The 4 Essentials of Effective Leadership

I read this article written Mark Raciappa, ActionCOACH and I totally agree. His communication is clear, concise and it resonated with me. Mark says;

I remember a bumper sticker: “Either Lead or Follow—But Get Out of the Way!”

Interestingly, in my company, I say something similar and it goes like this "If you can lead, lead. If you can't lead, follow. If you cannot lead or follow, get out of my way!

Mark continued to write that, when our role calls for the former, here are 4 important things to keep in mind:

1. Great leaders communicate. Realizing that good communication is a 2-way street, we must be responsible for our part. That being said, true communication is the response that you get. Whatever form you choose (verbal, mail, e-mail, etc), if you don’t get the outcome you seek (from a “willing” recipient), the responsibility lies with the sender. Great leaders confirm, gain commitment, and solicit feedback to improve the process.

2. Great leaders make decisions. Far too often, those in positions of authority delay choosing a course because they have to keep gathering more information. We call this: the paralysis of analysis. If you’re the Leader, rest assured that the followers are well aware of this handicap. If you are received as indecisive, this severely hampers your ability to lead the Team. How many opportunities have slipped away because the leader took to long to make a move? One more thing: great leaders admit when they make a mistake, take corrective action, and move on. This will do wonders to build respect from Team members.

3. Great leaders delegate. Once the decision has been made, it’s time to share the workload. Great leaders don’t try to do everything themselves, realizing that dividing the work multiplies the results. This also demonstrates trust in the Team and fosters individual growth. When the communication works (see #1 above), distributing responsibility contributes to great results. As a side note, a great leader shares the credit with those responsible when those great results come in.

4. Great leaders hold others accountable. Leaders do what they say they will do and expect the same from others. One of my mentors used to say: “You expect what you inspect.” Great leaders follow up and follow through. Those who study the human condition have found that “behavior that is recognized is behavior that gets repeated”. The Team knows what the Leader, historically, has paid attention to and what has been “overlooked”. As the Leader, change your behavior and you change your results.

It starts with you, it starts today. From Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world”.

Stay driven!
Moonshi

How Do YOU Know What You Said You Know?

I just received a newsletter article by Jim Cathcart dated 23/6/2010.

In the article, Jim shared that there is an organization called The Institute of Noetic Science founded by astronaut Edgar Mitchell. They study what it means to "know" something and how we know what we know.

Sounds like some high minded stuff eh? It's fascinating. For example: take something you know to be true. Then examine, how do you know it? Are you sure about it?

Jim says, here are some ways we conclude that we "Know":

• Personal experience - we saw it ourselves
• Expert testimony - we heard it from an authority
  
• Scientific method - we tested it and proved it
• Intuition - we know it on an unconscious level
• Feelings - our gut tells us it is so
• Reason - we used logic to figure it out
  

None of these is a perfect source, all could be wrong. But the more we respect each way of "knowing" the more likely we are to reach a reliable conclusion.

So, the next time someone says "I know this to be true", ask them specifically, "HOW do you know?"

Thank you for sharing this Jim. It is a grreeaaatttt article.

What "Avatar the Movie", "The Shift of Consciousness" and "Conversations with God" has in common?

I originally posted this article on Facebook Notes on Monday, 11 January 2010 at 08:44am. Since I have yet to integrate my Blog to Facebook, I am re-posting the content here.

After I watched Avatar the movie, on the afternoon of 10-Jan-2010, something inside me was awaken. I shifted, and resonated with the movie so much that I had tears of gratitude, tears of love and tears of awakening - that something needs to be done.

The movie moved me emotionally - deeply. The plot, the graphics, the story line, the main character- John Sully and the entire rendering of planet Pandora, the way of living, the interconnectivity of all life forms. I was awed by it and I immediately know that life on Mother Earth is just the same. We are all connected with all the life forms that exists today and the ones that have ceased to exist due to man's own doing.

After the movie, while having toast and tea, I discussed the plot of the movie with my wife and what James Cameron had visualized 15-years ago and the state of Mother Earth today based on the behavior, attitude and plundering activities of man and we both had a deep awakening. Something in me shifted. I got a thought - there are only 6+ billion people on Mother Earth. If every one of us, help 6 others to get this shift of consciousness in a cluster of 6, we can make it! It's like having a MasterMind group with 6 members in a team in a global scale!

That same night, at about 12.30am (this morning, prior to sleeping), I continued to read Conversations with God, Book II and on page 172, and I was shocked and awed to read the following:

God says:
I have told you before, all attack is a call for help. No one truly desires to hurt another. Those who do it - including your own governments, by the way - do it out of a misplaced idea that it is the only way to get something they want.

I've already outlined in this book, the higher solution to this problem. Simply want nothing. Have preferences but no needs.

Yet, this is a very high state of Being; it is the place of Masters.

In terms of geopolitics, why not work together as a world to meet the most basic needs of everyone?

