Tell Your Own Story Category

Business Inefficiencies…A Walmart Story

Monday, May 16th, 2011

SerinaKelly

I picked up my hubby’s anniversary present from Walmart – not only was it a week late, I did get it from Walmart. Here’s the thing, I used their site-to-store program as they didn’t carry an electronic wok in stock, and it was quite easy to order on the internet and I got a text updating me when it arrived at the store. Very convenient and very efficient, right?

Well, that’s when efficiency ended because then the human element was added in. I went in, showed my text and my ID, and I was told that someone else would be up to help me since it was a site-to-store item. They called her up from the back end of the store, took her a bit of time to make it to the front of the store, she looked it up and then said she would be back as she needed to go back to the back of the store to retrieve the items. Hmmmm – didn’t she just come from there? Could they not see how inefficient this really was? I thought maybe this was just some oddity, one-time lack of efficiency in their service, but heard from others they had the same exact scenario.

Even though Walmart is a HUGE company and Sam’s relatives are still making a bundle of money every year, inefficiencies in most businesses keep you from being productive, which holds back your ability to be successful (be it more time or more money or both).

What do you find that you are less efficient at? Maybe we can help each other out with some pointers. Also, ever heard of Robby Slaughter with Slaughter Development? He’s a process engineer, and his company could help the big deals like Walmart and the smaller folk just like you and your business.

Serina Kelly
Relevate
www.getrelevate.com
serina@getrelevate.com
317-203-7740

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8 Tips for Using Quora

Monday, May 2nd, 2011

kylepic

The media world has been ablaze with the word Quora since the site announced its official launch at the end of 2010. Some of you may have heard and I imagine that many of you have not. Here is the basic breakdown of Quora put simply by the website’s About Us section:

Quora is a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it. The most important thing is to have each question page become the best possible resource for someone who wants to know about the question.

To make a long story short, Quora exists to create a system where the community polices, creates, and builds content around questions. The very existence of Quora can be traced back to Wikipedia. We can see many similarities between the two sites. Wikipedia is content created by individuals and Quora is questions answered by individuals. There are plenty of other differences but we will leave that to another article.

There have been plenty of suggestions in the world wide web on reasons to use Quora. In their quest for online knowledge domination people have been building content portals for years! Quora is just another in a long line of data development sites. However, all kidding aside there are some good reasons to use Quora in the world of digital communication.

1. Content is Community Organized and Edited. The site allows for people to vote on answers to questions which ranks the question as an “upvote” or “downvote.” This can help you (the reader) sort through answers to find the right one for you.

2. Quality Comes with Voting. Something is to be said that there is more a chance for quality content when users can rank answers. Also, Quora recruited experts in their fields in order to provide quality answers to questions asked by the community.

There is the community and networking element of Quora that is also important but the true value lies in the content being created by the individuals on the site. So how do you get started in this world of questions, answers, networking, and trending? Let’s take a look.

Quora Features
read full article »

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Knowing when you have found your ‘WHY’…

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011


A question many seem to have when on the journey to discover their ‘WHY’ is…

“How will I know I’ve found it?”

I’ve been working to refine my WHY since a great buddy of mine put me on to the concept and Simon Sinek.

You see, I’ve been looking for YEARS (about 7!) for a way to express my WHY. The trouble was, I didn’t know what it was.

Each time I thought I had it – turns out I didn’t. Does this sound familiar?

A few days ago I thought I had it. I was very happy. I decided to drop an email to my buddy (Steve Marriot – an amazing coach) who had put me on to this concept in the first place. I couldn’t wait to share the news with him and thank him for his gift, of pointing me to Simon Sinek and this concept of starting with WHY.

And as I typed merrily away on my keyboard, I suddenly realised I couldn’t completely remember my WHY…!

