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The Responsiveness Paradigm outlined elsewhere in this newsletter is applicable at a number of levels. For example, it applies to organizations in general, and the ability of the organization to respond to the needs of customers, staff and other stakeholders (eg. politicians, etc). It applies to non-supervisory staff, and their ability to respond to the needs of their managers, customers and co-workers. This month we are going to look at responsiveness as it applied to managers, leaders and/or supervisors.

Influence Of The Responsive Manager

The responsive manager tends to succeed by building bonds of respect and trust with those around him/her. Staff respond positively to responsive managers they work more diligently, work to help the manager and the organization succeed, and will go the extra mile when necessary. That is because responsive managers act consistent with the principle that their jobs are to help their staff do their jobs. So, a basic inter-dependence emerges based on behaviours that show concern, respect and trust. 

Responsive managers also influence those above them in the hierarchy. Because responsive managers have the ability to read and act upon the needs of their “bosses″, they are perceived as helpful and reliable, or in a simple way, very useful. This allows them to get the “ear” of people above them in the system, and further helps get things done when needed.

Contrast this with the limited influence of the UNresponsive manager. The unresponsive manager is restricted in influence because those around him/her do not respect or trust them to look out for their welfare. Influence is more limited to the use of power coming from the formal position, and fear, a motivational component that is hard to sustain over time. Unresponsive managers tend to be perceived as self-interested, or at best uninterested in the needs of those around them. They also tend to be perceived by those above them as less reliable and less useful due to their focus on empire building, organization protection, and self-interest, rather than getting done what needs to be done.

How Do They Do It?

Responsive managers apply a number of specific skills and abilities to the task (as outlined generally in The Responsiveness Paradigm article). Above all, they appear to be “withit”. Withitness 

has a number of components. First withit managers are able to put aside their concerns to listen to (and appear to listen to) those around them. As a result, they know what is going on, and know what is both said, and said between the lines. They have the knack of appearing to know what people need even if those needs are not expressed directly.

However, knowing what is going on, and identifying the needs of those around them is not sufficient. The responsive manager also acts upon that knowledge, attempting to help fulfil the needs of employees, superiors, etc. Responsive managers wield influence to solve problems for those around them, often before even being asked.

Here’s an example:

I was responsible for automating an office system in a government department. As happens sometimes, the Management Information Systems people were not keen on our going our own way on the project, despite the fact that they had indicated they could not do it for us in the near future. As a result their cooperation (needed for the project) was patchy. As team leader, I faced a number of roadblocks, despite the fact that our Assistant Deputy Minister wanted to see this project come to fruition. I regularly reported back to our Director, outlining progress and roadblocks. Every time I communicated roadblocks to the Director, they were removed within a short time, despite the fact that I did not request direct action. In addition, the Director advised and counselled me on how to deal with the “systems people” so I could have maximum impact. Despite the roadblocks, the project was completed on time and was very successful, much to the chagrin of some of the systems people, who I think were hoping we would fail.

This is a simple story, but one full of meaning. In this situation the Director was able to identify the project leader’s needs with respect to the project, listening carefully, and identifying actions she could take to “smooth the path”. Not only was the Director able to remove obstacles and fulfil the need of the project leader, but the Director responded on a deeper level, helping to teach the Project Leader methods of becoming more effective, fulfilling yet another need. All of this was assumed to be the proper role of the Director, and was done without expressing all of the needs specifically or explicitly.

We can contrast this with the unresponsiveness of the MIS people. They lectured, they fussed, they predicted dire consequences, rather than offering consistent, responsive help. They focused not on responding to the needs of their clients, but on some other factors having to do with control, and their own needs. Eventually, their lack of responsiveness resulted in the very thing they did not want; loss of control of the project. As a result of this project their overall status in the organization suffered, simply because at both an organization and individual level they were seen as barriers, rather than useful.

Let’s look at one more example.

An employee had been working for a government branch for about a year, having moved to the city as a new resident. In a casual conversation, the supervisor noted that the employee wasn′t looking at his best, and asked how he was feeling. The employee explained that he hadn′t been feeling well lately, and sounded very tired and overwhelmed. The supervisor determined that the staff member didn′t have a local family doctor, asked if he would like the supervisor to arrange an appointment, and proceeded to do so immediately. The problem turned out to be a minor one.  

In this example we see again the ideas of “withitness″ and responsiveness. The supervisor was able to identify that the staff member was in need of some help, despite the fact that the staff member did not state this explicitly. Note that the supervisor didn′t pressure the staff member to go to the doctor, but identified needs, checked them out, and then acted upon them. In this case, help consisted of direct, helpful action.

