My Haiku Holiday

The country is such in a somber mood. Add to that the dreariness of this city; no big shops are open on a Good Friday. I prefer to rejoice in my freedom while others are trapped in their tradition. *grin

In my silent corner, I chose to be grateful for what I have now.  I wrote a Haiku as a celebration.

Haiku: Midday

cloud ribbons on wings

dramatic cerulean sky

a feast for the eye.

I’m relieved at least to breathe these words out and they become my own once more.

This Friday is indeed good.

I Love This Life!

Yes, it dawned on me, this is the life that I wanted…

Moment by moment, bit by bit, it’s sweet.

This point, I’m kinda contemplating again on investing on some good camera to start my journey in photography.  I’m thinking that these shots in the future, will definitely end up in a book– MY OWN BOOK. With plenty of poetry,  and musings and writings from the depths of me.

And pardon that the following lines had to jump into here, and won’t be tucked into the poetry page of this blog. I penned some yesterday, as I was immersing myself into my product reviews– phrases, words, suddenly hit me.

I don’t lose any moment when times like this one comes; I’d grab the notepad and type the words that flow freely into the tips of my fingers, urging me to tap into each syllable, and they spin into some lyrical expedition again, to tell another story, another aspect of me.

Here’s Poetry– I was thinking of this person as one who expresses life through the lens:

One day,
you’re gonna clasp me in your bosom,
and my very presence, leaf after leaf,
will be with you, in the pages of a book.

And you will see my smile, in blue of the sky;
In the bright sun’s rays, or
In the grass comforting your feet.

You shall feel me in
The silvery moonlight above,
In the waking of the stars,
In the rippling of the waves
where the brook rushes through…

My being stamped
In every corner,
In every angle,
In every hue;
Each becoming
My very own share
Of this universe.

Ah, I shall be
everywhere.

I’m gonna get published, that’s why I said “everywhere”. Don’t think creepy thoughts, hmnn. It’s got no title in it, but anyways, that’s what I feel today. Its title will have to wait because it’s an unfinished business yet, and still on ferment.

Needless to say, it won’t take forever; it will happen in this lifetime. That’s my promise.

Inspiration~ from others Who have come before

Let me walk through the fields of paper touching with my wand dry stems and stunted butterflies…. ~Denise Levertov, “A Walk through the Notebooks”

~~♥~~

Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean.  Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.  ~Theodore Dreiser, 1900

~~♥~~

If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad.  ~Lord Byron

~~♥~~

This–  is a struggle against silence.  ~Carlos Fuentes

~~♥~~

The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite
and builds a road into Chaos and old Night,
and is followed by those who hear him
with something of wild,
creative delight.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

~~♥~~

Pen names are masks that allow us to unmask ourselves.  ~C. Astrid Weber

Integrity

In these challenging times, we are more pressed to become guided by virtues because these values make us whole in the midst of the wrong we see around us.  In doing our daily business, we have to practice what is right in order to build trust. There is always a crowd before us. We have to do right, even when it is hard to do right.

If we are ethical in our personal life, we will know the difference of behaving in high standards. Personal ethics is the foundation of professional ethics. It will entail us to go by dependability, patience, compassion, loyalty, respect, objectivity and wisdom. These values will be the pillars of our strength as individuals. How do we learn the standard? From growing up, we are taught moral principles, and those things that are right or wrong. As we age, we further learn that conforming to the norms and standards of society provides us better opportunities to advance in our relationships, both personal and in business.

Respect is a word which bears a heavy meaning in all relationships, and without that, good relationships cannot be cultivated. Respect for others breeds tolerance for them even if they don’t share our perspectives. It would be hard to exist in a world where we would always try to change people’s opinions and impose on them our personal judgments.  However, practicing integrity is a choice and living a life of integrity will present us issues to tackle and sacrifices to endure. Nevertheless, our ethical behavior will help create an environment of respect and dignity. If we want to build lasting and wholesome relationships in business, we must align ourselves with the ethical standards of organizations where we belong. Then we would have no need of rules when this is ingrained in our very being.