Neale Donald Walsch says:
We are doing that - or trying.

God says:
After all these years of human history, that's the most you can say?

The fact is, you have barely evolved at all. You still operate from a primitive "every man for himself" mentality. You plunder the Earth, rape her of her resources, exploit her people, and systematically disenfranchise those who disagree with you for doing all of this, calling them the "radicals".

You do all this for your own selfish purposes, because you have developed a lifestyle that you cannot maintain any other way.

You must cut down millions of acres of trees each year or you won't be able to have your Sunday paper. You must destroy miles of protective ozone layer which covers your planet, or you cannot have your hair-spray. You must pollute your rivers and streams beyond repair or you cannot have your industries to give you Bigger, Better and More. And you must exploit the least among you - the least advantage, the east educated, the least aware - or you cannot live at the top of human scale in unheard-of (and unnecessary) luxury. Finally, you must deny that you are doing this, or you cannot live with yourself.

You cannot find in your heart to "live simply, so that others may simply live". That bumper sticker wisdom is too simple for you. It is too much to ask. Too much to give. After all, you have worked so hard for what you've got! You ain't giving up none of it!. And if the rest of the human race - to say nothing of your children's children - have to suffer for it, tough bananas, right? You did what you had to do to survive, to "make it" - they can do the same! After all, it is every man for himself, is it not?

Neale Donald Walsch asks:
Is there any way out this mess?

God says:
Yes. Shall I say it again? A shift of consciousness.

....to get the rest of the content of this book, please read it, just too much for me to share the copyrighted material..... and do visit the website at http://www.cwg.org/ for more details.

Basically, what I feel like saying is that, while I was pondering, focusing, feeling and thinking about what can I do, to start this shift of consciousness, starting from I, interestingly, I got some answers and guidance from this book, which was published in 1997! Wow!!! Thank you Universe... thank you...thank you...thank you...

Friends, this book has shifted me many times over from Book I. The level of awareness I had, has grown over and over again.

If we ALL want to live, continue our journey on Mother Earth, have families and leave a legacy, live a loving life of happiness filled with abundance with no scarcity, to love and care for one another and to treat each other with love & respect as we also would like to be love and respected, then why are we ALL not giving it our all? Why are we not taking actions yet? Why are we not taking responsibilities? Why are we still allowing our governments and industries to do everything that we do not want to happen to our own self and family?

I welcome your thoughts and feelings about the passage that I have just shared. Do leave your comments.

With love, light and passion,
Moonshi Mohsenruddin

Competition: How Eliminating This Word From Your Vocabulary Will Skyrocket Your Success

Competition: How Eliminating This Word From Your Vocabulary Will Skyrocket Your Success
this essay is extracted from Rok SIVANTE's Facebook Notes.
Click here for Rok SIVANTE Facebook Profile page.
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Competition.

How much of business & economic theory has been based around the concept?

What’s happened to this economy of ours, based on the scarcity model of which competition is a core principle? (For anyone who hasn’t picked up a newspaper in the last year - it hasn’t exactly been doing as hot as most would like)

What are the consequences of continuing to operate in the world from a belief system dictating there must be a winner and a loser in all outcomes?

Are your results really dependent on how others around you conduct their lives?

Your success in business has NOTHING to do with the “competition.” What any other company or person is doing has NOTHING to do with the level of abundance you create in your life. Your success relies solely on YOU - not just your product or strengths, but your strategies, mindsets, systems, habits. It is here where your greatest value lies.

If others in your industry are achieving better results, study them and incorporate what’s working for them into your own. You have much more to gain from viewing others in your industry as teachers than competitors. Observe their successes & what they’re doing right. Integrate elements of their systems, style, methods into your own - reverse engineering their strategies, following their lead, while adding in your own personal flavor.

As successful as they’re doing, there will be things you are capable of they aren’t. No one else has the exact same life, work, educational experience you do. All the lessons, insights, and wisdom you’ve gained up until now is of great value to some group of people. You’ve learned much through your successes & failures. There are others out there who need to know what you know to get where they want to be.

If offering the exact same products or opportunities as a number of marketers, you may be able to explain a vision or benefits in ways others cannot. Some people will resonate with your style of communication and personality more than your “competitors.” Your “competition” may even introduce prospects to an opportunity, fail to inspire them to hop on board, lining things up perfectly for you to step in and take over the close.

You don’t need to be the biggest, best, most experienced. You don’t need to have the absolute best product, biggest distribution network, largest client database, or have the most influence.

Why? Because you can leverage all of that!

Doing away with the idea of competition will drastically expand the possibilities available to you...

Many fortunes in the corporate world have been made & multiplied when companies enter into strategic alliances with their competitors. Many multi-billion dollar global empires have been built not by playing a competitive game, but through the mergers of companies in the same industries.

The leading figures in the world of internet marketing have made MILLIONS in joint ventures. They’re not all out competing against one another, trying to be the best, but each doing their own thing, and co-promoting others when a hot new product or service is launched. The result is more exposure for everyone, more value being offered to customers, and bigger digits in everyone’s bank accounts.

