined enterprisers may look a bit heartless only for the reason that they are too driven.

Good business executives always know the imperativeness of respecting others around them, including their customers, employees and competitors as well. After all, it is almost impossible to sustain and grow a massive business plan without support and backing of other kinfolks. Probably that is the reason why nearly all the flourishing individuals on this planet quite humble, caring, unassuming as well as great listener. It is obviously not possible to purchase all these characteristics. They are essentially intrinsic and real enterprisers have plentiful of them.

Customer Focused – Each and every expert who knows how to start a business is well aware of this universal fact that an entrepreneur and business is nothing without loyal and happy customers. There are so many regular owners of the business who are also acquainted with this piece of information. However, the way they approach their customers differentiates the standard business owners and leading enterprisers. In other words, the world’s most successful leaders of the business always truly appreciate and value their customers. They strive to sort out the preferences of their customers and then modify products or services accordingly.   

Personal Skills – Another amazing trait of superb business executives, which lack in the mediocre ones, are the personal skills. Each and every matchless entrepreneur is well aware with the imperativeness of the personal capabilities. They always rely upon these skills to set up, sustain and grow their business in the huge competition. In addition to it, they do not employ their personal skills to sort out their private issues, but always stand firm to provide any kind of assistance to the business organization as well. This is what that makes them immensely successful.

An article by Dougles Chan - Recruitment Guru. A Business Coach that specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & staffing agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Talks about Pareto Principle - 80 20 rule.  Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 recruitment coaching, kindly check here.

Cloud Computing - What it is and How it Works

Nowadays, the concept of Cloud Computing is an emerging IT delivery model. It is a rising computing technology that uses both the Internet, and central remote servers, located within the Internet, to maintain data and applications. The technology lets consumers, enterprises and businesses, to use applications, without having any need for software, or hardware installation, providing an always on access capability, to their files at any computer with Internet access, at any place and any time.

The Internet is basically the, "cloud" for all the applications, and services that are available to be accessed by subscribers. A person simply has to log into their desired computer application - for example, a sales force or office automation program, a web service, a data storage service, spam filtering, or blog sites. Usually, you get access to these programs by monthly or annually paid subscriptions. This technology allows for far more efficient computing by centralizing storage, memory, and processing.

Cloud computing, basically consists of hardware, and software resources, which are made available on the Internet. These are specifically known as cloud computing services. These services normally, provide access to advanced software applications, and high-end networks of server computers. The services of this technology can be chiefly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

Cloud computing has become very significant, in the IT and business world. This is due to the countless benefits driven from this concept. Advantages can be obtained from this massive web infrastructure by both small and medium sized businesses. Moreover, many huge enterprises and governments are now shifting towards cloud computing, because of its greater significance and importance.

Cloud Computing, is in frenzy these days, because it can considerably reduce IT costs and other technology complexities, whilst improving workload optimization, and service delivery. The technology is extremely scalable. It provides a superior user experience.

Furthermore, it hardly requires any time to be arranged, and established since there is no need to buy hardware, software licenses or their implementation services. Also unlike other services, there are only skilled practitioners, dealing in cloud computing. Normally, whenever any technology becomes all the rage and is recognized, a lot of people start to become more interested in it. In the case of cloud computing, vendors; specifically the more reputable ones, offer their customers very reliable services, with unlimited storage and computing capacity. Some of these vendors include Microsoft, Google, IBM, Yahoo Inc. etc.

In cloud computing, there are two basic general types of clouds: public cloud and private cloud. A public cloud, typically sells services to anyone on the Internet. Anyone can use it. There is usually no or very little privacy as such involved in it. A private cloud on the other hand, is usually a proprietary network, or a data center that provides hosted services to a restricted number of people. When a service provider uses public cloud resources, to create a private cloud, the result is often called a virtual private cloud or a hybrid.

Cloud Computing offers a significant amount of potential benefits but at the same time a balance has to be maintained on the downsides of using this technology such as diminished privacy and control of your data.

An article by Dougles Chan - Recruitment Guru. A Business Coach that specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & staffing agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Talks about Pareto Principle - 80 20 rule.  Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 recruitment coaching, kindly check here.

