Online Articles

There are a number of interesting ways to make money online. Many individuals around the world are now making a lucrative income by simply working online. Now, I know you all have heard about making money through various types of affiliate programs. However, I am going to sway a little from the norm and share with you some new, innovative ways to make money on the internet. If you are ready to join the millions who are able to work from the comfort of their home, keep reading!

1. Do you have any professional skills and talents? Do you seem to have a natural ability to motivate others? Do you have experience when it comes to project management? Perhaps you are really good at composing resumes? Did you know that there is someone somewhere online looking for people with skills and talents like this? The great news is that they will pay you a large amount of money in order to offer these skills and services to them! You can find jobs where you can offer your services on many different websites. Simply explore and you will be quite pleased at what you can find!

2. The next way that you can make money online is by writing articles that are search engine optimized. Search engine optimization is an essential component for businesses to succeed online. This employs the use of keywords and keyword phrases in order to make that particular article popular, or rank “higher” when an individual searches for that particular word and/or phrase. Many websites, employ individuals to compose these types of requests. If you are looking for an interesting way to make money online, this may be the way to go!

3. If writing sounds appealing to you, you may benefit from creating a blog and making money. There are many opportunities out there for the individual that elects to share their opinions with others. If you have the ability to write, and have a natural knack for sharing information and opinions with other people, blogging may be a great way to make some extra money online! There are many blog networks that can be used to do just this. These include GigaOmniMedia, Weblogs, Inc, and several others.

4. Many individuals are creating a lucrative income by working as administrative assistants when it comes to various websites and businesses online. If you are looking for a professional career that will allow you to grow in both your professional and personal life, you may consider seeking out a position where you can work as an administrative assistant.

5. Do you have some information that you would like to share with the world? Would you like to write reviews on various products? Would you like the flexibility of writing what you want, when you want? If so, you may enjoy writing online at websites like Associated Content, eHow, Helium, Squidoo, MyLot, and more! I generally average at least a few hundred dollars a month simply adding articles to these websites in my spare time, and now you can too!

If you are interested in unique ways to make money online, here you have been given a few ideas to help you out. You no longer have to pay money to make money online; you just have to be creative in your approach!

Chris Simpson is dedicated to helping people find honest and legitimate work from home opportunities and home based business ideas. Find a legitimate work at home opportunity and learn to make money online today at: http://www.HomeNetPro.com

On the far southwestern tip of the Iberian Peninsula there is a small country that contains one hundred uninterrupted miles of the finest beaches in the world. Once a back-water country and little sister to its larger neighbor Spain, Portugal has become a popular tourist destination and a favorite international moving spot for retirees from throughout Europe and the United States.

Portugal is a member of the European Union and that affiliation has been the main reason for its rapid growth in the past decade. Lisbon is still the smallest capital on the continent but corporate growth and international moving is helping to bring it in line with other, more cosmopolitan cities. Portugal has its own national language but you are just as likely to hear English, French, Spanish or German as you tour the streets or enjoy a meal of traditional Portuguese food at one of the many fine restaurants and cafes.

International moving to European countries has become more frequent since the formation of the E.U. and Portugal has pretty much the same standards and entry requirements as England, France, or Germany. You are required to have a valid passport and a recent medical examination before you can begin the international moving process. A list of required vaccinations can be obtained from your local embassy or from the tourist information bureau in Portugal. The telephone country code is 351 and there are English-speaking operators available.

International moving is a major step that should not be rushed or taken lightly. When you move to another country and surrender your native citizenship you become subject to the laws and civil rights of a foreign nation. If your move is temporary, retain your citizenship and just apply for a visa. If you believe it will be permanent, apply for dual citizenship or wait a while before doing anything. You may decide you want to go home at some point and the re-application process is generally much more difficult.

If you are beginning your international moving venture in the United States, the U.S. Embassy in Lisbon is located at Avenida das Forcas Armados (Sete Rios), 1600 Lisboa. The standard unit of currency is the Euro which is good throughout Europe and you can call for police or emergency service by dialing 112 on any payphone. Lisbon is a much safer city than it used to be, but you still might want to avoid walking around alone at night. The rest of the country has little or no reported crime which makes Portugal one of the more desirable European destinations.

