“I Love You” Healing

At a recent dinner party I had the pleasure drilling Dr. Joe Vitale about ho’oponopono, the Zero Limits method, and the power of saying “I love you” to heal you and your world. My questions were direct and the answers were revealing. You can see the entire eight minute spiritual lesson right here. Enjoy.

Interpersonal Skills for Introverts

I can’t think of too many professions where you can succeed without some sort of interpersonal skills.  But, as I’m sure you’re aware, interpersonal skills don’t come naturally to some people.  There are people out there—perfectly kind, warm-hearted people—who like to keep to themselves.  Unfortunately, though, people in the workplace can’t read minds.  So, the person who might be content eating alone and reading the paper might come off as anti-social and, worse yet, rude.  But, if you’re an introvert, or you’ve broken the through the shell of an introvert, you know they mean no such thing and that they’d probably be the nicest people in the workplace if they opened their mouths.  Well, believe it or not, an introverted personality doesn’t necessarily hurt your interpersonal skills.  In fact, you can greatly enhance your people skills through reading and meditation.

Reading

From the first time you cracked the spine of Dr. Suess, everyone has told you reading is good.  And, for the most part, you probably placed it in the same useful category as fruits and vegetables.  However, reading has proven to be useful for your mental health as well as your social skills.  Reading arms you with knowledge for just about any conversation.  By reading, you become an expert in a variety of fields, and you’ll be able to carry engaging conversations without faltering.  It’s similar to when you study hard for a test, and you breeze through it without a worry.  This can be quite the confidence boaster.  And anyone involved with interpersonal skill training knows that confidence is perhaps one of the most important traits to possess.

Meditation

Mediation is about as introverted as it comes.  Who would think that sitting alone in silence for 20 minutes could enhance your people skills?   Well, like reading, meditation is good for your physical health as well as your interpersonal skills.  Naturally, meditation helps you control your thoughts, but it also increases creativity and confidence.  Whether you’re a painter or a financial advisor, creativity is crucial to the work environment.  Those who can think outside the box and convey those thoughts to others are those who move up the corporate ladder.  Meditation helps harness your thoughts and arrange them in a productive fashion.  So, again, similar to reading, this practice typically associated with introverts is one of the best ways to improve your social and communication skills.

Michael Jordan – Becoming Legendary

Michael Jordan provides the ultimate motivation with a journey through his legacy that challenges you to look beyond your limits and rise to your potential.

15 Things You Should Know About Caffeine

As the most potent chemical component in coffee or tea, we are all very aware of caffeine. Next time you’re sitting around the coffee shop, enjoying a latte and perhaps talking about coffee in general, you can appear quite learned by tossing around these caffeine facts.

Via: Homeowners Insurance

Surmounting Speech Anxiety

It starts from the ground up. First, your foot taps rapidly against the floor like it’s trying to deliver a Morse code message. Next, you feel like a boy scout just finished a knot-tying lesson in your stomach. Then your heart starts beating so hard you think it might jump out of your chest and plop down on the floor in front of you. Your hands are sweaty, shaky messes. Your mouth feels like you just ate a sandbox. Beads of sweat gather on your forehead. Needless to say, you’ve felt more comfortable.

Whether you’re preparing for a nationally-syndicated speech or you’re addressing fifteen co-workers at a company meeting, people tend to fear public speaking. For some of us, it might not be to the extent of the aforementioned symptoms, but for others, that scenario is all too familiar. But, you need to do it. And, you need to believe you can do it. So, here are a few pointers to not only help you get through public speaking, but to get through it well.

Don’t think: how can I survive this? Think: how can I do this brilliantly?
If you plan to do something with confidence and brilliance, you won’t only survive, but you’ll impress people.

Don’t picture the audience in their underwear.
This is a myth. Is picturing your boss in his underwear while you’re trying to talk to him really going to make you feel more comfortable? In fact, I’m pretty sure it will have the exact opposite effect. Imagine that your audience is an attentive group of bigwigs. By viewing them as an audience that depends on every word you say, it will drive you to care more about what you’re saying, and, naturally, you’ll deliver a more powerful speech.

