Capital Markets, Investments, Jobs & Careers

Insider view of the Hedge Funds Industry

TJC: Thanks for joining in. How do you define a Hedge Fund? And how do you see the current state of the Hedge Fund Industry?

Industry Exec: Hedge funds are pooled investment funds with relatively less SEC regulation (in the US), and are therefore different mutual funds. Certain hedge funds are required to register with SEC as investment advisers under the Investment Advisers Act.  The Act does not require an adviser to follow or avoid any particular investment strategies, nor does it require or prohibit specific investments. Hedge funds typically charge a fee greater than 1%, plus a “performance fee” of 20% of a hedge fund’s profits. There may be a “lock-up” period, during which an investor cannot cash in shares. Continue reading →

FAQ, Healthcare

Creating a Strong Immune System For You and Your Family

Staying healthy depends critically on the health of your immune system. Studies show that the supplement 1-3, 1-6 beta glucans is one of the most powerful ways to support the immune system. So much so that the US Government is now testing one brand of beta glucans with a view to stockpiling it as a protective measure against the possibility of nuclear radiation – see later.

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Sales Coaching

It’s How You Say It That Increases Sales – Sales Coaching

The way you present your services is how you package them. The way you package your services determines “sale” or “no sale”. Even when what you’re offering is the very same thing it’s how you say it that makes the difference and increases sales.

When you were a newbie you were trained, perhaps I should even say grilled, to follow a prepared presentation. It didn’t take you long to figure out when you use a “presentation” you’re selling no ifs, ands, or buts about it. And people hate to be sold.

And now, you’ve put your presentation away and you focus on holding a sales conversation. Good for you. However; you may have some of those old features, advantages, and benefits statements hanging around keeping you from selling more.

Believe me you want to have a sales conversation because when you do it feels far more natural for both you and the prospect, and you close nearly every prospect who’s a good match. To do that you have to identify where the prospect is in the buying stage, and then you adjust your conversation to meet them where they are. This makes it possible for you to achieve far greater success in less time.

By the way, sales people have a tendency to either presume each prospect is in the first stage or the last stage of buyer readiness. When you’re wrong you start off on the wrong foot and it’s very difficult to connect with the prospect, and obtain them as a client. You’re out of sync and they won’t feel comfortable with you or buying from you.

Just think about it: when you connect with a prospect

  • they may have no idea they have a need for your solution,
  • they may have some recognition they have a certain level of need for your solution but they aren’t ready to do anything about it,
  • they may be thinking about your solution and investigating their options,
  • or they may have an immediate need for your solution and be looking to buy now.

These are the four very distinct levels of buyer readiness. You don’t want to treat each prospect as though they’re in the same stage of readiness. The only way you can know is by asking questions. 

Listen to what they say before you respond and adapt how you respond to what they say. You’re very familiar with feature, advantage, and benefit statements. All three are absolutely worthless if they don’t match the buyer’s needs.

Plus those statements are focused on selling someone something not helping them buy what’s right for them. Instead, you only talk about features you’ve determined from your conversation are of interest to the buyer. You’ve gotten down to the details of their current situation and what they need, so you know when something about your service is an advantage and only point that advantage out if it’s relevant. You also understand the only time something is a benefit is if it directly fulfills a want the prospect says they have.

You’ll be glad you’ve made these little adaptations in your sales conversation because you’ll immediately notice an increase in sales. You’ll also notice both you and your prospects feel very comfortable talking to each other because they don’t feel like they’re being sold, and you don’t feel like you’re swimming upstream in a white water rapids. It’s a win-win leading to loyal clients willing to do repeat business with you and refer you to others.

Yes, now you can discover the “7 Secrets” [http://increasesalescoach.com/]

Turn yourself into a Sales Genie [http://increasesalescoach.com/marketing-article]

Increase Sales Coach Gets Results Sales Training Can’t BECAUSE it’s never just a sales issue

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1140280

Leadership

Leadership – Do You Have It

If you could improve your results by 25-30% what would that mean to you?

There is no magic formula or product to offer. However, sustainable, measurable results of 25-30% increase in productivity IS possible–the answer lies in one word…leadership. Sales are important, marketing is important, PR is important, but without leadership they will all eventually fall short.

Leadership is a word frequently misunderstood and misused. Dr. Creflo Dollar has said “If you don’t know the purpose of a thing, abuse is inevitable.” The same holds true for leadership. Leadership is not based on position or even job function. There are often people who are in positions of “leadership” that do not exhibit leadership skills. Likewise, there are “leaders” throughout an organization who, because they lack the “title,” are not given the opportunity to lead. Everyone has leadership potential; however, it must be developed and true leadership must be understood.

