Your Team

People you deal with don’t always operate in the same way you do – what happens when you deal with aggressive, passive aggressive or just downright difficult people?

I’ve just come off the back of running my month long Grateful in April campaign where the focus was on what is good in people’s lives. It’s been uplifting and my dealings have been incredibly pleasurable.

Imagine my horror when I found myself in a couple of recent situations – one dealing with a person who was being incredibly difficult and another where someone was behaving in a passive aggressive manner. Read more

It’s only a model …

In gearing up for my holiday, I had to consider my clients.

After last year’s vigorous debate, I realised throwing my hands in the air was no longer an option.

This left me with three tactics, which I combined for a winning strategy.

1.    Declare peace

Next time you want an avalanche of business, tell your customers you’re going away (even if you aren’t).

I was stunned by the month of work that flowed from my brief heads-up email. Read more

From food to flying, horror stories affect many sectors from time to time.

A recent tragedy got me wondering:

• How do businesses recover from disaster?
• What do their peers and competitors do in response?

Dreadful day

When I woke on 8 January, the radio chilled me.

A dreadful hot air balloon disaster had claimed 11 lives.

Having ballooned myself, I could picture the scene. Read more

Using your head needn’t be hard

Welcome back to our job ad (recruitment advertisement) writing guide.

We’ve nailed briefing, audience and structure.

Today we talk headlines – phrases that punch far above their weight but needn’t be hell to create.

SEX!!!

NOW THAT WE’VE GOT YOUR ATTENTION …

Ever seen a headline like this? Read more

It is that time of year again -  business award season!

If your business has been nominated for a Telstra Business Award you could be in the situation where you’re at the gala dinner, enjoying your night, and suddenly -  your name has been called out as a winner! You need to give a speech… but don’t panic!  Be you a business owner, or employee this is your opportunity to shine in front of your peers, and enhance the reputation of your business.

Here are my top tips for sailing confidently through your acceptance speech.

Practise and palm cards

Take the time prior to the event to think about what you want to say and who you want to thank (team, clients, family, supporters, fellow competitors). Read more

Writing ads is easy, once you know how.

Welcome to the next chapter of our recruitment advertisement (job ad) creation guide.

So far we’ve covered briefing and audience.

Today we learn the easy way to write a great job ad without freaking out.

Blank stare

Two things make writing hard:

• Where to start.
• How to go about it.

Happily, the solutions to both are simple. Read more

I’ve worked in and around the Accounting profession for more years than I care to remember.  With my headhunting hat on I usually work at the Partner and Director level, across both big and small accounting firms.  Amongst other topics of conversation, the subject of “those darn Gen Y staff” comes up on a regular basis.  To remove any confusion – Gen Y refers (at least in my mind) to those people born between 1980 to 2000.

I’m sure you’ve heard the usual traits attached to Gen Y: self-absorbed, sense of entitlement, lack of loyalty, poor worth ethic and more.  You get the idea. Read more

‘… you must bill again …’

We’ve mentioned the need to look bigger than we are to impress prospects and get gigs.

Faux staff are one way to do this.

And once you’ve invented them, you might as well put ‘em to work!

Meeting of minds

I love it when my mobile rings while I’m driving Fonnie somewhere. Read more

Regular readers will remember Easy Weddings.com.au, winners of both the MYOB Small Business Award and the Victorian Business of the Year Award at last year’s Telstra Business Awards, when they shared some secrets behind their success right here on The Pulse.

Katrina and Matt Butterworth built the site nearly a decade ago in their lounge room, after personal experience planning their own wedding revealed a massive gap in the market for an easy to use, planning resource.  Undeterred by the lack of a technology background, they launched Easy Weddings, with Matt teaching himself web design and heading back to school to study HTML and programming. Read more

There’s sure to be some pretty tired faces around Australia this morning, as over 2.4 million people tuned in to watch the 2012 Australian Open marathon final between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal last night.

As the clock ticked past midnight, and Nadal forced the game into a fifth set with a nail biting tie breaker win, the game officially became the longest final in tennis history.  Finally, just seven minutes shy of 6 hours, Djokovic took the main prize.

So how does this game apply to business life? Read more