For the Smart Money Cookie

Exhibiting in a trade show can involve a major investment of money and time. But the financial returns for your business can be excellent if you learn some of the secrets of trade show booth success before signing up for a show and investing in your displays.

If you’re considering setting up at a trade show for the first time, here are eight tips for a successful trade show booth display:

1) Rent the smallest possible booth space for your first trade show. The first time you exhibit, you’ll learn a lot about what works for you and your products and what doesn’t, and what you’d like to change for your next show. Also, seeing other exhibitors’ booths and ideas will inspire you to evolve various aspects of your own display. So it’s a good idea to keep your trade show expenses lower as you learn, by renting a smaller space and starting with a simple display.

2) Create an open trade show exhibit. Make it a space people can enter comfortably without feeling trapped. If you set a table across the front of your booth and stand behind it, it’s harder to draw customers in and involve them - so they tend to walk on by.

3) Keep your booth uncluttered so customers can focus on what’s important - your product. When approaching your display, anyone should be able to discern immediately what your booth is promoting. No one is going to take the time to study it and guess, when there are hundreds of other booths to visit.

4) Before planning your trade show booth display, find out everything you can about your allotted space. Know its dimensions, where it will be located in the building, what companies or organizations will be in your neighboring booths, whether it’s in a high or low traffic area, whether you have access to lighting and electricity, and anything else that will affect your exhibit display setup.

5) For your first trade show, consider renting booth display components. Rental displays can relieve you of the issues of transportation and storage, and allow you to be a little more daring in your exhibit design than you might be if you were purchasing them. Also, studies show that many first-time exhibitors never do a second trade show. If you only exhibit once or twice, purchasing your own exhibit components doesn’t make economic sense.

6) Design your booth with an eye to keeping shipping costs low. Oversized or heavy displays can be very expensive to ship to the trade show, and may also require that you hire expo personnel to bring them into the exhibit hall and help you set them up. Opt for smaller, collapsible, lighter weight displays as much as possible.

7) Plan to secure your expensive items so that they can’t be stolen at a trade show. If you use a laptop computer for a multimedia presentation at your booth, be sure to have it securely locked to your display, and take it with you at night if it’s a multiple-day event. Display the samples of your more expensive products either well inside your booth where they can’t “walk off” as attendees stroll by, or inside a locked display case.

For the most professional image, create a unified appearance for your displays. Choose no more than three colors for your display elements and table coverings - such as gray, white, and blue. Each exhibit component should be one of your three colors. Also, choose no more than three textures - such as brushed metal, matte vinyl, and clear acrylic; each display element should be one of these textures. This creates a professionally pulled-together booth that lets your products stand out in the display.

In summary, although it’s tempting to go all out when designing your first trade show booth display, it makes more sense to keep your first booth small and simple, and focus your energy on marketing your products and networking at your first show. During the event, learn as much as possible about how you’d like to alter your exhibit for show next show, and write down all your ideas either during or immediately after the show.

Once you have your first trade show under your belt, you’ll have a much sharper idea of what you do - and don’t - need in a trade show display to make each successive show your most profitable one to date.

About The Author

Rena Klingenberg is a jewelry artist and small business owner. Her website, http://www.trade-show-booth-display.com, is filled with new success tips and articles to help other small businesses market their products. Subscribe to her free “Trade Show Success on a Small Budget” ezine at http://www.trade-show-booth-display.com/newsletter.com.

rena@trade-show-booth-display.com

Planning is the outline of your business. It begins with the business plan, marketing plan and yearly vision. But it is more than this, it is a daily link between your goals and the plan of action to gain the desired results you want to achieve.

What is the difference between planning and organizing. Organizing is what many entrepreneurs may be doing. You have so many tasks to complete and so many different types of tasks to complete within different functions of the business. Then this would be organizing, you could spend a whole day organizing, but don’t do it everyday.

So you need to implement systems in place for your business. This is where planning comes into place. You see you need to understand how your business is organized. There are certain tasks that are repetitive each day. If you can organize these tasks into a time-scheduled system yow will be better organized and can spend less time organizing and more time planning.

If you focus and function on the plan, it will be easier to implement. NO DOUBT, you may have to make changes to the plan as the market changes, customers change, competitors change and staff changes. You may even have to change the entire business model or products and services you sell. How can you manage all this? Some can, and some have systems and some work on what they enjoy, while others focus on the plan.

