Email marketing

E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fund-raising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every e-mail sent to a potential or current customer could be considered e-mail marketing. However, the term is usually used to refer to:

• sending e-mails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or previous customers, to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business,
• sending e-mails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately,
• adding advertisements to e-mails sent by other companies to their customers, and
• sending e-mails over the Internet, as e-mail did and does exist outside the Internet (e.g., network e-mail and FIDO).

Researchers estimate that United States firms alone spent US $400 million on e-mail marketing in 2006.

There are both advantages and disadvantages to using e-mail marketing in comparison to traditional advertising mail.

Advantages

E-mail marketing (on the Internet) is popular with companies for several reasons:

• An exact return on investment can be tracked ("track to basket") and has proven to be high when done properly. E-mail marketing is often reported as second only to search marketing as the most effective online marketing tactic.
• Advertisers can reach substantial numbers of e-mail subscribers who have opted in (i.e., consented) to receive e-mail communications on subjects of interest to them.
• Over half of Internet users check or send e-mail on a typical day.
• E-mail is popular with digital marketers, rising an estimated 15% in 2009 to £292m in the UK.

Disadvantages

A report issued by the e-mail services company Return Path, as of mid-2008 e-mail deliverability is still an issue for legitimate marketers. According to the report, legitimate e-mail servers averaged a delivery rate of 56%; twenty percent of the messages were rejected, and eight percent were filtered.


Companies considering the use of an e-mail marketing program must make sure that their program does not violate spam laws such as the United States' Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM), the European Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, or their Internet service provider's acceptable use policy.

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5 Effective Plan to Make $5000 a Month

1) What is your passion?

Your passion is a good indicator to determine where you will make the most money. All too often people enter into niches that totally go against their passions. Following your passions is the most important thing you can do for yourself. It will be the ultimate force and guidance when things get tough and you want to quit.

2) Set Goals and Take Action

Focusing on the potential outcome of a business opportunity can be very exciting. I know I start to picture all the money that can be made from a deal and I get pumped up. For most people, that's where the enthusiasm ends and the worry begins. Why? Because here's where plans have to be made. This stagnates tons of people. Get comfortable with setting goals and follow them.

3) Internet marketing

Internet marketing is a great place to start making money.You should be weary though because there a plenty of programs that are good but not consistent. As a beginner or any level for that matter, a program needs to be good and consistent. Once this is in place, it is only a matter of time before your bank account will swell.

4) Persevere

Any business venture will become challenging. However, don't equate a challenge with a problem. You made a smart choice to become an entrepreneur. Therefore, you also must accept the obstacles you may face. Grab that challenge by the horn and ride it out until you have overcome it.

5) Be Generous

It is highly important to give to others. Being generous opens the door to prosperity. Wealth is a concept that most people dream of.


We should try if we want to be a successful people...

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The Great Ways to Make Money With Google Adsense

The Google AdSense program has been known to be probably the most generous pay per click company, when it comes rewarding their publishers for their efforts. Not only do they pay them well, they look to even expand their ideas and make almost every aspect of the Internet profitable. And here today, I’d like to introduce some of the creative ways to make money with Google AdSense, that you may have never heard before. Who said that there was only one way to make money with a Google AdSense account?

Participate in Forums

If your an active member in a particular forum, check to see if they give some percentage of the revenue to active participants. A great forum that allows users to have a split end of the AdSense revenue is the Digital Point forums. Not only is this a great way to make money, it helps to encourage members to continue to socialize more with the community they love.

Incorporate AdSense Search

Got a website that has search functionality? Well, you can make that feature of your site profitable as well as make user experience enjoyable. Users will find the content they want and get to view relevant ads as well, which means more money for you. You can think of AdSense search like your own mini search engine.

Incorporate AdSense Ads to Your Feed

If you can make money off your website, why can’t you make money with your own web feed? With the features that Google includes in Feedburner, they make it possible for webmasters to maximize their profits with not only their site’s content but their feeds as well.

Write Articles

With generous article collaboration sites like Hubpages and Google Knol, who pay you to write articles with ads powered by Google AdSense, you can get your good share of profit whenever readers click an ad or view an ad. The more viewers your articles attract, the more money you make. Essentially, writing articles is great credibility wise as well as one of the great ways to make money.

