Archives for December 2014
How to Reward Your Employees for a Job Well Done
With the holiday season in full swing, many companies might be looking for a way to give back to their employees. But the truth is, you should be doing all you can to reward employees for their hard work throughout the entire year.
Here are some ideas you might consider as you search for ways to show your appreciation to your team:
• Verbal praise. It’s simple, not over the top, and yet incredibly effective. People always love to hear from their superior in person that they’re doing great work. It boosts morale, it 
encourages excellence and it’s simply good for business. When someone is doing their job well, tell them! Never forget this basic rule; praise in public, criticize in private!
• Personal emails. For another quick and simple thank you, shoot out a personal email just saying that you appreciate your employee’s work. It takes just a few seconds, but can make a big difference in your employee’s mindset. If you want extra mileage, copy their supervisor and co-workers.
• Introduce a rewards system. A slightly more complicated yet more systematic approach to rewards would be to create some sort of hierarchical system within your office. People could collect points for achieving certain tasks, for example, which they could then redeem at the end of the month for various prizes. Just make sure it is of value, not something you want to get rid of. Lastlyu, get everyone involved in the selection of the rewards and the recipients.
• Have parties. Every so often, reward your team with a night out, or an afternoon off for food and drinks. Something fun that allows people to get out of the office and enjoy themselves and that shows you appreciate the work that they do for you on a consistent basis.
• Grant additional responsibilities or opportunities. This isn’t a reward in the sense that it’s financial or some nifty gift, but in certain situations, you might consider a person who showed exemplary performance for a role that expands on their responsibilities or opportunities. Not necessarily a promotion, but you could give them more room to grow and eventually advance. This shows the employee that not only do you appreciate their work, but you trust them to try new things and succeed in them as well.
These are merely a few ideas that can help you to reward your employees. Talk to us at Viral Solutions for more tips on employee management.
Copyright 2014 Viral Solutions LLC
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100’s of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
The Power of Goal Setting; Prioritizing – Knock 2015’s Goals Out of the Ballpark!
The snow has been falling. The stars shine brighter. There is a new reborn emotion of hope. This time of year has a funny way of sneaking up on us and inspiring us to be more, to do more, and to look forward to do so…for about the first two weeks of the New Year.
Yes, we are inclined to feel inspired to set goals for 2015, but we need more than inspiration, we need action. So, the remainder of this post will discuss Zig Ziglar’s 7 Steps to Goal Setting, with the intention of providing you with insight to help you, knock your 2015 goals out of the ballpark! Let’s get started.
- Set the goal. It may sound easy, but setting a clear goal is half the battle. Set a goal that is clear, specific, and quantifiable. For example, rather than “lose weight” rephrase that goal to get specific. It may sound something like “My goal is to lose 18 pounds and two dress sizes within 3 months by attending yoga five times per week, meal prepping (500 calories per meal, non-processed diet, and rich of nutrition), eliminating empty calories (i.e. soda, booze, etc.) and maintaining my goal weight of XYZ through proper nutrition, exercise, and self-love. Effective goal setting, whether it is personal or professional, need to be specific and requires thought. If thinking about your specific goal(s) sounds tiresome at the start, get over it. If you truly want to achieve your goal, you need to get specific and set it.
- Set a deadline. Just as essential as getting specific about your goal, it is paramount to set a deadline. This is simply putting a date by which that goal should be reached. You may want to set milestone dates to celebrate short-wins toward your overall goal. For example, with the same goal as identified in Step 1, the deadline is within 3 months, this can be broken down more by getting specific with the date – Month, day, and year. Otherwise, it is not a firm goal. Which then can cause a preventable psychological obstacle of delaying the start, maintenance, and evaluation aspects associated with that goal.
- Identify the obstacles. Goal setting isn’t just about seeing the end result, but also, understanding the obstacles that can get in the way of achieving your desired results. This requires you to be open and honest with yourself. You need to hone in on behavior, resources, or other things that could delay or derail your goal(s). For example, the obstacles associated with the identified goal in this post may include: waking up at night and overeating, not going to the gym, excuses to delay or stop actions needed, etc. Understanding these obstacles can help you to help prepare yourself to overcome those obstacles, i.e. get rid of all the unhealthy food that makes night binge eating an obstacle, stock your fridge with healthy stuff, identify excuses that you know are lame – write them down, and post them somewhere next to your goal to reaffirm your dedication toward your goal and the emotion associated with your excuses – basically, you call yourself out, and set the environment that supports the actions you need to overcome such obstacles.