Know About IT Infrastructure Services and Solutions

With the digitization of all data and information, companies today rely extensively on a solid IT infrastructure. It is the need of the hour to have a flawless IT Infrastructure service that can guarantee security and proper access to information even through mobile devices.

IT Infrastructure Services Overview

With Infrastructure management services, you will be able to get assistance with planning, design, and implementation of IT strategies for your organization. These services will also help manage any IT requirement that is mission-critical for organizations.

With most service providers you have the advantage of technical knowledge combined with an in-depth study of specific industries to ensure that you get maximum value with the investments made in your IT infrastructure.

Today, it is essential for organizations to have the facility to automate all their processes and also have open computing options. In addition to that, the Infrastructure Management Services today is designed to be agile so that it can be transformed in order to adhere to any larger business goal that organizations may set for themselves. It also allows organizations to stay in tune with current trends and implement changes as per the dynamic nature of their industry.

IT Infrastructure Services and Solutions

The demands of the IT infrastructure are fulfilled by the following services and solutions:

· Operations Management: Execution and excellence in operations is the cornerstone to run an enterprise successfully. This means that the output needs to be maximized while the IT solutions provided for any business operates as required.

· Network Management: It is necessary to have a solid network of employees, partners, and customers through business applications. It is almost impossible for your business to function as needed without proper access to these apps. To ensure that, a secure and robust network is necessary so that data can remain secure and agile.

· Workplace Transformation: The primary concern with any business technology is the end user. The applications need to be flexible and personalized for your IT infrastructure to be manageable and meet the demands of the end user.

· Security Service: Keeping data and assets secure is important for all businesses. There are several threats to security today which has made enterprises look for options that can help them manage these threats proactively. This also reduces the cost of operations when managed internally.

· Remote Infrastructure Management and Monitoring: In order to keep it flexible, they can be monitored through the cloud -based solutions that also allow you to remotely manage data and processes.

· Datacenter Management: It is true that data continues to grow with your business. This can affect the performance of the systems and also pose challenges with respect to scalability. For this, service providers track data and assets to provide datacenter management options that utilize your resources effectively.

· Product Support: All the issues related to the implementation of good IT infrastructure whether it is related to performance, configuration, capacity management, analysis, design or auditing will be taken care of by the service providers.

· End-user Computing: These services allow you to transform the environment of the end user to make it possible for them to access your IT infrastructure better while keeping your data secure. It is possible to build an agile and collaborative workplace for end users with proper management and efficient design. These services include data and asset management, desk imaging, IT help desks, remote login options, software distribution, desktop migration and lots more.

· Cloud Computing: The IT infrastructure of an organization can be consolidated and adopted into a cloud-based system. End to end solutions to create better cloud-enabled services to ensure a self-provisioning system that can address the challenge of deploying work virtually. There are several other services such as server virtualization, storage virtualization, database virtualization, network virtualization, desktop virtualization and remote monitoring that are available with cloud-based systems.

An article by Dougles Chan - Recruitment Guru. A Business Coach that specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & staffing agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Talks about Pareto Principle - 80 20 rule.  Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 recruitment coaching, kindly check here.

A Wearable Technologist's Manifesto

The Medium of Wearable Technology

Wearable technology is everywhere, you just weren't paying attention. It's on your wrist. It's on your face. It's in your shoes. It is your watch, your glasses, your sportswear. It introduces new capabilities and resources to your day-to-day living. Any technology that you wear is wearable technology. But it can be so much more.

Today, wearable technology is most commonly defined as garments and accessories that integrate circuitry, are made of technologically significant materials, or produced by technologically significant means, be it accelerometers (tilt sensors) in your shoes, LEDs (lights) in your dress, peltier modules (heaters) in your jacket, or t-shirts with print patterns designed with a computer algorithm. It is new, it is different, it is undervalued, and all too commonly misused.

The military and athletic industries dominate the wearable technology scene as commercial and research interests to improve user performance and communication. Outside of the commercial mainstream, it appears in tech blogs as a game of "one up" to see how many LEDs a designer can fit onto a single dress.