More money can be made by swapping leads rather than hoarding prospects all to oneself. More wealth can be created when “opposing” teams combine their resources to achieve common goals. There’s unlimited power in cooperation. When people & businesses work together to match clients/customers up with the businesses or individuals that can best suit their needs, it’s a win-win for everybody.

Competition is not necessary. There are different products and brands for different groups of consumers. People have varying tastes & preferences. Some prefer Coke, others Pepsi. Some like driving Fords & Buicks, others like BMWs & Hondas. These companies are not in competition with each other, but rather contributing their own unique value, providing contrast and freedom of choice.

If it appears someone else in the same business is doing “better” than you, you might be undermining your own success by comparing yourself to others, rather than creating your own definition of success. Perhaps you’d benefit from honestly asking yourself if you’re just engaging in a pissing contest. Is it REALLY that important you be the best? Why? How much of your desire for success is driven by ego?

There’s great danger in constantly comparing yourself with others. Whenever we rely on outer conditions for inner peace, we’ve written ourselves a prescription for suffering. It’s a losing scenario when we base our own worth on how others are doing. Competing may motivate us to perform at our best, though can also blind us to our own successes & keep us chasing after unattainable ideals. Focusing on the successes of others can provide valuable feedback, guidance, lessons, and direction on how to improve our game, though can also divert attention from defining our own niches and how to make the most of our own uniqueness.

What will determine your failure or success more than anything else is the vibe you send out to customers and potential partners. At any given time, you are either attracting or repelling people to you, based on the energy you project...

Smart, success-oriented people want to do business with others who have an abundant mindset. The definition of competition, in economic theory, inherently presupposes a paradigm of scarcity - that there isn’t enough to go around, or there must be a winner and a loser. People naturally want to align with the winners. And who are the winners?

Not the ones trying to “beat the competition,” but those with positive energy, passion, purpose, who focus on providing value.

Would you really like to align with someone who talks poorly about others and tries to hype up their own business at the ridicule of another, who’s focused on building & improving their business from the standpoint of having to “stay on top of” the competition, to “dominate” their market, and “steal market share?”

Or, would you prefer to align yourself with someone who acknowledges the strengths & positives in all businesses, who does what only they can do best, focusing on providing their clientele maximum value by leveraging their own uniqueness?

People don’t necessarily want to do business with those making the most money, but with those they can relate to, who are honesty, likable, supportive, open, and inspiring. You don’t need to be #1 to prove your worth. You can connect with the people who will help you rise to your greatest successes even if your “competitors” do have some advantage.

Success isn’t about having the greatest market share or making the most profit. It isn’t about outperforming others playing the same game, winning a prize, or attaining status.

Success is about quality of life. It’s about receiving what you want and deserve in life based on your capacity to contribute and be of service to your community. Success is an ongoing process of developing yourself into a person who has more to offer than the year before. It’s about creating a fulfilling life through connecting with others and building each other up.

Follow your personal path. Do what only you can do best. Rely on your internal compass, always remaining healthily skeptical of an external reality defined by others. Forget about the “competition,” and progress through your own growth process. Develop your vision, clarifying how you want to contribute to the world. Direct your focus on what you’re doing, how you can improve, and become not just a winner of a competition, but a leader in your field...
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Rok, I thank you for writing and sharing this.

Stay driven!
Moonshi

F.O.R.M. - Tips For Networking Your Small Business

Beyond The Weather: Small Talk Tips For Networking Your Small Business

By Caroline Melberg

Have you ever been invited to a business networking meeting or luncheon, or thought about going to your chamber of commerce's networking events, but decided not to because you never know what to say to get the conversation started?

I've been there – and here's the simple trick I learned to help me feel comfortable with the cocktail party small talk. Most people who know me wouldn't think of me as "shy" – and I'm not – most of the time. When it comes to "networking" though, I used to struggle with making small talk.

That is, until I learned the F.O.R.M. trick.

F.O.R.M. works great because it works as a memory tool for when you are in social situations and you want to get to know the person you are talking with, and you want that person to remember you – and your business. Instead of talking about the weather, use FORM to make your conversation count.

F.O.R.M. stands for Family, Occupation, Recreation and Message – four areas you can use as conversation helpers in just about any social situation.

Family – asking whether they live around the area, if they are originally from the area or have moved there recently, if they have a family – all of these are great conversation starters. This gets the person talking about themselves and gives you a chance to learn about them.

Occupation – what do you do for a living? When they tell you what they do, you have a great opportunity to ask them about their job – if it's in an industry you are familiar with you can comment about how competitive it is, or how challenging. If you are unfamiliar with their industry, here's your chance to learn about it.

When they ask what you do, have your '30 second elevator speech" ready. This is a description of your business that you can say in just a couple of sentences that articulates what it is that you do.