Your international moving company should handle all of your packing and shipping needs. Portugal requires that personal belongings go through Customs and they need to be inventoried for inspection. To make this a headache-free process, make sure that you hire an international moving company with experience in moving to Portugal. Knowledge of how Customs works and being able to determine exact cost ahead of time will prevent your furniture and computer equipment from being held up or seized upon entry.

Nir Dotan is a writer and promoter of Moving services, and
Omega Shipping Local as well as International Moving.

There is simply no better way to get highly targeted profitable traffic to your website than through google adwords. Of course you will have to pay for each click but if you use google adwords effectively your profits will far outweigh what your google adwords advertising costs are. In this article I really want to cover some tips that will help you maximise profits when using google adwords and help to keep your advertising costs to a bare minimum.

Targeting on google adwords is something that should always be selected carefully. If you feel a product will sell better in a certain country then ensure you select that country. If you feel you have a product that can be sold world wide than make sure you cover each country. Ebooks are regularly marketed through google adwords and always sell well when targeting a world wide audience.

Tracking is something 95% of users will not do, so if you can get this one down you will be in a better position than 95% of the people who use google adwords. You need to plant the google adwords tracking code on your payment page or if you are an affiliate you will need to email the webmaster and ask them to insert the code for you. Most sellers will not have a problem with this. Tracking will allow you to see which key words convert and which dont.

Site targeting is another great way to get hold of the traffic ready and willing to buy. However I would only suggest you do this once you know which keywords do the selling and which ones dont. Once you have keywords that sell type them into googles search and see which sites appear at the top of googles organic list. If the site has google adsense on you can then go to your google adsense account and target that particular site. If you have an ad on googles search results and on the top website the sales should role in.

Google adwords and google in general is all about relevance so my last piece of advice would be to always use your choosen keywords within your ads in the title and in the body of the ad. When relevancy is increased so is your google adwords quality score, hence your cost per click is reduced. Using these tips will see your google adwords advertising costs slashed, leaving you to pull in massive profits from your campaigns.

2 Tim Grice runs a successful online home business and gives people advice on genuine online business opportunity. If your looking to work at home or for a work at home job visit entrepreneurs who can show you how to make money now!

There is a large array of classified sites online, but they all pretty much offer the same sort of “services.” They are the best sites to find things like employment, services, personals, items for sale, housing, etc. Most all people know about classified sites such as CraigsList but, I certainly wouldn’t signify this as being the best or the only classified site online, that’s for sure! There is a whole truck load of classified sites online that offer the things listed above, as well as other cool extras incorporated into the site such as games, MP3s, Social Networking options, forums and more. These sites are more of a classified hub rather than a regular classified site.

A hub is more or less a website you can visit or join that has an “all in one” feel to it. If you check out sites like this, then you won’t need to go anywhere else because they have everything you could possibly need right at your fingertips! Other sites that can be compared closely to the classified hubs sites are Myspace, FaceBook, or Moli. Yes, they are all social networking sites, but they also offer other things such as profiles, classified ads, music, movies, games and loads of entertainment to keep you busy!

If you’re searching for sites that offer a multiple amount of uses to their users you can simply search on your favorite search engine such as Ask, Yahoo! or Google for keywords relevant to whatever it is you’re looking for. Say I’m looking for a classified site that also offers games, then I would enter in something like this; “Classifieds Sites Online With Games” or “Combination Online Classifieds.” This will very quickly bring up some sites that could possibly interest you. You can also search for other things such as “Social Networking Sites” and then within the websites just look around and see if they offer the type of options you would like. Of course the second option is a little more work but it will help you find the perfect site!

When joining a regular online classified site or a combination classified site, be sure to take a look around and read the FAQ section and TOS section and familiarize yourself with the rules of the site. One of the most horrible things is joining a site you really like and then getting deleted for not following the rules made by the operator of the site! Example some classified sites don’t allow personals, or don’t allow adult type classifieds. So, just make sure you follow all the rules and do what’s expected of you!

This author is a huge fan of the The Greatest Classified Site Ever!

I know one of the big draws to having a home business on the Internet is the initial startup costs. There are many ways to get started working from home with your own business and not spend any money doing it. This can have its benefits, but it could also create problems for you.

Here are three home business tips to keep in mind to help make sure your next home businesses successful.

1. Are you selling the opportunity or are you selling actual products. One problem with many home businesses being free is that it is hard to make money when nobody is buying anything. This is such common sense, yet it is amazing how many people want something for nothing.

