Health Tip for the Day

*** Today's Tip:  PROPER PORTION SIZE IS IN YOUR HANDS             

Eating smaller portions of food is one of the easiest ways to cut back on calories. Knowing serving sizes can help prevent overeating. When you're not sure about serving size, use your hand as a guide. A healthy portion of meat, poultry or fish is about the size of an open palm. One serving (one cup) of most ready-to-eat cereal is about the size of a fist. One serving (one half-cup) of cooked rice or pasta is about a handful. A serving (one tablespoon) of peanut butter is about the size of a thumb. www.thelearningstrategy.com

Learn, Plan, Persist and Take Risks!

There is nothing worst than being persistent with a business prospect without first learning and planning your approach.    

I was a senior corporate salesman and was basically charged with getting large enterprise accounts to buy professional certification training and degree programs. Verizon was one of my prospects who were really careful about outside training organizations who didn't understand their business model.  I realized if I was to develop a training partnership with them, I had to learn their business.  I learned about their fiber optic installation; I met and traveled with their line installers, I met and dined with their buying influences and chief decision makers eight or nine times.  It actually worked and I just kept learning, planning and persisting, waiting for an opportunity to arise.

One day, after about one year, Verizon realized they didn't have the training capacity to meet the demand of a $7 billion fiber deployment project across the US.  The deployment luckily started in the same territory that I was located in.  That was our opening.  Verizon decided to use us. We got the contract, and we eventually delivered this training across other areas of the US for about 3 years. The main decision maker and myself became good friends in the end.

It must have been worth close to $3 million dollars and the best thing about it was that, at that time, our partnership trained hundreds of technicians.  More importantly, the training increased resident scheduled visits from 1 to 2 residents per day and increased sales by 350% in the regions where the training was deployed.  On the value side, together our ground-breaking training across the US provided training cost reductions of over 120% compared to our competitors.

I'm not suggesting there is any justice in spending the amount time it took in learning about one business, and I probably bypassed some other prospect opportunities in the process.  But it was so good for the company that after one year of work, which could well have ended in failure, instead developed trust and a bit of luck ending in success that really paid off.

In getting any big deal or project, the first thing you have to do is want it. For example, you're never going to be golfer unless in your heart - you want it and in your mind - you can learn it.  These two eventually compete with one another.  So you have to really want it (heart) and you have to know how to play (mind), at least a little :-).  If you want something badly enough, you're going to have to learn it.  If you are working with a technology company, you're going to try an learn about technology and networking even if it doesn't come naturally to you, and you're going to do one thing that is probably the most important of all; you're going to take a risk.  Because if you've spent thousands of working hours, let's say over a year and you fail, you've probably damaged your career a bit and you've probably damaged, in a small way, the company you worked for a bit.  Another reason in being prepared to reduce the risk.

I sometimes fail...  Everybody does, but I certainly do.  But I don't give up if I learn and understand the prospect, if I can identify a problem or opportunity to work on and I think it's good for the organization.

Summary

• The bigger the risk, the bigger the opportunity.
• You must learn along the way, be prepared to do some things that come unnaturally, and be prepared to take a risk.
• To land a big deal or project, you must remain persistent.
• You have to know, not only in your mind but also in your heart.  
• Ultimately, if you want to succeed, "Don't Give Up!"

Casting a Vision (Poem)

I had a vision within a dream

Something so powerful it awoke my innovation

In knowing that this would create change

I realized a furious battle could engage

Never wavering, I casted a vision in exchange

Thoughts hung along my vision’s edge

Is there a Mission, a Plan, to get ahead?

Using metaphors and stories to justify

Casting a Vision will take hard work to survive

Then came a visionary man, battle wounded, scared and fatigued

Who saw the same vision and began to believe

Hilt, buried in the past in the depths of his failures

He still ran and snatched it, and with a battle shout

Lifted afresh, telling others to come about

Soon another believed, another believed and another believed

Forming an army with a cause

We started shaping the vision  

A new day of hope, faith and applause

Our vision increased values, loyalty and self-esteem

People are now free to dream

Transforming a visions into personal drive

Casting a Vision, keeps all of us alive

Who is responsible for the skills gap in America?

It's been a familiar lament over the past few years: Even though millions of Americans are unemployed and underemployed, companies across the country just can't find enough qualified workers. New data suggest that although many companies continue to complain about the so-called "skills gap," few are taking steps to fix it, says CNBC.

 A recent CareerBuilder survey of 1,648 U.S. hiring managers and human resource

 professionals found that nearly 80 percent of managers are at least somewhat concerned 

 about the skills gap, but just about 40 percent are doing anything to alleviate it.

 Manpower's own talent shortage survey, released earlier this year, found that 39 percent of

 employers are having trouble finding workers with the right skills, down from 49 percent in 

 2012.

According to some sources like the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools who found that 45 percent of hiring managers think college students would benefit from a more workplace-oriented "trade school-like" higher education system that excludes or de-emphasizes liberal arts. However, the other 55% are fine with the education system that's in place now.

