At first thought you might be tempted to think that a recession is the worst possible time to start a business. This certainly isn’t the case! Some very profitable businesses were launched during times of recession because they took advantage of some key factors.

With some smart and creative thinking, you can have your business launched in no time. If you have a clear plan, you can make this happen regardless of the state of the economy.

These tips can help you take advantage of the recession to get your business off to a great start:

1. Start up costs can be lower. It’s less expensive to start a business during a recession than at other times. This is because other businesses are offering deals left and right. You might be able to get lower advertising rates as well as deals on supplies, inventory, services, and more.

2. Take advantage of advertising. In addition to lower ad costs, you may also find that competitors have their guard down. They may be counting on the fact that there aren’t any new competitors, or maybe their financial situations warrant them cutting out advertising altogether. This leaves their customers ripe for snatching.

3. Provide excellent customer service. Excellent customer service matters. Between two businesses, with all things equal, the company with the better customer service always wins. After all, people always desire to be treated well.

• In a recession, it’s possible that your competition has cut back on their customer service efforts. This gives you the opportunity to come in with top-notch service.

4. Offer bonuses. In a recession, people are more likely to pay serious attention to the businesses that are giving greater offers. You can open your new business with a bang by beating out your competitors with an excellent deal.

5. Excellent employees. During a time of recession, you may find some excellent candidates when it comes time to do your hiring. Because of other companies’ downsizing, you can snatch up some appreciative and loyal people that are knowledgeable and well qualified.

6. Getting a head start. When you start your business during a recession, you’ll get a good head start over other businesses that may be waiting for a “better” time to launch. This means that by the time they do launch, you’ll be that much further ahead of the game.

7. Be frugal. Starting in times of recession forces you to be frugal about your business activities. Because of the recession, you’ll make it a point to search for the best prices and the most efficient ways of conducting business.

• You may do it this way simply because you have to, but in the long run, you’ll learn a very important lesson that can enable you to run a profitable business for years to come.

If you can launch and operate a successful business during a recession, just think of what you can accomplish once the economy booms again! Instead of waiting for the “right” time, take action today.

Everyone has likely heard the term co-dependence. But what does it really mean? When you get into a relationship, chances are you depend on your partner for certain things. This is to be expected and it’s part of the trust you build. However, you don’t want to lose your independence completely.

What Is Co-Dependence?

Co-dependency is a learned behavior that’s usually passed down from other family members. It is often described as losing yourself in your relationship. If you’re co-dependent you’d likely cover up the actions of others for relief in the short term, even if it’s a bad move in the long term.

Co-dependent people often don’t listen to their true selves and end up covering up negative emotions with destructive actions. They are more likely to develop problems with alcohol, drugs, food, sex, and more.

Are You Co-Dependent?

You might wonder if you just have a co-dependent tendency every once in awhile, or if you’re completely co-dependent all the time. In order to figure out whether you’re co-dependent or not, it might help to ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you find it hard to adapt to change?
• Are you worried about the opinions of others including close family members?
• Do you tend to avoid an argument at all costs?
• Do you make excuses for loved ones?
• Do you feel lonely or ignored when your loved ones spend time with others?
• Do you find it hard to express yourself?
• Do you have trouble telling others “no”?
• Do you often feel ashamed about your inner feelings?

While your answer can be yes to one or a few of these questions without being co-dependent, you should now have a better idea about how a co-dependent person feels. Deep down you likely know whether or not you have a true problem with co-dependence. If you do, it’s in your best interest to seek out professional help. There are counselors available that are specially trained in the area of co-dependency.

How Co-Dependence Affects Your Life

Co-dependence can affect your life greatly and affect your partner and others around you. Of course the affects will be of varying degrees.

Let’s say your partner battles a common, yet debilitating problem such as alcoholism. When they have a slip up, your co-dependent nature may wish to just cover up the slip up and just hope it’s a one-time deal. You’d make decisions like lying to others about whether or not it happened, helping your partner sober up quickly, or calling into work for your partner and claiming that they’re just sick.

You can now see how this decision just makes things “better” in the short run. It’s the easy way out and your partner won’t have to face anything difficult. They’ll be happier in the moment because you’re not causing them any immediate stress.

However, in the long run the problem is just going to continue and snowball. While it may not be the popular decision, you’ll need to learn how to stand up to your partner and strive for what you believe is right deep down.

Become More Independent

There are ways you can learn to be more independent. In the above example, you’ll know that you need to have the difficult conversations with your partner. You need to help them decide that they need to get over their problem once and for all.

You then need to decide that you’re going to concentrate on yourself. You need to know that your relationship with your partner is not all about them and their own problems. It’s about you, too.

Take the time to think about your long-term goals and what makes you happy. Remember that you must be able to stand on your own two-feet without shame, guilt, fear, or worry!