Conclusion

These two examples are the stuff of loyalty and commitment. They are remembered years and years after the fact, and continue to extend the influence of managers. In this sense responsiveness is a critical component of management success, because it allows managers and supervisors to get things done, for the benefit of all players.

In the limited space we have, we have attempted to give you a feel of what responsiveness means. You might want to extend your own understanding by considering some of the following questions.

1. If you are a manager or supervisor, how can you modify your own behaviours so that you become and are perceived as more responsive by a) your staff, b) your boss and c) your customers?

2. Again, if you are a manager or supervisor what is your definition of the “responsive employee”? Can you identify your “favourite employees”, and consider how they are responsive to you? Our bet is you will find that your most valued employees are responsive.

3. If you are non-management, what would you need to do to be perceived as more responsive by the people around you?

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How to provide a good customer support?

Customer support means a support or assistance product manufacturers provide their customers. Customer support is also the assistance or service given by website owners to their visitors. Customer service is necessary especially for the consumer of your products or services. Thus, having a good customer support is always a good practice. It helps your consumers trust your product and enjoy their purchase from you.

What are the types of customer support available?

Traditional customer support services

• Mail-in service – the manufacturer will repair the product if you mail it to them. You of course, cannot do this for a machine.
• Carry-in service – the manufacturer will repair the product if you bring it to them.
• On-site service – the manufacturer will send a repairperson to you. Oftentimes, you may need to pay for the repairperson’s job.
• Hot line – you call and ask the operator for help on the problem with the product.

Modern customer support

This is of course that preferred way.

• Live Chat support – this is one of the best customer support services available. You go online, chat with the repairperson and the product gets fixed right there. You may also inquire about installation or some details regarding the product.
• Email support – email is available anytime and anywhere you are. It is therefore easy to send your queries and receive responses to your requests.
• Voice support – customers always requires communicating with a person, thus the voice support is always preferred. However, they may be issues with voice support like not enough operators to attend to your customers.

In any of the above modern customer support services, a webmaster, or a manufacturer cannot handle it on his own. He may need to hire people, train them, and ensure that they can deliver his messages accurately. This is going to be tedious if you will do the customer support service while working on other aspects of your business.

It is therefore fitting that you partner with a customer support provider. It is best to hire the customer support partner that have the live chat support, email support and voice support all in their present infrastructure. If not, you may be remiss on some aspect of the customer support.

You may also choose to outsource your business process and customer support to international providers where cost of money is lower. Consider their infrastructure, the skill level of their agents and the clients they serve. This will help you know if this customer support provider is the best for you and your products.

Wherever you outsource your customer support, ensure that you protect your business by hiring skilled customer support providers. This will ensure your business will grow with the trust and confidence of happy customers.

Author : placesupport@gmail.com

One advantage of doing business online is that you can start from scratch without investing much money. Here is a 27 Step Action Plan to help you get started…

1. List 5 hobbies, interests or areas of expertise. If you want to start a new business, you’d better choose a subject that you like and a subject where you can show expertise. You will have more fun and you will be more competitive.

2. Brainstorm a list of keywords and phrases related to those hobbies and interests. For example, if you are going to sell small airplane collectibles, some possible keywords could be: airplanes, aeronautics, war airplanes, etc.

3. Research those keywords in Wordtracker.com to locate problem statements that have high search results and low competition. Wordtracker.com is a web page that helps you find out how many times your keywords are searched online, how popular your keywords on search engines are. Those keywords may represent problem statements. Wordtracker shows you how many people are buying traffic on those keywords and how much are they paying. You need to find popular statements with low competition.

4. Research those problem statements further to determine if you can develop a product to solve the problem stated. You may use search engines to see how many people are offering products that can help to solve those problems. If you find a popular problem and there are not many people offering solutions online, you’ve got it!

5. Find or create a product based on previous research for you to sell. Once you found a hungry market, you just need to find the food that your customers want and they will eat from your hands. You may find companies online that can manufacture the products for you or you may find a different way to create the product yourself. If the product is an e-book, you may write it yourself or you may hire someone else to do it.

6. Write a long copy sales letter for that product. The experience of the most important internet marketing gurus reveals that long copies sell much more than short copies. It is also recommendable that you try to sell only one product on your web site. Focus on one product unless the solution you are providing is the offer of a wide catalogue.

