Monday, August 22, 2011

Business Strategy - How To Become A Strategic Thinker In 10 Exercises?

Business Strategy - How To Become A Strategic Thinker In 10 Exercises? Strategic thinking is a very important skill for every business person. The best way to master this skill is to do a series of exercises, that will help you understand how to be a strategic thinker. I is very important to follow this exercises step by step. It will help you train your mind for success.
Exercise 1, the game theory.
Take a sheet of paper and write down everything that you have to work with. How much capital do you have? How much you can spend? Do you have any products or content? How much value can you provide for your costumers? Do you have any other assets, like an email list? You have to know every piece of your business. Thinks of your business as the game and the end result to win the game is making money. Everything you wrote on a sheet of paper are pieces of the game. Put them together and think how you can be better.
Exercise 2, of strengths and weaknesses.
Write down all your strengths and weaknesses. Be really honest with yourself. When it comes to business, you have to really think about what are your strengths and weaknesses. Are you a really technical person? Are you a good copywriter? Are you good at graphic design or is that a weakness. You really need to verify strategically what you are good at, or you need help with something. This goes along with creating strategy for running your business and making money.
Exercise 3, of your likes and dislikes.
It's simple. Write down every thing that you like or dislike about running your business. Maybe you don't like to do certain stuff. Maybe you don't like to write articles or create content. It is a big deal for you to maintain your happiness and do what you want to do. The happier you are, the more fun your having the better it is for you and your success. This way you will spend your time more creatively.
Exercise 4, outsourcing.
Now you know what you like to do, but things you don't like to do still need to be done. Now write down all the repeating tasks in your business. Then determine which ones you don't have to do. You will find out that some things can be done by someone else so you can have more time for creative business ideas. Your time is most valuable limited resource there is. Any time you can buy yourself more time you will make more money. So why not pay a little bit of money to somebody who will do certain tasks for you. You can find a lot of people on the online who are willing to do your tasks. Outsourcing is always a smart investment.
Exercise 5, practicing abundance.
It's very important to ask yourself if you are abundant minded or scarcity minded? Which one are you? There is an abundant source of supply and by that I mean costumers, money, resources or in one simple word everything. This is how you should think about. If your competitor asks you to promote his product, don't say no or think that he might steal your costumers this way. You have to think like this. I don't mind helping you because I know this will benefit me in the future and all the good I did for you will come back to me. Abundant thinking will also help you improve relationships with your partners, clients or competitors. This is a very important exercise, go and apply it in your business.
Exercise 6, grow your assets.
This is something you always have to think about. No matter what you do you always have to be focused about growing your assets from week to week. Assets are things of lasting value and they get more valuable as they grow. A very good example in an online business is an opt-in email list. Bigger list, bigger value as an asset. Bigger asset can produce more money for your business. Another asset can be content. The more content you create better chance you have people finding it and buying your product. Your knowledge and skills are also important assets. The better knowledge and skills you have, the better value you can provide to your costumers. Focus on this and you will get better results.
Exercise 7, have a singular focus.
Take a moment and write down all the opportunities you are currently thinking about pursuing. Then choose only one to work on. Pick the one that has the most promise or the one that can make you money the fastest or one that you like the best. It doesn't matter you choose. If you do multiple projects at the same time you will burn out and fail. You will get distracted and won't complete your projects. Focus on one thing, complete it and make some money then pick another opportunity. If you want to be a good strategic thinker you must have a singular focus. I have seen a lot of entrepreneurs fail because they wanted to pursue many opportunities at the same time. I am sure you heard the phrase it is better to do one thing great than ten things fair.
Exercise 8, action to acquire method.
Think of something specific that you want to buy in the bear future and focus on building a plan to acquire it. It can be anything that can help your business, something small or something big. It can be a new laptop or a new car, whatever you need. Visualize it first and build a plan how you will get it. Smart strategic move would be to run a special offer to raise the money you need. A lot of marketers do this to raise money for a charity or anything they need in their life or business. Don't be afraid to do the same. It is a good strategic move and it works. Remember, be specific. Know what you want and how much money you need to get it. It will change your thinking and your progress.
Exercise 9, fail first.
Don't be afraid to fail. Strategically this is a positive thing so you can get the results that you can use to improve your business. If you fail, never quit, use it for improving your business and get better every day. If you do this success will knock on your door. Important thing is to take action and get that first result so you know how you can improve. If you get good results, there is always room to improve. You can always tweak it and get better so you can get even better results. Get results fast and get better. It is that simple.
Exercise 10, build simple models.
Write down the major components of your business that you could define structured model for. In other words write down some big parts in your business that you do every day. Stuff that make your business work. For example if you are doing pay per click to drive traffic to your website, you should define a model for your pay per click campaigns. If something works for you, stick to it. Build a model and be better. Build models in advanced. That will save you a lot of time when you have to decide which direction you will go in your business. Making decisions in advance will speed up the whole process. It will make things easier for you as an entrepreneur. This will help you make more progress. If you write articles all the time, then you need to structure a model for creating your articles. Break down components and regulate decisions in your model. What decisions you have to make for writing articles. Think about it. The title, the keywords, the writing itself, the resource box and so on. That will provide you with more information and solutions for your model.
Use this exercises to become a strategic thinker and to improve your business. After you do this exercises you will get a better vision of what you want from your business or your life. First you need to change your thinking to get that money mindset that will bring you great results. I know you want it all you have to do is apply it.Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6073408

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Thursday, August 11, 2011

Full List - The 25 Most Influential Business Management Books - TIME

Full List - The 25 Most Influential Business Management Books - TIME

There's never a shortage of new books about how to be more effective in business. Most of them are forgettable, but here are 25 that changed the way we think about management — from the iconic "How to Win Friends and Influence People" to groundbreaking tomes like "Guerilla Marketing" and quick reads like the "The One Minute Manager".

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2086680,00.html#ixzz1UkcyfN8y

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

The Monica Bird, Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her... - StumbleUpon

The Monica Bird, Date a girl who reads.

"Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes."

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