For instance, for my business I would say that "I help small to medium sized business owners market their brick-and-mortar businesses on the Internet, finding new local customers, increasing their sales and growing their businesses."

For a full story, click here to read it at Manta.com website.

Discover Your Destiny by Robin Sharma

Everything occurring in your life has been perfectly orchestrated to inspire your maximum evolution as a human being and bring you into your true power. From my experiences, as long as I am a student of life, learn from my experiences ("mistakes") and allow it to take me where I am meant to go, life has my highest interests in mind.

These words of wisdom are extracts from Robin Sharma, Dr. John F. Demartini and some other books and seminars I have read. Enjoy them.

1. The best way to learn is to teach.
2. Your life is a treasure and you are so much more than you know.
3. We receive life not from what we want but who we are.
4. Courage is not the absence of fear but the willingness to walk through your fear in pursuit of a goal that is important to you.
5. Your life can be made even better by the things that break your heart.
6. The greatest treasures are the treasures that lie within.
7. Success is important but significance is even better.
8. Have your beautiful things but do not be imprisoned by them. Own them but do not let them own you. Give the main aim of your life over to far more important pursuits such as discovery of your highest potential, giving of yourself to others, and making a difference by living for something more important than yourself. Success is fine but significance is the real name of the game.
9. Things are never as bad as they seem. The situation that causes us sorrow are the same ones that introduce us to the strength, power and wisdom we truly are.
10. Feelings are the doorways into your soul and they must be acknowledged and then felt to completion. Feelings carry important information and serve to foster your self-relationship if explored fully.
11. As your awareness expands, you will become aware of things you previously could neither see nor understand.
12. Your life will work much better once you begin to listen to life. Let it lead you rather than trying to push the river. And trust that where life carries you is exactly where you are meant to be. Let go of all your resistance and move into a posture of surrendering to whatever is unfolding.
13. It’s hard to believe we live in a world where most people are more concerned with following the crowd and doing what everyone else is doing than living their dreams.
14. One of the greatest regrets a person can ever have is getting to the end of their lives and realizing they did not do their dreams.
15. There is but one failure in life and that is the failure to participate.
16. The past is a grave and it makes no sense to spend your life living in a grave. Every ending represents a new beginning. You cannot move forward in life if you are stuck looking in the rear view mirror.
17. Big risks, big life. Small risk, small life.
18. No one discovers their destiny. Your destiny will discover you – it will find you, provided you have done the preparation and inner work required to seize the opportunity when it presents itself.
19. Spend time to know yourself. Tear down the facade you show the world. Get to know your deepest and truest values. Get to know your preferences and priorities.
20. Someone gave us our fears. We were born fearless.
21. Who you are in this moment is not who you truly are. Rather, it’s someone you’re become as a result of being in this world.
22. Every year I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence that will risk nothing, and which, shirking pain, missed happiness as well. No one ever yet was poorer in the long run having once in a lifetime “let out all the length of the reins”.
23. Personal transformation is not a race, sometimes the harder you try to change, the longer it takes.
24. Life is like a thriller, half the fun is not knowing what’s going to happen.
25. Life is so fluid. Everything’s always changing. The way you think it’s going to unfold is not the way it’s going to unfold. That’s the fun of the whole exercise. That’s also the gift. Hold on to your plans and goals with a loose grip.
26. Selfless service is the rent I pay for living on this wonderful world.
27. You are here not merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget that errand.
28. Just imagine that the purpose of life is your happiness only- then life becomes a cruel and senseless thing. You have to embrace the wisdom of humanity. Your intellect and your heart tell you that the meaning of life is to serve the force that sent you into the world. The life becomes a joy.
29. Money is the unintended yet inevitable byproduct of a life spent helping others get what they want. Money is nothing more than payment rendered by the universe in return for the value you have added to others, As you sow, so shall you reap.
30. Once you connect with some kind of higher purpose and main aim in your life, there will be a corresponding release of passion and energy in your life. The secret of generating extraordinary levels of passion in your life is to discover your larger purpose.
31. Fix your course to a star and you can navigate any storm.
32. Do your best – the very best that you know how to do in every dimension of your life – and then let life do the rest. It’s really a delicate balance between making it happen and letting it happen. Once you’ve done your absolute best, let go and trust that whatever comes is perfectly suited for the growth you need to evolve into your best self.
33. When you set big goals and chase big dreams, you are engaging in a hugely creative act. You are using your imagination and your abilities to build something wonderful. That’s creativity in action.
34. We see the world "not as it is" but "as we are".
35. It is time to come to your senses. You are to live and to learn to laugh. You are to learn to listen to the cursed radio music of life and to reverence the spirit behind it and to laugh at its distortions. So there you are. Nothing more will be asked of you.