The Practice of the Wearable Technology

Wearable technology must be three things: it must be small so that it is wearable, it must be attractive so that people will wear it, and it must be functional so that people will have a reason to wear it. All else is needless elaboration.

Wearable technology is of two worlds and too often its practitioners loose track of one side or the other: creating opulent dresses of LEDs-all light and fury, signifying nothing-or fearfully functional works that might aid the body but at the cost of any aesthetics or comfort. Indeed, wearable technology binds two worlds that are too often devoid of interdisciplinary consideration.

Wearable (read: fashion)

Fashion is too trendy for its own good. The paradigm of fashion is one of seated authorities dictating the current style to the masses. And while industry has control of what it outputs, buyers, more than ever, have control over what they choose to consume. Though our tastes are our own, I will stand by the flavor of elegance-not the elegance of opulence but the elegance that comes of optimality. No, I believe in the simplicity of line, the delicacy of cut, the timelessness of rationality.

I leave it to you to choose what to buy but chastise those who similarly choose what to sell. Fashion is not eternally tied to the theocracy of labeled priests and boutique temples. If the Internet has done anything to fashion, it is that it has opened the consumers to a wider range of possibilities than ever before. Though fashion always had a trickle down process to the Kmart clothing racks for the masses, this new means of commercial structure-like that of MySpace music groups and YouTube amateur series before-allows smaller or more niche designers to find a larger audience for limited runs of clothes. Of course, the transition is harder than the transition of already digital goods that can be sampled online. The Internet lacks the convenience of a dressing room with which to try on potential purchases for fit, drape, and complementary colors. Yet people are buying online, and there is little reason to expect that market to do anything but grow in the future.

Technology

The technological market place has been historically unconscious of the end user. Computers were initially used by programmers and technicians that knew the inner workings of the computers. For them, the arcane acronyms in commands were adequate to control the computer. It was only with Smalltalk, followed by its adoption and adaptation by Apple, that the concept of the user illusion was introduced to the computing world. The user illusion allows users to create their own experimental narrative of how content on the computer is represented and should be used without knowing anything about the inner workings of the computer. Everything in the computer is just a series of "0″s and "1″s, but we perceive them as metaphors for physical objects that have meaning to us. From the user illusion comes the imagery of desktops, trash cans, folders, files, and documents.

While this approach is gaining ground it still has a ways to go and room to expand. Those not clued in, think that adding a drop-shadow and reflection to their websites and applications will make them like Apple. No, what matters most of all-what should be at the top of our consciousness when creating-is the user.
Wearable technology schematic, in a nutshell

The Potential of the Wearable Technology

Wearable technology is a medium characterized by its closeness to the body-it is the closest we can get to the body short of subdermal implants. This makes it ideal for taking measurement and monitoring body states. Unlike other medical technology, it is also integrated into the day-to-day life of the wearer, so that it can collect readings over a greater period of time and react to body movements and biometric shifts. These capabilities speak to wearable technology's singular potential to be intimately and innately sensitive. Why is it, then, that these characteristics are so often over looked?

Much of today's technology employs an overt interface. Users are presented with keys, buttons, switches, levers, knobs, call them what you will-label them if you must-to control their technology. But all these means of entry are abstractions of the message. The medium may be the message that is currently conveyed, but it is far from the intent. Our intent is formed before it was composed into words, typed onto a screen, sent to another screen to be read by another. Our true meaning is something inside of us that has yet to find a means of pure expression. Even our migration to touch screens and finger gestures does not represent a transition from the consciousness but a smoother means of operating with it. And while I do not claim that wearable technology is a means of undiluted communication, it is a means of coming one step closer to it.

Wearable technology can take in the unconscious gestures of a user. By unconscious, I do not, by any stretch, imply that these actions are not meaningful. Much of our functions, actions, and reactions are left to our unconscious to decide and execute. Indeed, "left to" is a bit of a misnomer in that implies that the consciousness has some part in giving over control. If the experiments of Libet on neurological stimulation and awareness prove anything, it is that the consciousness is a final authority that is called on by the subconscious to validate an action. Our unconscious actions have faster response times, unhindered initiation, and more undiluted meaning. Wearable technology is in a, quite literally, unique position to monitor these actions and convey meaning to them.