Technorati tags: business, work life balance

William was a stellar employee. He completed tasks ahead of time and with a zeal not exhibited by his peers. William was on the fast track to climb the career ladder and receive ever increasing responsibilities. William was a shining example that leaders of other departments coached to. His performance was going to be replicated and spread across the company.

It was with great regret that Chief Compliance Officer of the company had come to a fateful decision. She weighed carefully the success that William’s performance brought to the company’s bottom line with the penalties that could be levied against it from compliance violations. Federal, state, and municipal fines at minimum could mire the organization into financial and legal penalties. The brand image and reputation for quality, fairness, and stellar products could be devastatingly damaged. William’s failure to comply with the company’s compliance procedures – while seemingly successful – were going to result in his termination.

It is more often than not, that employees make decisions, while trivial and not malicious, lead to their termination. Many times those decisions could have been avoided if the employee fully comprehended the policy they violated. With changes to sections, constant legal updates, and not to mention the overall size of some policies it can be easy to see why employees do not take the time to comprehend what is required of them. Yet, as the old saying goes, ignorance is no defense in the face of violating a law.

The FDA requires that employees of any medical device or pharmaceutical company have to be trained on the regulations and compliance standards that are pertinent to their jobs. Sale representatives of pharmaceutical companies have to be trained on how to communicate their products benefits and features while remaining “on label”, for example. A representative that fails to follow that compliance standard can bring legal and financial penalties to themselves and the company.

Many companies understand the need to have corporate documents that speak to the policy and procedures that will keep them in compliance. Those same companies have invested money into electronic systems to control that documentation through a document management/control software system. Having all the documentation stored in a controlled repository is one step in the compliance process. All the well written policies, procedures, and work instructions do not mean anything unless an employee who executes them can comprehend them. Comprehension completes the compliance cycle.

When looking for a system to conduct the comprehension training a number of factors should be considered:

1. How easy is to manage?

a. Does it require a full time administrator?
b. Does it require intensive effort for upkeep?

2. How is the training tracked?

3. How is comprehension tested?

There are more, but the three above are paramount in any decision, especially if the choice is a software system.

When making a selection for software to deliver the employee training take into consideration the labor involved to manage the actual system. If a training software system is labor intensive on the back end, it is also most likely labor intensive on the end user. If a training software system cannot seamlessly track back to your documents, then you could be finding yourself on a path of complexity.

All the training that is being tracked should be quickly obtained when needed by the company. A record tied to the employee as they progress in their careers is important for them and for the company when compliance is concerned. If that same record can track back to the actual document in the same repository the better.

Understanding how your employees’ comprehension is tested is important. Being able to track an monitor the success/failures of questions asked during testing can be correlated to the failure of compliance. The ability to configure any comprehension testing as needed when conditions change is financially better for a company and allows for agility over stock or custom methods. Any solution that is chosen should allow the company to quickly measure the success of the testing method.

Comprehension is keystone to compliance. Without it a company places itself at risk.

About the Author: Erroin A. Martin has been working in regulated quality industries for 10 years.

Many people are of the opinion that it’s impossible to change people, but that’s not entirely true. While it certainly is impossible to get them to change by acting on them directly, it can be done by doing so INdirectly – influencing those other people to want to change themselves – as follows:

1. Start off with a little praise. Being critical of someone, or, worse, pointing the finger of blame at them, will only result in getting them riled up, and you certainly will not be able to get an angry person to listen to you – much less change him- or herself.

2. Make sure to mention mistakes you yourself have committed. Bring yourself down to people’s level and they’ll be a little more willing to work with you and do as you suggest. Besides, no one wants to deal with someone who is pitching him- or herself as holier-than-thou.

3. Discuss (gently) the problems that their old behavior has brought about or caused. Get them to realize that this situation is not sustainable and that they have to stop doing those things.

4. Understand why they are guilty of doing those things in the first place. Treat the problem at the source or else it’ll keep on cropping up despite whatever you try to do to solve it. If you don’t know why it’s happening, you won’t be able to come up with a true-blue solution to it.

5. Begin to sell the benefits of changing and improving. Explain why the new behavior is so much better than the one that needs to be gotten rid of.

6. Convince them the change is well within their capabilities. Most likely they will be nervous because they have to go outside their comfort zones to do so, and this can be a harrowing experience for anyone.

7. Set mutually agreed-on targets for improved behavior, as well as sanctions if they refuse or are unable to change. This should be able to convince them of the seriousness of the whole affair.

Yes, we are undergoing one of the worst crises to rear its ugly head in decades. But that doesn’t mean that you as a business owner have to suffer, or even throw in the towel and close up shop entirely. You just have to learn a couple more tricks and tips to get your business to work even though times are tough.

