Weiss Report Blog

When I began my working career, drug testing was not even a word combination. I had never been exposed to drugs beyond the point of alcoholic beverages, and then only on special occasions and holidays. To contemplate daily usage of some foreign substance was beyond my realm of possibilities. I was not alone. That was twenty-five years and many drug issues ago.

Today, if you apply for a job, of any kind, you will be drug tested. Why? Because a lot has changed in twenty-five years. Today, the prevalence of drug abuse in every level of our society has grown beyond anyone’s belief. Drugs have infected our teens, our adults, the rich, the poor; even the sanctuaries of our churches are no longer exempted. If you can manage to reach the age of thirteen, without exposure to marijuana, hallucinogenic substances, or the common place alcoholic beverage, you are an exception. With so many opportunities for experimentation, it’s no wonder that we have a problem with drug addiction in our workplace. Once a young person becomes addicted to a drug, the chances of abstinence are low, until it begins to affect their ability to generate an income, or interact in relationships.

The point of intervention for most employers is to simply prohibit the employment of an individual that tests positive for drug use. The cost to employers for employees with drug or substance abuse problems is staggering. Employees will cost their twice as much in medical bills and workmen’s compensation claims. Drug related crime is the second largest expense to an employer. Lost productivity for victims and lost employees due to incarceration for drug crimes accounts for the bulk of the drug related expense.

Thanks to the advent of drug testing in the workplace, drug use rates have continued to decline since 1992, and remain stabilized today around 7%. Implementing a drug testing program in your place of business has never been easier, and the cost is minimal. Businesses have access to many hundreds of companies that are drug testing administrators. These companies will provide your business with everything you need to drug test all employees, or randomly test a few employees. You simply notify the administrating company when you’re ready to test, and they handle the rest. The administrator performs onsite interviewing and testing, proceeds to having the tests processed and providing you with the results.

Drug testing for the most common illegal drugs is readily available, and some of the more difficult testing options can be incorporated at the customer’s request. Drug test kits for the most common tests require the individual being tested to supply a certain amount of urine, in a tube, vial, or small cup. Introduction of a fairly new test strip further ensure the laboratory that the urine provided is not “borrowed” and brought into the testing facility. Other common forms of test methods are saliva, hair and blood. Generally speaking, however, urine provides the most reliable results at the most economical expense.

James Warden is an attorney with a background in workplace issues. His thoughts & comments about “Drug Tests & Testing” can be found at www.drug-tests-and-drug-testing.com

We are often confronted by situations that call for negotiations at different levels. Be it vegetable vendors or buying garments or purchasing a house/flat/apartment or tying up a business venture, each of these calls for different approach to negotiations. Whether domestic, personal or business conditions, negotiations involve resolving conflicts and interests to the best of all concerned. In business situations, negotiations are indeed an indispensable part of any financial activity.

In any negotiation, it is important to first identify the goals that you are seeking and also to size up the likely goals for the other side. This provides clear objectives to attain and helps in working your way around them. The next thing is to weigh what you can trade off to gain from the other, and similarly think of what the other side can possibly lose to gain in return from you. Being ready with alternatives is another important element of negotiation. It helps you to climb down from hard stances and aid in meeting the goals halfway, if not in entirety.

There are also other subtle elements as relationships, emotions and anticipation to deal with. Using psychology and great deal of common sense, you have to analyze in depth the nature of relationship involved, the precedents if any, basic anticipations from both sides and other aspects.

Along the same lines, a clear view of the importance of winning, the impact of failure or winning on your future opportunities and overall situations are some of the other aspects that must be thoroughly considered.

In all these, the style of negotiation is of prime importance. Ideally, negotiations should end on a pleasant note, where both parties feel positive and satisfied about the outcome. A brazen approach to negotiation that leads one side to become a total winner while reducing the other side as a clear loser can create ill feeling and a sense of unfairness, which could affect long term.

In all these long haul to negotiation, Mind Maps can serve as a route map to your destination. Beginning with laying down your goals and that of the other side, right up to exploring alternatives and the impact of emotions, anticipations and other elements in the negotiating process, Mind Maps can help a great deal to plot your way through the various aspects of a winning negotiation.

Using Mind Maps you can outline all the goals pertaining to you and the possible expectations from the other side. Next you can explore the trade-offs that both the sides can place on the negotiating table as well as in coming with up alternative proposals at different levels. With Mind Maps you can explore in full all the intricate details and see the link and association between the various elements of negotiation. Weighing the emotional factors involved, relationships, and the anticipated outcomes through weighted analysis can all be most thoroughly done using Mind Maps. This way, Mind Maps can help you to gauge clearly where your path and that of the other side lie.

Like a rider plotting the best and pleasant route to the final destination, Mind Maps help in providing a comprehensive view of the whole process so you could see the links in the chain and know how to tackle them at every point. Being ready for sudden contingencies with ready answers and solutions will further help you to thoroughly prepare for any kind of turn in the negotiating process.