Of all the definitions of leadership, Peter F. Drucker says it best,

“Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not “making friends and influencing people”, that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.”

Why is leadership so important? John Maxwell calls it the “Law of the Lid:” a business or organization can only grow to the limits of its leadership. If the leadership is weak, it doesn’t matter how great the concept, product or service, it will never achieve financial greatness or market dominance. Fail-Safe Leadership authors Linda Martin and Dr. David Mutchler identified symptoms of ineffective leadership, some of which are listed below (take the full leadership test to see how your organization fares):

 

  • Excessive meetings
  • Lack of personal accountability
  • Difficulty terminating poor performers

Other symptoms include:

 

 

  • Unclear (or complete lack of) organizational goals
  • Cliques (among management/leadership team)
  • Declining customer/membership base

An organization that reflects any combination of the above symptoms may have a leadership challenge. That is not to say there are no leaders, or that you, the reader, are an ineffective leader, it does mean a leadership challenge exists. While these symptoms have dire consequences if not corrected, they can be changed.

 

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR LEADERSHIP

Before you can expect improved results, there must be a positive behavior change. Any change in behavior is a result of goals that are set (the best goal setting process includes the five critical core elements of goal setting). However, the key to achieving goals rests in our attitude. You may have heard this poem:

Watch your thoughts, they become words.

Watch your words, they become actions.

Watch your actions, they become habits.

Watch your habits, they become character.

Watch your character, it becomes your destiny. (Unknown)

You can not expect sustained, measurable improvement in your results without first changing the attitudes of your leaders. The many “New Year’s Resolutions” that have been set and failed is a perfect illustration. Goals were set, intentions were good but two things happened: 1) you didn’t change your attitude about the habit being changed, and 2) you failed to use all five of the critical elements of goal setting, primarily the consideration of obstacles. Think about it, nothing truly changes until we change our attitude about it.

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Leadership

Strategic Leadership

Mission, vision, values, goals, objectives, and strategic planning are just some of the leadership buzzwords of the late 20th Century. Virtually all professional executives have attempted to understand what all the buzzwords mean and make them a reality. Few have succeeded and most continue to search for what bridges the gap between leadership theory and leadership reality. That bridge may well be the new buzzwords for the 21st Century. They are “Strategic Leadership”.

Strategic Leadership is a process that is simple in its basic form, easily applied, and has the potential of yielding significant results. Leading strategically means having a comprehensive strategy for the immediate future. Unlike strategic planning, which is long term for the whole organization, Strategic Leadership is short term designed for the executive and staff.
Since September 11th, “doing more with less” has been the theme of many organizational budgets. With the economic instability, stock market uncertainty, the war on terrorism, and additional military conflicts on the horizon, many organizational priorities have changed. Many organizations are just trying to survive, as budgets have not increased or, worse yet, some have decreased. As a result, leaders are again called upon to be creative as they strive to accomplish their goals. Having to accomplish more than the available resources will allow, many leaders will be forced to try and accomplish more by doing more. Strategic Leadership offers the professional executive the solution too not only accomplishing more with less but by doing less.

“This short passage describes how an early CEO, CFO, HR Director (Moses) is being overwhelmed while leading the children of Israel toward the Promised Land. Help arrives one day in the person of Jethro, the Priest of Midian (who also happens to be Moses’ father-in-law). After a few days of observing Moses in action, Jethro takes him aside to offer some friendly advice. The following is a very loose translation of the conversation between what may well be the first management consultant-client relationship in recorded history.

Jethro: “Moses, your doing it all wrong! You’re wearing yourself out, as well as your people, by trying to do to much.” (i.e. accomplish more by doing more?)

Moses: “You may be right. I’m putting in very long hours and working harder and harder; but what else can I do? My people expect a lot from me, and I don’t want to let them down!”

Jethro: “Here is a better way to get the job done: Select some trusted subordinates, and instruct them to deal with all but the most important issues your people bring to them for judgment. In that way you may actually accomplish more for your people than you can by trying to do everything yourself.” (i.e. accomplish more by doing less?)