1. We’ve talked about cost-cutting and being cost-efficient before, including eliminating poor staff and underperformers, and you’re probably already doing it. But please be careful with what you decide to cut down or eliminate altogether. Your budget for marketing is like your business’s jugular vein – if you cut this more than is absolutely reasonable, you risk bleeding out and killing your business. Marketing and getting your customers in touch with your marketing activities should be viewed as an investment, and as a matter of fact it might even be better to increase your marketing budget.

2. Know precisely what to market – focus on your niche and your highest selling products and/or services, and market these aggressively, as aggressively as you can without alienating your customers. Go for the products and/or services that get your company to stand out, because now more than ever you need to make an impact and get through to them. Remember that you are not only selling your products, you are also selling your company, and it gets easier to do so if you already have your foot in the door.

3. In the rush to get new customers, many people forget to maintain their old ones. This can be little short of fatal in many cases, because, as I mentioned in the previous point, it’s much easier to sell to customers you’re already selling to. Plus do NOT forget that unsatisfied customers are many more times likely to spread the (bad) news about you than happy customers. The last thing you need during tough times is a bad rep with potential clients.

4. Make the buying experience easier for potential clients. Go online if you haven’t already. Consider offering to deliver goods purchased right to customers’ doorsteps. Streamline the existing process. If it takes five steps to buy something on your website, for example, think of ways to cut it down to four, or even three, or to speed up the site. If people find it easy and quick to buy from you, it cuts down on the chance that they will think again about their purchase; plus it makes it easier for them to buy from you a second or even a third time.

5. Do you know why your products and/or services are selling? What value do your clients derive from what you sell them? Determine this value and focus on it, so you’ll know what to tweak and what not to touch if and when you decide to try something new.

6. Lastly, take a hard look at your business model. Has it been put through its paces enough for you to be certain that it’s a keeper; does it need tweaking; or it should be thrown out altogether and replaced by a better one? If so, go ahead and do it. Work on your plans’ shortcomings and strive to overcome them.

In biology it’s said that the most successful organisms are the ones that can adapt to get by during tough times, not just flourish when times are good. Learn to do so and you’ll be able to dig in and survive tough times such as these.

How do we respond to the current financial crisis? Business is not grinding to a halt. Companies are buckling down and pushing forward into the storm. And meetings are one of the things that have come under scrutiny.

We often imagine the multi-million dollar meeting industry as only encompassing the large industry conferences and other mega-sized meetings that populate the halls of grand hotels and convention centers. However, business meetings cover the spectrum from the gigantic to the far more intimate internal planning sessions for small and mid-sized companies.

Even in tough economic climates, the show must go on. People still do need to talk and discuss and wrangle. Business leaders are looking to measure the strategic value that their conference is bringing to their team and they are seeking ways to curb some of the traditional costs (without harming the overall power of the event).

Aside from being efficient with the physical things – location, food and so on and so forth – speakers are also coming under the knife. But it may not be as easy to lower speaker-related costs.

Meeting planners do not want to hire just anyone (no matter how good they are on stage), but instead they are seeking speakers whose personalities are in synch with the company.
Corporate meetings are expensive, but they are still a valuable tool for educating, motivating and creating stronger bonds with employees. While companies will be cutting costs of meetings, they will still be holding meetings in 2009.

Additionally, it is a good idea for meeting planners to spend some time talking with speakers to discover what they are finding successful at other meetings where they are on the stage. A good speaker is more than just an orator who will entertain your troops then fly home. Instead the best are seasoned professionals who can be a trusted advisor to help you establish the best practices for your meeting.

In tough economic times when every dollar counts, you want to ensure the strategic value of every meeting you hold – as well as every component of your meetings.

Change is an inescapable part of business – and indeed of life itself. It should be seen that way and thus accommodated, but far too often this is not the case. Many businesses have to suffer through change – but what’s both funny and sad is that these experiences don’t have to be bad ones at all.

Change leadership is the art of helping your team through the change management cycle. Each person shows different emotions and behavior during change. It’s perfectly normal to experience a real mix of emotions. People can be thrown off balance by these emotions and must be helped so that the organization doesn’t suffer.

Change transition can be divided into a series of stages. The initial equilibrium stage is the starting point. Everyone knows what’s expected and has a clear picture of the future of the organization and themselves.

Next is the separation stage, the stage where people react as if nothing has changed. It’s common to see a drop in staff motivation, a rise in absenteeism, lack of involvement in work, and other such things.

Next we have the crisis/confusion stage, which is often arrived at suddenly with no possibility of turning back. It’s the “last straw” that triggers something off. Suddenly people realize that the company has changed whether for better or worse. Doubt , anxiety, anger, shock, confusion, resignation, uncertainty, insecurity, intense stress – these are emotions commonly felt

The crisis phase doesn’t last long and generally transitions to acceptance of the situation and the release of creative energy. When this happens, the people then see the crisis as an incredible opportunity to change things. You may see a large scale “tidying up”.

