Hiring a great project manager can really improve your company’s ability to get things done. However, finding a right project manager is often like trying to find a needle in a haystack. In order for things to work, you need to find a project manager who has the experience, skills, management ability and cultural fit […]
Whether you plan on outsourcing your bookkeeping or programming, your writing or your support lines, the skill of evaluating outsourcers is going to be crucial. Great evaluation skills will help you sort out unprofessional providers, eliminate time wasters avoid wasting money. How do you evaluate potential outsourcers? Here are a few key things to look […]
In January 2012, Facebook passed the 900 million user mark. Social media is one of the fastest growing and most important marketing tools on the internet today. Unfortunately, it’s still an area of marketing that many business owners don’t understand. It’s simple to see that if you spend $1,000 on AdWords ads and get $2,000 […]
Managers and business owners often spend far too much time micro-managing employees. Not only does this detract from time you could spend on other things, but it also causes employees to feel like they’re not being trusted. Take the example of a coffee shop. If a barista spills coffee on a customer’s shirt, does the […]
One thing small and medium sized business owners can learn from Fortune 500 companies is the practice of regularly looking to cut costs. This is something you should be doing at least twice a year, if not quarterly. Look over all your expenses and identify ways to reduce your costs. Most businesses have profit margins […]
Communication is at the core of every project. In fact, some would go as far as to say that project management is nothing more than skilled communication. Having great communication between team members will enable you to get more done in a shorter period of time and tackle challenges that just wouldn’t be possible without […]
One of the most common places people go to outsource work are freelance websites like eLance or oDesk. These places have thousands of freelancers ready and waiting to do exactly the kinds of projects you’re looking to outsource. That said however, there are some major benefits and some major drawbacks to using eLance and/or oDesk. […]
Whenever you kick off a new project, you should do so starting with a “new project meeting.” In this meeting you’ll lay out the objectives, the methodologies you’ll be using, the various roles in the team and last but not least, the ground rules. The ground rules are the operating agreements that keep the project […]
Having great business processes is crucial to business success. That said, if you do it wrong, the creation of business processes can actually hinder your success. How can you ensure that your business processes actually help rather than hurt you? Make sure you avoid these five mistakes. ==> Mistake #1: No Overall Model, Only Details […]
You’ve probably heard the statement “it’s the who, not the what.” In business, success is much more about who you have on your team than the kind of strategy you’re trying to execute on. Google wasn’t the first search engine to come along, but they had something no other search engine had: Larry Page and […]