7. Register a domain and set up a hosting account. There are many places online where you can register a domain and set up a hosting account in minutes.

8. Register for a merchant account (to set up quickly use PayPal.com). If you don’t want to register a merchant account that will allow you to take credit card payments online, go to PayPal.com and sign in. It can be a little bit more expensive, but it is a simple way to take credit card payments online very quickly.

9. Set up a simple web site using an automatic site builder or pay to have someone set it up for you. Do not try to design your own web site unless you are educated on html. Do not waste your time. Hire someone else to do it or buy automatic web site builder software. There are many of these you can buy online.

10. Set up an opt-in form on your web site to collect e-mail addresses. You need to start collecting e-mail addresses for your newsletter. The major part of your business will come from the emails that you will send to your customer list.

11. Build an extensive keyword list based on the initial list of keywords you developed. Use Overture.com. For each keyword on the initial list, Overture can help you find different combinations with other words that you may find interesting. Check the popularity of each term and write down on a spread sheet your final keyword list.

12. Submit those keywords to Overture.com to start driving traffic right away. You need to start driving some traffic immediately in order to test your web site. The best way to do that is to buy this traffic at overture.com

13. Optimize and submit your web site to organic search engines (Google, Altavista, etc…). Once you have proved that your web site works and sells, you will be ready to make the business bigger. It is then time to start working on building free traffic to your site.

14. Continue to test and tweak your web site until target conversion rate is met. Your conversion ratio should be that 1-2% of your visitors should buy from your web site, and 11% should subscribe to your newsletter. Continue testing until you get those stats.

15. Set up an affiliate program on your web site. Affiliate programs can double your business with no additional effort. Others will make the job for you. But you cannot set up an affiliate program before you are sure that your web site can produce results. If your site does not work, you will loose your affiliates and they will never come back to you again.

16. Approach complimentary web sites to sign up as affiliates to promote your product. Get in contact with people that can promote your product and ask them to be your affiliates. Just try to find your first 100 affiliates, and your affiliate list will boom alone.

17. Start publishing a monthly newsletter. You have started collecting e-mail addresses much earlier, but it is not the time to start working the newsletter until you can prove that everything else works.

18. Submit articles to related newsletters and e-zines on a regular basis. In the articles you should always have a link to your site, so that you can get more traffic and you can get more people joining to your newsletter.

19. Continue the development of a content rich web site to further increase search engine rankings. Search engines love content. You must have many web sites which are rich on your keywords and which have links to your main page. A good way to do this is to add as many articles as you can related to your business and link them to your home page.

20. Once keywords have been tested in Overture, roll out in Google Adwords. It works similar to Overture, you bid for traffic. But do not go to Google Adwords first. You must first prove your success with Overture and then go to Google Adwords.

21. Roll out tested keyword list in other major PPCs. When you are sure about your stats, and you know how much money you collect per visitor, you must buy as much traffic as you can get as far as your income per visitor is higher than your bids.

22. Create a viral e-book to generate more leads. Create a free e-book that you can promote and which sells your product or service. Give it for free, and this will bring more traffic to your web site.

23. Have an expert review and critique your web site. Even if your site works, you can always improve. Listen to others and learn from their experiences.

24. Survey your existing customers to find out what other products or services they are looking for. Once you have a big list of customers, use it to find out what other problems do they have. Try to find or create a solution for them and you will boost your sales instantaneously.

25. Create and find back-end products and market them through your e-mail list. Continue finding more products that meet your customer demands and promote them via e-mail.

26. Continue to test and tweak your web site and offers. Nothing is perfect the first time and can always be improved. It is very important that you take action, even if you make mistakes. Learn from your errors and improve your skills.

27. Repeat process to create “Multiple Streams of Income”. Once your business is working on automation, then you can start the process again with a new business. Build as many businesses as you can, and reduce your risks. If one business fails, but you have another 5 working businesses, who cares about it?

If you have read up to this point, you are probably asking yourself how much it will cost to get started? The answer is very simple; it depends on how much time and money you have available to invest! If you have a lot of time, you can do everything yourself. On the other hand, if you don’t have time, you will have to pay other people for building your website and/or for optimizing your site on search engines.

If you can do nothing else…just launch a web site and start promoting online…

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A majority of micro-business owners (57 percent) initially funded their businesses using personal savings, and many (40 percent) continue to use personal savings for ongoing financing, according to a recent poll conducted by the National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE). Other interesting survey results include: ~  Nearly 12 percent of the micro business owners started their businesses utilizing credit cards, while only two percent had government funds or loans.