We can stand tall, when we have integrity. Have you got it on you?

The Rules of Work

By Richard Templar

Rule 1- Walk your talk

1.    Get your work noticed
2.    Never stand still
3.    Volunteer carefully
4.    Carve out a niche for yourself
5.    Under promise and over deliver
6.    Know something others don’t
7.    Be 100% committed
8.    Enjoy what you are doing
9.    Develop the right attitude
10.  Never let anyone know how hard you work

Rule 2 – Know that you’re being judged at all times

1.    Dress well
2.    Cultivate a smile
3.    No limp fish – develop the perfect handshake
4.    Exude confidence and energy
5.    Develop a style that gets you noticed
6.    Pay attention to personal grooming
7.    Be attractive
8.    Be cool
9.    Speak well
10.  Write well

Rule 3 – Have a plan

1.    Know what you want long term
2.    Know what you want short term
3.    Study the promotion system
4.    Develop a game plan
5.    Set objectives
6.    Know your role
7.    Know yourself – strengths and weaknesses
8.    Identify key times and events
9.    Anticipate threats
10. Look for opportunities

Rule 4- If you can’t say anything nice, shut up

1.    Don’t gossip
2.    Don’t bitch
3.    Stand up for others
4.    Compliment people sincerely
5.    Be cheerful and positive
6.    Ask questions
7.    Use “please” and “thank you”
8.    Don’t swear
9.    Be a good listener
10. Only speak sense

Rule 5- Look after yourself

1.    Know the ethics of your industry
2.    Know the legalities of your industry
3.    Set personal standards
4.    Never lie
5.    Never cover up for anyone
6.    Keep records
7.    Know the difference between the truth & the whole truth
8.    Cultivate your support/contacts/friends
9.    Understand others’ motives
10. Assume everyone else is playing by different rules

Rule 6- Blend in

1.    Know the corporate culture
2.    Speak the language
3.    Dress up or down accordingly
4.    Be adaptable in your dealings with different people
5.    Know where to hang out, and when
6.    Understand the social protocols
7.    Know the rules about authority
8.    Know the rules about the office hierarchy
9.    Never disapprove of others
10.  Understand the herd mentality

Rule 7- Act one step ahead

1.    Dress one step ahead
2.    Talk one step ahead
3.    Act one step ahead
4.    Think one step ahead
5.    Address corporate issues and problems
6.    Talk of “we” rather than “I”
7.    Walk the walk
8.    Spend more time with senior staff
9.    Get people to assume you have already made the step
10.  Prepare for the step after next

Rule 8- Cultivate diplomacy

1.    Ask questions in times of conflict
2.    Don’t take sides
3.    Known when to keep your opinions to yourself
4.    Be conciliatory
5.    Never lose your temper
6.    Never get personal
7.    Know how to handle other people’s anger
8.    Stand your ground
9.    Be objective about the situation
10.  Put things in perspective

Rule 9- Know the system and milk it

1.    Know all the unspoken rules of office life
2.    Know what to call everyone
3.    Know when to stay late & when to go early
4.    Know the theft or perk rule
5.    Identify the people who count
6.    Be on the right side of the people who count
7.    Be well up on new management techniques
8.    Know the undercurrents & hidden agendas
9.    Know the favorites & cultivate them
10. Know the mission statement and understand it

Rule 10- Handle the opposition

1.    Identify the opposition
2.    Study them closely
3.    Don’t back-stab
4.    Know the psychology of promotion
5.    Don’t give too much away
6.    Keep your ear to the ground
7.    Make the opposition seem irreplaceable
8.    Don’t damn the opposition with faint praise
9.    Capitalize on the career enhancing moments
10.  Cultivate the friendship & approval of your colleagues

–Tara

What People Buy

Question: Are you selling your services?