Rehearse
People tend to struggle the most when they’re in the spotlight talking about something they don’t fully understand. It doesn’t matter if it’s a five-minute speech about your department’s use of paper products or a two-hour state of the union address. You need to be confident in what you’re talking about. Effective public speaking doesn’t begin until you’ve got a hold of the subject matter. An actor memorizes their lines before they can immerse themselves in a role, don’t they?

Be yourself
You talk to people all the time. There’s no way you made it this far in life without being able to hold an engaging conversation. Well, that’s all you’re doing. You’re talking to people. Talk to your audience like you would if they were sitting on your living room couch. You’re capable of speaking with passion and excitement, so don’t let the fact that there’s a few more people in the room cripple your ability to speak.

Remarks by the President on Small Business Jobs Proposals

11:23 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Good afternoon, everybody.  Everybody please have a seat.

The Optimist Creed: Promise Yourself

The Optimist Creed was authored in 1912 by Chistian D. Larson, appearing in his book Your Forces and How to Use Them. It was adopted as Optimist International’s creed in 1922. Many have found inspiration in The Optimist Creed. In hospitals, the creed has been used to help patients recover from illness. In locker rooms, coaches have used it to motivate their players.

Please print this page of The Optimist’s Creed to read daily. Use it as a powerful tool to become the most brilliant magnet for magnificence and joy in your life. Please share it with your friends.

Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel that there is something worthwhile in them.

To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.

To think only of the best, to work only for the best and to expect only the best.

To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

To wear a cheerful expression at all times and give a smile to every living creature you meet.

To give so much time to improving yourself that you have no time to criticize others.

To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud word, but in great deeds.

To live in the faith that the whole world is on your side, so long as you are true to the best that is in you.

Neuro Marketing – Everything we buy has an Emotion Reason

Everything we buy has an emotional explanation. When we buy something, our subconscious level is as active as our conscious one, because deep inside, everyone feels the need to fulfill certain human needs. The easiest of which is avoiding fear/pain/boredom or to gain excitement/pleasure/certainty.
The majority of us, when we buy something, are trying to fill an emotional void. We are attempting to get closer to happiness and to a life free of problems. This is why we buy what we want as much as, or even more than, what we need, to get rid of the pain or to feel happy. There may be exceptions to this — it’s doubtful that you feel an emotional connection to your laundry detergent or toilet paper — but any items that require a decision-making process definitely fall into the “emotional connection” category.
Below we discuss the 6 basic human needs that control the pleasure/pain buttons. Our advice as marketing/business experts is that when you are trying to sell a product or service, link it to one of these, and you will get the person to connect emotionally with your offering.

1. First necessity: Certainty
If you can prove to people that your product or service will bring certainty to their lives, they will buy it. It can be the certainty of love, security, health, self-respect, financial freedom, or peace, you name it, just know your potential clients’ desires.

2. Second necessity: Variety
While there is a small group of folks that we would classify as “creatures of habit,” most people need variety to feel alive. The same, over and over again, bores them. We travel, read, meet people, and try new foods, among other things, in search for variety. Some people hate routine, so present your product or service as a routine breaker.

3. Third necessity: Significance
Significance is a great buying motivator; however, this word has a very subjective meaning. People have different views and experiences in regards to what is significant for them. You have to clearly identify what matters to your potential clients in order to present the significance your product or service may have for them.

4. Fourth necessity: Connection
Connection is vital in a person’s life. We have the need to feel deeply connected to our family, friends, community, society, and country. How can your product or service enhance that connection?

5. Fifth necessity: Growth
Life is about growth. People need to grow every day in order to feel alive, successful and prosperous. One can grow emotionally, professionally, spiritually, financially, etc. If your product or service supports a person’s growth in any area, there is a big chance they will buy it.

6. Sixth necessity: Contribution
Everyone has a purpose in life. Everyone was born to fulfill a mission, and this is why everyone needs to know that his or her life matters. Human beings have the need to make a difference and to contribute to the wellness of the world in some way.

Your product or service will connect deeply with your customers if it offers them an opportunity to tap into their emotions.

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Psyching Yourself Out of A Sale

Psyching Yourself Out of A Sale

When clients ask for help in closing more sales, I’d ask them to list the objections they are hearing that prevented the sale. It’s when they start stumbling over their response that I ask, “Are these the objections you are hearing directly from your prospects or what you’re assuming as the reason why they don’t buy?”

