Keeping up with our peers is something that most of us do unconsciously. We are all guilty of comparing ourselves to

other people. Self sabotaging as it may seem, we want a bar to measure ourselves up against. We justify our behavior by saying, “How can I measure how far I have come and what I have accomplished if I don’t have a standard to measure my accomplishments against?”

When we compare ourselves to others, we end up being sad. For there will always be something that we lack, something missing in our lives, something we want that someone else has. From this way of thinking stems discontent, and the seed of discontent grows so easily.

It’s easy to fall into a trap of comparing ourselves to others. Society tells us to be our own unique person. That we should do our own thing and not worry about what the rest of them are doing. Society loves the rebels, those who do things their own way. But sometimes, we just want to take a peek at what other people are doing, what they have, and where they are in their lives. All the while, not knowing what they have done to get there.

While trying to “keep up with our peers” throws in a good measure of competition into the mix, it should not serve as the sole basis of why we work and do what we do. The motivation to keep up with our peers should come from the fact that we want to be able to bring something to the table, to contribute to society, to inspire in return , to change our destructive habits and exchange them for something good for us.

If we must keep up, we should try to surround ourselves with people who inspire. Inspirational people are those who have seen the bottom and have come out of adversity scarred but not broken. Those who have the strength of character to overcome. Those who are unfazed by failure because they have gotten to know it intimately.

We should try to surround ourselves with people who create. People who create something with their hands, their thoughts, their talents are people worth keeping up with. They are a constant source of newness in a world that believes that imitation is the best form of flattery.

We should try to surround ourselves with people who motivate. There can never be enough encouragement to go around and these people seem to have an unending supply. What they give isn’t just motivation, it is faith – the belief that things are possible with just the right attitude. They give others hope that they can perform and thrive.

If we must keep up with our peers these are the peers we must find. These are standards that everyone must try to achieve, standards that make us better people which isn’t such a bad thing to be. Once we make a decision to surround ourselves with people who have strong moral and emotional principles, we find ourselves being those whom we admire.

Written by Jaie O.- The Help

You want the short answer? Yes. The longer answer though is something that is different for every business. But generally, local marketing is something that must not be neglected. When you already have the power of the internet to reach every household that has an internet connection, I believe that it would be extremely limiting for businesses to just concentrate on global marketing when it is very very possible nowadays to do both. It is a new virtual world and the world has gotten a bit smaller because of technology. You may no longer be surprised to find that even some brick and mortar stores have jumped ship and have successfully penetrated the virtual marketplace selling physical products and manual services. Businesses today have an extensible farther reach and are able to capture a larger audience because of one thing that seems to be a requirement for all successful businesses nowadays – an online presence.

An online presence lets the world know that your business exists. The WORLD – mind you! Anywhere that the internet can reach is a potential audience to capture and get in your businesses line of sight. With just a few keystrokes anyone anywhere can find you when you put up your business online. The strongest following though are those who share some kind of kindred spirit with your business. It pays to have your audience feel that they know you personally. That they have a connection with you somewhat. That they have seen you before – that you look and sound familiar! This loyalty will come from your local market. Your local market will provide you with repeat business.

Entrepreneurs harness the power of the internet to make themselves known. With a couple of marketing tricks they make sure that everyone can find them in a couple of clicks. You would think, “why would a business settle for being known within the confines of a local market when they can be known in the virtual world? That would be extremely limiting.” It is not to say that you must do away with targeting your local market. In fact, you must strive to add this to your marketing plan. Do not forget to define what your local market is before embarking in this plan.

One very real concern of trying to manage a local and global marketing strategy is cost. It is a common misconception that businesses have to have separate tools for different marketing campaigns. This is something virtual businesses are really smart about. The internet has a large hub of available online tools and resources to make a parallel marketing campaign possible. Businesses just have to find the right one that addresses their needs.

Anything is literally possible now. When you have a reach as far as the other side of the world, it is easy to forget your own backyard. But you must never neglect your local market. It is your community, the place where everyone should know you. And more importantly, it is where you have homecourt advantage.