If you are representing a home business opportunity then it will be important that there are products that people can purchase that create commissions for everyone. It will also be important that you are able to retail products to create cash flow in the home business that you have joined.

2. Is your home business going to be adequately represented on the internet? This is another thing that seems like it would be common sense today, yet many home businesses do not possess a strong Internet presence.

You stand a much better chance of succeeding if your home business relies on the Internet to help it grow. Part of this comes from the way that you are going to attract customers.

Marketing your business on the Internet is a great to get traffic compared with traditional newspaper or radio advertising for example. Therefore, things such as having your own website, blog, and understanding various marketing forms online will be important.

3. The last own business tip I want to leave you with is be prepared to invest a large amount of time. You can compensate for this by spending money and outsourcing things to be done for you, or you can do them yourself.

Regardless of how you choose to approach your home business, nobody ever makes a lot of money online unless they work hard at it.

Sadly many people do not grasp this idea because they have not invested money initially upfront to get started. Therefore they think they do not have to invest a lot of hard work to be successful.

This is three home business tips that can make a big difference in whether you succeed or not. Be sure to choose a business that represents good products, has an excellent Internet presence, and you can be enthused about to get up and work hard every day.

Donald Pope creates Online Business Partners for passionate people who want a peice of the online Trillion Dollar Industry. More information http://www.networkingprofit.com

New members of your downline will look to you for training and advice or assistance to help them get established in the business. They will be keen to succeed and highly motivated to learn. Here are some important tips to help you be effective in training your distributors.

The effectiveness of training sessions depends largely on the trainer. A trainer who simply stands in front of the group and delivers information without interacting with the students will not teach as well as someone who gets involved. To become a top notch trainer you will need to:

1. Create Rapport

Before the training session starts, mingle with the participants and get to know them.

By meeting attendees ahead of time and chatting with as many of them as possible, you will have broken the ice before the session begins. This will create an immediate warmth between you and your audience when you begin to train them.

Avoid sensitive topics in this “getting to know you” phase, as you are trying to build rapport, not get into an argument. Stick to topics like good restaurants in the area, or traffic on the way to the venue.

2. Give More Than Expected.

If you deliver only content that is expected, you are really not giving value for money.

Make an effort to provide a more valuable and interesting experience than participants expect. Do extra research or locate additional resources that help people gain more from the experience.

You can share your own, or other people’s stories and perhaps even get the attendees themselves to share personal experiences that are relevant. You will find that you can also learn a lot by involving your audience.

Make the learning as interactive as possible. In other words, get the trainees as involved as possible. The easiest way to get their cooperation is to make the whole process fun. If you create a friendly, safe environment in which people feel comfortable getting involved, you will find people much more willing to interact.

It is also important to keep learning yourself. You can improve your training skills by attending seminars for trainers.

3. Use a Variety of Training Methods

It is important to move between different training techniques in order to keep trainees interested. Standing in front of people and lecturing them with straight information is likely to cause them to lose interest and stop paying attention because it is so boring.

Instead, use a number of training techniques that encourage interaction and move the learning forward quickly. It is important that training has a practical purpose and active learning is the best way to achieve it.

It isn’t hard to make your training sessions interesting. Here are some strategies you can use:

- role play
- group discussion
- case studies
- trainee presentations
- telling stories
- short quizzes
- fun games

Presentation aids such as Power Point presentations, video clips, audio, flip charts, posters and other training props can help convey information and keep the audience’s attention.

Adjust your approach depending on the time of day. For example, during the afternoon when people may begin to get tired, keep them alert with interactive strategies.

4. Use the Right Amount of Variety

The aim of training sessions is to give attendees the ability to actually do what they are being trained to do. This means that it is very important to reinforce learning throughout the session. A good rule of thumb is to provide three different activities for each specific topic so that learning can be reinforced.

One way you can do this is to introduce a case study with a video clip that gives a detailed view of the subject. You can then divide the participants into small groups to discuss the information and come up with some solutions to a problem. Afterwards, the groups can designate someone to present their information to other attendees.

Learning retention is significantly greater when you include group activities and multi-sensory training techniques.

5. Keep Them Interested With Surprises.

There should be no surprises for the trainer of course, because the training session should be very well planned.

