How to Get the Skills of a Natural Leader

Leadership exists on a continuum from managing self to managing others to managing the organization. Natural leadership does not mean that you either have it or you don't. It does mean that you are willing to assess your style and behavior, and that you are willing to learn and grow.

1. The only person you can change is yourself.

Self-management comes before managing others or managing an organization. Understanding the impact of your behavior is crucial to leadership.

2. You must feel comfortable being in a leadership role.

Leadership calls for authenticity. If you are not comfortable with the role, others will sense it and withhold the full measure of whatever it is they have to contribute.

3. Being a natural leader involves being able to adjust your style to the skill level and commitment of others in any given situation.

Reading the people/task mix requires skill, flexibility and intuition.

4. Natural leaders develop other leaders

Leaders of today must share skills, insight and power to bring along others who have the potential to lead. This includes giving others the opportunity to lead. Someone once said that leadership is like manure. Left in a pile it starts to smell really bad and does no good. Spread around evenly it promotes growth and doesn't smell bad at all.

5. As a leader, you must make sure information flows freely in all directions.

The culture must be such that withholding information to strengthen one's own power or for any reason is absolutely not tolerated.

6. Leaders have to be accessible.

You have to create a culture in which people feel they can tell you the bad news as well as the good news. You cannot isolate yourself or let others isolate you.

7. Leadership in modern organizations means sometimes fading into the background . . . when it is natural to do so.

You do not have to plan every tactic or lead every charge. Hire good people who can articulate your vision as well as you can (maybe even better) and then let them do it.

8. Leaders need to provide support.

Become a sponsor for someone else's idea or project. Make sure you provide the resources and structure others need to succeed.

9. Leaders must create a culture that encourages risk and tolerates mistakes.

In these times, playing it safe in business is the riskiest strategy.

10. Leadership skills can be developed.

Natural does not mean born with. Leadership skills can be learned and this learning circles back to self-management.

How to Succeed with an Online PR Marketing Campaign

1. Set goals for your campaign

increase sales, attract advertisers, drive traffic to your site, build brand awareness

2. Develop unique selling proposition (USP)

about your company, its products and services; create key message points about the benefits to end users

3. Determine your target audiences

Internet industry, advertisers, consumers, Wall Street, etc.

4. Begin a publicity program

write a press release about significant company announcements (ie: new product launch, a strategic partnership, a new source of funding, advertising sponsorship, an experienced executive joining the company)

5. Select appropriate spokespersons for the media--yourself, your marketing manager, your technical expert

6. Create a target media list

business editor and Internet/technology reporter for local newspaper, advertising and interactive trade editors, business reporters, TV reporters covering cyberspace

7. Send release to reporters by E-mail or fax by 8 A.M. of the day you issue it

follow up with a phone call by late morning; talk to your messages points; you'll only have time to give the top line of the story

8. Follow what reporters are writing every day and know their interests

9. pot industry trends by checking online media and traditional print and broadcast coverage daily or several times a day

10. Build relationships with reporters

invite them to lunch; see them at industry events.

Predict Your Future. Do not use a crystal ball to create forecasts of your business. By carefully analyzing the historic trends of
your business enterprise, as shown in your records for the previous five years, you can forecast for the year ahead. Your listing
of earnings, your experience with the markets in which you sell, and your general understanding of the economy should allow you to
predict a sales figure for the following calendar year.

When You've Got a Sales prediction figure, make a budget demonstrating your costs as a percentage of that figure. Within the next
year, you can compare real P&L amounts for your budgeted figures. Thus, your financial plan is an important tool for determining
the health of your business.

Make Timely Decisions. Without action, predictions and conclusions concerning the future are not worth the paper they're written
on. A decision that doesn't lead to action is a poor one. The pace of business needs timely in addition to informed decision
making. If the owner-manager is to stay ahead of competition, you have to move to control your own destiny.

Effective Decision making in the small business requires several things. The owner-manager should have as much accurate
information as possible. With these facts, you need to establish the effects of all feasible courses of actions and the time
requirements. When you have made the judgment, you have set up your company so the decisions you make can be transmitted into
actions.