Become a YouTube Partner

Like the idea of making money off making creative entertaining videos? Ever seen one of those Google Ads pop up whenever you were viewing a video off YouTube? Well, if you qualify to become a partner, whenever a viewer clicks or views an ad, you make your share of money. Especially if your videos are videos that are intriguing, they can really spread quickly like wildfire and make you a lot of money virally. Also, as an extra bonus, if any webmaster decides to embedded your video on their site, you even make money off the viewers from their site as well because the ads basically follow the YouTube video. The ways to make money by being a YouTube partner, is simply relentless.

Make Money Off Socializing

You like the idea of making money off socializing with people across the world with sites like Flixya? Flixya has it all and they pay 100% of the ad revenue to you! Whether you are there to share videos, photos, or just to make your own personal blog, you can be making money with them just by doing what you love, socializing!

Start Your Own Website

Got something intriguing to say that will inspire many to read about the stuff you have to say? Whether it be about cars or just about your personal life, anything goes. Google AdSense makes it possible for any webmaster to make money with their own personal website. If you have ever thought about starting up your own website, this may be your chance to make money online while writing about something you love. Starting your own website and making money off it for the first time, is of course a rewarding feeling that you will never forget.

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How do I get started with AdSense?

It's as simple as that:

1. Sign up with Google AdSense. (It's totally free!) Then follow the provided instructions to put a little javascript snippet onto your blog skin or any web page you like. You may use our b2evolution AdSense plugin to make this even easier.
2. When visitors view your site they see contextual text ads that automatically adjust to the contents of each page / blog post so that they are always relevant. No flashing images, just relevant text links! :)
3. When a visitor clicks on an ad link, Google records the click and you get paid for it. Get ready for a monthly check from Google ;)

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Making Money from Your Website with Google AdSense

Google AdSense is the Google program where you can host pay-per-click ads on your Website. When someone clicks an ad, you earn money. Simple as that.

Is it really as easy to make money with Google AdSense as many would lead you to believe? Now that I've become heavily involved with managing Google AdSense programs for my clients, I can see it's not all play and no work.

Unfortunately, a lot of people bought into the idea that there was a lot of easy money to be made and they are now finding out they aren't making nearly as much as they thought they would. Additionally, Google has a lot of prohibited practices when it comes to AdSense, and too many Webmasters are finding out they violated Google's policies after the fact - often because they never bothered to read the AdSense policies in the first place.

Webmasters must not only comply with AdSense policies, but their Websites must also comply with Google's webmaster policies.

Prerequisites for Making Money with AdSense

To make money with Google AdSense you need plenty of traffic coming in to your site or there won't be anyone to click the ads. Website promotion techniques, especially search engine optimization and article marketing will bring more traffic to your site. You also need to have content that will attract the ads with the highest Pay Per Click (PPC) rate that are relevant to that content. Then, you need to lay out your web pages so the ads blend in with your site. Studies have revealed that people who visit sites that contain ads that use colors that are not in harmony with the actual Web site tend to develop "ad blindness". Meaning no matter how much traffic comes into your site, chances are no one will click the ads because they'll be ignoring them. If no one clicks, you make nothing.

Dealing with Competitors' Advertisements

If you offer products or services on your Website, the first thing you'll notice when you begin hosting PPC ads is that many of the ads are coming from your competitors. Therefore, you'll want to put ads on pages that aren't earning you any money, or do like I did and not put ads on your site until you're so busy anyway you'd rather make a few dollars off of your competitors than to continue turning business away with nothing to show for it.

Google AdSense allows you to specify up to 200 URLs for sites you want to bar from placing ads on your pages. The problem is that most times you won't know the competitors are out there until their ads appear.

Google Money Making Ad Options

Google offers three ways to make money from them:

• Google AdSense for Content - A variety of size and shape ads for placing in your content are available. These can be text or image ads or both - you specify what you'll allow. Ad units are full ads. Link units are simply a strip of text links that your visitors might want to click. Google allows you to put up to 3 Ad Units and 1 Link unit on each page of your Web site, provided you follow its policies - both for AdSense and for Webmasters.

• Google AdSense for Search - This places a search box on your Web site. When a user enters a term and conducts a search, a search results page opens, that hosts more pay-per-click ads. You can customize the color scheme of the search results page to harmonize with your web site.