Written by Jaie T.-  The Help

Whether you realize it or not, all great businesses have one thing in common. Business owners know how to build and maintain respectful, fulfilling and mutually beneficial relationships with their employees, their customers, their suppliers, and sometimes, even their competitors.

Great business and professional relationships don’t happen overnight. They take time to grow and result to fragile little things that have to constantly be nurtured.  A slight slip or a small misstep, might mean the beginning of the end of a business or professional relationship.

We learn to build strong relationships overtime. Like a building a fort, we assess the weak areas and reinforce them to build a strong, solid structure. Business and professional relationships are the same. Those in a business and professional relationship try to learn as much as they can from one another in order to fortify their strengths and reinforce their weaknesses in order to build a strong and solid alliance.

Here are a few tips on Building Business and Professional Relationship Based on Mutual Trust and Growth:

Be honest:

Be transparent. Let all your stakeholders know what you can and cannot deliver. Trust is a two way street, you can’t give it if you don’t have it. Earn trust and it will be reciprocated. Make all efforts to make good on your promises and prove that you are trustworthy.

Give what you expect.

If you expect quality service from your people, give them quality service. Let them know how their work impacts the organization as a whole. Make them feel that they are not just some cog in a wheel but a very important part of the business. If you expect return business from your clients, give them an excellent reason to return. It is better to under promise and over deliver than to over promise and under deliver. Always go the extra mile and add a personal touch. Make them feel that their business is important and you will forever have their loyalty.

Be familiar:

A budding relationship is fragile. Learn to grow with your stakeholders. Create a history, a relationship. Get to know each other and you will quickly learn how you can benefit from your business and professional relationship. If you are visible, you create familiarity.

Always welcome feedback:

This is how you grow. This is how you can improve. The best businesses are those who are able to respond to the needs of their stakeholders. So listen, listen, and listen some more. Take complaints and unwelcome suggestions with a grain of salt. There are usually a lot of hidden truths and gems to unsolicited advice. Be sure keep all avenues for feedback open and keep an eye out for opportunities and areas for improvement.

Be reliable:

Reliability is golden. It is what keeps customers loyal to businesses. If you follow the tips above and discount this last tip, all of it will be for naught. So be reliable. Let your employees, your customers, and your suppliers – hell, even your competitors – know that you are reliable. Show them that you are reliable and that you expect nothing less but the same from them. Trust me, they will follow your lead.

Growth entails change, but with a solid foundation of trust you can grow your business and professional relationships and take it towards where you see a mutually beneficial end goal for you and all your stakeholders.

 Written by Jaie T.-  The Help

Remember being bright eyed and optimistic after graduation? Remember feeling that you couldn’t wait to start working and see if you can make a difference in the world? Remember thinking that you’re going to make a truckload of money? I know. That’s what all of us were thinking after we tossed our caps into the air.

After months of job hunting though, we got to weed out the “frivolous” reasons why we wanted to work and got down to what we really wanted to know. We all get jobs to see what we are capable of. We go to work in order to test our wings and see if what we’ve learned in theory, we could execute flawlessly in practice. And once we get that job, we test out the waters to see what our strengths are and where we can improve. With bright eyed optimism, we keep on adjusting and learning until hopefully, one day, we get it right.

No one wants to stay stagnant in their careers, This is why we need to be constantly challenged in our careers because the key to being great at what you do is to zoom in on your strengths and develop them. You alone can correctly identify your areas of competence. That’s not to say that employers should leave all the work to their employees with regard to developing competencies.

Outstanding teams are driven by the desire to learn and improve. Employees do not want to sit back and watch life pass them by. They want to be able to say they are good at what they do. They relish the opportunity to develop and maintain their competence. Employees must take advantage of this innate drive. All employers have to do is show the path and their team will follow their lead.

Here are some ways to develop and maintain staff’s competence:

Align company core values:

I cannot stress this enough. You have to get people who share the same core values as you do. Your staff has to have principles in line with yours and what your vision of the company is. This, essentially, is the foundation of a strong team – a common core that promotes an inclusive work atmosphere. It makes everyone feel that they are important and that they are working towards a common goal. It makes it easier to communicate your purpose and your targets.

