Posts Tagged ‘Tip’

photo credit: c h e e s e roc

In today’s large unemployment line and as many businesses look to fill positions that they cut out during the toughest times, it is being seen that some guidelines are becoming obsolete in the hiring process. Businesses are just so eager to fill a much needed position and have so many applicants that they are forgetting the fundamentals behind hiring the right way.

The wrong way first: interview someone for an hour. If you like them, have them interview three or four other people in your organization for an hour each. You’ve invested five hours of your team’s time, but really you only were looking for approval, because you’d already decided you liked the person enough to work with them for years.

Obviously if you and the first 2 or 3 people like the applicant, chances are you are not going to let the last person stand up and say “no, i don’t like them, find someone else”. It’s more of a courtesy that your following through with. Maybe it’s a courtesy that can be done away with.

You have options other than the above mentioned. Seths Blog recently suggested hiring someone on a temporary basis. You can set whatever time limit on this that you want, within reason of course. Give them say 3 or 6 months to work with you and your team, at which time you will do a review and make a final decision on whether they are the best fit or not.

The other option you have is to shorten your interview time. You can usually tell within the first 5 or 10 minutes if you like someone or if you smell something a little fishy about them. After which the rest of the interview is just a bunch of wasted time. So shorten your interviews to maybe say 10 minutes, then allow the rest of your interview team to do the same, that way you’ve only taken up about 30 minutes of your time.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

 
photo credit: Andrew Mason

Marketing can come in several different packages, aspects, and looks. Companies spend thousands of dollars every day on high tech marketing thinking it will bring in more business, but the truth is that there are several ways of successful marketing that doesn’t have to break your bank account. Take Internet businesses for example, most of the marketing comes at a low cost to you. Below are some tips on no brainer and low cost marketing for Internet businesses.

1. Email actions. There are so many different ways you can market your business by just using your email account. You can attach documents (ads, coupons, etc.), you can attach a business signature to the end of your email, send out sale notifications and newsletters via email and more.
2. The Mogul Mom recently suggested that another great no brainer way of marketing is to include some thoughtful comments on your site. You may add simple comments such as thanking them for their response, but what most readers are looking for is actual feedback and consideration from you. Go on and contribute anywhere you can on blogs, comments boards and more. Give them some adivce or tips, strike up a short conversation with them, or simply add more content to your thank you message.

Testimonials: I don’t know about you, but I put a much heavier weight on testimonials from real humans than I do on seeing celebrities wearing or using a product that was more than likely gifted to them. When I’m thinking of buying, trying or using something (from products to services to books to appliances to WordPress plugins), I want to see reviews or testimonials from real people. Don’t you?

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

 
photo credit: jluster

Many websites that I’ve visited have so much stuff on them, such as long drawn out information, ads over lapping each other, glitter, stories and so on, that I find it easier to just move on to a much cleaner and easier to read site rather than spend hours sifting through the junk just to get to the article.

New widgets are coming into the market every day, however, this does not mean that you need to put every single one on your site! Remember the “shiny object syndrome”, you don’t need every new application that comes out. This only creates more junk and frustration for your readers.

I understand that most sites rely very much on ads for their profits and traffic, but you don’t have to cater to every company that wants to advertise with you. Learn how to say “NO”. Too many ads in one small space means a huge headache for the people trying to read your posts.

We’re big fans of WordPress here at Men with Pens, but every WordPress default installation comes with a few widgets that you can definitely do without. Those extra widgets may seem handy at first, but in general, they’re useful to you, not to your readers.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.