I don’t mean I couldn’t remember all of the words ‘verbatim’. I mean, I couldn’t even remember all of the essence of it. How silly was THAT?! After all, I was sure I had it…

And that was when I realised that I DID NOT HAVE MY WHY…

BUT… for the first time on my journey to discover my WHY, I felt pretty good at realising I didn’t have my WHY…

…Because I now had a sure-fire way of determining if I had found my WHY or not – and it was QUICK!

AND… I also felt that I was closer to my WHY than I had ever been – I was definitely on the scent…

This helped me zero in quickly on what my WHY is…

I believe that it’s more than a conscious, deliberate act of remembrance. It goes deeper than that. If you have to make an effort to reconstruct your WHY, if it doesn’t ‘roll off your tongue’, then you haven’t got it. When you have discovered your WHY, it’s there in the way you think, act and communicate.

As my long suffering wife Tracy will tell you (bless you!), up until the point where I discovered my WHY, I was trying too hard, and making it too complicated… it was from the ‘head’ and not the ‘heart’.

So I discovered that for me at least, may be for you too, when you discover your WHY and come to express it, it will be a simple and short phrase.

And so I can comfortably, confidently, naturally, and easily express my WHY anytime, like now…

“I’m driven to help you inspire YOUR customers to buy from you.”

Martin Schmalenbach

http://martinschmalenbach.com/blog/

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Charlie Sheen and the fine line of Success

Friday, April 22nd, 2011

ScottManning

The other day my brother, only half-jokingly, said when he saw Charlie Sheen doing his little rant on TV, he said he saw some resemblance to me…

Of course he was not referring to the drugs, prostitutes, family neglect, and abusive behavior.

Obviously not.

He was making reference to his statements of absolutes, self-righteous talk, obsessive nature, unwavering self-assurance, and extreme pursuit of ‘Winning’.

And I responded, as I often do when someone points out these things –

That I’m well aware that for most of those issues there is medication available.

That thought has never crossed my mind, because I’m afraid it might work.

Fixing these issues isn’t what is needed, not for the rabid entrepreneur and hungry for success and to help other people type-of-person, such as you and myself –

No – not fixing – harnessing.

Dan Kennedy often talks about his “obsessive” nature and that he is careful what hobbies he takes up because anything he does he would want to master and that requires obsession.

You’ll be as successful as you commit to being. Period, end of story.

And it sure is easy for people to mistake passion with obsession, isn’t it.

Just as it’s easy to mistake confidence for arrogance too.

In most cases, it’s either obvious someone, like Charlie Sheen, is an idiot.

But, others, not so obvious, because people who aren’t pursuing what we’re pursuing simply can’t understand.

I could name the longest list of people who achieve success and significance and if you look closely, they all have Charlie Sheen characteristics, just harnessed differently.

And, to be fair, it’s these same traits that led Charlie to being either one of, or the, highest paid sitcom actor in the present times.

It’s what’s required.

The point today, is simple, success is a fine line, what it takes to achieve it and what it takes to stay there. People will call you crazy and a lot of other things – they can’t understand.

Just know, minus all the negative, illegal, and harmful stuff – inside Charlie was a person who achieved success and couldn’t handle it, not because he changed, because he lost control of the same things that led him to the top, brought him back down.

What will do you in, hold you back, and keep you from achieving all of your dreams and ambitions is not being out there enough, not being crazy enough, not pushing hard enough, not being committed enough.

“Committed” what an interesting word. Don’t you think.

To be successful you’ve got to be.

And often times those around you think so too.

A little play on words – I know I’ve been committed and others have often thought I should be…

But I never subdue the things that make me successful, that make me, me.

You can learn a lot from Charlie, both extremes, exactly what not to do, and exactly what you’ve got to do…I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out the difference.

Whatever you do – don’t take what Charlie’s taking, and don’t take what anyone else suggests either.

It just might fix you.

Hear about more business expanding ideas at Scott’s Insider’s Circle Chapter Meeting and watch (or be a part of) the Marketer of the Month Contest.

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