Whether it’s around our sales efforts, during a conversation with our boss (and our kids), or when trying to uncover ways to best manage your team, certain assumptions can dramatically affect the results we seek to achieve, especially during a conversation.

Rather than uncovering the real barrier to the sale, assuming the objection becomes a detrimental process that spreads like a virus throughout every sales call. These assumptions are not based on the facts but rather the salesperson’s assumption of the truth.

When clients ask for help in closing more sales, I’d ask them to list the objections they are hearing that prevented the sale. It’s when they start stumbling over their response that I ask, “Are these the objections you are hearing directly from your prospects or what you’re assuming as the reason why they don’t buy?”

Whether it’s around our sales efforts, during a conversation with our boss (and our kids), or when trying to uncover ways to best manage your team, certain assumptions can dramatically affect the results we seek to achieve, especially during a conversation.

Rather than uncovering the real barrier to the sale, assuming the objection becomes a detrimental process that spreads like a virus throughout every sales call. These assumptions are not based on the facts but rather the salesperson’s assumption of the truth.

Salespeople often fall into this trap when creating solutions for their prospects. During a conversation with a prospect, they uncover a similar situation or problem that they have handled with a previous client. So, they assume that the same solution will fit for this prospect as well.

The problem arises when the salesperson fails to invest the time to go beyond what may be obvious and explore the prospect’s specific objectives or concerns.

Thinking they “know” this prospect, the salesperson provides them with the benefits of his service that he perceives to be important, without considering the prospect’s particular needs.

The next time you’re speaking with your boss, your family your employees, or if you’re on a sales call, rather than assuming the objection, how the prospect makes a buying decision, what they know or what they want to hear, follow these suggestions to create more selling opportunities.

1. Identify The Knowledge Gap.
That’s the space between what people know and what they don’t know. Instead of assuming what they know, start determining what they need/want to learn in order to fill in this gap and ensure clear communication. What may seem old or common to you is new to them. Use questions up front to uncover what’s needed to fill in the gap. Example: “Just so I don’t sound repetitive, how familiar are you with-?”

2. Be Curious.
Question everything! Since you’re in the business
of providing solutions, invest the time to uncover the person’s specific need or problem, as opposed to providing common solutions that you assume may fit for everyone. For example, the words “Frustrated, successful, affordable, reliable and quality,” can be interpreted in a variety of ways and often carry a different meaning for each of us.

When you hear a prospect make a comment like, “I want a quality product that will give me the results I want at an affordable price,” use this as an opportunity to explore deeper into what they want or need most. “What type of results are you looking for?” “What is affordable to you?” Questions allow you to clarify what you have heard or go into a topic in more depth so you can become clear with what they are really saying.

3. Clarify!
Make each prospect feel that they are truly being listened to and understood. Use a clarifier when responding to what you’ve heard during the conversation. Rephrase in your own words what they had said to ensure that you not only heard, but also understood them. Then, confirm the next course of action. Examples: “What I’m hearing you say is…” “Tell me more about that.” “What do you see as the next step?”

4. Just The Facts, Please
“I told a prospect that I’d follow up within a week. Two weeks later, I figured I missed my chance and they went with someone else.” Sound familiar? Effective salespeople don’t guess themselves into a sale. To ensure you’re operating with the facts, ask yourself this, “Do I have evidence to support my assumption or how I’m feeling?” Enjoy the peace of mind that comes from gaining clarity rather than drowning in the stories that you believe are true.

4 Ways to Improve People Skills

How advantageous is it to increase your people skills? People skills can be defined by a broad collection of attitudes, thought processes, and levels of awareness, which allow you to relate well to others. In business, having great people skills is tremendously important.

People skills closely relate to business topics such as business leadership, negotiation skills, and sales techniques. The world of business is full of relationships, and learning to form good relationships with the help of people skills will only serve to your benefit. Read the following four tips to help improve the way you relate to others.

Active Listening

It is highly important for others to be heard.  Active listening is the process of presenting occasional and one-line summaries of what the speaker is saying.  The process lets the speaker know you are listening and you understand their message.  Active listening is advantageous for both parties.  Imagine being a new employee taking directions from a boss.  Anxiety or nervousness may influence the new worker’s ability to listen to directions, yet participating in active listening would prompt the worker to concentrate on the boss’ message, reinforcing the worker’s memory and letting the boss know the worker clearly understands.

