The Manager's Resource Handbook
Tools, Resources and Guides for Managers and Business Leaders. Real Advice from Real Bosses.
How to Grow With Current Customers: A Case Example In Sales and Marketing, we spend a lot of time pursuing new customers and new channels of growth. But we frequently lose sight of the sales potential right in front of us. Our best customers are often our current customers. And for this reason, we should always treat our current buyers with
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Identifying What Customers Value Think about the last time you went into a store prepared to buy something, but eventually left empty-handed. What was the reason you, as a customer, did not make that purchase? There are many possible answers to this question; maybe it was too expensive, the quality may not have been to your liking, or you simply
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Why Your Employees Need to Learn the Local Culture As technology advances, the world gets smaller and smaller. Email, conference calls and WeChat offer us instant communication to opposite ends of the globe. Whether you routinely jet set to far away places to meet with your customers, or you never leave your comfort of your office, working alongside people from another culture
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In 1972, American Bobby Fischer won the World Chess Championship by beating Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union. It was a match publicized worldwide as the battle between two superpowers. While both nations had massive nuclear arsenals, this particular battle was fought with figurines on a game board. Now, while I know who Bobby Fischer was, I admit that I
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Managing people is a complex business. There are personality differences, business pressures and customers to face on a daily basis. Tip #6 discussed how good leaders need to show their human side. As a leader of people, it’s important to tap into the human element of curiosity. Plenty of literature exists supporting the notion that a learning organization is the best model for
» Read more An article I read today by Rosabeth Moss Kanter over @HarvardBiz summed up what I believe to be the epitome of good management. In the article, Kanter states the following: “Good management is a series of well thought-through actions including phases, communications, checkpoints, customer-impact-testing, metrics, contingencies, and feedback loops, designed to produce specified results on time and on budget, based
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Management is inherently ambiguous. As a business leader, we make decisions throughout the day on a variety of matters. Issues arise through email, during a visit to our office or on a phone call, and our decisions impact the business, the people and the customers. Because of the impact, decision making is a particularly challenging aspect of management, and it is here where
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How to Hold Employees Accountable and Get the Results You Need Among the many challenges first-time managers and business leaders face, learning how to hold employees accountable is perhaps the most difficult skill to master. Holding employees accountable is essential because the results managers are expected to deliver depend on the performance and contribution of their individual employees. Thus, managers
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How Emphasis on Fundamentals Leads To More Successful Business I was recently working with a large multi-billion euro corporation that ranks high on the Fortune 500 list. Unlike small companies, this firm is publicly traded and has a stock price that has done very well for quite some time. In the eyes of investors, it had all the right chemical make-up of
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All things being equal, a manager who maintains a positive attitude, even in times of adversity, will get more out of their team than the manager who casts a shadow of negativity. In Tip #5, integrity was discussed as the standard to which good managers hold themselves. The next tip is often a byproduct of integrity – a positive, can-do attitude.
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Earlier in the Management Success Series, we talked about integrity and the importance of being honest and open with your team. But as we discussed, we as managers cannot always fulfill promises no matter how hard we try. And while integrity can remain constant, the business environment can be difficult to navigate. We as managers can make mistakes, and that’s what makes
» Read more How to Present Information to Your Target Audience We’ve all experienced it. We ask for an update and our employee who sits just three offices down writes you an email that takes them an hour to write, and you 20 minutes to read. Or, we get 4 attachments full of data and numbers that clog our inbox. The concept of audience is taught
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Breaking News: Managers actually have two jobs! Previously in the Management Success Series, we talked about influence and visibility as key managerial traits. In Tip #3, we discussed common sense and the need to adapt amid a constant state of change. There’s an added layer of complexity that good business leaders and managers need to understand. Early in my career, I had a
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How to Conduct a SWOT Analysis: Take a Closer Look At Your Business Leading a successful company requires you periodically spend time identifying ways to improve and get better. A SWOT analysis is one evaluation method that aids in organizing characteristics of your business that you deem as successes or concerns. Specifically, a SWOT analysis is an evaluation technique that helps you capture the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats
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How to Restructure an Organization If you’ve ever been part of restructuring of an organization, you know that the very mention of it can induce a sense of worry. Restructuring a company is tough and takes a great deal of careful planning. Moreover, business renewal is never easy nor is it fun because big decisions need to be made that affect
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The previous tips in this series discussed the importance of influence (Tip #1) and visibility (Tip #2) as a manager. Both of these may seem pretty obvious, which leads us to Tip #3. On a flight not too long ago, I had a typical business traveler conversation with the passenger sitting next to me. You know, it was that “What do you do?”,
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Tip #1 of the Management Success Series described influence as a key ingredient in good managers. You have to be able to maneuver and pull various levers to make things happen, while simultaneously pulling your team along with you. Influence, like trust, is something that is built over time but easily lost. A good means of establishing your influence and building trust is
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The Transition to Management It’s a common experience. You left work on Friday afternoon thinking about your weekend plans. On Friday you were just a team member and part of the “crew.” On Friday, you were given your tasks and were not responsible for what others did. Sure, you were part of a team, but you were pretty much responsible for yourself. Then, on Monday you start
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Managing a Virtual Staff If you are a manager who spends a lot of time on the phone with your employees who sit nine time zones away, you’ve come to the right place. These days, many managers find themselves responsible for employees overseas. Whether these employees report directly to you, or to a local in-country manager, the challenges of working with remote workers are
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