This is how to uncover the amount of stock held by the officer of any publicly held company.  Go to the NASDAQ web site and enter the stock ticker symbol for the company you are interested in. Click on ‘Flash Quotes’. Use the drop down box to select ‘Insider Form 4′. Scan down the list until you find the company officer’s name you are interested in. Click on that name. Go to the top of the list which should be the latest date. Move your eyes to the far right column entitled ‘holdings’. That is how many shares that officer currently holds and controls. Multiply that number by the most recent price for the company’s stock and you will arrive at a dollar figure.

Of course, that figure will change from day to day. You may be amazed at just how high that number is. Consider that this is merely the officer’s current stock holdings. It doesn’t tell you how many shares he has sold in the past; it also doesn’t tell you how many shares the company will grant him or her in the future.

When you start to look at these figures you may find them amazing. If you are currently a company CEO or officer, the numbers will not shock you because you will already be familiar with them. However, if you are currently an employee for a publicly held company you may wonder about the discrepancy between your salary and the officers’ stock holdings.

Some will say, “but the CEO and other officers worked hard for their money”. And that may very well be true. But did they really work any harder than you on a day to day basis? And if they did, does the harder work they did add up to account for the discrepancy between an average worker’s pay and a company officer’s stock holdings? Chances are, the answer is no.

This leads to some interesting realizations about how our economy works. The days of serfdom are supposed to be over, but are they really? We now have an economic feudal system. The real estate owned and tribute collected by a monarch have been replaced with stock compensation for corporate officers and owners. But the serf or worker is the one who does the work. The monarch and his court are still the ones who reap the rewards.

In private companies you probably won’t be able to find out the information that you can find on the NASDAQ web site about publicly traded companies. I think it is a good thing that the SEC or Securities and Exchange Commission requires this information to be available to the public. Of course, it is meant to be available to potential investors. But if you own stock in your company via a 401K plan, then you are an investor.

Besides the NASDAQ web site, you can also find this information on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s web site. In fact, there is a wealth of information out there to discover. In many instances it is actually easier to find on the NASDAQ web site.

Perhaps knowing the value of the stock held by company officers will make you less timid about asking for that raise you’ve been thinking about. Knowledge often equates to power.

Category of Heavy Transport Workers
Workers in the heavy transport industry may be categorized into two groups: the laborers and the operators. The laborers work manually while the operators handle machinery and other equipments. These are the industrial truck and tractor operators, crane and tower operators; dredge operators, underground mining loading machine operators, pump operators and many others.

According to their designation, these workers perform their duties. Like the truck, tank and ship loaders work for loading and unloading material at the dock. The shuttle car operators are responsible for the running of electric or diesel cars in the underground mines. Machine feeders are responsible for oiling and maintaining machinery. Wellhead pump operators take care of smooth flow of gas or oil from power pumps and auxiliary equipment. Similarly, all types of workers strive to do their particular assigned jobs. They are, thus known according to the work they perform.

Heavy Transport: Nature of Work
Heavy transport work is repetitive in nature. It may seem monotonous to workers. Therefore, shifting the duty time seems an appropriate option. Workers generally put in eight hours shifts and some times even longer. Many factories have round-the-clock shifts. Workers are hence required to do night shifts as well. The working conditions of heavy transport workers are at par with any other profession, when it comes to the hours put in.

Heavy transport is a thriving business. It provides employment to large number of people. It is on this business that a large number of big enterprises and factories depend.

It is true that the lure of starting the e-commerce business is powerful. An endeavor as such usually requires little or no capital investment, a credit card processing account, and rudimentary knowledge of HTML coding. These three elements compose the basic formula for starting an e-commerce business. There is a marked difference in the formula for starting a business and the formula for maintaining a business. To expound on the latter, what truly makes a business thrive is proper customer relationship management and immediate telephone / live voice account support. This is the key component that is missing from most on-line or “virtual” businesses.

