My Inspiration

Everything changes when you trade in your desktop for a laptop and your office for a hotel room. Sometimes this is for the better: You're liberated from your cubicle and free to go where your work takes you. But sometimes things change for the worse. Productivity suffers when you're in an unfamiliar place. The way a laptop keyboard cramps your hands is sometimes enough to keep you from getting the job done right. Here are four technology "must-haves" for the mobile office, plus some tools that can boost your productivity while you're away. • The Right Software It isn't just downloading the necessary applications onto your laptop or PDA, it's also knowing whether the programs are suited to a mobile office. Is your email program built for the road or adapted from a bigger application meant for a corporate network? Do the programs work together on your laptop or do they freeze when your processor gets busy? These considerations can become big issues wh...

 Last month, my featured article was about creating a “Stop Doing” list. Hopefully, if you followed my suggestion, you now have a list of tasks that you are looking to delegate away. It seems a natural progression that I now disclose a few simple steps that will ensure your foray into delegation is a success.  1. Choose the right “delegatee”  Review the task and determine what skills are required. Delegation goes much more smoothly if you match the person with the appropriate skill set to the task you have to assign. Now if you don’t have a candidate that has all the skills you are looking for, decide which is the most critical one (analytical ability, attention to detail, communications skills) and make that match.  One of the rewards of delegation is the opportunity to help someone develop and grow. It is unlikely that you will always have a candidate that you can hand off something to and not have to provide some training or coaching. But learning to empower your ...

A lot of people do not realize that entrepreneurs play a big role in our society.   When you put the total number of entrepreneurs together, they count as the biggest financial contributors to our nation’s wealth.  If only politicians would give grants to finance small business start-ups, the economy’s growth could be hastened.   Knowing the obvious financial rewards and the important role to society of business owners, many individuals aspire to be entrepreneurs.  The fact remains, however, that several business start-ups fail and never take-off  from the ground because of one thing : the lack of adequate and sufficient knowledge on how to start a profitable business.  In this article, I will attempt to give practical strategies on how to run a successful business start-up. First: find opportunities in your own backyard. Look at the demand side by observing your neighborhood.  It is good to assess the close-to-home demand...

 Question:  What’s the easiest, cheapest and quickest way to have profitable, productive, and honest employees? Answer:  Hire profitable, productive, honest people! Unfortunately, managers often hire underachievers or losers.  Fortunately, pre-employment tests give managers a simple-to-use, quick, customizable way to hire the best. Only 1 Reason to Screen Applicants The sole reason to assess applicants is to predict – or forecast – how an applicant will behave on-the-job BEFORE you hire the person.  It proves crucial to prediction this before hiring an applicant, rather than finding out the expensive way after you put the person on your payroll. The main methods used to predict if an applicant will succeed on-the-job are Interviews Reference Checks Pre-employment Tests Alarming Research Large-scale research discovered most interviewers and reference checks make lousy predictions of actual on-the-job performance.  Interviews and reference checks often ...

 I'm going to absolutely show you a simple but powerful way to move from where you are now, into a much higher level of success than you've ever dreamed possible. My name is Grey McKenzie and I've been successful in everything I put my hand to once I learned to apply these simple principles and techniques I'm about to share with you. I absolutely guarantee, if you apply what I show you here, you will have more success than you ever dreamed possible. Whether you're a seasoned business veteran, or just starting out in the world, there are proven ways to fast track whatever goals you have. There are certain underlying principles that will absolutely improve your chances of success.  So lets get to it. I can tell you in 5 minutes of being around you if you have what it takes to be a success... I'm not bragging, I'll even show you right now how you can tell yourself if you or someone you know has the potential to be successful. Below, in my opinion, are the two p...

 We've all made bad decisions in the past. Don't you just hate to hear "I told you so" from your friends and family? Or, maybe you catch yourself saying "If only I'd have..."? Personally, I'm one of those people who prefers to learn from someone else's mistakes.  If you're at all like me, and you have thought about doing a 1031 exchange into a tenant in common (TIC) property, take note. You can avoid making the 3 Major Mistakes that others wished they knew before leaping from the frying pan into the fire! Before I let you in on the secrets, let me briefly explain what a 1031 exchange into a tenant in common property is. It's a fairly well-kept secret in and of itself. A 1031 exchange is when an investment property owner sells his current property and exchanges it for a "like-kind" property of equal or greater value. By doing so, he defers the payment of capital gains tax and the consequences of recaptured depreciation. By exchan...

 Tips for First Time Home Buyers #1 Don't be too quick!  Avoid giving out your personal information like Social Security number, date of birth etc. at every website that asks for it. This is the single biggest mistake I've seen made. Some first time home buyers in their zeal to get started do this.  The problem is this, many sites will require this information before they'll give you any details. They start out with a simple, name and address screen, then lead into screens that ask for more personal details.  At all costs, hold off giving out this private information. You will have to at some point in time. But, not until you've learned about the mortgage process should you do this. What happens when you fill in the forms online? Your e-mail box will be flooded with loan offers.  Many places tout they'll have 4 lenders or even more give you quotes. Guess what? Nearly every one of these lenders are going to run a credit report. If you have numerous inquires in yo...