However, the participants are another thing altogether. A good trainer plans to surprise the trainees.

You can surprise them by using a range of different and interesting training strategies. Participants may be aware of the course content but find the techniques new and interesting.

You can also use rewards to motivate them. Small rewards like chocolate bars, pens or notebooks can be enough of an incentive to get people involved. When you divide participants into teams during the session, you can award points to teams. This is a great way to get people excited and involved.

6. Train to The Objectives.

It is easy to get off track when you create an interactive learning environment, so it is essential that you have planned the course carefully. What are the learning objectives of the training? What topics must be covered in each session?

It is important to constantly reiterate these objectives during the course so that it stays on track.

It is common for groups to want to spend more time on topics that interest them but if you do that you will find there is insufficient time to cover the other topics in the course.

Next time you need to run a training session, apply these training strategies for the best learning outcomes. Keep in mind the rule of three as you plan and deliver the training: repetition, recall and retention.

Discover Kevin Sinclair’s system for making profits regardless of whether anyone joins your network marketing business.

The green movement has created new marketplace opportunities with the emergence of intelligent green software. Industries, traditional and emerging, will soon be affected by the adoption or disregard of such technology as they move into some version of energy peak load or variable electrical pricing (where the current price is determined by the power load on the grid).

In the not-so-distant future, companies will need to prepare for the application of intelligent green software that will automatically manage specific aspects of production, distribution and consumption of electricity. This technology will enable energy customers (whether they are industrial, commercial or residential) to make smart decisions about their energy usage to cut electric bills and electricity consumption to just what they need. The good news is that this technology will not only help foster the production of efficient, smart appliances, but it will also encourage consumers to become more energy conscious and therefore more energy efficient.

The basic premise is simple. There will be devices that will automatically turn certain appliances on and off under conditions specified by the consumer. If you combine this with variable pricing in electricity and allow consumers to make decisions about which appliances to run based on the cost of running them, then you have a potential for consumer cost savings as well as power consumption reduction.

Such relatively simple devices are a significant part of smart grid technology proposals, though some proposals go even further. Some propose that the devices be used for energy suppliers as well as energy consumers. In the smart grid context, such devices can be powerful leveraging tools for consumers, enabling them to sell back power to the utilities if they have generating capacity themselves (such as from rooftop solar panels) or if they use plug-in hybrid cars.

These devices may even give consumers the capability of arranging with the utilities to buy power at a low price when the load on the grid is low, and sell it back to the utility at a higher price when the load on the grid has risen. Interestingly this benefits the utilities, since widespread adoption of such measures can save them building new plants to meet peak capacity needs.

Surprisingly, much of this technology has already been developed. It simply needs to be deployed. Test programs have shown consistent success, such as the GridWise Olympic Peninsula project, a study done by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. In this study, households were given digital thermostats and computer-controlled water heaters and dryers. The participants would then set the power usage of the devices based on the price of electricity at any given moment. For example, they would set the target temperature for their house, an acceptable range of variation, and their price tolerance (to the changing price of electricity). Every few minutes the devices would adjust their power usage based on the current price of electricity.

The test found that these households saved more than 10% on their yearlong electricity costs. But what energy policy planners found to be most revealing was not so much that the residents were able to reduce their consumption and save money but more surprisingly how the devices encouraged participants to alter their attitude and behavior to decrease their consumption because they now had the tool to actively monitor their consumption. This reinforces the notion that feedback is the best motivator to get people to change their habits. Weighing oneself on a scale is a perfect example of how a device can motivate people to lose weight.

From the electric utility’s point of view, new startups like Grid Net are working to develop the software that will make full smart grid systems a reality. The software systems being developed for use by the power utilities take advantage of modern computing and networking technologies to increase the information available to utilities about the state of the power grid.

The ultimate goal is to build power grids that can manage their own load spikes automatically, with spare generators being brought online via software triggers (say when the alternating current frequency dips below a certain level, which is a sign of high load on the grid), or power being transferred from other parts of the grid to meet demand in nearby areas, all without human intervention).

At present, few of these software technologies are deployed or even easily purchasable. While in some cases, the technology is well understood and well developed (e.g., software to power down appliances when the electrical grid is under heavy load), it is not widely available yet for those who want to use it now.

What smart green software is pointing to is the urgency to begin planning NOW for this inevitability to help protect industries and consumers from rising energy costs.