Then there is the rebirth stage where people are convinced that they’ll be able to get a grip on what’s happening. They are impatient for progress and are hopeful about building new trust and relationships.

Lastly there is new equilibrium, where people are newly confident again since things have come full circle.

In order for your people to reach that point, here are a few tips for handling change. Determine what’s going to be different for you as a result of the change. Work out what you are likely to gain and lose in the process. Give yourself quiet time and space to de-stress and think. Create literal and symbolic boundaries between the past and present. Set short-range objectives for yourself to help restore feelings of achievement and movement. Deliberately balance work and family issues. Lastly, seek advice from Human Resources or the Employee Assistance Service if you need it.

Human resource outsourcing has been done by many companies for some years now. Lower labor and operational costs, as well as the efficiency to which the tasks are finished are two of the primary reasons why this has become a popular business decision.

The question is, is HR outsourcing really the solution for you?

Basically, outsourcing happens when a company entrusts specific tasks that should have been part of its internal operations to a supplier or a subcontractor which expertise lie in that field. For example, a company will concentrate on manufacturing a particular product would not want to deal with the customer service side of the business. They will outsource the customer service needs of the company to an outside subcontractor which specializes in offering good customer service to its clients.

Before concluding whether outsourcing is really good or bad for your business, consider the advantages of human resource outsourcing.

With this, a company in the United States may outsource its customer service or manufacturing operation to a third part contractor outside of the country where labor costs are cheaper. Also, because of the specialization of these third-party service providers, the quality of service required by a company can be consistently met.

The specific tasks which are outsourced are customer service functions, which include answering customer service inquiry calls, technical support, replying to e-mail messages, online support, telemarketing, sales and data gathering; and research and data-gathering services

Just like any other aspects in running a business, outsourcing has its low and high points. Your decision on whether to outsource your HR functions or not should take these points into consideration.

Becoming a good decision maker will make you an asset to your organization.

Some of the decisions that you have to make may have a deep impact on your career as well as the lives of other people working with you. How are you going to make those kinds of decisions?

So here are a few pointers on how you can become a good decision maker in your organization.

First, in order to make good decisions, it is important that you have a clear understanding of the root cause of the situation. The decision you make must be based on facts that you have and these facts must be verified and authenticated so that you are certain that the decision you are about to make is a rational and reasoned one. Next, know that making a good decision entails that you are not motivated by people in your office who may want you to make a decision which might be in their favour. As a decision maker it is your duty to ensure that you remain apolitical and base your judgement on your effective understanding of the situation.

Avoid ‘groupthink’ mentality. Organization that falls prey to this kind of ‘groupthink’ mentality will find it difficult to make harsh decisions when the need arises and prefer to take a wait and see approach until things become worse.

Decision making is still relatively easier than the ability to translate the decision into action. To be an excellent decision maker you must also be the kind of person who takes action. Once you’ve made the decision you must give yourself a timeline for the implementation of the decision. You also have to engage in a review process to see how the decision has improved the situation.

There is no guaranteed success formula in decision making. When you made a decision that failed what makes you an effective individual is your ability to assess the damage and review the situation to see how you could refine the decision again and put it into action. You will face obstacles and perhaps it might be a decision of tremendous magnitude that you have no second chance. You may falter and perhaps sustain a few ‘executive bruises’ that will give you valuable feedback on how you could refine your decision.

In order for a company to be functioning as it should, its management should actively seek to earn, develop and retain employee trust.

It is essential that management understand the value of trust and how to promote trust in their organizations. Competence, integrity and employee rapport are a few factors that determine organizational trust. However, the elusive nature of trust makes it one of the most difficult characteristics to maintain. Management needs employees to feel that they are valued, trusted, and have them believe that the company is acting with integrity in their best welfare.

People nowadays have a very cynical view of management based on their observations that management has often laid ethics aside in order to benefit the bottom line. Downsizing and layoffs have the same effect on employees especially if they are handled improperly or miscommunicated. The remaining employees are stuck wondering if they are next. This sends the message that loyalty does not exist in companies any more, and when the economy improves, these employees will likely seek employment where they feel more secure.

Other unseen costs of mistrust in the workplace include no company loyalty, decreased commitment, and higher employee turnover. Distrustful employees are not as productive. Likewise, mistrusting management wastes time checking up on employees. Therefore, it is imperative companies work to build trust in their organizations.

How do you build trust? Trust is earned when everyone’s interests are considered and respected. Among other things, ensure open communication, tell the truth, encourage creativity, allow disagreement without negative repercussions, and make decisions that are fair and consistent. To maintain trust, try rewarding value added activity and punishing breaches of trust.

In the end, and to sum up, it is vital to realize that organizations cannot earn, develop or retain employee trust; only people can.