The real deal is, people do not buy your services.  If I may say it candidly, no person buys financial planning, no one buys consultancy, no one buys coaching.

Then what sells?

People buy solutions. Think of this: you do not go to your doctor just to get injected, or to get medicine. You go to your doctor for a solution to something that is ailing you. The medications are simply tools that the doctor uses to treat your health problem. You pay for the doctor’s service because you trust that his diagnosis is the right one. You don’t go to any doctor but the one you have proven to suggest the methods so you can recuperate.

People in the business realm will sense when you are too focused on yourself and only bent on how you can gain from them. This character will not allow you to succeed in fostering business with them on a long term basis.

Consequently, when people know that you are constantly reliable to provide them a solution, people come to you to get your services. Hence, services are not what you are selling. People buy YOU– your competence for handling problems and applying due solutions to your client’s needs.

Take the spotlight away from you and shift that concentration on your clients or customers.

Individuals and likewise, corporations, decide to hire people that they trust can solve their problems for them. They must also know all solutions you can offer to their problems and the results that will take place, if they decide to hire your service.

People, essentially, buy your intelligence and your smarts. They want someone that can transmit a positive impact on their lives and their endeavors. The more you bring focus in perceiving their problems, the more you earn their trust that you are the right person they have to be working with.

In the end, you are actually selling the relationship, that which your client can obtain when they hire you. It is never services you sell as the product itself.

You give first, in order to gain. Goodwill to others, definitely, yields conquest!

Hey it’s been a tremendously rewarding year!

2009 was a gorgeous treat for me.

Another year is in store for all of us, one that is full of promise– and I am excited to find new territories to conquer again.  Yet there are more lessons to learn, more people to thank for – my family, the people I work with across the US, and all my friends. The long hours I spent in creative ferment will one day see its prize.

So, alone in this inspired path I would go; tho’ none notice, as I would not require the presence of negative influences *grin. No time to waste on inappreciable company. My rule now: detach from people who are affecting me negatively (at least I hope I can).

Just thankful that I have a clear take on where I want to head for because I have decided to refine my focus on things that will matter to me.

Happy 2010! May this year see us a better person.

All the best,

Tara Estacaan  (**,)

A Winning Online Work Relationship

work must have a heart

Communications and technology are quick to evolve, and as a result, more people are finding themselves working online. Interaction between people has eventually changed to computer-to-computer communication. So a crucial part in giving and getting high quality work can start with a pleasant relationship with people one is working with.

In this world of pc-to-pc communication, maintaining a good relationship in the virtual workplace cannot be underrated. Why? What was considered good behavior several years ago, is still considered good behavior today. Values are still values, and they will remain that way. Read on…

Remember your simple courtesies such as “Thank you”. You are interacting with humans, albeit in the virtual setting. Because of this, you need to cultivate a relationship with them. Just when you think that courtesies are not useful anymore, you can be mistaken with that notion. Appreciation and gratitude can never become obsolete. As human beings, we still value kindliness and politeness in the workplace. Rude behavior, will not, in any situation, be an acceptable conduct when working together.

Be reachable. You can get and receive updates through IM, email or any form of communications that you are comfortable with. You may also want to choose the phone over these methods. As long as the team can benefit, select a preferred line of communication to facilitate easy receipt of messages from both your ends.

Your office hours should be a settled thing. It would also be good if you set fixed working hours for the sake of communication. When the other end knows what time to reach you, it will be easy for your client, boss or colleagues to contact you.

Provide status report for your work. It will become easier for others to track where you are progressing in the work that you have been assigned. People still work in teams in the online office. So give your team an idea how far you have gone with the tasks given to accomplish. A timeframe would help you work your pace, as well as, keep track with others’ achievements on a project, too.

Take these as your helpful hints!

Happy working!

The Need For A Business Marketing Plan

You can get noticed when you are at the top!