What is all this mumbo jumbo about mission, vision, goals etc. Well a successful entrepreneur aligns all of these into an action -oriented plan. Through the overall vision to the mission, desired action to a set of achieveable and reachable goals. So how can you organize all this so you spend less time organizing?

For more information on goal setting success http://www.usabusinessgrowth.com For more information on this organization click http://www.usabusinessgrowth.com/Organizers.html

Mr. Des Marais has operated small businesses for over 20 years. He has been a consultant and held positions in some of the fastest growing companies in Canada and several U.S. small business owners.

He has held past management positions in retail, tourism, hospitality and sales for a variety of companies. He has increased sales by 200% in 2 months for an herbal doctor; increased sales by 30% in 4 months for a major Canadian Big Box Retailer; 200% sales increase 3 times in a row for a service-based small business and helped several entrepreneurs develop and sell their business.

His expertise is in the area of growth and business development. He has also been involved in developing business chapters in cities across Western Canada.

If you were to take the people out of an organisation you would be left with some stock and machinery that would be of little value, and possibly some property. It is the people that make an organisation function, so having the people functioning to the best of their ability must surely be best for an organisation. Yet much of what is undertaken in the field of HRM actually serves to detract from people functioning at their best. Evidence from studies of wellbeing in the workplace reveal some interesting findings that raise questions as to whether the current focus of HRM will adapt to the evolving future workplace, or whether it will need to be redrawn along different lines, focussing on maintaining wellbeing above all else in the workplace to enable people to be successful for their organisations.

Much of the literature on wellbeing focuses on work-life balance (WLB) as potentially the most important element that affects people and their behaviour at work. Hence it is the most high profile and most highly legislated area in consideration. However, the evidence in this area is mixed and far from conclusive.

While a measure of organisational health is being heralded by the likes of Henderson Fund Management to allow investors to make more informed decisions about the companies they are investing in, quite how this will be calculated, or what its value will be are yet to be determined. City analysts already take a keen interest in voluntary staff turnover rates, especially in service/consulting businesses where valuation is contingent on the ability of a business to scale quickly and in high growth periods. They see voluntary turnover as a good but crude indicator of employee satisfaction and engagement. They also look to indices such as Gallup Q12 scores that measure engagement. Other measures are emerging in the marketplace. Vielife, for example, has a range of organisational health audits both at the whole organisation and individual employee level, and aim to develop the standardised metric for the measurement of employee wellbeing. Ironically they find that a health and wellbeing index is higher on the agenda of the financial and managing directors’ than it is for the HR director.

The current UK Labour Government is also on the health and wellbeing bandwagon with its current white paper ‘Choosing Health’ devoting a whole chapter to workplace health and wellbeing. They claim that stress-related conditions and musculoskeletal disorders are now the commonest reported causes of work-related sickness absence, and that 3.74 million workers clock up more than the 48 hour limit under the Working Time Directive, which is 423,000 more than in 1992 when there was no long hours protection.

Work in this area by the CIPD and The Tomorrow Project has identified what appear to be four key characteristics that contribute to an individual’s wellbeing: autonomy, relationships, the physical environment and the individual’s disposition. This remodels HRM away from the traditional relations, resourcing, development and reward model which is functional and outcome based, to one where the individual becomes the central concern. Does the individual have the appropriate level of autonomy to allow them to function best? Are the significant relationships in their work enhancing rather than detracting from their performance? Is the physical environment contributing to their productivity, or is it making them sick? How can the work environment be managed to ensure that it is a positive experience for people, contributing to a positive rather than negative disposition? Arguably any activity which does not contribute to any of these four is not contributing to the success of the individual, and hence the success of the organisation, and the organisation should therefore question abandoning them. If you were to ask these questions with regard to the policies and practices that HRM currently employs, it would be interesting to see how many passed the test and remained.

Dr Eddie Blass is a freelance academic and ghostwriter specialising in business and management, education, law and futures studies.

Some professional buyers are still wondering why they should take advantage of reverse auction technology. It is true that some items are not good to reverse auction, but some are very good opportunities for reverse auction. This article will give a brief look into the top five buyer rewards for using reverse auctions and how the buyer and their company can be more successful.