Bottom line? Apply this information to improve your profitability, reengineer business models, and strengthen or gain competitive advantage in the marketplace. And apply the free Fiscal Test at http://fiscaldoctor.com/fiscaltest.html.

From Gary W Patterson, www.FiscalDoctor.com Copyright 2008

The green movement has created a plethora of buzzwords. One of the more popular phrases is renewable energy. And for good reason. Businesses, traditional and emerging, will soon be affected by how they will respond to the reality of renewable energy depending on where they fall in the supply chain.

Renewable energy is a term that refers to those potential sources of energy that are naturally replenished, which means that using them does not decrease the amount available in the future. This contrasts with nonrenewable sources (fossil-based fuels) that have a limited supply and will eventually be used up. Renewable energy sources include sunlight, hydrosphere/water cycle, geothermal and some types of biomass and biofuels. Think of energy as a source and electricity as an application.

The mechanisms used to generate electricity from these sources vary considerably. For sunlight, there are photovoltaic technologies that generate electricity directly from sunlight. But there are also systems that use the sunlight to heat an intermediate fluid, which is used to turn turbines to generate electricity. There are multiple ways that water can be used to provide electricity, of which the most commonly used is the hydroelectric dam.

Other systems that produce electricity from water include wave power systems that convert the kinetic energy of waves into electricity, tidal power systems that use the kinetic energy of tidal flows in a similar fashion, and systems that take advantage of the temperature differences between surface waters and deeper waters in the ocean to generate electricity. Geothermal systems rely on the heat of the earth’s interior to generate electricity in various ways, depending on the specific nature of the site. Biomass and biofuels consist of fuels derived from plant and other organic matter, which are renewable depending on the sustainability of the agricultural practices that provide the biomass. Examples include ethanol and biodiesel liquid fuels for transportation, and solid biomass from unused portions of other crops for electricity generation.

Presently, renewable energy sources provide only a small fraction of global energy production, and the majority of this is from biomass burning such a wood (which while renewable in the strictest sense is not environmentally friendly) in undeveloped regions of the world. Renewable energy provides less than 1% of the world’s energy production even though its use is expected to grow rapidly amid rising concerns about global warming and the rising price of oil.

The biggest impediment to the widespread use of renewable energy sources in the past has been its price compared to the price of coal, natural gas, and petroleum. At present, wind energy costs $0.04-$0.08 per kWh, while coal costs $0.04 per kWh. Other renewable energy sources are even more expensive, such as solar thermal at $0.12-$0.34 per kWh and solar photovoltaic at $0.25-$1.60 per kWh. Water sources vary in cost from being cheaper than coal to costing three times as much. This cost differential, however, is narrowing as the price of oil rises and new technological innovations are bringing down the prices of renewables.

Looking forward, the increasing likelihood of carbon taxes or emissions trading schemes being implemented in much of the developed world means that the cost of generating electricity from coal, natural gas, and petroleum will rise even more precipitously, which will make renewable energy even more attractive for future development.

The future of renewable energy depends on how government energy policy will develop over the course of the next presidential administration and congress. Will carbon taxes or emissions trading schemes be enacted to limit greenhouse gas emissions? Will green grid technologies become widespread? Will the development of new oil supplies be allowed? All of these possible scenarios will affect the future deployment of renewable energy technologies.

As an example, consider the application of rooftop solar photovoltaic systems. Not only will these systems provide electricity to homes and businesses, but they can even be used to sell energy back to the power utility. Farmers and ranchers can plant wind turbines on land unsuitable for growing crops. The widespread use of smart grid technologies can become a major method of decentralizing power generation.

Similarly, if emissions trading schemes are enacted, then the rising cost of carbon-producing energy sources will force a shift to renewable energy technologies for large portions of our energy needs. This is deemed so likely that many believe that renewable energy technologies will be the next major industrial boom, similar to the computer technology revolution of the 1980s and the internet revolution of the late 1990s. Increasingly, large quantities of venture capital are pouring into renewable energy companies in expectation of just such an outcome.

How you position your firm to take advantage of the probable boom in renewable energy depends on your business’s energy needs and usage. If green grid technology becomes widespread, the opportunity presents itself to businesses to become both an electricity consumer and a supplier. If carbon taxes or emissions trading systems drive the move away from petroleum transport fuels to biomass transport fuels, it is important to be prepared for that as well.

