The Thriving Small Business

tips for small business

12 Steps to Contract Negotiations

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The ability to negotiate a vendor contract is a skill that every business owner will need at one time or another.

Whether it is the decision to outsource a service, or negotiate the price for new office equipment, business leaders will need to fine tune their negotiation skills.

Most of us don’t have the natural ability to negotiate so the trick is to use a systematic and unbiased approach to negotiate vendor contracts. Read the Full Article →

8 Sustainable Business Practices – Are You Doing Your Part?

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There seems to be more and more education on the importance of corporate social responsibility in support of sustainable business practices.

The increasingly popular green approaches to business practices is what sustainability is all about.

Sustainability is a term that has grown in popularity and has become a catchphrase for green business practices that has been incorporated into many corporate strategies. Read the Full Article →

12 Competencies Every Manager Should Master

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There is a first time for everything and managing other people can be a scary first.

Granted, some people are natural leaders and can get up to speed very quickly. However, most need some help developing important manager competencies.

Manager competencies can improve management skills and influence the behavior of others – which can result in a positive impact on the bottom line. Read the Full Article →

The 5 Step Process of Strategic Planning

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Strategic plans help identify what an organization is striving to achieve and maps out the necessary steps needed to be successful.

It used to be that strategic plans would go out for ten years but organizations today typically look 2-3 years down the road – some industries just plan year by year. Read the Full Article →

7 Management Tools for Quality Control

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Many organizations use quality tools to help monitor and manage their quality initiatives.

There are several types of tools that can be used.  However, there are seven management tools for quality control that are the most common.

Different tools are used for different problem-solving opportunities, and many of the tools can be used in different ways. Read the Full Article →

Service Recovery – 5 Tips For Successful Service Recovery

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Great customer service is the cornerstone of any successful business. Knowing who the customers are, what they want and making an effort to exceed customer expectations – is the key to business success.

Unless an organization understands this very basic principle, it will have a difficult time achieving desired results.

What is service recovery?

Read the Full Article →

Advantages and Disadvantages of 360° Feedback

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One common tool that is used for managing and assessing  employee performance is a 360° Feedback process.

What is 360° Feedback?

“A 360-degree feedback is a process through which feedback from an employee’s subordinates, colleagues, and supervisor, as well as a self-evaluation by the employee themselves is gathered.” Wikipedia

This tool is used to solicit feedback from all coworker perspectives. Read the Full Article →

What is the Definition and Meaning of Tacit Knowledge?

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Tacit knowledge is one of the most important and valuable resources organizations have. This unwritten knowledge base is often overlooked and unappreciated.

The definition and meaning of tacit knowledge is:

“all of the collective know-how, techniques, processes and difficult to articulate expertise that is part of an individual’s or organization’s knowledge base.   Read the Full Article →

9 Inhibitors to Business Growth

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Why is it that some companies are birthed and grow very quickly – seemingly overnight?

While other organizations putter along at the same stagnant pace for years – or die a slow death.

There are several fundamental things that influence growth and when organizations neglect these business basics – it hinders growth. Read the Full Article →

8 Steps To Performing An Internal Audit

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Internal audits help organizations achieve corporate objectives by keeping a pulse on the consistency of internal business practices.

The goal of an internal audit is to ensure organizational policies and procedures are followed and to alert management of gaps in policy compliance.

The internal audit process can be done with internal resources or can be outsourced to an external third party vendor. Read the Full Article →

7 Tips To Foster And Manage Innovation In Your Office

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Innovation is the golden key to success for business. However you need to know how to manage innovation to set yourself apart from the rest!

Innovative people have been around since the beginning of time. These creative doers have literally change the world.

Without creative and innovative ideas, we would not be where we are today in terms of product development, technology and the way we deliver service to customers. Read the Full Article →

7 Steps to Implementing Business Strategy

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Business success is the result of strategy, planning and management skills.  

Every business should have a strategy and a plan.

However, a strategic plan is only as effective as the supporting goals that are written to implement it.

And goals are only as effective as the people who have responsibility for completing them. Read the Full Article →