Mind Maps therefore are excellent tools for making an in-depth analysis of the various steps to negotiations and to handle them effectively. By using Mind Maps for different types of negotiations, you will gradually learn how to approach negotiations. In the long run, it will help you to hone your negotiating skills.

About the Author:

Dr. Vj Mariaraj is a Mind Map enthusiast and has been using Mind Maps for the past twelve years. He has created over 5650 Mind Maps. To learn more about mind mapping send an email to freemindmap@aweber.com He is the founder of BusinessBookMindMap.com that creates Mind Map Summaries of Business Books. To learn more visit http://BusinessBookMindMap.com/mind-map.php?ea18

In an age of mass differentiation and low cost chic, there has never being a worse time to be stuck in the middle. Consumers are abandoning mid-range products in their droves, often opting for cheaper alternatives and saving up to buy the occasional luxury. At one end of the scale thrifty customers are cutting costs by buying supermarket own brand goods, whilst at the other end easy access to credit makes it possible to trade up to a BMW rather than settle for a Ford Mondeo.

The Low Cost Revolution

Throughout numerous consumer sectors, there are companies specialising in low cost goods and services. Everything from food to flights and cars to clothes can be bought at very low prices. As cost-focussed companies get bigger, they continue to find ways to reduce overheads in their operations and squeeze suppliers for better deals. Consumers are also changing their attitudes to low cost goods. Film stars and fashion models are setting the trend of low-cost chic, happy to wear value clothes alongside their premium brands.

However the low-cost sector is largely driven by economics. Increases in living expenses, debt and taxation are stretching the purse strings of the middle classes and forcing them to abandon their loyalty to mid-range products in favour of low-cost bargains.

Luxury For All

In an increasingly globalised society, consumer aspirations for luxury goods and services have become much more demanding. The ’spend now, save later’ celebrity fuelled culture encourages us to treat ourselves to products that signify individuality, success and status. By becoming more affordable and easier to access, exclusive brands are cashing in on increased consumer demand, buoyed by changing lifestyles and easy credit.

How Should Mid-Range Brands Respond?

Businesses selling mid-range products and services should not be blamed for feeling the pressure — with low cost and luxury brands squeezing from both ends. In certain markets, this pressure will be less extreme, whilst in others it could mean being forced out of business. One option to counter the threat is to decide to trade up and become a premium brand or trade down to become low cost. How effective this strategy is will depend on the market and the company’s ability to change its business model and alter customer perceptions.

Another option is to launch completely new brands into the premium and low-cost sectors, a strategy frequently employed in the automotive and airline industries over recent years. Alternatively it may be more cost-effective to take-over competitors already operating in these sectors.

Whilst the writing is not on the wall for mid-range brands just yet, the outlook is becoming increasingly competitive and businesses will need to be much more innovative in finding ways to differentiate themselves.

Find the right business strategy to grow your company — BizHubz.com — Advice for Managing and Growing Your Business

A lot of companies nowadays are coming up with various customer loyalty programs to ensure bigger profits for their companies. This may seem to be quite a worn idea already for a customer loyalty program but people, no matter how wealthy they are, actually enjoy getting freebies every now and then.

1. The Concept

Let’s try to further discuss the concept behind this customer loyalty program. With a rewards-based customer loyalty program, the customer will have fun spending more on your company due to your company’s promise that the bigger points the a loyal customer receives from their purchases the greater the rewards that they will soon get from the company. From having free expensive designer items to even an all-expenses paid grand vacation trip courtesy of the company.

It really doesn’t matter - the point is, it is a small amount to pay considering the years of loyal purchases that these customers have brought in to your company. Of course, this all sounds good on paper, but a truly excellent loyalty program doesn’t just pamper customers, it entices them to continue patronizing your business, or even tell their friends about it, offering your business some invaluable word-of-mouth advertising.

2. Rebate Programs

A less fancy customer loyalty programs is the rebate program. This is wherein the customer will be able to get a percentage back from the amount of their purchases as coupons that they can use to pay for more stuff from your company. It really is a simpler customer loyalty program as compared to the rewards system. Not only will it be easier on your company’s pocketbooks, it will also give your business some added profits because through the rebate customer loyalty program your customers will, in the end, end up spending more on your company because the coupons cannot be exchanged for real currency or used anywhere else. In actuality, there is no real incentive for customers to use the program.

3. Loyal = Profitable?

A lot of people still view being able to provide your loyal customers with great service does not automatically ensure a company that their customers will stay. This is why there is a great need for an effective (but still profit-oriented) customer loyalty program. While great customer service can result in a customer making a purchase more than once, a well-designed customer loyalty program will ensure they wouldn’t even ever dream of going to your competitors, and in fact, would even recommend friends to use your services.

