When you’re interacting with someone, do you hear them or do you listen to them? And do you understand the important distinction between the two?

Listening is often treated as the same thing as hearing. but hearing is the sensory perception that uses our ears, while listening involves the active mind.  In the dictionary, we find two definitions to the verb “to listen.” The first is “to make an effort to hear something,” and the second is “to pay attention.” Both definitions highlight the fact that listening requires some effort on our part. The most skillful listening is empathic — an attentive, alert, non-judgmental focus that allows you to enter another person’s world.   Continue reading →

With the economy struggling to make it out of recession, the temptation is to cut back on any but the most essential business expenditures. These days, you don’t want to spend a single penny more than is necessary but you still have to reach the customers who are looking for your services. So it’s time to get creative with marketing. Continue reading →

How can you grow your business?

Even in the face of gloomy economic forecasts, this is still the most important question that confronts any business person. To build your company, it’s certainly important to control expenses and operate efficiently, but the fastest path to growth is increased sales. To help you achieve this, there are thousands upon thousands of business gurus, books and classes that promise to unlock the secrets of selling. Continue reading →

Wouldn’t it be great to get the best value from the time you spend in the office?

Using your time more productively would go a long way to helping you to achieve your business goals. If you’re like most business people, however, you spend much of your time working on lots of minor tasks. These chores end up nibbling away at your days. And this means you never get around to tackling the important tasks, the ones that could help you move ahead. Business coach Tony Robbins had it right when he said, “Most people fail in life because they major in minor things.” Continue reading →

Here’s some good news for this Monday morning: the real estate market has started to open up again and banks are offering their lowest mortgage rates in years. Many people are using this opportunity to refinance their existing mortgages or to close on new purchases but as we all know, financial expectations have changed over the last few months. Continue reading →

Although the economy in the past year has headed into uncharted territory, some bits of wisdom remain unchanged. One of them is that success in the marketplace depends on providing value to others. And if you’re trying to figure out how to offer more value to others, it’s always a good idea to start with a better mousetrap. Continue reading →

We often come up with ambitious goals that we have every intention of achieving. Typically, these are all excellent ideas: what could be better than to finally get in shape or set a household budget or clear out the closet clutter?

What happens to those goals? Well, they’re usually things that we should have done a long time ago but that we kept pushing off because they seem difficult.  When we decide to tackle them, we’re excited to think that at long last we’re going to get the results we want and deserve. We’ll be fit and frugal and uncluttered! And then… Continue reading →

This is the time of year when companies and business people express their appreciation to colleagues, associates and clients by sending gifts of all sizes and shapes, from teddy bears to boxes of chocolates to commemorative gifts with personalized engraving. Continue reading →

The end of a year is a good time to consider how you say goodbye. Whether it’s saying goodbye to the year or to a person, place, or way of life, there’s no way to avoid endings — the challenge is to figure out how to benefit from them. Continue reading →

In the past, employers who were hiring looked for candidates with specific skills. From factory floor to executive suite, new employees were expected to have mastered certain essential tasks. Today, the preference is to “hire for attitude and train for skill.” Smart employers know that with certain exceptions — say, neurosurgery — people can learn almost any skill they need on the job. But you can’t teach a person attitude. Today, it’s often more important to have the right attitude than it is to have any specific skill. Continue reading →