As the renewable energy debate gains momentum, NOW is the time to prepare for its eventual inevitability to help protect your business from rising energy and transportation costs.

Bottom line? - Apply this information to improve your profitability, reengineer business models, and strengthen or gain competitive advantage in the marketplace. And apply the free Fiscal Test at http://fiscaldoctor.com/fiscaltest.html.

From Gary W Patterson, www.FiscalDoctor.com Copyright 2008

The green movement is creating new marketplace opportunities as a result of developing new green technology. One technology is smart grid software. Businesses, traditional and emerging, will soon be affected by how this technology will be deployed and adopted as they move into some version of peak load or variable pricing.

The modern electric grid is hardly modern; it has barely changed in seventy-five years. Most electric grid systems today consist of transmission and distribution networks that connect power plants to end users. These systems rely on centralized power generation and feature bottlenecks and choke points where damage to the infrastructure can disrupt service to thousands of customers if not more. Todays electric grids are poorly equipped to handle the demands of the post-modern economy, which due to the ever increasing use of digital devices requires higher load demands and uninterruptible power.

Part of the problem is information–information in current power systems flows only one way, from consumers to the power utilities. The utilities know what the power loads are and where they are, but they struggle to meet power spikes with marginal success. Consumers have no idea (besides learning about it on the nightly news report) what the load demands on the power grid are and thus are unable to make usage decisions based on that information.

The other part of the problem is logistical: Current power systems rely on centralized generating stations that send power over transmission networks to several distribution substations, which then send power over distribution networks to end users. To meet increased peak demand in local areas excess, generators must be kept on standby so they can be brought online as needed. Power, for the most part, cannot be routed from another area to help meet the demand. Since as much as 10% of total power capacity is needed as little as 1% of the time, this means that a large number of small local emergency generators are needed to meet rapidly changing demand (as larger generators take too long to startup).

Smart grid systems are an attempt to address the shortcomings of the current electric grid by changing the flow of information and logistics. The new grid systems use internet connections between power stations, power meters, and appliances ultimately drawing power to make the flow of information about the state of the grid a two-way process between utilities and consumers. This enables consumers to make better decisions about their power usage; which they can even do automatically via the smart power meters.

Smart grid systems change the logistical nature of the grid from the centralized transmission and distribution system to a decentralized network model where excess power can be transmitted from one area to another as needed. Even better is the ability to use energy storage devices in households (such as plug-in hybrids) and power generating devices such as residential solar panels to supply energy back to the grid during hours of peak demand.

The goal of the smart grid system is to increase the reliability and efficiency of the power transmission systems on two fronts: (1) It decentralizes power generation with households that are both clients and suppliers; (2) It improves power consumption. Consumers are now in the driver seat and are better able make more precise decisions about how they consume power.

Test programs of smart grids have been steadily increasing over the last few years. Enel S.p.A. of Italy built a smart grid serving 27 million Italians in 2005. Essentially Enel invented the concept by installing smart meters that enabled two-way communication between the utility and energy consumers. Austin Energy, a Texas power utility, has been working on a similar initiative to replace all its power meters with smart meters by December 2008.

The GridWise Olympic Peninsula project, a study conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, equipped homeowners with digital thermostats and computer controllers on their water heaters and clothes dryers. Participant homeowners were then able to set performance preferences of these devices according to their own preferences. The average household in the study saved over 10% on its yearlong electricity usage. A subset of the program used price-sensitive settings with the price of electricity varying as a function of power load on the grid and the performance of the appliances being set to respond to the price of electricity–these customers saved even more.

For businesses looking to leverage future developments in smart grid technology, it would be worthwhile to review all the power uses in their companies. Gaining an understanding of what power usage can be time shifted as well as coming to an understanding of inventory opportunities to sell power back to the grid will help businesses position themselves to take advantage of green grid technology to lower costs and even gain new revenue streams.

Given that the growing energy crisis is having a dramatic effect on the global economy, there is an urgency to begin planning NOW to help protect your business from rising energy costs.

Bottom line? - Apply this information to improve your profitability, reengineer business models, and strengthen or gain competitive advantage in the marketplace. And apply the free Fiscal Test at http://fiscaldoctor.com/fiscaltest.html.