Smiling is Okay

How serious are you about business?  Could it be detrimental to be too serious?  It can be possible to be successful and jovial at the same time.  Many people who find themselves in a business leadership position struggle with implementing humor because humor has the reputation of being antithetical to business.  Proponents of enhancing people skills would suggest that smiling is okay.  Of course, it is expected to maintain professionalism at all times during the course of the business day, yet a professional can be successful and enjoy humor.  Sometimes, success is facilitated by humor due to a businessperson’s charismatic personality.

Empathize

When we have a remote sense of what others are experiencing, we are sympathizing, but we are empathizing when we can truly relate to the experience of others.  It is a great advancement in increasing your people skills when you can learn to put your self in another’s position or see things from their perspective.  Oftentimes, people may not relate or cannot remedy a situation because they do not attempt to place themselves in the other person’s position.  Empathizing increases awareness and can benefit business by helping people relate and inspiring workers to see various perspectives.

No Negativity

‘No negativity’ sounds cliche and obvious, yet maintaining a positive mindset is something to be conscious about each business day.  Some business people repeat mantras or slogans throughout the day to help them maintain their positivity.  Negativity has a bad influence on many business aspects such as negotiation skills, strategic selling, and people skills.  It is important to distinguish negativity from being critical.  The latter is needed in order to make business decisions, yet negativity is never ‘needed’ in business.  Keeping a positive mindset improves morale and inspires others to seek you for input and advice.

Three Best Ways to Catch an Employee Thief

Three Best Ways to Catch an Employee Thief |Wall Street Journal|By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

If your small business can’t afford external auditors, security cameras or other resources for spotting employee fraud, consider doing some detective work of your own. The effort could save your firm from a significant financial loss or worse—failure.

After all, a single heist could be fatal for a small business, says Richard Hollinger, a professor of criminology at the University of Florida. Small firms typically don’t have

the financial resources to fall back on that large organizations have, he explains. (See related story, Business Owners Get Burned by Sticky Fingers.)

Employee fraud can take place right under a business owner’s nose. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, an anti-fraud trade group in Austin, Texas, such activities occur on average for as long as two years before the victim organization catches on.

The phone keeps ringing. Some corrupt workers will instruct friends to repeatedly call a business and ask if the owner is on site until the answer is no, says Mark R. Doyle, chief executive of Jack L. Hayes International Inc., a provider of workplace crime-prevention services in Wesley Chapel, Fla. Once they hear those “magic” words, the friend knows it’s safe to come by and swipe merchandise under the rogue employee’s watch, he explains.

The math doesn’t add up. Two years ago, ReShonda Young noticed a subordinate at her father’s transportation company, Alpha Express LLC, had turned in a weekly time sheet with more hours than he could’ve possibly worked. That prompted Ms. Young, a manager at the Waterloo, Iowa, company, to investigate further and she discovered that the employee had been stretching his hours for months, initially to a less-noticeable extent. “I guess it got to be a little easy,” she says. Now all supervisors must review and sign workers’ time cards before they can be processed, says Ms. Young.

Money problems surface. Financial pressures are a key motivator of occupational fraud, the ACFE reports. For this reason, business owners should take note of any excessive complaining by a worker about money burdens. And if such a person’s lifestyle suddenly improves dramatically, this could signal he or she has their hand in the company’s cookie jar.

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com

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How to Manage Multiple Business Locations

How to Manage Multiple Business Locations | Inc |By Darren Dahl | Mar 4, 2010

Thomas Friedman was onto something when he wrote his book, The World is Flat. Companies increasingly feel the need to expand their reach into new markets—both domestically and internationally—from a very early age.

One direct result of this expansion is that you may now be forced to manage multiple locations and oversee employees in distant offices—a fact that can cause quite a few challenges and headaches, says Eric Bloom, president of Manager Mechanics, a management-training firm based in Ashland, Massachusetts.

“No matter how widespread your organization becomes, you need to work hard to retain team cohesion and the philosophy that everyone is on the same team regardless of where they work,” he says.

Dig Deeper: Why You Should Expand

Managing Multiple Locations: 6 Challenges

1. Out-of-site-out-of-mind syndrome. When things get busy at your primary location, it can be hard to give your employees based at other locations the time they deserve.

