productivityGet Creative at Home
Here’s a neat rule to get the most out of your work day (for people in a position to pull it off, meaning business owners): Do creative work at home and boring work, where you may need some compulsion, at the office. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, researchers found that when it came to creative tasks people were 11 to 20 percent more productive outside the lab. For rote and repetitive tasks, however, they were 6 to 10 percent less productive when not in a formal work environment.
team buildingWow, Wow, Wow
“Everybody likes a compliment,” Abraham Lincoln famously observed. But most humans are weirdly parsimonious about handing out kind words. To keep the good feelings flowing at Focus Eye Care in Hackensack, NJ, management installed a “WOW Box” in the back office and encouraged staff to write something positive about another staff member that motivated them. “Often the notes contain funny messages and inside jokes that go over our heads, but the point is we enjoy it,” says manager Vlad Cordero.
marketingReal People. Real Eyewear.
Nothing says genuine quite like images of real clients. Itopian Optical in Fort Myers, FL, understands this better than most. Every two years it organizes a client photo shoot and goes all the way, bringing in make-up artists, hairdressers, caterers and a professional photographer along with a few frame vendors to help style the customers. The images send a message of “Real People, Real Eyewear,” says owner Kelly Chasnov, adding that they are used for all the store’s marketing as well as on thank-you cards, their LED sign and front windows as sun shades.
social mediaAnd Live From…
Thanks to social media everyone can be a correspondent today. It’s a role the staff at Cool Dog Gear, a three-store pet supply chain in Pennsylvania, have gleefully accepted, beaming back Facebook Live posts from every trade show they attend. “We find a cool item and we do a little infomercial right then and there with the rep telling us all about the item — “And coming soon to Cool Dog Gear!” co-owner Sue Hener told INVISION’s sister publication PETS+. “By the time we get back from the show there are customers waiting to buy it!”
sellingIs That So?
In The Patterson Principles of Selling, Jeffrey Gitomer suggests training yourself to be a better listener by asking a question at the end of your customers’ statements. If you make your own statement, it’s possible you were interrupting. But if you ask a question, you almost have to wait until they’re finished speaking.
SELF IMPROVEMENTUp Your Reading Game
Want to read more? Try what serial entrepreneur, business author and general overachiever James Altucher does and read about 30 pages of five books each day. Given the average American reads about 250 words a minute, or about a page a minute, that’s 2.3 hours. Don’t have that much time? How about 25 pages of three books? That’s little more time than it takes to watch an episode of the Kardashians.