- Identify the people, groups, and/or organizations that can assist. Think of the people that can help to encourage, support, or assist you in achieving your goal(s). Avoid negative minded people. Identify who will not only support your decision, but will confidently help you to overcome obstacles, will aid you in knowledge, tools, and resources. Same goal as discussed, perhaps, key people: spouse, friends, yoga trainer, life coach, and nutritionist.
- List the benefits of achieving the goal. Think about how this goal(s) will change your current state. For example, with the fitness goal the benefits may include: healthier lifestyle, peaceful mental state from yoga and meditation, happiness that trickles over to my personal and professional life, minimize stress, fit in clothing better, stamina for 20 mile backpacking trip in June, etc. The idea of this activity is to visualize how achieving your goal will make you feel and the benefits that come along with achieving that goal.
- List the skills you need to achieve the goal. You may require additional knowledge or expertise to aid you in achieving your desired goal(s). It is helpful to identify if there are any particular skillsets that you need to achieve your goal. For example, with the fitness objective identified herein, the skills required: yoga, meditation, weightlifting, and nutrition. If
a skill is lacking, such as nutrition, it will be helpful to seek out resources to gain nutrition skills, perhaps an online class, meeting with a nutritionist, reading a book about nutrition, etc. Identifying the skills needed helps to ensure that you’re placing a realistic goal that is achievable through your own skillsets or the skillsets that you will need to acquire to achieve the goal(s).
- Develop a plan. Here, you get concrete about your goal(s), dates, actions, people that can help with achieving the goal, benefits of achieving the goal, and skills needed. Basically, you organize the information within the 6 previous steps. You will need to discipline yourself to proactively work towards your goal every day. This requires daily analysis, evaluation, and planning daily to achieve your actions that get you closer to achieving your desired outcome. Likewise, with your planning, it is essential to be flexible to adjust actions if needed, not your desired outcome. If your actions are not working at a level in which you’re satisfied, you may need to change the actions, not the goal. Doing the same thing over and over again that doesn’t work, but you expect it to work is insanity, don’t do it. Be proactive, persistent, and prepared.
This time of year sends us a twinkle of hope to do more, be more, and inspires change. However, moving from inspiration to actual change requires goal setting. Goal setting requires purposeful intention to identifying, analyzing, planning, doing, and monitoring goals. The 7 tips discussed are strategies that you can use to aid you conceptualizing your inspirations and knock your 2015 goals out of the ballpark. Happy Goal Setting!!!
Have the best day ever!
Copyright Viral Solutions llc © 2014. All Rights Reserved
by Katie Doseck, Ph.D.
Chief Visionary and Strategic Ace Up Your Sleeve | Viral Solutions LLC
Katie Doseck, PhD MBA | Chief Visionary & Strategic Ace Up Your Sleeve. I catapulted my experience with extensive education, trainings, and personal coaching; earning a PhD in Organizational Management with a specialization in Human Resource Management, MBA in Organizational Leadership, and BA in Law & Liberal Arts. Subject Matter Expert (SME) areas: Human Resource Management, Employment Law, Organizational Change, Change Management, Resource Planning, Strategic Planning, Talent Management, Selling & Sales Management, Training & Development, Decision Making Models, Project Management, Customer Relationship Management, and Motivation. Dr. Doseck is based out of Logan, Utah.
How to Deal With Your Fear of Failure in Business
As a new entrepreneur and the owner of your small business, it’s completely understandable that you still have some element of a fear of failure. You may have taken the initial plunge by actually getting the business started in the first place, but growing that business is an occasionally frightening task.
So as you seek to grow your business (and yourself as an entrepreneur), how do you deal with that fear of failure? Here are a few tips:
- Accept that you are going to fail. Just as in the stages of loss, the first step is acceptance. Accept that failure is going to happen, and it’s going to happen in all sizes. You probably fear the
unknown nature of what’s going to happen with your business, but if you accept right off the bat that you are going to fail (at least to an extent), you’ll find yourself much more uninhibited. Of course, you should keep in mind that failure doesn’t necessarily mean your entire business is going to go under, or that all of your failures are a bad thing. Instead, it’s a way to find the best road to success. - Figure out why you’re afraid. There are likely to be specific things about your business that make you nervous. You might be nervous about failure in social media marketing, or meeting deadlines. Once you’ve pinpointed why you’re afraid, it’s much easier to address the issues.
- Maintain consistent goals. Even when you do fail, it’s important that you continue to shoot for the same goal. Everything you attempt with your business should be with the same end goal in mind. This consistency will be of comfort to you as you enter into the unknown.
- Understand the fear of success. Many of us do not feel worthy of success, so subconsciously we sabotage our own success. Sound crazy? It's real and you need to be cognizant of this human element.