Internet users should soon be able to use new domain names such as .love, .paris or .bank if one of the world wide web’s biggest shakeups is approved this week as expected by the web regulator ICANN.
“Apart from the .com, .net or .org, the 1.3 billion web users will be able from early 2009 to acquire generic addresses by lodging common words such as .love, .hate or .city or proper names,” ICANN president Paul Twomey told French newspaper Les Echos.

Free accomplish money online associate business affairs is a abundant way to acquire a abiding assets alive from home today. Abounding alcove associate business sites acquiesce you to advance their articles in adjustment to acquire agency on anniversary sale. When searching for a artefact to advance as an associate product, you ambition to accept one that offers no LESS than 60% commission. There are some associate business articles that action 75% agency (the maximum) with top affairs sales pages. The hardest allotment of accepting an associate banker is accepting abeyant barter to your website.

Now to become an associate marketer, you accept to accept a website. You will charge to acquirement a area name carefully accompanying to the artefact you are aggravating to promote. For archetype if you are aggravating to advance Cheesecake. You would buy a area name such as cheesecakerevealed, cheesecakeanswers, cheesecakereview, etc…When aggravating to be an associate marketer, you ambition to accept some affectionate of analysis website alms a analysis of all altered accompanying articles in the bazaar that you choose. Try to be actual advisory not announcement anniversary artefact but alms a simple review. This will be a key to your success in targeting abounding keywords accompanying to review. This is your best plan at home assets in adjustment to be acknowledged alive from home. Just by accepting an associate marketer, you can be able-bodied on your way to earning hundreds of bags of dollars a year just by SELLING added people’s products!

I started business internet online associate business advance about 5 years ago and it was the best affair that I anytime did in my life. I fabricated an complete killing aural the aboriginal 2 years. Afterwards the aboriginal 2 years I was already authoritative abutting to 20K a MONTH. It was one of the greatest animosity in the apple seeing my money backfire afterwards all my harder work. Associate business isn’t easy, a lot of harder work, but actual profitable. There were some canicule I formed 20+ hours a day. If you become a apostle of others products, do not get in the mindset that it is easy. In no way it is simple as it requires a lot of plan and maintenance. Once you authorize yourself and alpha rolling in sales, you can alpha earning a killing on autopilot. I accept it now area I acquire 3K+ a day after affecting a thing. There are over 300 associate marketers announcement my artefact like a baby army. It is amazing watching 50+ sales at 60+ dollars cycle in daily. There is no bigger job in the apple than business others products. You can accumulation yourself a baby army to do the job of 150 humans or more. There is no way you can exhausted associate business abnormally if you advance a top affairs product. I ambition you the best of luck down your aisle to success. If your aisle hits aflutter roads, amuse do not accord up no amount what.

If you are a mom you apperceive how harder it can be to antithesis time amid plan and family. What plan you ask? Your family. As we all know, demography affliction of the accouchement is harder work. But abominably it is not paid work. If you wish to acquire a little added money in your additional time, again actuality are 5 means to banknote in after accepting to lose time with your family. Some of the online methods are in fact appealing simple to get into.

1. Get a Job- Even if it doesn’t plan out, it doesn’t aching to try this method. It is by far the easiest way to get a abiding assets to advice out your family. Grocery food and agnate administration are generally accommodating to plan with you on a allotment time agenda so you may be able to plan just a little bit and still accept time for your family.

2. Ability Sales- Although it doesn’t administer to everyone, abounding of the mothers I apperceive accept a hobby. If you adore authoritative crafts of any affectionate again you may be able to plan on these and save them up to sell. See if there are any bounded ability fairs or flea markets and you may be able to accompany them and accomplish money affairs your items. This adjustment earns you moms a little added money and it can be fun too!

3. Ebay- There are abounding humans nowadays that use ebay as a way to accomplish an income, although I accept alone never approved it. You can advertise the backing you no best use (old clothing, domiciliary items, memorabilia) and acquire a little cash. If you apperceive how to use ebay appropriately you may be able to buy and fix up cheaper items and advertise them aback for a profit.

4. Online Surveys- I accept approved online surveys and they are the easiest way to accomplish a little money. There are bags of sites out there though, and alone some of them are legitimate. You should alone accompany the chargeless ones and NEVER pay to accompany a site. Think about it, these companies NEED your help, so why would they wish you to pay them? Surveys are quick, easy, and can acquire you a little added money, but the payouts are never as abundant as they affirmation on the sites. Give it a try if you charge some money but don’t accept lots of time to spare.