Self examination is the first step to personal greatness:

1. Living a lie. What things will I not tolerate in my life. The stage of self betrayal.
   
   
2. The choice point. Continue to live as you have always been living – and in doing so, resign yourself to a life of unhappiness and mediocrity – or step up to your biggest life. The soul would rather fail at its own life than to succeed at someone else’s. Nothing’s more important than the bravery to live your life. The stage of releasing control and breaking your chains.
   
   
3. Awareness of wonder and possibility. You see with a new set of eyes. You see more of the truth than you have ever seen before. You begin to understand that the world wants you to win and that it is a place of great abundance, opportunity and majesty. People at their core are good, it’s because of the hurts that life has visited on them that they do bad things. The stage of seeing with new eyes.
   
   
4. Instruction from masters. Confusion always gives rise to clarity over time. Beginning of real wisdom is the stage of learning, filing and preparation.
   
   
5. Transformation and rebirth. Biggest self starts to present itself on a daily basis and your entire world begins to change The stage of emptying and refilling.
   
   
6. The trial. The stage of testing and confirmation.
   
   
7. The great awakening to self. The stage of fearlessness.
   

On your deathbed, the only person you’ll have to answer is the person you look at in the mirror every morning. You’d better be true to him.

The 5 Daily Devotions

1. Devote yourself to rising at 6:00AM each and every morning. Those who get up early are those who get the best from life.
   
   
2. Devote yourself to setting aside the first 60 minutes of your day as your HOLY Hour. This is your sacred time to do the inner work required to help you become your best. Use this period to read from the wisdom literature, to meditate or pray, to reflect on the state of your life and the progress of your dreams in your journey, or to think deeply about what must unfold over the coming hours of the day in order for you to feel it was a successful one. Performing this ritual daily will help you to shine brightly in the world and live at your highest.
   
   
3. Devote yourself to displaying a standard of care, compassion, and character well beyond what anyone could ever imagine from you. In doing so, you will be doing your part to aid in the building of a new world.
   
   
4. Devote yourself to displaying a standard of excellence at work far higher than anyone would ever expect from you. Abundance and fulfillment will flow back to you.
   
   
5. Devote yourself to being the most loving person you know and thinking, feeling, and acting as though you are one of the greatest people on the planet (because you are). Your life will never be the same and you will bless many lives.
   
   

You must surrender all you have known and walk into a new reality. The purpose of life is all about making the journey home to wholeness, back to a place of integrity, back to your authentic self – the one that is fearless, all-knowing, and of boundless love. The purpose of life is to close The Integrity Gap.

By taking personal responsibility for what went on within me and by getting to know myself and the root causes of my negative reactions, I could literally minimize recycling in my life.

Most people give up just steps before reaching their goals. Most people quit only steps away from getting everything they wanted.

Rules for winning trials

1. Remember that life is a series of seasons. Every human being will have to endure the harshness of a few winters in order to get to the glory of the best summers. Never forget that winters do not last.
   
   
2. Join the Hope Club. Big, beautiful, and seemingly impossible goals are superb vehicles to keep you inspired as you walk through adversity. Fix your course to a star and you can navigate any storm. When you are reaching for great and noble goals that speak to the best within you, your desire to reach them will pull you through the tough times that you will encounter along the seeker’s path.
   
   
3. Keep in mind, at all times, that we grow the most from our sufferings. As we go through it, it hurts. But as we move through it, it also heals. When a jug of water falls to the floor and cracks, what was hidden within begins to pour out. When life sends you one of its curves, remember that it has to help crack you open so that all the love, power and potential that had been slumbering within you can be poured into the world outside you. And, like a fractured bone, we do become stronger in the broken places.
   
   
4. Failure is a choice. Nothing can stop a man or a woman who simply refuses to be kept down. The book, "The GoGetter" will be very helpful on this point. Read it often. Just make a decision from the center of your heart that, no matter what happens to you, you will keep walking the authentic path. Doing so will ensue you a life of real success.
   
   
5. During tough times, there is a tendency to let go of yourself. As you encounter adversity, have the discipline to maintain your routine. Get up early. Do your holy hour. Eat very well. Exercise, Spend time with nature and make sure you do all you can to keep all four of your central dimensions – the mind, the body, the emotions, and the spirit – in fine operating order.
   
   
6. Feel your feelings. When you are facing hard times, some people will tell you to “just think positive thoughts”. Such advice is not helpful. The key is to strike a balance. Experience the feeling that arise so you do not end up swallowing them and allowing them to fester. As the same time, use your intellectual powers to see the silver lining that every dark cloud brings.
   
   
7. Remember that, no matter how hard things get, you are never alone.
   

Stay driven!
Moonshi

Seeing the Big Picture: A Corporate Guide to Better Decisions through IT

If you've ever had the feeling that you're making decisions without all the necessary information, you're not alone. Nine out of ten corporate executives admit to the same problem.

But if you're an executive at a small or midsized business, what's the solution? You don't have the deep pockets of a big corporation to develop an elaborate IT infrastructure, but you still need an up-to-the-minute, 360-degree view of your operation to make the right decisions-and make them quickly.