2. Loss of spontaneous communications. Because you do not see your employees in the hallway or at meetings, there is very little natural or unplanned communication.

3. Attenuated logistics. Anything that cannot be sent electronically, must be mailed, which causes time delays and increased effort.

4. Complicated work assignments. It is harder to perform certain types of jobs or collaborate on them when employees are based in remote locations

5. Lack of team cohesiveness. Your team members will not know each other as well. This can easily lead to an “us-versus-them” mentality.

6. Concerns over general supervision. If you have a remote office that clients visit, it’s virtually impossible to see if your employees are arriving on time, working appropriate business hours or wearing proper business attire.

To tackle these and other challenges, then, organizational leaders need to focus on three key areas: systems, technology, and communication.

Managing Multiple Locations: Put Systems in Place

The old adage is that systems run businesses, and people run systems. “You must have systems in place to be able to standardize the quality of your communications, products and results,” says Bert Martinez, founder of Bert Martinez Communications, a business training and communications company with multiple locations. “Systems will allow you to duplicate offices and grow faster with reduce training times and supervision.”

The key is to establish clear responsibilities, boundaries, and authority, says Ann Latham, president of Uncommon Clarity, an organizational-behavior consulting firm in Easthampton, Massachusetts. “Vague responsibilities create the proverbial cracks into which everything drops,” she says. Muddy boundaries create disasters ranging from personnel problems to legal ones while insufficient authority can become a source of delay and demotivation. “An employee with everything needed to exercise good judgment except either the authority or sense of responsibility to do so is worth little,” says Lantham.

The point, then, is to make each employee’s responsibilities clear through an organizational structure combined with a system that measures each and every employee, and holds everyone accountable for delivering on their work responsibilities regardless of where they are based.

Dig Deeper: Building Systems to Manage Your Business

Managing Multiple Locations: Adopt New Technology

With the advent of the Internet, and the prolific surge in the number of collaborative tools that have spawned from it, technology has become an integral part of the backbone for any far-flung organization, says Bloom, particularly because it can help your organization cut down on business travel expenses.

While many organizations rely on custom-built software platforms and intranets as collaborative platforms, some of the most commonly-used tools by small businesses in particular are also either free, cheap or available as a software-as-a-service, which means you can access these tools over the web for a monthly fee. Some of the best and cost-effective options include:

• Google Documents, Gmail and Calendar for internal training and communication.
• Basecamp: An popular project management tool.
• Facebook : The now ubiquitous social networking tool is just as useful for business as it is for personal applications.
• Skype: The surge in VOIP technology and software means that you can communicate with remote employees cheaply and effectively.
• Salesforce.com: One of the most popular tools around, Salesforce.com allows remote sales team to collaborate in real-time on maintaining your company’s sales pipeline.

A new wrinkle in terms of technology is that many firms have begun to equip all of their employees with smart phones such as the iPhone as a way to enable them to access any web-based technology regardless of where they are, including many new applications.

Dig Deeper: The Latest Small Business Technology News

Managing Multiple Locations: Focus on Communication

Systems are a must, technology is important tool however, none of these will work with out real communication, says Martinez. “Communication is the key to collaboration with your offices, coworkers, and clients,” he says. If you neglect this aspect of running your business, you do so at your own risk, particularly in a business with multiple locations. That’s why Martinez also makes having his employees have time face-to-face a priority by having his offices take turns hosting each other once a year to enable communication between people on all levels.

Other tips for fostering communication between your employees based in the office and elsewhere include:

1. Establish full team weekly staff meetings via phone or webinar to get your whole group together.

2. If possible, have web cams so your team members can see each other.

3. Make each physical site responsible for a specific type of work, rather then assign random tasks associated with a central project.

4. When doable, have the CEO or management members personally visit each remote site on a scheduled basis, every month, for instance.

5. Establish weekly phone-based staff meetings individually with each remote group so that each physical location will get time with top management.

6. If possible, get your whole group together once or twice a year for staff meetings, brainstorming and team building.

Dig Deeper: How to Improve Your Communications Skills

Managing Multiple Locations: The Global Workforce

Managing multiple locations across the U.S. is hard enough. But when you add a new sales office or manufacturing plant overseas, says Bloom, you can actually run into a host of new challenges associated with cross-cultural communication that include:

1. Time zones. There is limited or no overlap in the standard workday.

2. Language. Even if everyone has a common language, English for example, differences in accents, language fluency, and the use of slang expressions can make communication extremely difficult, particularly on conference calls and speakerphones.