Obviously, the responsibility should be diversified to some extent, but who should take charge? Should colleges do a better job at preparing students for realistic job opportunities? Should businesses take responsibility in selecting the right employees and training them appropriately? Is it all up to the student or adult learner who's in the unemployment or underemployment bind to begin with? Should the military play a role in training their veterans in the workplace? Or should the government play a role with paid internships or On-the-Job training to help a student or adult learner when they successfully receive their degree or certification, but don't have experience to qualify for a company opening?    www.thelearnngstrategy.com

The Learning Strategy's 2013 Top Ten (10) Most Popular Posts...

The Learning Strategy's Top 10 Popular Posts

1.  15 Important Reasons Why Community Colleges Should Be Your Business Training Resource. Anything missing? 1. Experience - Serves hundreds...

2.  The Learning Strategy – Five (5) Phases of the Hourglass CNA.  Understanding employer grants are good, understanding employer needs are better…

3.  Business Outreach Tip:  STOP Doing the Same Old Things... 

4.  A Story About Charlie - Employee Training That Goes Beyond Learning! I wanted to share a story about Charlie, a 62 year old technician from a large Fortune 20 telecom company.  At the time, Charlie told me he ...

5.  Community Colleges: If You Want To Engage with Business, Rethink Your Marketing Strategy and Business Outreach Efforts.  When employers think of a Community College, they usually think of a place for a student to receive a quality two year education at an...  

6.  The 6 Major Challenges for College Workforce Organizations:   Meeting the needs of business has become more complicated and the demand for...

7.  Are you working with Vendors or Strategic Partners? Do you know the difference? “We’re going to see employment-based learning as a new model going forward,” said Harper President Kenneth Ender. “It’s a powerful tool ...  

8.  College's Strengths and Weaknesses?  The recession refocused companies on the bottom-line in a more straightforward way, and a broad review of policies across the corporate ...

9.  Five ( 5) areas for civilian and military retirees to focus on in 2013.  Was this past year an employment bust for... 

10.  Top Five Ways to Market Higher Education to Businesses.  With the increasing pressure for Higher Education to meet business educational needs, the label of “off-the-shelf” traditional classes ...

What Can Happen if You're Actually Successful in Internet Marketing...

I was fortunate enough to work for one of the pioneers in Internet Marketing.  This was a very large company who had the idea to elevate their brand, products and services by using internet marketing.  Of course, we had access to the best website designers, an e-commerce engine and sophisticated web tools to support any type of product sale or inquiry.

Our approach was our market research, our messaging and our online sales through the internet.  We looked at the benefits of Internet Marketing such as richer content, easy accessibility and an additional sales channel to interact with prospects and receive better lead sources, better prospects, increased sales.  Also, it provided us real-time results by systematically measuring through web analytics, client reviews, surveys and ratings.

Sounds like a nice problem to have?  Right? What we didn’t realize was the potential for success - how to manage the large volume of prospects who were interested or were considering buying our products and services.  The problem was our response time (follow-up) was slow and many times even non-existent.     

As we all know, like globalization, internet marketing has brought new help and thousands of new efficiencies that have dramatically changed the way we do business.  But at the same time, if poorly planned and staffed, internet marketing can potentially damage a company’s brand reputation, customer satisfaction and most importantly trust.

Bringing more traffic to your website is good, but below are 6 strategies to manage sales ready and not so sales ready leads:

·         Develop good lead criteria.

·         Have good scoring criteria against your established lead criteria.

·         Have a mechanized web-to-lead strategy, automatically assigning sales ready “hot” leads or “warmer” leads to the seller.

·         Include these leads as part of your sales management meetings.  Manage them as you would manage traditional prospects.

·         If you are receiving an abundant of “warmer” or “lesser qualified” leads, assign them as well to your staff or our Appointment Lab to nurture until they become appointment ready for the seller.

·         Get feedback, what attracted the person to the site, what did they like about the content, what experiences didn’t they like….

In the Internet Marketing age, reputation moves at the speed of light. Do something wrong, and you will know about it within minutes, get something right, and your reputation can blossom just as quickly.www.thelearningstrategy.com

The Salesman (A Poem)

The Salesman

Who is the Salesman? 

One that never gives up - aiming to please.

Someone that you want them to be.

Is it his generous spirit, his will to succeed?

Exceeding all the plans that you believe.

Your high expectation is his inward flight.

That makes the path before him look so bright.

Is it his knowledge or willingness to learn?

Is it his natural instinct to discern?

He’s motivated by results, but does not stop there.

It’s his moral character that is his ultimate care.

Character that can be doomed with deceit, fear and pain.

He can still turn this tragedy into glorious gain.

What other role faces this exercise of power?

That might force the Salesman’s soul to scour.

In creating demand with such sacrifice.

He is compensated for his noble deeds.

But can fall short of your primary need.

Leaving a dead unprofitable game.

That will always be linked to his name.

Never giving up, he will always find comfort in a cause.

His breadth of confidence is his spiritual applause.

As his moral character is tested, but is not flawed.

This is The Salesman, Who never gives up and is aiming to please.

Someone that you should want them to be.