Fortunately, today it is possible for you to get the information you need to make informed decisions. And you can find out how in the TEC report Seeing the Big Picture: A Corporate Guide to Better Decisions through IT.

Learn how you can structure your enterprise system to track and report the information that will enable you to

• align business activities with corporate strategy
• allocate and utilize resources effectively
• reduce risk
• meet compliance and standards requirements

You don't have to work in the dark. Find out how you can get the timely, accurate, and actionable information you need to make the right decisions at the right time.

Download your PDF copy of Seeing the Big Picture: A Corporate Guide to Better Decisions through IT today.

Can a business increase sales 10%, keep expenses constant and still see a 61% increase in profits?

It can if it looks at increasing the bottom-line the ActionCOACH way and YES you can, if you are willing to change your core principles of business accounting

Conventional business looks at sales from the standpoint of three variables, namely sales, expenses and profits defined by the formula: Sales – Expenses = Profits.

In this approach, each variable depends on the other, forcing businesses to look at either increasing sales or decreasing expenses in order to influence profitability.

ActionCOACH moves away from this narrow view and breaks the sales variable into five separate components. These variables can be worked individually and across the board to leverage profits on the bottom line.

In the ActionCOACH business coaching model, this is termed “The Five Ways”.

According to the “Five Ways,” all business is driven by five key profit generating areas: Lead Generation, Conversion Rate, Average Dollar Sale, Average Number of Transactions and Profit Margins. These areas are highlighted in the following equation:

Lead Generation x Conversion Rate = Number of Customers

Number of Customers x Average Dollar Sale x Average Number of Transactions = Revenues

Revenues x Profit Margins = $ Profits

A closer look at each of these five variables reveals how an increase in any or all of them can increase sales and profits, while keeping expenses constant.

Understanding Lead Generation, Conversion Rates and Average Dollar Amounts

In today’s highly competitive business world, it is not possible for business owners to sit back and see the profits roll in. It becomes vital for businesses to test and measure everything. A good place to start is lead generation. This is defined as the total number of potential buyers that a particular business contacted or that contacted the business last year. Leads are also known as “potentials” or “prospects.”

Most people confuse responses, or the number of potential buyers, with results. The sound of ringing phones does not mean that the cash registers are ringing as well. This is highlighted by conversion rate, or the percentage of people that did buy versus those who could have bought. An example of this is 10 people walking through a store with three people buying something. For the day, the store had a conversion rate of 3 out of 10, or 30%.

The next part of the “Five Ways” is the number of customers. This is the number of different customers a business deals with, and it can be determined by multiplying the total number of leads by its conversion rate.

Average number of transactions is the number of purchases the average customer will make over the course of a year. It helps to keep a database of past customers, and many business owners make the mistake of subscribing to the myth of “once a customer, always a customer.” The average number of transactions is closely related to the average sale of each purchase, which is also forecast over the course of a year.

Discovering Revenues and Working on Margins

The next important concept in the model is revenue, which is computed by multiplying the total number of customers by the number of times that they bought, multiplied by the average amount they spent.

The resulting number is “revenue,” or the total amount value of overall sales for a business.

This figure leads to the concept of margin, which is the profit percentage of each and every sale. Simply put, if a business sells something for $100, and $25 was profit, the profit margin is 25%.

The final step takes the resulting revenue number and multiplies it by a company’s profit margin percentage to reach bottom-line profit.

The innovative idea around the “Five Ways” is that businesses can leverage the concept even if they have a product or service with a long-term buying cycle or a limited number of transactions.

In those cases, a business could work with the other variables to improve bottom-line profit, including boosting its marketing efforts to capture more qualified leads, finding ways to increase conversion to customers, raising prices to leverage average amount sale or upgrading profit margins.

By stepping outside the conventional accounting perspective of profit, and recognizing that a number of additional variables drive the bottom-line – ActionCOACH gives owners a new perspective on business, and equips them with the tools that positively impact each variable of the equation.

Ubuntu Linux $30 Million Richer and Microsoft's in a Storm

Linux's gains are Microsoft's losses, and there were both aplenty in the past week, despite the best efforts of the Redmond crowd to tamp down enthusiasm for free OSes. Bloggers across the FLOSS world are speculating over what they see as a building storm headed straight for western Washington.

The details are juicy. Read it all here.

SUN Microsystems Possible Spiral Death?

I have always thought that SUN Microsystems is a confused company. Their strategies are unclear and they always sent mixed messages to the industry. While Scott Mcnealy was CEO, he guarded Solaris and JAVA while launching Linux initiatives.

Today I read in Reuters and IT Business Edge that SUN Microsystems is trying to avoid failure by finding a Buyer and after they had cut a deal with their one-time mortal enemy in order to get some much needed cash. Sun shares have nose-dived 77 percent this year, more than double the decline in the Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC, to around $4 per share, a 13-year low. The stock is down 98 percent since year 2000, the peak of the dot-com boom. On top of that, in October 2008 they reported a US$1.7 billion quarterly loss!!! This has created speculation that the firm will be sold. But for what price do you sell a company that is losing US$1.7 billion a quarter, in a Buyer’s market?