• Google Referrals - Here you make money by referring visitors to use a Google product, like AdSense, AdWords, the Google Toolbar and other Google software. Just like Google AdSense for Content and AdSense for Search, Google generates the code that you paste into the desired location on your web page. You can choose from a wide variety of buttons and text links of different colors. As an example of how Google Referrals works, if someone goes to your site and clicks the link and signs up for an AdSense account, when that person earns a $100 from Google AdSense and receives a payout from Google, you'll also receive $100 for referring them. This is a great idea to me, because you can be the world's worst Google AdSense advertiser, but if an ad dynamo happens to visit your site and uses your referral link, you can make money anyway!

Google AdSense Payments

Google will not issue an AdSense payment until your earnings exceed $100. Unfortunately, there are loads of Google AdSense Forum entries about website operators who accumulated $90 or more in click through earnings only to get banned from Google and not get paid anything at all before they ever reached $100. This may be because Google doesn't take a close look to see if you're complying with their guidelines until it comes time to pay you. So yes, there's a lot more to the story than meets the eye.

Other Programs Besides AdSense

Yahoo and MSN have similar programs, although those programs aren't as well-developed as Google AdSense and there aren't as many available advertisers to display ads on your site. The fundamentals for making money are the same: You still need plenty of traffic, you still need high-paying ads, and you still need to design your site to harmonize with the ads to get people to click.

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Marketing management

Marketing Management is a business discipline which is focused on the practical application of marketing techniques and the management of a firm's marketing resources and activities. Rapidly emerging forces of globalization have compelled firms to market beyond the borders of their home country making International marketing highly significant and an integral part of a firm's marketing strategy.

Marketing managers are often responsible for influencing the level, timing, and composition of customer demand accepted definition of the term. In part, this is because the role of a marketing manager can vary significantly based on a business' size, corporate culture, and industry context.

For example, in a large consumer products company, the marketing manager may act as the overall general manager of his or her assigned product To create an effective, cost-efficient Marketing management strategy, firms must possess a detailed, objective understanding of their own business and the market in which they operate. In analyzing these issues, the discipline of marketing management often overlaps with the related discipline of strategic planning.

Read More --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_management

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Marketing

Marketing is the process of performing market research, selling products and/or services to customers and promoting them via advertising to further enhance sales. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments. It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves.

Marketing is used to identify the customer, to satisfy the customer, and to keep the customer. With the customer as the focus of its activities, it can be concluded that marketing management is one of the major components of business management. Marketing evolved to meet the stasis in developing new markets caused by mature markets and overcapacities in the last 2-3 centuries. The adoption of marketing strategies requires businesses to shift their focus from production to the perceived needs and wants of their customers as the means of staying profitable.

The term marketing concept holds that achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions. It proposes that in order to satisfy its organizational objectives, an organization should anticipate the needs and wants of consumers and satisfy these more effectively than competitors.

Read More --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing

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The Top 5 Qualities of Creative Packaging

These days, packaging often needs to be really creative in order to stand out on the shelves, due to the sheer volume of products available in the market today, regardless of the niche. Companies are needing to be far more innovative than ever before. Gift giving is also becoming an art, and if a product is already in some kind of wonderful packaging, then the average consumer will be more likely to choose it when presented with a selection of similar products.

Some of the qualities that are becoming essential in terms of creative packaging are as follows:

Design and Visual Appeal - It is very important for packaging to be visually appealing to the consumer. Visual appeal can be enhanced through a clever and innovative design on the exterior. Colour choice will also be an important factor that you will need to decide upon in order to create amazing visual appeal. It is crucial to make a lasting impression on the consumer, and as we all know, first impressions also count. The same applies to packaging! Make yours the first thing a consumer sees, takes notice of, and talks about with others.

Functionality and Versatility - If packaging is able to be reused for other purposes around the home, or even to package up a gift for someone else, then this is also very beneficial. It is also much better for the environment. People will definitely look for products that have functional, yet distinctive, characteristics.

Product enhancement - The packaging that you decide to use should really reflect your company and the quality of the product contained within. It represents what you and your company stand for, and you will want the product to be viewed in a positive light.

Advertising - Your packaging is another way of advertising your product and company. Simple, yet effective designs will leave an imprint on the consumer and will become something of a trademark for your company. When people are familiar with a company it builds trust in them and their products, so make a statement with your packaging and reap the rewards.