3. Social norms. Cultural differences from country to country can accidentally cause tension, embarrassment, and miscommunication.

3. Holiday schedules. Scheduled meetings, reporting deadlines, cash flows and standard business processes can be derailed or delayed based on local holiday schedules.

4. Technical connectivity. Not all countries have high-speed connectivity at all locations.

5. Labor laws. Laws regarding hiring, employee termination, hours worked, layoffs, sexual harassment differ from country to country.

6. Business-related laws, ethics, and practices. Business is conducted very differently from country to country.

7. Personal-privacy laws. In European Union member states, the laws regarding the personal use, storage, and transport of personal information are quite stringent compared with those in the U.S.

Dig Deeper: Building the Best Virtual Workforce

Managing Multiple Locations: Adapting to Different Cultures

Bloom suggests tackling these challenges by considering the following tips:

1. Find one key contact in each country that is very knowledgeable in local customs, business practices, and laws.

2. Learn to pronounce people’s names correctly.

3. Gain a basic understanding of country politics and current events.

4. Know the names of your managers and leaders in those countries and pronounce their names correctly.

5. Find ways to take advantage of the time zone differences.

6. Be respectful of the differences between people and cultures.

The bottom line in managing multiple locations, says Martinez, is to help make everyone in your company feel motivated and part of the team, regardless of where they do their work. “When your people feel good and that they matter, they will perform better,” he says.

Dig Deeper: How to Be a Lead Teams in Emerging Markets

Managing Multiple Locations: Additional Resources

Corporate Agility: A Revolutionary New Model for Competing in a Flat World, by Charles Grantham, James P. Ware and Cory Williamson (AMACOM, 2007.) This book will show you how to get your company to embrace new technology, understand the ever-changing workforce, and rethink the way you structure work environments to deal with the global economy.

Competing in a Flat World: Building Enterprises for a Borderless World, by Victor K. Fung, William K. Fung and Yoram (Jerry) Wind (Wharton School Publishing, 2007.) A book filled with solid tips to create a flexible organization capable of competing anywhere.

The Facility Management Handbook, by David G. Cotts Kathy O. Roper and Richard P. Payant (AMACOM, 2009.)
A great reference guide for understanding and implementing best practices for the modern workplace.

First-Time Owners Find Management Comes With Headaches

Wall Street Journal | Small Business By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN – FEBRUARY 24, 2010

When Cameron Madill launched Synotac Design LLC in 2003, wiping away tears and giving pep talks wasn’t on his to-do list. But once he began hiring employees for his Web-site development firm two years later, he learned that dealing with people matters comes with the job.

“I was interested in building a company,” says Mr. Madill, a first-time business owner in Portland, Ore. “I never thought through that it meant I would have to hire people, terminate people and do all of the things associated with being a boss.”

It’s common for first-time entrepreneurs to overlook responsibilities tied to managing people when starting out, says Edward P. Marram, a senior lecturer of entrepreneurship at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. With all the focus on selling a new product or service, “most don’t think about being a boss,” he says.

But at some point, business owners typically need help to grow, Mr. Marram says, and that means hiring staff, delegating responsibilities, and learning to be effective managers. For the inexperienced, those management duties can be challenging, depressing and sometimes plain awkward.

For instance, entrepreneur Lisa Morris last year had to deal with an employee who accidentally copied her on a highly graphic email to a hotel sales manager. “He was saying he’d do certain things to the person’s body for good rates,” recalls Ms. Morris, owner of Road Concierge Inc., a travel- and concierge-services firm in New York. “We’re all about servicing our clients, but not actually servicing them.”

Ms. Morris, who started her business in 2006, says she felt “really uncomfortable” scolding the employee for his behavior because ruling with an iron fist isn’t her style. “I don’t like to be very corporate,” she says, adding that she runs a casual office where employees’ pets are welcome.

Still, while it was clear that the email exchange wasn’t serious, nor was the recipient offended, Ms. Morris says she needed to stress that a repeat performance would be unacceptable. “I hate having to act like a mom,” she says. “But there are times when you can’t be nice. You’re the boss and you have to enforce policy.”