A business marketing plan can put elements to work together so that businesses achieve their potentials! It is a maintenance system for any organization or corporation that aspires towards specific goals. The marketing plan becomes a structure where each step made by the company can refer to it, so long as the business continues to operate.

For Business Stability

Whether acknowledged or not, every business can get a good station when it is using a business marketing plan. There are several times in the course of business that things can become unstable, so a simple business plan can serve as a complete reference when implementation of appropriate measures is required.

But the plan should not always expect to impose too rigid guidelines, as some situations or issues will surely call for flexibility. However, it will be a big help for the management team in cases of disputable situations.

Business planning can accommodate what owners want to happen in their businesses. It is always necessary to formulate a marketing guide for each organization. However, not every business marketing plan can work with any business; each one must get a tailored plan, a marketing system for its products.

Guide For All Businesses

Businesses whether it be small scale or large can make use of a business marketing plan. In the online market, those who do not have a clear line of promoting their brand name and products have little to expect in terms of revenue.

Assistance From Online Marketers and Writers

It will need support of top-of-the-line internet marketers and writers who can deliver a system for strategic planning to clients. There may be technology available such as the business marketing plan software, but a carefully planned marketing scheme by only a web marketing expert would be the most practical thing you can do at the start.

If you need business marketing strategy for your online company, ask me! Together, we can target the right crowd for your business!

Dare

To show your true ability is always,

in a sense, to surpass the limits of your ability,

to go a little beyond them:

to dare, to seek, to invent;

it is at such a moment that new talents

are revealed, discovered, and realized.

-  Simone de Beauvoir

- Tara

Twitter- Your Business Buddy

Fact: Building a customer base for your business does not come easy.

In the online realm, there have been many strategies that business owners have adopted, just so, to improve their reputation.  When Twitter became popular in 2006, the web found an alternative to mobile SMS. With its 140 character message length, it was easy to send word to other people about “What’s happening?” at your end.

The rise of URL shortening became popular as well. Thus, Twitter became one of the widely used messaging platforms where people from all walks of life, and from all corners of the world, can promote their trade. But business advertising became so aggressive in Twitter that people became tired of reading “check this outs” and the like. Microblogging became a sickening trend that people slowly disliked the use of Twitter for a season.

The crowd must be educated on this, that Twitter was supposed to create a venue where people can make friends with other people. What happened was the reverse; there was no real interaction between followers than for business purposes. This defeated the goal of being a social network.

There are ways to repair this kind of perception. Make the proper approach to Twitter followers so you can build trust and create a better way to connect to people. Some tips below will give you hint on how to do that.

Create a relationship before anything else. Your followers are people who do not always have money to buy products that you advertise. Be more interested in helping them, rather than desperately pushing your products into their lives. Aggressiveness at the wrong moment can become your Waterloo.

Not all people want to do business in Twitter. As a social network, some people would just want to get in touch with others from the other side of the world. Some are simply searching for a support system where people can give them real advices, or suggest recipes, or gather ideas on best methods in doing some things like carpentry, or gardening.

Twitter is after all, a community where people can naturally interact with one another. Do not be in a hurry to promote your products.

If you do not have a friendly relationship with your Twitter followers, no matter how you blast your message box with promotions, they will become pointless. Interaction is the keyword in Twitter.

Determine the right time to present your company. Someone may ask while chatting with you, “What are you doing for a living?”, then that is the time you can introduce your business. If they do not have the need to buy your product, they can endorse that to their group of followers. So your Twitter friends can refer your business to other people now.

Although your motivation for being online is to make money, you can be subtle about it. A big turnoff for people would be the thought that you are only after the sale that you can get from your interaction.

Make people feel important first and they will be happy to help you later. This is a better way of using Twitter for your business.

Catching Up With The Entrepreneurial Train

Online entrepreneurship. I have decided to pursue this path.

What made me strike on something that many consider hard to follow through? My reasons are a-plenty and they are all valid reasons for me.