Uniqueness - You need to ensure that your packaging stands out. The shelves are lined with thousands of products that can often blend in with one another. A distinctive and unique design or logo will be remembered for a long time.

There are times when people are out shopping and they really have no intention of buying anything, yet they walk out with something. This happens on a daily basis all over the world and one of the key factors to this is the packaging. There are times when people have bought items, myself included, simply because they couldn't resist the way it looks. This is exactly what creative packaging can also do for your products!

Example of Creative Packaging :

This is a creative packaging of lamp product! That packaging can be the head of lamp.

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10 Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking

Whether you’re trying to solve a tough problem, start a business, get attention for that business or write an interesting article, creative thinking is crucial. The process boils down to changing your perspective and seeing things differently than you currently do. People like to call this “thinking outside of the box,” which is the wrong way to look at it.

You create your own imaginary boxes simply by living life and accepting certain things as “real” when they are just as illusory as the beliefs of a paranoid delusional. The difference is, enough people agree that certain man-made concepts are “real,” so you’re viewed as “normal.” This is good for society overall, but it’s that sort of unquestioning consensus that inhibits your natural creative abilities.

So, rather than looking for ways to inspire creativity, you should just realize the truth. You’re already capable of creative thinking at all times, but you have to strip away the imaginary mental blocks (or boxes) that you’ve picked up along the way to wherever you are today.

This is a list of 10 common ways we suppress our natural creative abilities nearby when you get stuck. It helps you realize that the barriers to a good idea are truly all in your head.

1. Trying to Find the “Right” Answer

One of the worst aspects of formal education is the focus on the correct answer to a particular question or problem. While this approach helps us function in society, it hurts creative thinking because real-life issues are ambiguous. There’s often more than one “correct” answer, and the second one you come up with might be better than the first.

Many of the following mental blocks can be turned around to reveal ways to find more than one answer to any given problem. Try reframing the issue in several different ways in order to prompt different answers, and embrace answering inherently ambiguous questions in several different ways.

2. Logical Thinking

Not only is real life ambiguous, it’s often illogical to the point of madness. While critical thinking skills based on logic are one of our main strengths in evaluating the feasibility of a creative idea, it’s often the enemy of truly innovative thoughts in the first place.

One of the best ways to escape the constraints of your own logical mind is to think metaphorically. One of the reasons why metaphors work so well in communications is that we accept them as true without thinking about it. When you realize that “truth” is often symbolic, you’ll often find that you are actually free to come up with alternatives.

3. Following Rules

One way to view creative thinking is to look at it as a destructive force. You’re tearing away the often arbitrary rules that others have set for you, and asking either “why” or “why not” whenever confronted with the way “everyone” does things.

This is easier said than done, since people will often defend the rules they follow even in the face of evidence that the rule doesn’t work. People love to celebrate rebels like Richard Branson, but few seem brave enough to emulate him. Quit worshiping rule breakers and start breaking some rules.

4. Being Practical

Like logic, practicality is hugely important when it comes to execution, but often stifles innovative ideas before they can properly blossom. Don’t allow the editor into the same room with your inner artist.

Try not to evaluate the actual feasibility of an approach until you’ve allowed it to exist on its own for a bit. Spend time asking “what if” as often as possible, and simply allow your imagination to go where it wants. You might just find yourself discovering a crazy idea that’s so insanely practical that no one’s thought of it before.

5. Play is Not Work

Allowing your mind to be at play is perhaps the most effective way to stimulate creative thinking, and yet many people disassociate play from work. These days, the people who can come up with great ideas and solutions are the most economically rewarded, while worker bees are often employed for the benefit of the creative thinkers.

You’ve heard the expression “work hard and play hard.” All you have to realize is that they’re the same thing to a creative thinker.

6. That’s Not My Job

In an era of hyper-specialization, it’s those who happily explore completely unrelated areas of life and knowledge who best see that everything is related. This goes back to what ad man Carl Ally said about creative persons—they want to be know-it-all.

Sure, you’ve got to know the specialized stuff in your field, but if you view yourself as an explorer rather than a highly-specialized cog in the machine, you’ll run circles around the technical master in the success department.