Take, for instance, the internet based company Netflix. If you are unfamiliar with the company, they are a relatively young e-commerce business specializing in mail order DVD rental. The minds behind the ingenious idea that is the basis of Netflix failed to create telephone support for their product. There is no doubt this decision was a calculated one as they most likely weighed the cost of maintaining an in-house call center vs. integrating purely e-mail based support.  Without looking at the numbers side of the argument, imagine the frustrated consumer having problems with their order and having to rely on a 24 hour lagged e-mail response system to rectify their account issues. Based on this plausible conjecture, I believe lack of live operator support will be the ruin of the Netflix organization and the downfall of all e-commerce businesses that follow the same train of thought. What these businesses do not realize is that it is possible and extremely cost effective to outsource your call center needs to an established advanced call center facility. This solution has a two fold benefit. It serves to establish a solid foundation of customer relationship management and opens businesses up to benefit from word of mouth advertising.

I believe even a small internet business can greatly benefit from utilizing a call center to manage their customer service or sales calls. The initial investment is usually zero (excluding research time to find the appropriate facility) and most call centers charge on a per call basis (meaning you only get charged for the calls they actually receive). If looking at business from the customer’s perspective as opposed to looking at it from an initial profit standpoint, it behooves all e-commerce businesses to initially setup a live call center to manage all of their calls. If the infrastructure is not initially setup correctly, your business may fail before it has even begun.

Most people who work for themselves say they chose to do so because they wanted to “control their time.”  People who value time over money, recognize that time is a precious commodity that cannot be created, bought, or borrowed.  You have to use it wisely or else it is gone.

Having the luxury to control how, with whom, and where you spend your time is one of the bonuses of working for yourself.  So, why is it that an overwhelming number of female entrepreneurs also say they feel guilty when they are not working on their businesses or with a client between the hours of 9 am to 5 pm?

To be truly happy and successful as an entrepreneur, you must break the corporate-created walls of time and learn how to set your day according to your needs and the needs of your clients.  There is no law chaining you to your desk eight hours a day between 9 am and 5 pm.

Here’s my advice: stop feeling guilty about when you are working and when you are not, and ditch the idea of playing by rules set up by other organizations.  Make sure you benefit from the freedoms of entrepreneurship and maximize your time by performing regular activities such as food shopping at off times like 10 am on a Tuesday or having your teeth cleaned at 2pm on a Monday.   You will spend less time waiting in line, you will be less stressed, and actually have more time to devote to your clients and other activities, then if you went on a weekend or during a busier time.

Of course, be sure to take a day or two off completely during the holidays to go gift shopping, ice-skating, or for decorating your home.  Give yourself permission to enjoy your life and do something for yourself, even if it is on a week day between nine and five.  You deserve it.

Happy holidays!

A call to customer service can be an infuriating ending to a frustrating experience.  You’re upset and looking for empathy, but all you encounter is disappointment.  Could Company X have done something differently?  Probably, but if you follow these tips when dealing with customer service, you’ll be in the driver’s seat for the next dispute.

1. Be prepared.

Seems basic, right?  Unless you’ve called Company X several times, you’re probably not familiar with their required information.  Have every tracking number, account number, itemized statement, and order number before you call.  Customer service representatives are held responsible for torturous call-handling metrics designed by masochistic management.  Length of call, resolution (if the customer calls back to the company within an allocated amount of time), and randomly monitored calls are measured stringently.  Bottom line: they want to help you quickly and completely, lest a superior crack a whip.

2. Be nice.

Customer service representatives speak with upset, irritated, and/or irate people all day.  Every day.  You may not agree with a credit denial, but screaming “the customer is always right, (expletive)!” will not help.  Be pleasant and the rules may be malleable.  Be another unpleasant customer and the guidelines will be set in stone.

3. Know when to call, know when to write.

If you need to request a price quote, add/remove a feature, or ask for explanation of a bill, e-mail is the most efficient route for your correspondence.  For repair concerns or credit requests, call customer service.  Repair specialists will need to troubleshoot and get access information should a technician need to be dispatched.  Credit requests can be handled via e-mail, however, it is easier to reply with a “credit denied” form letter than to deny credit to a real, live person.