First and foremost, reverse auctions are used to get the best available market price at the time of the bid. In many instances, a reverse auction will result in a lower price paid than traditional sealed bids or negotiations. While savings are sometimes difficult to accurately measure, and while some costs are “hidden” (supplier change costs, set up charges, etc), companies employing this technology in properly conducted reverse auctions are experiencing often 10% or more real cost savings. Whether you use the last actual price paid or bid price reduction, you can accurately track, report and post the results to all interested parties within minutes after the event is complete.

This leads us into the next buyer reward which is process improvement. It is true that it may take more time to put together a reverse auction bid, but this preparation brings about a disciplined, thorough, and fair bid process and ultimately better supplier selection decisions. Reverse auctions require special care be taken to write accurate specifications and evaluate the true historical spend information which enable you to better forecast your demand to potential vendors. This process discipline will improve your productivity for future competitive bids because you will have quick access to the information in the future. Reverse auctions reduce the negotiation time from weeks to minutes. The cycle time is shortened which, in turn, will reduce costs and improve efficiency for both buyer and seller. In addition, you will be able to easily duplicate the bid package if you would like to run similar reverse auction events in the future.

Another reward for buyers is bid transparency. Reverse auctions can be used as a transparent reporting tool for all bids accepted. This works especially well in the public sector where every penny is tracked and monitored. Online bidding systems can usually save all data for quick report generation at the click of a mouse. If needed, the live event can be viewed in real time by any interested parties from any internet connection or on a viewing screen in a conference room. Most reverse auction systems are web-based, allowing interested parties to log into the system and watch the event live from their desktops.

The next buyer reward is increased organizational competitiveness. When you reduce costs and improve productivity, you make your company more competitive and therefore more able to attract and retain customers who seek price reductions. Streamlining your procurement process through online competitive bidding methods, such as reverse auctions and eRFX, will benefit your organization and your career. When you can show measurable results and easily report those results to management, both you and the organization will benefit.

The last buyer reward for using reverse auctions that we will talk about today is extending your reach to new potential suppliers. When you use online reverse auctions, you can post the bid opportunity on your website which will attract more suppliers to compete for your business. You still must pre-qualify the suppliers, but the increased number of suppliers will increase the competition for your purchase, driving down bid prices. You can easily include more bidders via the streamlined e-procurement process. If you wish to open up your purchase to more can be difficult to identify new suppliers to create a competitive environment for a reverse auction. By posting your events online in a public format, more suppliers will be able to find you.

Finally, you should treat reverse auctions as one tool in your procurement toolbox. Most organizations that currently do competitive bidding will be able to see the value of the reverse auction process and to recognize how it fits into their organization. And those organizations are saving time and money by doing them right. So don’t miss the opportunity to connect and contract quickly with your suppliers by using reverse auctions.

Doug Luthringer is a Client Development Manager at eDynaQuote (http://www.eDynaQuote.com) with over two years of strategy, implementation and training experience in online reverse auctions and over six years with online forward auctions such as eBay. Doug has also been invited to be a guest speaker to talk about how to properly use reverse auctions to small and medium size business, as well as university students.

“I said I was sorry!!”

How many times have you heard that phrase when you were angry and someone else was trying to calm you down with an “I’m sorry.” Unless you believe their words, this phrase just doesn’t work. Why not? Well, It doesn’t work because its an overused phrase. We say or hear “I’m sorry” on a daily basis. We use it when we bump into someone, or when we make a simple mistake. We’re desensitized to “I’m sorry,” as just being politeness, rather than sincerity. So when someone truly is angry at you and they hear an “I’m sorry” line or some variation of itit might not always work and in some cases it might anger them because they might interpret it as, “There… I said the magic words, now shut up and stop complaining.”

Well then what do I say?