And so create. Create beauty. Create use. Create usability. Create wearable technology that does more than flash lights, that does more that warm feet. Create wearable technology that inspires, intrigues, and enhances the users' life. We have a unique medium with as yet unimagined potential.

Elizabeth is a native of California, now exported to New York where she develops wearable technology at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications program. Elizabeth combines her past studies in mass communication and work in web development with her current work on physical computing. She is fascinated by computer mediated communications--transitioning from a computer dominated interaction to one where the computer is an unobtrusive enabler. Her work explores augmented awareness and pieces operating on the threshold of psychological and physiological consciousness. To integrate technology into everyday living in an intimate and innate interface, Elizabeth integrates technological circuitry with garments and accessories.

An article by Dougles Chan - Recruitment Guru. A Business Coach that specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & staffing agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Talks about Pareto Principle - 80 20 rule.  Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 recruitment coaching, kindly check here.

The Importance of Network Monitoring in Your Business' IT Department

A good network administrator quickly addresses issues that jeopardize your company's network infrastructure. But a great one goes the extra mile and uses a reliable network monitoring solution to proactively identify, intercept, and prevent the issues.

What is network monitoring? And why should I care? Network monitoring serves as your eyes-and-ears, alerting you to any issues on your network. You can keep track of things like printer supplies, software installations, hard drive space, contract due dates -- just about anything you can think of that relates to your network.

The vast majority of problems that arise in a network are directly related to something changing. The best network monitoring solutions will not only alert you to these changes, but will also help you troubleshoot the issue by allowing you to compare your network's current state with what it looked like before the change. This means you can solve the problem faster!

The most proactive of IT pros set up their network monitoring systems to alert them via email or text message whenever issues arise. This not only keeps them on top of potential problems so they can address them as quickly as possible, but it also prevents them from creating an issue. Plus, this type of proactive problem solving makes you a household favorite with everyone from your boss to your customers!

What should I look for in a network monitor solution? While every network is different, there are four areas that any best-of-the-best network monitor should be able to do:

Monitor PC hardware and supplies: A key component to network monitoring is knowing when changes are made to your network devices. You need to be alerted when disk space is low, disks are removed or added, devices lose connectivity, or toner gets low so you can immediately address the problems.

Monitor software: Monitoring software is more than just keeping track of what is being installed and uninstalled on your computers. Proper network monitoring means:

Keeping track of installations
Noting which licenses are set to expire
Knowing which hotfixes (patches to fix specific bugs) are installed
Staying on top of the current state of all Windows services on each machine
Making sure all of your computers are protected with an up to date antivirus software
Monitor web traffic: Networks only have a limited amount of bandwidth for all employees to share. For instance, if one employee is using a large chunk of the bandwidth, it causes a traffic jam that negatively impacts everyone else on the same network. This becomes an even more pronounced issue when you use network switches and end up accidentally overloading another switch which leaves the others practically empty. The most effective network monitoring setup will let you see where bottlenecks are occurring and how evenly the devices are distributed.

Keep track of your IT services info: There are many things on your network you'll want to track that aren't necessarily physical objects, such as noting which IT service contracts are set to expire. It's not something you initially think of when working with a network monitor, but it can provide additional benefits such as helping your organization to save money. By giving you plenty of advanced notice that your IT contracts are set to expire, you allot yourself plenty of time to shop around and do your research to get the best deals.

Which network monitoring tool is best? OK, so now you understand how monitoring network problems will help keep your users productive, your bosses happy, and reduce your stress levels by addressing issues before they accelerate... but how do you know which network monitoring tool is the right one?

As with any other major purchase, you want to do your research and investigate which solutions software companies offer. You'll find plenty of companies out there with network monitoring solutions that could help your organization. But note that several network monitoring software packages cost thousands of dollars for setup and installation, training, maintenance, and regular patches and fixes. Not to mention, the amount of valuable time you'll spend evaluation each product to ensure it's worth its price.