4. The What If’s

The biggest concern that most CEO’s have is thus: a strong customer loyalty program can keep customers that are already loyal loyal, but what about the next generation of shoppers? And even worse, an ill-planned loyalty program, built with little or no data about your existing loyal customers, will be doomed to fail. Find ways to collect this incredibly important data months in advance of launching your program. Invest heavily in a statistics specialist, and ensure he has the latest statistics software such as SPSS. Remember, even if you have an abundance of data, it will be completely useless to you if you can’t make sense of it. Worse still is having data that wasn’t collected scientifically to be an accurate representation of the population being sampled.

For more great customer loyalty related articles and resources check out http://www.weknowloyalty.com

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. Oscar Wilde

The truth. So alluring. So promising. If we only knew the truth, everything else would just fall into place. Sadly, the “truth” of a relationship, situation or event is always hard to come by.

The fact is that no matter what the relationship, situation or event, what you see is never what you get –WYSINWYG for short. No matter how new your software, fast your computer, good your analysis or frequent your focus groups, you will always operate on partial information. You’ll never fully know the “truth.” But there is real power in WYSINWYG. It reminds us that there is always something more going on. There’s always something just out of site that will transform the routine into the wonderful. WYSINWYG requires that you never lose touch with your capacity for surprise and remain vigilant for opportunity. Leaders, who confidently declare that they have “seen it all,” have lost more than their capacity for surprise. They have actually lost the ability to anticipate change and prepare for it. You’ll never completely know the truth, so remember WYSINWYG and take a second look.

George Ebert is the President of Trinity River Seminars and Consulting, a firm specializing in the custom design and delivery of team building, personal growth and ethicaldevelopment programs. Mr. Ebert is a highly sought after speaker, educator and consultant with over thirty years experience in both the public and private sectors. He has presented widely throughout the Unites States. He is the author of the management cult classic, Climbing From the Fifth Station: A guide to building teams that work!

If you thought interruptions were a nuisance in the corporate world, ha ha! Wait ’til you start running your own small business. With the fate of your company riding on your shoulders, wasted time is by far your biggest enemy. Learn how to nip those productivity-busters in the bud while making a beeline for your goals.

1. Use voicemail to your advantage.

If you’re in the throes of mapping out your business strategy and the phone rings, do you pick it up? If so, break the habit right now. Voicemail exists for your convenience. If you don’t answer the phone, the person will leave a message. Call them back when you’re in a better frame of mind for productive conversation.

2. Assure your colleagues that you WILL get back to them.

If you get many hangups calls, your voicemail probably isn’t doing the job it’s supposed to. In your outgoing message, state your name and company name in a bright and professional tone, and instruct the caller to Leave a Detailed Message. Do the same with your email autoresponse, and reassure your prospects that you will respond to their inquiry in a timely fashion.

3. Designate phone time.

Give your colleagues and prospects windows of time in which they can reach you. Set aside specific time slots for your phone calls. Clarify via email what the nature of the call will be, and then envision in your mind how the talk will go and the points you plan to bring up.

4. Keep client call time to a minimum.

You will encounter many people in this lifetime who LOVE to talk. Yes, they may be great people with great advice. But if the call is dragging on endlessly, or what’s being discussed has no relevance to the work you’re doing together, you must get them to shut up. Of course, be tactful as possible… make your key points and wrap it up. In extreme cases, a white lie may be necessary: “Sorry, I have another call scheduled. Let’s resume this discussion on email.”

5. Limit your use of Instant Messenger.

While Instant Messaging programs can be handy for a back-and-forth discussion, they can also do a great job of breaking your concentration and your stride. If you’ve set your mind to a task, shut off Instant Messenger. The idea is to be in control of your time, instead of letting others control it for you.

6. Designate email check and response time.

Type, type, type. “You’ve got mail.” Type, type type. “You’ve got mail.” Yes, email can eat away at your precious minutes hours, days weeks… if you let it. The solution: don’t let it! Email is like TV commercials; it interrupts your regularly scheduled program. Set aside specific hours of the day in which you send and reply to email. Keep your email program off for the rest of the time.

7. Claim your territory.

If you work in an office with other people, you probably know that guy - the Interrupter. Sure, he may be bringing up some great points (or he may not), but he’s another one who’s stealing your time. Ways to discourage him: Shut your door. Remove empty chairs from your office, so folks won’t be tempted to take a seat and start gabbing. Maintain “closed” body language, i.e. if interrupted, do not turn your body from the task in focus. Or you can simply say, “I have a deadline. Let’s plan to talk at around 4.”

Keeping interruptions and distractions to a minimum is every business owner’s greatest challenge. The best way to take control of your time is to align yourself with your mission and stay focused!

Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.

Dina Giolitto is a copywriting consultant and ghostwriter with 10 years of experience writing corporate print materials and web content. Trust her with your next e-book, article series or web project, and make a lasting impression on your audience of information-hungry prospects. Visit http://www.wordfeeder.com for more information.