Honestly, it’s less of a matter of WHAT you say than it is HOW you say it. Any apology really is a good apology, but the other person has to believe that it is genuine otherwise they will just brush it off as a having no real meaning to them. How is sincerity conveyed? Sincerity is created when your nonverbal communication matches your words. Nonverbal communication includes: body position, eye-contact, gestures, voice modulation, and facial expressionto name only a couple. For the purposes of this article we are not going to go into the nitty-gritty of nonverbal linguistics, but its safe to say that the way you say your words along with your body language is often more important than the words themselves. One of the clearest forms of deception is when the words don’t match up with the person’s body language. If someone tells you that they are interested, yet their body is not pointed towards you, then this is known as inconsistency. To express genuine emotions, you must make sure that your nonverbal communication is in synch with that of your verbal words. Know that the other person is looking for empathy on your part more than a reason. They also seek some form of acknowledgement from you. They want to have both auditory and visual confirmation that you are telling them the truth because their fears will lead them always to be suspicious of any verbal offering that you give them when they are feeling hurt. When in doubt, just remember this adage: “Mean what you say, don’t just say what you mean.”

Tristan Loo is a conflict management expert and founder of Alternative Conflict Resolution Services in San Diego, California. He’s the author of Street Negotiation–How To Resolve Any Conflict Anytime. Tristan uses his law enforcement experience to train others in the prinicples of defusing conflict and reaching agreements. Visit his website at http://www.acrsonline.com or e-mail him directly at tristan@acrsonline.com

Obviously, you might logically say, “that is good!” You would most certainly be on track feeling good about everyone in your area having a job. Getting everyone working and being more self-sufficient is our logical goal.

WHAT IS FULL EMPLOYMENT?

For many years, the marketplace has considered 4% to be reaching a full-employment level. Very few employee choices are available. Many in the 4% (unemployed) group have little or no talent to offer. No basic valuable marketable skills. Most of these unemployed persons have a very poor work history. Not all, but a large majority have a limited education at best.

OUTSOURCING and DOWNSIZING

News continues to flow regarding outsourcing by major employers in almost every industry. Jobs are moved to an “outside” service for economic reasons. Many employers cut their workforce to meet PROFIT expectations for the quarter. Good decision? Not the issue when the level of profit is deteriorating and action is imperative.

Big Banks along with the Utilities and other large employers are challenged to meet stockholder demands for PROFIT. “Cut the staff” seems to be a Boardroom edict.

OUT OF THE COUNTRY

Textile industries are faced with layoffs when jobs leave the country for cheaper labor costs. There is NO choice for those who no longer have the orders to fill.

Companies are faced with NO price increases in many industries, including the service sector. Wages are challenged along with benefits for the employee.

You’ll find many x-employees with 20 plus years of service. Loyalty was great. Many have worked for years beyond the call of duty. Dedicated to his/her job. Dependable. Trustworthy. Terminated!

MAJOR PROBLEM

Skills and talent are one-dimensional. No chance of finding a new job in the same industry. Non-transferable skills. It becomes a “start over” challenge for the x-employee.

Another problem is the wage level after 20 years or even fewer years with the same employer or industry. Instead of a 10% raise the “new” employee may end up with a 50% decrease to the beginners’ salary scale and often without any benefits.

SOURCES TO CONSIDER

Being objective is challenging after 32 years in the personnel business. However, my suggestions come from a good base of background experiences in hiring thousands of “staffers” for a wide and diverse client base.

Just for the record, I’ll include some other sources where good employees can be recruited. You have to GO BEYOND the old methods and expand your horizons in today’s’ marketplace.

YOUR EMPLOYEES (best source for many firms)

Business Associates [networking]
Civic Organizations ~ Technical Colleges ~
Community Colleges ~ Business Colleges ~
Universities ~ Churches
Temporary Help Services [Staffing]

Personnel Agencies [Recruiters]

Where is YOUR next ‘good’ employee? None of us know until every base is covered. Your first try may be good enough. Other times it may take 15 searches and interviews before you find the skill and talent required.

A major benefit to YOU in using a Staffing [Temporary Help] Service and/or a reputable Personnel Agency (some do both) is that recruiting, interviewing, and testing is an EVERYDAY activity.

EXPENSE Vs INVESTMENT THEORY

Hiring employees is an INVESTMENT in the future of YOUR business. Not an expense! Pro-rate the FEES for professional services over 12/24 months. Your weekly or monthly cost is nominal for the return benefit of a QUALITY hiring decision.

One final thought. Involve YOUR staff in the hiring decision of your future employees. Share the interview process and get input from those on the “firing” line. A good business practice to follow.