Many first-time business owners struggle with laying down the law because they are in fact former corporate employees who became entrepreneurs in part to escape rigid work environments. The worst situation, however, is having to tell an employee you can no longer keep them on board.

Sandy Sabean, co-owner of Womenkind, pictured center, meets with employees Lara Ngai, left, and Betsy Handwerker, right.

“You feel terrible,” says Sandy Sabean, co-owner of Womenkind LLC, a New York marketing-communications firm with five employees. Last year, she says, she laid off two workers for the first time after the company lost a bid. “When you have to let someone out on the street under those circumstances it’s hard,” she says. “It’s sad.”

Gary Hewing, co-owner of Bert Martinez Communications LLC, a sales- and business-training firm in Houston and Scottsdale, Ariz, says it’s just as rough to fire someone for poor performance. “You know they’ll have a tough time finding a job and that you’re giving this person the last check they may have for months,” he says. “It’s extremely difficult. I do not appreciate that aspect of the job.”

Some inexperienced entrepreneurs are caught off guard by just how significant a role a boss plays within a small company.

Mr. Madill, whose Web-design firm has eight employees, learned that lesson about three years ago when a worker who was hired to do miscellaneous tasks refused to take on a new assignment and subsequently offered her resignation.

A self-described pushover, Mr. Madill agree to let her stay on the company payroll for the next six weeks while she searched for a new employer. “She helped build the company,” he says. “You feel some loyalty to your first few hires.”

But the decision drew resentment from the rest of the company’s staff, says Mr. Madill, particularly because the uncompromising employee did little work from that point on. “It led to an unbelievably toxic atmosphere,” he says. And when the problem worker was finally gone, things changed dramatically. “Productivity suddenly increased,” he says. “You would’ve thought we hired a person the day she left.”

Mr. Madill says he since changed his outlook on business leadership thanks to the advice of counselors at Accelerator, a nationwide support organization for early-stage entrepreneurs. Other support groups small businesses can turn to for advice include Young Entrepreneur, Energizing Young Entrepreneurs and SCORE.

Now Mr. Madill believes that as a business owner, “you only have an obligation to make (your employees) successful to the extent that they give more back to the company,” he says. “And if someone doesn’t understand that, it’s not your responsibility to educate them.”

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com

Internal Hires, Referrals Were Most Hired in 2009

Wall Street Journal | By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

Last year, employers filled more than half of job openings with existing employees, a new study to be released Friday shows.

Internal transfers and promotions accounted for an average of 51% of all full-time positions filled in 2009, down from 39% in 2008 and 34% in 2007, reports CareerXroads, a staffing-strategy consulting firm in Kendall Park, N.J. Survey respondents included 41 companies that employ a combined 1.8 million U.S. workers. Last year these firms collectively filled 176,420 positions.

For the 49% of jobs that were filled with external recruits, referrals accounted for the most hires — 27% — and about the same number as in 2008. On average, these yielded one hire for every 15 referrals received. Meanwhile, company Web sites and job boards accounted for 22% and 13% of external hires, respectively.

What the findings indicate, says Mark Mehler, co-founder of CareerXroads, is that networking is the most effective strategy for landing employment. “Job seekers should use job board and corporate sites to find information about openings, but they should use their network to apply,” says Mark Mehler, co-founder of CareerXroads.

Among the job boards that respondents credited for netting outside talent, CareerBuilder.com came out on top, accounting for 42%, however one respondent claimed a significant portion of these. Monster.com netted 12% of external hires, while aggregate job sites, which advertise openings from multiple job boards, hooked 10%. Classifieds provider Craigslist.org accounted for 2.8% of external hires.

Survey respondents also said outside talent was found via job boards that specialize in advertising open positions in specific categories. For example, Dice.com, a job board for the technology sector, netted 0.8% of external hires, as did TheLadders.com, which lists only positions paying salaries of $100,000 or more. All other niche job sites that employers identified were collectively credited with bringing in 27% of external recruits.

Going forward, the survey found that 48% of respondents expect to increase hiring in 2010 compared with last year, while just 11% predicted they’d reduce hiring. The remainder said they expect to make no changes to their head counts.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department reported Thursday that there were 2.5 million job openings on the last business day of December 2009. The seasonally adjusted job openings rate increased just slightly to 1.9% from 1.8% the month prior.

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com

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