7. Being a “Serious” Person

Most of what keeps us civilized boils down to conformity, consistency, shared values, and yes, thinking about things the same way everyone else does. There’s nothing wrong with that necessarily, but if you can mentally accept that it’s actually nothing more than groupthink that helps a society function, you can then give yourself permission to turn everything that’s accepted upside down and shake out the illusions.

Leaders from Egyptian pharaohs to Chinese emperors and European royalty have consulted with fools, or court jesters, when faced with tough problems. The persona of the fool allowed the truth to be told, without the usual ramifications that might come with speaking blasphemy or challenging ingrained social conventions. Give yourself permission to be a fool and see things for what they really are.

8. Avoiding Ambiguity

We rationally realize that most every situation is ambiguous to some degree. And although dividing complex situations into black and white boxes can lead to disaster, we still do it. It’s an innate characteristic of human psychology to desire certainty, but it’s the creative thinker who rejects the false comfort of clarity when it’s not really appropriate.

Ambiguity is your friend if you’re looking to innovate. The fact that most people are uncomfortable exploring uncertainty gives you an advantage, as long as you can embrace ambiguity rather than run from it.

9. Being Wrong is Bad

We hate being wrong, and yet mistakes often teach us the most. Thomas Edison was wrong 1,800 times before getting the light bulb right. Edison’s greatest strength was that he was not afraid to be wrong.

The best thing we do is learn from our mistakes, but we have to free ourselves to make mistakes in the first place. Just try out your ideas and see what happens, take what you learn, and try something else. Ask yourself, what’s the worst that can happen if I’m wrong? You’ll often find the benefits of being wrong greatly outweigh the ramifications.

10. I’m Not Creative

Denying your own creativity is like denying you’re a human being. We’re all limitlessly creative, but only to the extent that we realize that we create our own limits with the way we think. If you tell yourself you’re not creative, it becomes true. Stop that.

In that sense, awakening your own creativity is similar to the path reported by those who seek spiritual enlightenment. You’re already enlightened, just like you’re already creative, but you have to strip away all of your delusions before you can see it. Acknowledge that you’re inherently creative, and then start tearing down the other barriers you’ve allowed to be created in your mind.

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Creative Thinking

Creative thinking involves creating something new or original. It involves the skills of flexibility, originality, fluency, elaboration, brainstorming, modification, imagery, associative thinking, attribute listing, metaphorical thinking, forced relationships. The aim of creative thinking is to stimulate curiosity and promote divergence.

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Critical Thinking

Critical thinking involves logical thinking and reasoning including skills such as comparison, classification, sequencing, cause/effect, patterning, webbing, analogies, deductive and inductive reasoning, forecasting, planning, hypothesizing, and critiquing.

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10 Great Leader Qualities Principle

Ten Basic Skills of Outstanding Leadership

• Integrity
• Vision/strategy
• Communication
• Relationships
• Persuasion
• Adaptability
• Teamwork
• Coaching and Development
• Decision-making
• Planning

Definition and Explanation of the Ten Basic Skill Leadership

Integrity 

How deep are your convictions on the things you believe in? What do you believe in SO MUCH about your work that you will stand up to anyone about it? How much are you willing to compromise your important beliefs? To what extent do your behavior and tne choices you make align with your guiding values and principles?

Integrity means honesty and more. It refers to having strong internal guiding principles that one does not compromise. It means treating others as you would wish to be treated.
Many experts believe that a solid sense of right and wrong and strong guiding principles are the most essential and basic of all leadership skills or characteristics. Integrity promotes trust, and not much is accomplished without trust.
Integrity is a skill to the extent that we see it in action. But it goes much deeper than surface actions. It is based on one’s guiding beliefs and values, and is an important example of an essential leadership quality.
Integrity (or lack thereof) is reflected in thinking, attitudes, and actions. People can’t directly see your level of integrity, but they judge it pretty accurately on a gut level based on your actions and your words.
 
Vision/strategy

Can you see, do you see where your department, team, and organization are going? How often do you talk about the ways in which what you are doing in your area are related to the overall mission? Do you think and speak inspiring about what the organization is doing and about the future of the organization?

A leader must have a clear idea where his or her organization and unit are going beyond this month’s results or this year’s budget. Where is it going in the long term? Even tactical leaders must be clear about this and need to refer frequently to the vision, mission, and values of the organization in their communications with others. Vision is another example of an essential leadership quality.