Sun is a very complex company that would be very difficult for those that have the money to integrate. Finding a buyer will be almost impossible.

In addition to HP, IBM and Dell, three technology bankers listed Cisco Systems Inc and Japan's Fujitsu Ltd, which already has a business partnership with Sun, as natural bidders. They spoke on condition of anonymity as they would vie for the business if Sun puts itself in play.

But these companies may not want to take on the challenge of integrating Sun, which has a market value of about $3 billion, given the turbulent economy.

Sun may have more luck splitting its hardware and software divisions and selling them separately, although valuing the parts may be a challenge because they are tightly linked. The odds don’t favor SUN surviving this at the moment. Certainly not intact, anyway. It is likely to be followed by others. So how do you choose who wins and who fails?

Good luck Jonathan Schwartz. I wished you guys have listened to your Clients during the dotCOM era and launch a Linux strategy which could today be the force that is driving SUN and your other acquisitions.

Hacking Democracy - Bring this to the attention of Barack Obama!!!

Hello friends and supporters of Barack OBAMA, the Presidential candidate for America,

I am a Singapore citizen whom resonates with Mr. Obama and I want to see him elected as the new President of America. From my point of view, he seems to be *the* only candidate that has the ability to LEAD, to MODERATE, to QUESTION issues and to THINK deep about issues that are plaguing the world and America policies.

However, I am concerned that a similar incident of Presidential election could happen again which made previous Presidential candidate, Al Gore did not win the presidential election.

Recently, I saw a documentary produced by HBO entitled "Hacking Democracy" which shows that the electronic election system developed by Diebold, Inc. is probably "hackable" and easily tampered with!!! It only took 10-secs to "hack" the system to change the data of the e-votes from the memory card on the e-voting system!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, do you know how this could change the result of the election? Could someone be responsible for Al Gore's lost in the last presidential election?

For more details about this HBO documentary, please visit
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/hackingdemocracy/

Folks, we need to bring this information to the attention of Mr. Obama and his team of campaigners. How do we make sure that they received this info? I would like to be in touch with him before it is too late.


Summary of the Documentary:

Hacking Democracy is a 2006 documentary film by Russell Michaels, Simon Ardizzone, and Robert Carrillo Cohen, shown on HBO. Filmed over a period of over three years, it documents American citizens investigating anomalies and irregularities with 'e-voting' (electronic voting) systems that occurred during America's 2000 and 2004 elections, especially in Volusia County, Florida. The film investigates the flawed integrity of electronic voting machines, particularly those made by Diebold Election Systems, and the film culminates dramatically in the on-camera hacking of the in-use / working Diebold election system in Leon County, Florida.

In 2007 Hacking Democracy was officially nominated for an Emmy award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism.

This cautionary documentary exposes the vulnerability of computers - which count approximately 80% of America's votes in county, state and federal elections - suggesting that if our votes aren't safe, then our democracy isn't safe either.

As I Google, I found more info about "Hacking Democracy":

• Wikipedia
  
• New York Times
  
• The Register
  
• CBS News
  
• Boston
  
• HBO Special

I also got several videos from YouTube courtesy of a friend, Hazrul whom commented to my Facebook postings. The videos are linked here:

• Voting Machines Switching Votes by CNN
  

I look forward to your support and replies and I look forward to Mr. Obama winning the election and being the new President of America. If I can be a catalyst of change to warn him of this possible issue, I want to bring it to his attention and I urge anyone of you readers to assist me.

Stay driven!
Moonshi

Management of Money and Money as a Current-cy

Btw, just to add to my previous sharing, due to the responses I get in my personal mailbox.

Answering to the questions I received:

1. Yes, I negotiate for nearly everything I buy. It's my money, I earned it. Why should I give it away so easily?

2. Yes, I ask for discounts for everything that I am paying for and I request for something extra all the time. There's no harm asking. If you get it, it's a BONUS! If you don't get it, don't fret. Change your technique. 90% of the time, I get more value for what I am paying for. If I don't get what I ask for, I negotiate some more and if I like the person, I will still do business with them. If I don't feel like doing business with that person, I go elsewhere. I have a CHOICE. When you understand the value of money, you are in power. When you have the knowledge, you are in power, and with power comes clarity that give you CHOICES.

Imagine getting $5 discount for a $50 item I bought. That is a 10% savings! I can get a very good plate of chicken rice for that $5 savings! If I am able to negotiate $5 discount 100 times a year, that is $500 savings! I can fly to Bangkok with $500 for a quick weekend getaway, stay for 3D2N in a nice cosy hotel and enjoy a sumptuous Thai buffet without a dime spent from my own pocket! All this because I am smarter with my own money!

