SlideShare is a popular presentation tool for the business world that allows you to create presentations, upload them to the cloud, and share them with colleagues. With a globral ranking of 124 on Alexa, SlideShare is the most visited document and presentation-sharing website in the world, getting over 60 million users a month. As the network still isn’t over-saturated from marketers, SlideShare is a fantastic social network to promote your presentations both in and out of network and get the visibility you need. Here are nine great ways you can use SlideShare for your business. Use SlideShare in Meetings Keeping your employees’ attentio...
Summer is an especially hectic time for many industries. Restaurants and shops frequently extend their hours of operation to accommodate increased foot traffic from students who are out of school for the season. Outdoor-based businesses take advantage of good weather and longer daylight hours to get in as much work as they can. This upswing in business means that companies in these industries often hire temporary help to handle the increased workload. Smaller businesses that are just starting out may get inundated right at the beginning of the season, before they realize they need a few extra employees. Established companies usually know they...
Starting and growing a business is complex and it’s impossible for you — the business owner — to know all the answers. The more information, talent, and resources you can access, the greater your chances of success. Advisory boards can help. No matter how small or large your firm is, you can benefit from building a business advisory board. Think about the last time you met with other business people and had an open discussion about your business challenges. Talking through various issues with others can often help you identify strategies you may not have seen before. An advisory board formalizes this process. An advisory bo...
June is a time of pomp and circumstance, caps and gowns and fresh beginnings. But if June also signals the start of recruiting season for your company, then I hate to say it, but you’re a bit late to the (graduation) party: most recruiting for the class of 2014’s top talent took place last fall. As EY’s Americas Director of Recruiting and President of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), I’ve gained some perspective on what’s happening in the broader job market. If you examine NACE’s spring 2014 job outlook data, you’ll also find that this fall competition will only heat up looking ahead. About 43 percen...
Think about your last job interview. Did you send a follow-up note afterward? The thank you letter is an overlooked part of the interview process, likely because it comes after what people think is the most important part of the job search: the application and the interview. But underestimating the value of a well-written thank you letter could jeopardize all the hard work you put into the resume, application and interview. (Click here to tweet this thought.) Don’t make the mistake of sabotaging your interview by not following up with a polite thank you note. Follow these tips to get it right. DO take 10 minutes to sit down and writ...
Now that you’ve retired from your job, are you ready to seize the challenge of starting a new business? Many retirees who’ve been employees all of their lives get excited at the thought of running the show, and building a business that reflects their interests and values. If you’re looking for business ideas to launch during your retirement, here are five to get you started. Consulting and coaching Retirees considering starting businesses should start by thinking about two areas: skills from their previous jobs and life lessons. These experiences make retirees well-positioned to share their knowledge. “Since they ...
When Wal-Mart Stores reported weak quarterly sales and earnings recently, the first thing chief executive Doug McMillon blamed was what he called “the unseasonably cold and disruptive winter weather.” Chief executives blame middling results on Mother Nature surprisingly often, while good weather seldom gets credit for strong earnings. Research shows that managers are susceptible to what psychologists call the “fundamental attribution error”: Forces beyond our control get disproportionate credit for negative results and much less mention when performance is exemplary. One study of letters to shareholders in annual reports found...
I felt pretty jealous as I walked into the computer room of the elementary school I was visiting. The hulking PCs of my youth – with their giant floppy disk drives and 8-bit copies of Oregon Trail – were nowhere to be seen. Instead, children were happily tapping away at Photoshop and playing Web games on pristine, wafer-thin iMacs. I had come to the school to have a group of kids play-test Code Monkey Island – a board game I had designed to introduce kids to programming fundamentals. As I carefully unwrapped the components of my prototype, one of the kids grabbed a monkey figurine and quickly inspected it. “This was 3D printed, ...
Everyone who works in the business world, on some level, needs to know how to sell, and even the best salespeople can find ways to improve. Here are a few simple bits of advice to help you improve your sales skills and get better at sales today: 1. Perfect practice makes perfect Do you know what you sound like giving your sales spiel? Pick up your smartphone, press record on a voice memo or other simple app, and make your typical sales pitch to a willing volunteer. (Even better: make a video recording of your facial expressions, posture, and hand gestures as you speak.) Now close yourself into a room and listen/watch this recording. How was t...
In an effort to stay organized and eliminate the majority of their clutter, many businesses are transitioning to a paperless office. While the thought of getting rid of all the paper inside an office may seem overwhelming, the process can be quite easy when document management software is used. Document management software provides the tools to organize, edit and distribute the documents that currently sit on a desk or inside a bulky file cabinet. The best software is able to quickly scan papers, import existing files and folders into a central location, and distribute documents in standardized formats. It can also be easily searched throug...