Control Your Business. To be effective, the owner-manager must be able to motivate key individuals to acquire the results intended
for within the price and time limits allowed. In working to attain outcomes, the small business owner-manager has an advantage
over large business. You can be flexible and fast while many big businesses need to await committee actions before a decision is
made. You don't have to get permission to behave. And equally important, bottlenecks to implementing new practices can receive
your personal attention.

One of the Secrets is in determining what things to restrain. Even in a small business, the owner-manager shouldn't try to be all
things to everyone. You ought to keep close control on people, products, cash, and any other tools that you consider significant
to maintaining your performance pointed toward profit.

Handle Your Folks. Most companies realize that their largest expense is labor. Yet because of the close contact with employees, a
few owner-manager of small businesses do not pay enough attention to direct and indirect labor costs. They have a tendency to
think of these costs in terms of individuals rather than relate them to profit with respect to dollars and cents.

Listed below are a few Tips regarding personnel handling:

Periodically Review every position in your company. Take a glimpse at the job. Is work being replicated? Can it be structured so
that it motivates the worker to become concerned? Can the tasks be given to another employee or employees along with a position
eliminated? Can a part-time person fill the occupation.

Play A little private mental game. Imagine you have to eliminate one worker, If you had to let 1 person go, who'd it be? How would
you realign the tasks to make out? You may get a true solution to the imaginary problem is potential to your financial benefit.

Usage Compensation for a tool rather than seeing it as a essential evil. Reward Superior work. Look into the possibility of using
raises and bonuses as incentives for greater productivity. By way of instance, can you envision bonuses like morale boosters
during seasonal slacks or other dull periods?

Recall That there are new ways of controlling absenteeism through incentive reimbursement plans. For example, the owner-manager of
one little company eliminated holidays and sick leave. Instead, this owner-manager gave each worker thirty days annual leave to
use as the employee saw fit. At the conclusion of the calendar year, the workers were paid at regular rates for the leave they did
not use. To qualify for the yearlong cover, the employee had to establish that sick leave was taken only for that purpose.
Non-sick leave had to be applied for in advance. Because of this, unscheduled absences and overtime pay were decreased
significantly. In addition, employees were happier and more productive than they were under the older system.

Control Your Inventory. Don't tie up all of your cash in stock. Use a perpetual inventory system as a cost control rather than a
system only for taxation purposes. Establish use patterns or purchase patterns on the materials or items you must stock to keep
the minimum number required to provide your clients or to preserve production. Excessive stock, while it is finished product or
raw materials, ties up funds which could be used to better advantage, as an instance, to open up a new sales territory or to buy
new machines.

Centralize your Purchases and avoid duplications. Be a relative shopper. Confirm orders in writing. Get the price and amount
straight right away.

Check what you Receive for quality and condition. Check bills from providers against quotations. You don't wish to be the victim
of the mistake.

You Ought to, However, keep 1 fact in mind once you install your inventory control system. Do not invest more on the control
system than it will return in savings.

Control Your Products. From control of stock to control of merchandise is but a step. Make sure that your sales people recognize
the value of promoting the products that are the most lucrative. Align your service coverages along with your own markup in mind.
Arrange your goods so that low markup items need the least handling.

Control Your Cash. It's good policy to handle cash and checks as though they were perishable commodities. They are. Money in your
protected earns no return; also it Can be stolen. Bank promptly.

 general-contractor general-store gentlemen-club gift-card gift-shop gin glamping glass glitter gluta-drip go-cart gold government-contracting gown-rental gps-tracking grass-cutting greenhouse grillz gun-range gutter-cleaning gym-apparel hair-extension handbag handyman hardware-store hat hauling headband headphone healing healthcare health-coaching Healthcare Heat Press Heel Home Health Care home-improvement home-inspection home-inspection hoodie horse-breeding hostel hot-dog-cart house-painting hr-consulting htv hub human-hair hunting-outfitter hvac hydro-dipping hypebeast hypnotherapy ice-cream-roll ice-cream-truck