- Just do it. Sometimes, it takes doing the very thing we fear to be able to conquer that fear. Once you’ve done it, you’ll find that it almost definitely isn’t scary any more.
We at Viral Solutions are here to guide you through some of the scarier parts of entrepreneurship. Contact us today for more tips about slaying your fears and finding success with your small business.
Copyright 2014 Viral Solutions LLC
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100’s of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
Why is Growing Too Fast So Dangerous?
Read pretty much any guide for new small business owners and you’ll likely see a tip that tells you to be sure that you are able to “manage your growth” and pull in the reins once your growth spurt begins.
To some people, this might seem a bit counter-intuitive—don’t you want your business to grow as quickly as possible? The answer is a bit complex. Growing quickly as a company, while certainly exciting, poses certain risks that you’d be better off avoiding.
Consider the following risks of overly fast growth:
- Lack of consistency. If you’re in a constant stage of ramping up your operations to keep up with the growth that you’re experiencing, it’s hard to really find any consistency as a company. Rather than
being able to fine-tune your operations and really nail down solid processes, you’re constantly looking ahead and trying to keep up. You need to make sure that all of your processes are strong before your major growth takes off. - Lack of inventory. If you’re running a product-based business, fast growth could mean you run out of products faster than you can produce them. When you’re a new company, the last thing you want is to turn people away because your inventory has been depleted.
- Lack of staff. The quicker you grow, the more likely it is that you’ll become understaffed. In these situations, it’s easy to think that you need to quickly fill a position to keep up with growth, which could lead to you not doing your due diligence in determining whether or not a candidate is actually the right fit for your team. You should be able to feel like you can take your time whenever you decide to hire a new team member.
- Strain on cash flow. Growing quickly while your business is still young can put a major strain on your company’s cash flow. You shouldn’t have to feel like you’re constantly scraping the bottom of the barrel just to make sure you can keep growing.
In general, being able to manage your growth so that it remains at a steady, reasonable pace is the best option for any small business. It allows you to grow your operations without feeling like you’re going to fall off the rails. It is a less stressful method, and much better for the long-term health of your company.
Contact us today at Viral Solutions for more tips about managing your business’s growth.
by Christine Kelly
CEO and Queen Bee | Viral Solutions LLC
Prior to joining Viral Solutions, Christine held executive leadership roles at some of the largest small business consulting firms in the USA. Her experience includes leading direct reports of over 130 remote sales agents who generated $38mm in annual revenue. She obtained her Marketing degree from British Columbia Institute of Technology. Bring her C-Suite experience to your small business. Although our company is virtual, and we can work with you wherever you are located, she is located in Denver, Colorado and owns a second home in Vancouver, BC Canada.
How to Make Your Daily Commute a Productive One
The average American has a commute to work of at least 20 minutes every single day. For people that live in urban areas, a lot of this time might be spent sitting in rush hour traffic moving at extremely slow speeds.
Rather than getting frustrated with the stress of your commute, there are ways that you can actually make positive use of that time, even while you’re behind the wheel. Here are some tips for how you can be productive on your morning commute:
• Listen to podcasts, webinars, TedTalks etc. It’s always great to stay up-to-date on the latest news and advancements in your industry. Download some podcasts, audiobooks or webinars 
that are relevant to your industry or otherwise valuable to your work and listen to them on the way to work. While you won’t have the ability to take notes on the things you hear, it’s still a great way to gain some new insights and ideas and keep yourself mentally stimulated while on an otherwise boring commute.
• Hold teleconferences, Skype or FaceTime. If you have a hands-free set that you are comfortable using, your commute can be a great time to hold teleconferences to catch up with a few employees or clients. This is a good habit to get into to make sure you’re maintaining solid communication practices within your company.
• Carpool, mass transit. If you have colleagues that live near you, you can save time and energy by driving together to work. This offers you a built-in way to discuss important action items in a low-key setting and get in some additional production during time that would otherwise be spent sitting in busy traffic feeling frustrated.
• Bring a laptop or tablet on the bus. If you take the bus or train or other type of public transportation, bring a tablet or laptop along and get some work done. This could be a great time to 
catch up on all of the emails you need to read and respond to before you get to the office and have a lot of larger, more complicated tasks to tackle.
• Outline your day. Think of everything you need to accomplish that day and put together a mental outline of what you need to do and when. You could create a voice memo if you have a hands-free system that you can play back later to remind yourself of your tasks for the day.
For more tips about staying productive even during your commute, speak with us today at Viral Solutions.
Copyright 2014 Viral Solutions LLC
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100’s of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.