4. Get on record.

If something is not working properly, call the company immediately.  If there is a cable, satellite, or phone outage, Company X will only be able to diagnose and correct the problem if they are notified a problem exists.  This also establishes a record of communication should you need to request a credit or refund at a later date.

5. Be persistent, but not obnoxious.

Many companies have guidelines for dispensing credit that require denial the first time for any request that is not a previously-reported “out of service” issue or a known billing error.  The second time a credit request is made, these guidelines can be relaxed.  If you have followed the “be nice” tip above, you may be rewarded with your credit request.

Following these five tips will help you get what you want in the most efficient manner possible.  Stay tuned for the next installment to find out how you can aggravate the customer service experience and actually delay resolution!

Despite his success with the ice cream parlors, Tony didn’t stop there. He looked around the world and saw the kind of success chains like McDonalds were having. Instead of opening a franchise for an existing fast food chain like Burger King or Wendy’s, he decided to expand with the opening of his own chain of hamburger-serving fast food restaurants named Jollibee in 1978.

Since McDonald’s hadn’t yet entered into the Philippines, Tony capitalized on this fact by establishing his brand among the Filipino people. Instead of trying to learn everything from scratch, Tony traveled to the United States to learn the tricks of the trade from the already established chains such as McDonalds. By implementing these tried and true business practices back in the Phlippines, Tony’s hard work began to pay off when his business began to rapidly expand. The division of Jollibee Philippines really tries to serve the specific needs of the Filipino people and its culture by focusing its product development as well as its marketing and advertising to target the unique and traditional Filipino family.

Today Tony Tan Caktiong serves as a success story and a role model for entrepreneurs around the world. This was solified in 2004 when Tony was voted the Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young. The chairman of Ernst and Young, James S. Turley said, “These awards are about celebrating global entrepreneurship and the desire to continually innovate and expand. Tony’s story is a truly inspirational one, on both these counts. We are delighted he has been selected to receive this year’s award.”

By giving away the initial consultation for free, you are diminishing the value of your talents and your services, and in turn hurting your chances of closing a great deal.  Potential customers who get the initial consultation for free are less likely to value what you do and will more likely balk at your fees.

You should absolutely charge a healthy amount for your initial consultation.  This approach will help eliminate “bad clients” or clients who are just price shopping or looking for free advise.  It will also increase the value of your creative services in the mind of the prospect.  Any potential client who is “offended” by paying for the consultation was most likely never really a potential client in the first place.  Turning away these types of people will help reduce the number of wasted consultations you present.
If you are already charging for your consultation, you should re-examine the amount you charge.  If you are not charging at least $100 for the consultation, you are probably going out on far more wasted meetings than you should.  Increase your consultation fee and tell the prospective buyer that you will put the consultation fee towards their project should they choose to hire you.  This approach reduces resistance to the higher amount.  It also increases the quality of your potential client and your chances of closing the sale.

Try this approach out on the next person who calls to set up a consultation and keep in mind that a major part of effective marketing and sales is weeding out bad clients and wasted initial consultations.  Stop giving away your consulting and you will change the value of your services in your mind and in the mind of your clients, which will help you increase your income, decrease your wasted time, and get better clients.

A disappointed customer is not only unhappy with your services, but they won’t recommend you to their friends. Even worse, an unsatisfied customer may tell their friends to simply not do business with you! Read on for some tips on how you can deliver right on time, every time and leave your customers satisfied and recommending you to their friends.

Successful sales people thrive by getting referrals from satisfied customers. You not only have a satisfied customer, but the opportunity for receiving highly recommended future prospects increases as well.

Here are a few things you should keep in mind when working with any client:

Keep your promises. If you tell your customer that you will provide x, y, z then you must deliver on x, y, z. Delivering anything less than what you promise makes you look like every other guy out there: a liar…at least in your customers’ eyes!