From Gary W Patterson, www.FiscalDoctor.com Copyright 2008

Now I’m sure you’ve read Stephen Covey’s excellent book ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’. But if you haven’t, you should. It’s an inspiring summary of the seven simple but motivational things you need to do to be an inspirational leader. And it can help you to build an inspirational leadership style.

I mention Covey’s book because my recent research tackles the other end of the scale.
I’ve been looking at ‘The Seven Failings of Really Useless Leaders’. You’re probably asking how a study of the failings of really useless leaders can help you: it’s just another angle on leadership, right? Well, I’m sorry, but you’d be wrong if you thought that.

Because unlike other leadership research, this does NOT concentrate on good or great leadership. Or even on getting from good to great. You don’t need to copy all those inspirational leaders out there, because copying other people blindly just doesn’t work.

And there’s a better reason why you shouldn’t concentrate on these brilliant role models. You see, we learn much more from our mistakes than from the things we do well.

Some years ago it occurred to me that to become better leaders we should NOT look at a handful of inspirational leaders - such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa. Don’t get me wrong - these folks ARE inspiring. It’s just that I believe we can learn far more, and far more quickly, from assessing the damage done by poor or appalling leaders.

I’m lucky. In my job as a business school professor I get to work with the best of the best. But I also hear about, and see, many things that don’t work so well in firms: things that destroy value.

Now don’t misunderstand me - I can’t reveal the specific inside information from my coaching, teaching and consulting work - that would be unethical. But I can summarize for you the seven key things that seem to occur time and time again - things people do that have a direct impact on the bottom line. I CAN tell you about those.

To some people, the Seven Failings of Really Useless Leaders may be blindingly obvious. But, believe me, my research shows me that there are THOUSANDS of managers every day who continue to DEMOTIVATE their colleagues and subordinates, destroying bottom-line value. They are uninspiring, to say the least.

So here is the first of the Seven Failings of Really Useless Leaders: Really Useless Leaders kill enthusiasm.

I have discovered that uninspiring managers actively shut down the enthusiasm of their staff. Most people are naturally enthusiastic about their jobs: after all, it’s what their training and experience have prepared them for. But we kill that natural enthusiasm by interfering far too much in the nitty-gritty of their day-to-day workload. ‘Don’t do it like that,’ I hear people say. ‘Do it like this.’

Why do we do this? The best leaders find the best people, train the heck out of them and let them get on with their jobs. Uninspiring managers hire good people and then tell them exactly how to do their job.

So why do we interfere too much? I believe what we’re most worried about is only a question of style, how we think the work should get done. But, frankly, as long as the objectives are met - and met well - then who cares how?

Of course, in some roles - in the service industries - the style, the ‘how’ of the task, is all that matters. But that doesn’t mean that every little task needs to be micro-managed by us as leaders of the business.

Frankly, we have got to stop micro-management in its tracks if we want to boost the performance of our people. You buy 51% of your people’s effort through their pay packet. But if you want that other 49% of effort, you’re going to have to earn it.

Motivation and truly effective delegation are the answers. You’ve got to know your people and you’ve got to know how to motivate people. Let’s take these one point at a time:

1. Know your people. One great idea is to issue a short questionnaire to your new recruits - ask them these simple questions: how do you like to be managed? And how can I get the best from you? You give it to them during induction or the early days of their work with you and they complete it. You can then discuss the issues they raise and talk about your leadership style.

Why not use this with all your team? Issue the survey to your immediate direct reports and get them all to complete it.

The upshot is you’ve got to know how your people are motivated - ‘what do you need from me to get the best out of you?’ You’ll probably be surprised by the answers you get.

2. Excite your people. If Really Useless Leaders kill enthusiasm, inspirational leaders must excite and enthuse their people. We know that enthusiastic workers, happy workers, are productive workers.

You must build a workplace where the climate is one where people are willing and able to invest their best effort. You have to set the scene, you have to lead the way. Because leadership is exciting other people to higher levels of performance.

If it’s your job to deliver performance through others, then it’s your job to create the enthusiasm. The key point to ask yourself is: do people know me as someone who can create enthusiasm in the workplace?

If you want the leadership success you deserve, get the leadership training you deserve. Download more free articles and leadership training videos from Steven Sonsino, an international business school professor and author of the Amazon bestseller “The Seven Failings of Really Useless Leaders”
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