I even negotiated with my credit card company. Since they also are a consumer bank, I requested the bank to give me an offer of a loan. For the fun of it, I negotiated a loan of $200,000 that has a 12% p.a. interest rate. After a 30-mins negotiation, the bank got back to me 2-days later and offer me a $200,000 loan at 6.2% interest p.a.!!! Wow!!! Isn't that fantastic? However, I did not take it... but do you know how much savings that is per year if I take the offer and use it to create more value and build a business around the money and generate at least 50% returns on it?

When the bank customer service personnel told me they can't give me a discount on my credit card, I ask for something else e.g. Is it possible that you top up my credit card points with an additional 20,000 points? They may not give you 20,000 points and instead give you 5,000 points and that's better than not getting anything at all right? What if they say that they can't give you reward points? I will ask for dining or shopping vouchers. If that is not possible, ask them what can they give away to make me a happy client so that I will stick with their bank and refer them potential clients? Isn't that what we all want? More business because we offer guaranteed value?

Reasons why I do what I do:

1. Money is a curren-cy. Current is energy and energy is constantly flowing. So, I must understand how money flows. I must love and respect money to be able to attract money to me.

2. The smarter I am with money management, the more money is attracted to me. The more money is attracted to me, the easier it is for me to earn my money and the easier it is for me to grow my money and make my money work for me.

3. Money is like a magnet. It flows towards people whom knows how to love, respect and manage it. If I don't know how to manage my money, money will go out of my hands and flow into the hands of people whom knows how to manage money better. This explains why some people can earn $200,000 a year and still have no savings or worst still - have debts!

4. So, learn finance. Learn to negotiate fairly. Apply your learning and see how your net worth grows. It is interesting for me to find out that I have clients demanding for my time and expertise and willing to pay me $1,880 per hour to engage me to perturbate them and their staff with business, finance and systems related questions and issues. They invested $150,000 in total with me for my time, knowledge, and experience. In the end, I deployed several IT systems for them and now their business productivity level is UP, employees are a LOT happier with a business system that they can easily use and follow, the SYSTEM does not allow them to make anymore costly mistakes and because of that, their productivity goes UP, their confidence level goes UP, their self-esteem is UP, the boss is HAPPY, the finance team gets all their data on a CLICK of a button and their clients get their products and services FASTR! Now, their gross profit is UP by more than 10% while costs is down by 15%! Can you imagine how much savings that is per year for a business whose gross revenue per year is US$30+ million?

So, what is your net worth?

My question to you:

1. Check your bank balance. Are you happy with the amount in your bank account?

2. If you are not happy with the balance, reflect upon yourself and your belief system and ask yourself WHY despite being a graduate with economics, finance and business knowledge, you have not been able to attract money? WHAT is limiting you? WHAT are your hierarchy of VALUES in life? HOW can you locate your life's blockages? WHEN did you learn the programmings that is limiting you? WHO can help you release your blocks? WHERE is the blockage in your life? WHAT can you do to fix it? Ask yourself are you APPLYING what you learn because, To KNOW and NOT to DO is NOT YET TO KNOW...

3. If you KNOW there are something inside you that you need to RELEASE, FIX or let go, go fix it. If there is a LIMITING BELIEF that is holding you back, go find out what it is. Ask yourself, "Are there any other emotional baggage that I have not let go of?". Dig deep and check with yourself if you have any relationship issues, parental issues, spirituality issues, trust issues or integrity issues that you need to fix.

Once you fix it and be congruent with yourself, life is light, easy, joyful and blissful.

I am always excited to check my growing bank account, my weekly personal and business cash flow statements and especially my personal investment statements.

Do you?

The Web Of The Future with Mozilla's New Aurora Browser

Story by The Channel Wire

The mad scientists at Mozilla went back into the lab after releasing Firefox 3 and have cooked up something that may be even more impressive. Teaming up with Adaptive Path, Mozilla wants to introduce the Aurora concept browser.

Aurora was designed with the intent of creating what the Web of the future will look like. Featuring an integrated Web and desktop environment, Aurora functions in three dimensions on the desktop.

The Aurora concept browser is part of the recently launched Mozilla Labs initiative. Keeping to its open-source roots, Mozilla is throwing open the doors for contributors to work with their teams to help shape the direction of the Web.

"Today we're calling on industry, higher education and people from around the world to get involved and share their ideas and expertise as we collectively explore and design future directions for the Web," states the Mozilla Labs blog.

"Our goal is to bring even more people to the table and provoke thought, facilitate discussion, and inspire future design directions for Firefox, the Mozilla project, and the Web as a whole."

In a video released on the Mozilla's Blog, the Aurora concept web browser is demonstrated in the interactions between two people working in separate offices who are surfing the Web at the same time. At first, Aurora seems to be a normal browser as Jill looks for the latest Cubs score. Alan, in a different location, sends Jill a text message and the two of them begin discussing rainfall for their farms.

Then things really start to look different...

For full story, click here!