Do not over promise. Likely, your intentions are to come through to your customers as planned. However, are you tempted to give them the shortest possible turn around time just to close a sale? Don’t do that! Instead, build in some buffer time to allow for problems to arise, to be addressed, and to be moved out of the way.

Be a Hero, not a Zero. Smart salespeople have a very good idea when a job should be completed, but add in the buffer time anyway. Let’s say a job takes 10 days to do. Tell your customer that you will have it completed in 15 days. When you deliver earlier than planned, you’ll come out looking like a hero. Deliver late and you’ll look bad – And you will have to come up with some sort of costly “extra” to soothe their wounds!

So, what do you do with those customers who have a, “I want it done yesterday” mentality? Emphasize quality! That’s right, instead of falsely promising that you can get the job done within their ridiculously short timeframe, give them a realistic timeframe and mention that this is the time needed to “get the job done right the first time.” You’ll help move them away from an untenable deadline to one that is based on reality. Emphasize quality over everything else and you will have their attention.

Remember: a satisfied customer is a happy customer and they will cost you less in the long run. Meet or beat your deadline each and every time and you’ll have a customer who is very satisfied with your services and they will recommend you to their friends. You will save money, time, and aggravation – and you will profit immensely over the long run.

For more sales training tips and strategies, visit the article directory at:
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Trade shows are not open to the public and can only be attended by company representatives, members of the trade and members of the press. One advantage of holding a trade show is that it shortens the time it takes for companies to look for prospective customers. But the major disadvantage is that customers and prospects pay little attention to the many exhibitors and their products due to the many distractions and the busy atmosphere inherent in trade shows.

Exhibitors can make effective use of trade show displays in trade shows to direct visitors to their main display area. Trade show displays are used to give visitors a better understanding or appreciation of the products or services being marketed. Although exhibitors are only supposed to put their trade show displays within the confines of their designated trade show exhibit area, exhibitors also display items in strategic areas of the fair grounds. Trade show displays often used include banner stands, counters and cabinets, panel display etc. that clearly display the company logo, basic company information and company slogan.

The trade show booth is an important component of the trade show display as it aims to enhance the brand and marketing experience for the visitor. It facilitates valuable direct face-to-face contact between the companies and their prospective customers. The whole booth set-up includes counters kiosks, lighting, flooring, literature racks, banner stands and high impact graphics, with the booth design, the staffing and the handouts the main factors to a successful trade show booth.

Many companies prefer to rent pre-owned trade show exhibits and displays rather than to buy or to create them from scratch to save on the trade show booth construction costs and also on the expense of warehousing the displays after the trade show is over.

Trade shows demand a lot of work and effort, and exhibitors have to plan well in advance so as to make the trade show a success. It is because any successful trade show offers exhibitors with a very valuable opportunity to build relationships face-to-face with their clients and to close lucrative business deals.

It is a good question, and one I wanted to know myself. I choose a company that offered so called “Free Business Cards” and began to browse their website.

I first noticed that they didn’t just have the free business cards offer, but they also sold upgrades to the free package. Is that how they make their money? Only off of the upgrades?

This particular company also sold magnetic business cards, plastic business cards, metal business cards, and other types of business cards. In addition to the business cards, they also sold company letterhead, custom printed envelopes, and other types of office stationery.

The free business cards offer was beginning to make a little more sense.

I would guess that the percentage of people taking the free business cards are mainly business people. Those people probably also need envelopes, letterhead and other office stationery. Maybe they make their money on the upsell.

But are they really free?

I decided that I should go ahead and order some of these free business cards. This way I would know for sure whether or not the business cards are really free.

I decided which company I would order from then went to the order section

The first thing I had to do was design my business card. After my design I got to the order section, are they really free after all the work I did?

When I got to the final checkout, there were many options, more upgrades available. I chose not to get additional cards. Then I had to choose not to have my free business cards laminated.

After all of this, I found out that “Free Business Cards” are really free!