Provide tailored training and be clear about roles:

There’s this Einstein quote that goes “Everybody’s a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it’s stupid.” Be fair. Do not expect your computer wiz to be able to take care of creative design or vice versa. Identify your employees strengths and be sure to provide tailored training for each one. Nothing says care as much as personalizing their individual career training paths. It makes them feel that you care enough to layout a long term career plan for them and that you are willing to invest in them and their personal growth. You get to help them develop and maintain their competence, plus you get happy employees as well. It’s a win-win!

Be open to ideas:

While we’re on the subject of tailored training, keep an open mind about how you can improve your training and instructional resources as well. Communicate with your employees. After all, they are the end users and will most likely be able to provide the most useful feedback on how you can simplify and/or improve staff competence. Allow them to guide the process. Adjust enough to include their relevant suggestions while staying true to your vision and ultimate targets.

Set expectations:

You cannot measure your progress unless you set a bar to measure your expectations against. Set measurable goals and sit back and watch as your superstars exceed them and blow your targets out of the water. Don’t let it be too absurd and unreachable, like a dangling carrot, that your employees have them just within their grasp but can never reach them. They will get tired and lose motivation quickly. Don’t let it be too easy that your employees don’t rise up to the challenge and never get to learn just how far they can go.

Praise and Motivate:

Give them enough praise and motivation for being good at what they do. Never be stingy with recognition. In the end, the recognition for a job well done is enough for most people to have a sense of fulfillment.

If you are willing to put in the work to develop and maintain your staff’s competence, the rewards for you and your company will be tenfold.

 Written by Jaie T.-  The Help

There’s this Helen Keller quote that goes “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” Teamwork is usually borne out of the necessity of needing other people to help you achieve a shared objective. No one goes through life without needing help from someone else. Hey, even Batman had to team up with the Justice League!

Maybe you need specialized skills, more ideas, motivation, or even manpower. Jobs get done more quickly with a top notch team to back you up. Now if we were all to believe that, a team of high potential superstars at your disposal will almost always get the job done. The challenge is how to pick them and make sure they will perform. Here are some pointers on how to build a top performing team:

Leadership and Direction:

It is integral that a team has leadership and direction. Without it, a team crumbles. Maybe because of power struggles, lack of direction, communication problems, or a host of other complications. There has to be a visionary who will show the way. Assign someone who will provide guidance, boost morale, encourage creativity, and provide recognition – someone to let the others know that they are part of a whole and that their work impacts others.

Skills:

Anyone who has ever played NBA2k, Fantasy Football, or World of Warcraft would know the complicated dynamics of having to create the best team you can based on skills while having limited resources. We don’t match people to jobs based on availability, we match them because of proficiency and how well we think they can execute a task.

If we had unlimited funds, we’d all get the experts in the field. However, resources mean time and money, and since those have constraints, we learn to work with what we have. And what we have to do is to make sure we pick people who have the proficiency to get the job done while remaining flexible enough to welcome suggestions and ideas.

Shared Goals and Aligned Values:

A team is defined as a group of people who work towards a common goal. These goals need to be clear and defined before embarking on any task. The team that is most successful in achieving its goals is one wherein its members are clear on what they want to achieve and have  a set of values that complement each others. That builds a feeling of camaraderie. It makes individuals feel that they are part of something bigger than themselves and will happily work with each other towards creating something they can be proud of.

The most valued team members are those who have the ability to see things from a different perspective, who are able to adjust their approach, and who will help re-align theirs and their teammates goals towards their ultimate target.

Motivation and Recognition:

If you ask volunteers why they’re volunteering, you’ll find that they are volunteering because they want something in return. Not in a selfish kind of way but in a reciprocal kind of way. It may be satisfaction, a free meal, recognition, a promotion, experience, or a simple thank you. Scrap Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, we all want appreciation for a job well done – and chocolate, don’t forget chocolate.

We all have expectations on what we think a top performing team should be. Expect too much and your superstars will leave, expect too little and never see them rise to the challenge. The trick is to strike a balance and find the sweet spot between those expectations and reality.

 Written by Jaie T.-  The Help