Communication

How much and how willingly do you speak out and keep information flowing? Conversely, can you keep confidential information private? How often can and do you listen more than you speak in conversations with your employees? How would you assess your communication skills with each of your employees? How do you handle “bad news” when you receive it?

The chief complaint of employees in nearly every organization of all types, whether large or small from any industry segment, is “lack of communication.” Communication in the context of leadership refers to both interpersonal communications between the leader and followers and the overall flow of needed information throughout the organization.

Leaders need to learn to be proficient in both the communication that informs and seeks out information (gives them a voice) and the communication that connects interpersonally with others. Communication is another example leadership skill that must be cultivated by all leaders.

Relationships

What is the level of trust and respectful feelings you have with each of your employees? With each of your peers? How easy or difficult is it for you to initiate new relationships? Deepen existing relationships?

Networking (the art of social “schmoozing”) is also a relationship skill. Relationships develop from good interpersonal and group communication skills but relationship skills also go deeper.
A leader who likes dealing with people issues, who can initiate and deepen relationships with others, has a great leadership advantage. This is a leader who can build a team and achieve impressive results.
This kind of leadership is based on personal power (the right kind of power), not position power. Relationship-building is an example of an essential leadership quality.

Persuasion

How persuasive and influential are you? Under what circumstances can you persuade others to your point of view? To what extent do people value your opinion and follow your lead?

The ability to influence others and cause them to move in a particular direction is a highly important skill in leadership. In fact, leadership is often defined as the ability to persuade or influence others to do something they might not have done without the leader’s persuasion.

Your ability to be persuasive is directly related to how much people trust you and how good your communication and relationships are. Persuasion (also called influence) is a good example of an essential leadership skill.

Adaptability

To what degree can you relinquish rigidity? Control? When is it easy and when difficult for you to embrace change? How do you react when things don’t go as planned?
 
Adaptability and flexibility in not being bound by a plan are important success factors in leadership today. The leader must move easily from one set of circumstances (the plan) to the next (the plan is not going as expected) and take them all in stride, even when the circumstances are unexpected.
The good leader has to embrace change and see it as opportunity. The leadership skill of adaptability is another example of a critical skill.

Teamwork

To what extent do you value working cooperatively as part of a group? How do you promote teamwork among those you lead? In what ways do you work collaboratively with your peers? How do you handle team conflict?

No one person can do it all. That’s why a team, comprised of others with different skill sets, is essential. A leader must know how to build and nurture such a team. A good leader knows when to be a leader and when to be a follower.

The best leaders are good followers when that's what is needed. Building teamwork is another essential leadership skill example.

Coaching and Development

How do you feel about developing others around you? How do you encourage, nurture, and build the capacity of those you lead? How easy or hard is it for you to set your needs aside and share control with others? Can/do you delegate well?

Developing others is an important role for a leader. Encouraging others to expand their capabilities and take on additional assignments is part of the leader’s responsibility. Leaders who feel threatened by the capabilities of others are challenged in this area. Coaching and development are essential skills all leaders must cultivate.

Decision-making

How comfortable are you with having to make the “final decision” on things? Do you have any tendency to decide too quickly without due consideration or, conversely, to gather data, analyze and ponder endlessly and be unable to decide? In what areas do you struggle with making firm decisions and standing up for what you believe?

A leader must be able to wade through information, comprehend what’s relevant, make a well-considered decision, and take action based on that decision. Making decisions too quickly or too slowly will impede your leadership effectiveness. Decisiveness is another example of an essential leadership quality.

Planning

How easy is it for you to put together plans for activities and projects, including contingency plans (what will happen IF…)? How easily are you able to focus your attention and stick to your plan, yet without being rigid about it? How do you decide when to push ahead or, instead, to modify your plan?

Planning involves making certain assumptions about the future and taking actions in the present to positively influence that future. To plan means to focus more strategically. Plans are important for guidance and focus, but plans can seldom be cast in stone. Planning is an excellent and necessary example leadership skill.

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Types of Leadership Styles

What are the Three Main Types of Leadership Styles?

Participative Leadership: This is probably the best leadership style followed in the business world. In participative leadership style, though the leader is responsible for taking the final decision, he is open for suggestions from team members, which can influence the decision.

Autocratic Leadership: In this leadership, the leader solely carries out the decision making process. The autocratic leadership style is a very suitable method for managing team members who require close supervision to get the work done.