Exodus 18:24-27 picks up the story:

So Moses gave heed to the voice of his father-in-law, and did all that he said. Moses chose able men out of all of Israel, and made them heads over the people; rulers of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And they judged the people at all times; hard cases they brought to Moses, but all the small matters they decided themselves. Then Moses let his father-in-law depart… to his own country.” (Lasagna)

Moses took the first of several steps required to implement Strategic Leadership. Strategic Leadership, similar in some respects to strategic planning, is about action, not just a written document that all to often sits on a shelf or in a drawer and is very rarely reviewed. Strategic Leadership is a daily process that should be reviewed at staff meetings. Effective Strategic Leadership is a fluid, dynamic process that requires constant vigilance. Integral to the success of Strategic Leadership is the P.O.L.I.C.E. Leadership Methodology:

P: Planning

O: Organizing

L: Liability/accountability

I: Information/communication

C: Control/accountability

E: Ethics/integrity

The P.O.L.I.C.E. Leadership Methodology ensures that the Strategic Leadership process is grounded on a foundation of accountability. With all of the scandals surrounding CEO’s of both public and private organizations, accountability to all stakeholders has come to the forefront and should make Strategic Leadership very attractive to the professional executive.

Like Moses, the professional executive must take that first step and come to the conclusion that there has to be a better way to accomplish the mission of the organization. The implementation of Strategic Leadership requires an introspective assessment of the programs, goals, and tasks of the organization. Many executives are biased in their assessment, which can degrade the effectiveness of Strategic Leadership. An outside review offers the best, unbiased assessment, to make educated decisions from.

In the second step, the executive is introduced to strategic thinking. “Strategic thinking means asking, Are we doing the right thing? Perhaps, more precisely, it means making that assessment using three key requirements about strategic thinking: a definite purpose be in mind; an understanding of the environment, particularly of the forces that affect or impede the fulfillment of that purpose; and creativity in developing effective responses to those forces.” (Bryson) In assessing those forces that can affect or impede the success, the executive and staff will determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (S.W.O.T.) to each strategy. In particular, the executive must be cognizant of the budgetary restraints and political implications (threats) to certain strategies and initiatives. The executive will participate in the “I want” brainstorming session. Every executive in every organization has a vision of what they want to accomplish. Some are more realistic than others. “Fewer have a clear, succinct, and useful vision of success.” (Bryson) Sadly, many of their “I want” to accomplish will not come to fruition. Not because their goals are unrealistic but because so many executives are bogged down with the minutia of leadership (Moses) and can’t get many of the important (critical) things done.

During this session the executive is tasked to list the “I want” to accomplish for himself and the staff within the next year. The executive is encouraged to “shotgun” his ideas for the organization regardless of how unrealistic they may be. At this point, Pareto’s 80/20 Rule is introduced. Count Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) was an Italian economist who observed that 20% of his fellow countrymen owned 80% of the country’s wealth. He concluded that their success was dependent upon focusing on the critical few (20%) and they did not waste valuable time on the trivial many (80%). “The Rule and Its Corollary: Pareto’s rule states that a small number of causes is responsible for a large percentage of the effect, in a ratio of about 20:80. Expressed in a management context, 20% of a person’s effort generates 80% of the person’s results. The corollary to this is that 20% of one’s results absorb 80% of one’s resources or efforts. For the effective use of resources, the manager’s challenge is to distinguish the right 20% from the trivial many.” (Hafner) “The leader of an organization must remember that 80% of his problems come from 20% of the workforce; when 80% of your events are not within your control, focus on the 20% you can do something about. Utilizing the 80/20 Rule in tandem with strategic thinking, the executive determines what are the critical few (20%) on the list that he will need to concentrate on. The number of critical few will vary depending on the size of the organization. In addition, the P.O.L.I.C.E. Leadership Methodology is introduced into the process. A major component to the success of Strategic Leadership is the accountability factor. When the critical few and trivial many are established, then who is accountable for the achieving these goals, along with a reasonable timetable, is established.

In the third step, the facilitator will hold a meeting with the executive and the staff. The facilitator will explain Strategic Leadership, the 80/20 Rule, and S.W.O.T. to the staff. The executive will outline his critical few and a roundtable discussion should take place. All of the interactive sessions are informal and directed at achieving consensus through teamwork. All participants will discuss the pros and cons of the critical few. The end result, with the input of the staff, may be that some of the critical few are not feasible. Once a consensus has been reached, the executive will be assigned the task of writing out a strategy (plan) for accomplishing the critical few assigned to him.

In the fourth step, the facilitator will meet individually with each member of the staff. This is the “I will” accomplish development session. “I will” is an action statement. It is not, “I might, maybe, I think so, or I probably can.” The staff member will review each of the critical few that he is assigned and during discussion with the facilitator come up with a strategy (plan) to accomplish the goal. Staff members are not only responsible for their “I will” statement. They are encouraged to be future thinkers and empowered to state what they want to accomplish during the next year. The staff member will be assigned the task of writing out a strategy, and timetable for accomplishing the assigned tasks and the tasks they see as significant to their area of responsibility for the next year. Staff members will have the opportunity to discuss their strategies with the executive.

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