5. Associate Marketing- This is my admired method. If you are a mother who has a bit added time to additional anniversary day, again this is for you. You can plan as abundant or as little as you wish and get paid. It seems like a lot of plan at first, but gets easier as you go along. Basically in this option, you column an associate hotlink for a artefact online and if somebody buys that item, you get paid allotment of what they spent in agency pay. If you use a blog or absorb time online, again this would be even easier for you. I alone accomplish a lot of of my money through associate business and acclaim it to mothers with a little added time on their hands.

People consistently ask, how can moms accomplish money? It can assume like a difficult question, but there are in fact abounding means to accomplish some added money if you accept at atomic a little time. If you can’t account time for a absolute job in your area, again alive online is a abundant opportunity. No amount which aisle you accept though, it is accessible to accomplish money and accept fun accomplishing it.

Many of us would like to airing into our jobs and acquaint our bang-up goodbye. Pack up our board and watch the attending of annoyance on the faces of our adolescent advisers as we about-face and leave. But a lot of of us won′t do it because we′re abashed of abrogation the accepted for the unknown. We′d like to alpha our own business and be our own boss, but we′re abashed of watching the money dry up as we alpha to body that business. It would be abundant to alpha a business with little or no money.

Working from home would be the ideal bearings for most, abnormally if you accept children. You can yield affliction of the household/family duties aboriginal again plan your schedule. The alone drive you accept is to the computer and you can do that in your abode bathrobe and slippers. Working from home can be one of the best things for a break at home ancestor wannabe.

What blazon of business could you accept at home? How abundant money would you charge to get started and to sustain it until a accumulation was made? We apperceive the statistics of baby alpha up businesses are bleak. The actuality that 70 percent of all businesses abort in the aboriginal year can be daunting. If you accomplish it accomplished the aboriginal year it could still be 4 or 5 years afore you see a absolute profit. Even if you had a acceptable product, you accept an acclivous battle. You could even be aggressive added businesses in your community.

What if you could alpha a business with little or no money, and you didn′t accept to anguish about inventory, accounts receivable, chump account or annihilation like that. All you accept to do is apply on business the artefact to humans who are agilely analytic for it. Essentially, that’s what you do in associate marketing. Associate Business can be a abundant home based business. You can alpha your business with around no risk. When you assurance up with a aggregation as an affiliate, you are signing on as a partner. You are affairs appurtenances or casework on account of that company, and you get paid based on what you sell.

You adjudge if you wish to accomplish $200 a ages or $200 a day. Again you focus on what it would yield to get abundant humans to that merchant website to accomplish that abounding sales. Your accomplice aggregation even gives you abetment on how to bazaar their product. Too acceptable to be accurate you say. Not really. Associate business has absolutely bent on in the endure few years. Companies would be batty not to use the ability of associate business to access their sales. Why wouldn′t they wish as abounding humans as accessible out aggravating to advertise their articles in markets that they ability not accept anticipation of or not been able to tap. Associate business is harder work, but it works if you plan it.

You may be a student, homemaker or a retired official absent to accomplish your chargeless time added productive. Fortunately there are assorted options accessible today through which you can not alone use your chargeless time added productively but aswell actualize a reasonable assets source.

It have to be mentioned at this point that the best of work-at-home options access in absolute admeasurement to your abilities and abilities. If you are in the branch of freelance work, it does not even amount area you plan from; you may be in a abroad allotment of the world. This is abnormally accurate if it comes to any IT accompanying work. The claim for contiguous alternation is awful bound and even if the charge does arise, IT enabled video conferencing does the job.

The a lot of arresting options that you can go for if it comes to alive from home abatement aural the class of online marketing. The accessible acumen is that apparently every aggregation is accessible to affiliates who are able to action them added customers. And even if they don’t, the aggregation does not lose anything. The basal band is that already you yield up the plan of online business for a company, it is your time and assets that are stake. So do attending afore you leap.

In the ambience of freelance work, autograph is one account that deserves a appropriate mention. And if it comes to writing, I will afresh like to accent the point about your abilities and capabilities as discussed above. Let’s accept it, not anybody can write. Abnormally if it comes to able writing, the dynamics are far greater than acceptable English. One quick way to aces up autograph jobs is to authorize acquaintance with an bureau that offers SEO services. In a lot of cases, there is no upfront payment, and the balance are decent.