Laissez Faire Leadership: In the laissez faire leadership, the leader leaves it on the team members to do the work which they are supposed to. This is a good style to be implemented if the members are skilled enough and understand their responsibilities properly.

Other Types of Leadership Styles

Charismatic Leadership: In charismatic leadership, the leader puts in energy and enthusiasm into the project of the team. He does motivate and helps employees; though he may, at times, tend to boast much about his leadership skills and capabilities.

Bureaucratic Leadership: A bureaucratic leader is one who makes sure that the standard procedures of the process is followed by the team members. This style rules out the scope for trying out new problem solving methods and enhancing the project performance.

Relation-oriented Leadership: This style is also referred to as people-oriented style. In this corporate leadership style, the leader tries his best to support and mentor the team members, which in turn turns out to be beneficial for the project.

Servant Leadership: In servant leadership, the leader is not officially intended to act as a leader. He is just an informal leader who takes one step forward on behalf of his team members. He takes decisions collectively by consulting with his colleagues.

Transformational Leadership: This is a good leadership style that is suitable for any work environment. In transformational leadership, the leader provides motivation to his team, to perform tasks for the on-time deliverable of the project.

Task-oriented Leadership: A task-oriented leader is usually known for only focusing on what his team has to achieve. Though, unlike in autocratic leadership, he might understand the needs and welfare of the team members.

Transactional Leadership: This is a somewhat direct kind of effective leadership. It includes a direct authority given to the leader with regards to punishing and rewarding team members, owing to the results of the project.

Situational Leadership: As the name suggests, situational leadership is not associated with any kind of style. It is adopted when a leader changes types of leadership styles in order to get the work done considering the situation.

These are the known types of leadership styles used at present. Remember that a leader might have to use a particular team leadership style in a specific work setting, where other styles may not be effective. 

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5 Keys to Leadership for Small Business

1. A leader plans.

The core of leadership is being proactive rather than reactive. Sure, leaders are good in crises – but that doesn’t mean they sit around letting crises develop. Leadership involves identifying potential problems and solving them before they reach crisis proportions – and the ability to identify and reap potential windfalls. So good leaders analyze and plan and adapt their plans to new circumstances and opportunities.

2. A leader has a vision.

Vision is essential to good leadership. Vision provides direction and without direction, there’s not much point to all that planning; your small business will still flail about. So if you don’t have one already, take your first step towards leadership by creating a Vision Statement for your business. Because it embodies your dreams and your passions, a vision statement will also serve as a leadership vision.

3. A leader shares her vision.

Sharing your leadership vision helps your vision grow and your leadership develop. As you tell your leadership vision to others, you will strengthen your own belief in your vision and strengthen your determination to make your leadership vision become reality. And other people will start to see you as a person who’s “going places”. Your leadership skills will grow as you and other people recognize you as a person with leadership potential.

4. A leader takes charge.

At this stage of leadership, you put together your planning and your leadership vision and take action. Whether it’s implementing a specific plan to improve your business’s bottom line or responding to a crisis, you, as the leader, are the one who makes the decisions and sees that the appropriate actions are carried out. You can’t just “talk a good game” to be a leader; you need to act and to be seen as taking effective action for the good of your small business.

5. A leader inspires through example.

If I asked you, you could easily name three people whose leadership qualities inspire you. If I asked you why, you’d tell me about the things these inspiring people did or are doing. Leadership is defined through action. Therefore, in developing your own leadership skills, you have to act in ways that are fitting to your leadership vision and your self – all the time. We can all name many actions of other people whom we admire, but what inspires us is the integrity that gives these actions meaning.

Becoming a leader isn’t easy because it takes a conscious commitment and consistent effort to develop one’s leadership skills. But on the positive side, anyone who is willing to make the effort can become a good leader.

And as good leadership is critical to business success, your efforts to improve your leadership skills will be amply rewarded. By working on these five keys of leadership, you can become the leader your small business needs.

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Leadership

Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task”. Definitions more inclusive of followers have also emerged.

A simple definition of leadership is that leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal.

Put even more simply, the leader is the inspiration and director of the action. He or she is the person in the group that possesses the combination of personality and skills that makes others want to follow his or her direction.

In business, leadership is welded to performance. Effective leaders are those who increase their company's bottom lines.

 

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