Don Monteith spent 32 years as co-owner of several franchises and a personnel/staffing business. Every year, his firm placed hundreds of job candidates in their dream job. Today, Don shares his business and career expertise through his newest websites on the Internet. Lots of FREE ideas - suggestions - ready for your perusal and study.

http://www.Career-Coaching-Central.com
http://www.HowToGetYourDreamJob.com

These suggestions came from a survey conducted regarding what has been useful for various businesses and organizations. Pick ones that you would use for your organization and use them. If you require coaching or training for the implementation, contact us for professional support.

1. Focus groups…discussion of issues and solutions

2. Survey employees regarding issues and possible solutions

3. Divide issues into ones where there is control and ones where is NO control

a. Acceptance of no control

b. Possible solutions or enhanced practices (Tackle the difficult situations and not just talk but solid follow-through…with accountability)

4. Invite input and participation from every sector and all personnel

5. Educate or at least update all personnel regularly and have supervisors explain the roles and expectations that will accompany any changes/transitions (help create “buy-in” for each of your “key” personnel.)

6. Get support networks developed and working

7. Create recognition for positive organization stress management suggestions (reward positive participation, celebrate the best suggestions…follow through)

8. Get leadership to role model stress management- positive re-enforcement for individuals or groups that demonstrate improvement.

9. Educate all personnel on how and when to use EAPs

10. Reduce stigma of admitting effects of stress by training/educating personnel on why we are more stressed now than ever before in history (reduces sense of weakness)

11. Gather statistics on retention (costs) and sick time (or even stress related workers compensation claims) so you can determine if the stress management program is working (to improve negative stats.)

12. Teach managers to really listen!

13. Reduce availability of stressors: noise, crowding, caffeine, noxious odors (or people.)

14. Create time and space for stress management practices (for individuals or possibly groups/teams)

15. Create organizational play/fun

16. Teach meeting management, for less wasted time… and less stressful meetings

17. Get people physically active as a stress management tool (Exercise and empowerment)

18. Allow for balance of work/family…. (Family leave time, honored)

19. Celebrate diversity/differences of style-behavior, values, attitudes (know that variations create balance and solid organizations.) Enhanced communication workshops…

These tips, when implemented, can assist your organization by reducing organizational stress, improving the quality of life, and may even prove useful to enhance productivity. Give these tips a chance to work for your organization.

L. John Mason, Ph.D. is the author of the best selling “Guide to Stress Reduction.” Since 1977, he has offered Executive Coaching and Training.

Please visit the Stress Education Center’s website at http://www.dstress.com for articles, free ezine signup, and learn about the new telecourses that are available. If you would like information or a targeted proposal for training or coaching, please contact us at (707) 795-2228.

If you are looking to promote your training or coaching career, please investigate the Professional Stress Management Training and Certification Program for a secondary source of income or as career path.

Leaders envision the future; they inspire organization members and chart the course of the organization. Leaders must instill values - whether they are a concern for quality, honesty, calculated risk taking, or respect for employees and customers.

Every group of people that performs near its total capacity has some person as its head who is skilled in the art of leadership. This skill seems to be a compound of various ingredients: the ability to use power effectively and in a responsible manner; the ability to comprehend that human beings have different motivation forces at different times and in different situations; the ability to inspire; and the ability to act in a manner that will develop a climate conducive to responding to and arousing motivations.

An important ingredient of leadership is a fundamental understanding of people. As in all practices, it is one thing to know motivation theory, kinds of motivating forces and the nature of a system of motivation but another thing to be able to apply this knowledge to people and situations.

A leader who at least knows the present state of motivation theory and who understands the elements of motivation is more aware of the nature and strength of human needs and is more able to define and design ways of satisfying them and to administer so as to get the desired responses.

Another vital ingredient of leadership is the rare ability to inspire followers to apply their full capabilities to a project. While the use of motivator seems to center on subordinates and their needs, inspiration also comes from group heads. They may have qualities of charm and appeal that give rise to loyalty, devotion and a strong desire on the part of followers to promote what leaders want. This is not a matter of need satisfaction; it is, rather, a matter of people giving unselfish support to a chosen champion.

Leadership provides detailed information on Leadership, Leadership Training, Leadership Development, Leadership Styles and more. Leadership is affiliated with Corporate Leadership Training.