Something To Ponder
Something to ponder: All your clients, customers, and employees have a hidden mission — and that is to reduce your profits to zero. It is a cynical thought, but it’s true. The moment you let up on the pressure to produce, sell, save, and improve, your bottom line will begin…
READ MOREWhen You Shouldn’t Fire Your Weakest Link
As an executive working for a business I didn’t own, I fired employees right and left. It was clear to me that my primary duty was to the business — and when someone working for me couldn’t cut the mustard and could be replaced rather quickly by someone better, I…
READ MOREResolution: Increase Your Income
Let’s start with some simple arithmetic. Joe Ordinary is 25 years old, makes $28,000 a year, and gets ordinary 3% to 4% yearly increases. Over a 40-year career, he makes approximately $2.3 million. Elwood ETR is not satisfied with ordinary. He follows the advice he gets here every morning and…
READ MOREHow Much Should a CEO Make?
“Greed’s worst point is its ingratitude.” – Seneca (Letters to Lucilius, first century) When I first read the statistic quoted above, I accepted it without thinking. Then my brother questioned it and I realized it was one of those trumped-up pieces of data meant to score a point. What is…
READ MOREDale Carnegie’s 10 Rules for Getting People To Like You
“The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?” – Dale Carnegie I’ve told you about my Dale Carnegie…
READ MOREHow to Hire and Keep the Best Employees
“I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day you bet on people, not on strategies.” – Larry Bossidy Which of the following actions will give you the greatest success in hiring employees “for life”? * finding out…
READ MOREMake Your Performance Reviews Frank, Positive, and Specific
“It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless of course you are an exceptionally good liar.” – Jerome K. Jerome (The Idler, February 1892) In “The Performance Appraisal Question and Answer Book,” Dick Grote recommends that companies change the nomenclature for describing “mid-level” performance ratings so…
READ MOREETR’s Annual Warning About Theft, Pilfering and Embezzlement
“The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (“The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1891) Are your employees stealing money from you? Are they swiping cash? Are they bringing home products? Or…
READ MOREAcknowledge the Behavior You Want Repeated
“The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.” – (Samuel Johnson) When you are acknowledged for doing something well, the pride you feel can be a seed that grows into a lifelong virtue. My father’s positive review of my first poem (which I wrote when I was…
READ MOREHow to Impress Your Boss at Meetings
“The first secret of success? Self trust.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson It doesn’t take much to impress your boss when you are lucky enough to have his attention (more or less) for an entire meeting. Here are seven things you can do — seven things that would work on…
READ MOREProductivity Secrets from the NBA: How To Do Everything Better and Quicker — And Make A Lot More Money in the Process
Did you ever notice how many professional basketball games are decided in the last 10 minutes? Plenty. It’s a curious thing. Ten guys jump around like madmen for 50 minutes, the score seesawing a few points this way and a few points that way. Then — halfway through the last…
READ MORE5 Myths About Leadership
“The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.” – Whitney Griswold (The New York Times, Feb. 24, 1959) Karen Elliott House, newly appointed publisher of the Wall Street Journal, is working hard to make the paper’s employees “feel happy and appreciated,” according to an article about her in…
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