My raison d’etre, they will justify why I am taking a different route this time.

1. Though I am not driven back with the idea that I can work for a company or for someone else, I just realized that I will be stuck evermore in a corporate chair, with limited income and a dim salary prospect.

2. An 8-hour office job failed to bring the kind of satisfaction that I thought it will provide me. Aside from that, it has become so tiring that work becomes dragging. When you are working for someone, you get up at least 2 hours earlier, prepare for work, take a ride from home and back again. I arrive at the office tired, and return home depleted— both the pocket and my energy reserve.

3. I am disillusioned with office politics. Corporate culture is stifling talent more instead of enhancing it, and there are no more better opportunities that can be seen. It is repulsive and downright ugly. It reminds me of dogs that fight over a piece of meat.

4. I become my own boss. Come to think of it. I make my own decisions, and choose the people I like to do business with. I can also choose what service and products to render, like the ones where I am good at.

5. I can handle my own team and manage them the way I think is proper. I become involved in conceptualizing things that are good for my business. I am in charge, and I make the right contribution to what can be called mine.

6. I obtain quality in my personal life. I can choose the time I work, where I go for vacations, without begging anyone to allow me to take a leave from work.

These things provide me a clear motive why I am going to make this a gainful engagement. Though I cannot guarantee that everything will become smooth, I will see to it that my efforts will be productive.

I am no longer a work junkie of the corporate world. Energized by this new light, I give cheers to new possibilities!

Pursuing A Virtual Assistance Career?

VA work needs you to be efficient in administrative and secretarial tasks. Your communication skills should be sharp.

When you love to be of service to people, and take pride in providing your efforts to businesses, you are a good candidate to becoming a Virtual Assistant. In addition, cyber skills and a keen sense of collaboration with others can be qualities that will give you a great chance of pursuing a VA career.

For people who want to accomplish things the easy way, hiring a VA to help with business and personal transactions can be a practical decision. So the market that wants to hire Virtual Assistance will never lack because a VA can be an all-in-one support online.

Tips On How To Handle Your Virtual Assistants

You do not need to master everything in your business in order to make it run. So many business owners tend to take every task into their hands from website maintenance, answering emails, and running the whole business.

But is it really worth the effort? It may be good to consider learning new skills such as linkbuilding and the SEO thing, as well as making articles now and then, to promote your site. But doing these things can be time-consuming and there is an easy way to handle things. Hire a virtual assistant to help you run the business.

Many business owners have no time to spare for detailed work like the tediousness demanded in creating various links all over the web to your site. Virtual assistants can be very handy when it comes to these things. Or you may also need someone who can provide good content for your blogsite.

The Philippines is known for better content writing than other countries in Asia. As a Filipino writer cum link builder-virtual assistant I can only give some ideas on how to handle your VAs. Here are some ways to ensure that your partnership with your VA can be a fruitful endeavor:

1. Ask them about their expertise. When you have determined their strengths, you can provide additional trainings to equip them with the tasks you want them to do.

2. Pay your virtual assistant well. This is to ensure that your VAs will not take several accounts at the same time because you are paying them with scraps. When you pay lesser than what they think is proper for them, they will take on more jobs to supplement their income and will result to poor performances. Talk to your VA and give the best deals you can but make them understand that they should be working only for you. Paying them $300.00 for 160 hours a month will push them to seek other sources, apart from your projects. Although they frequent many job hiring spots, it is not easy to train another and make adjustments again with a new worker.

3. Know how to recognize the best ones in the market. Many virtual assistants are online, because they want to look for better opportunities. Some of them may not be as good as you think. When you want someone who can be an all-around person, first, get their writing background. A VA who knows how to write well is a good find since not many are gifted with good-quality writing, even if it is from the Philippines.

4. Be prompt in giving tasks. It may help to smoothen the job required when tasks can be understood because they are given earlier.

5. Trust your VA. As all businesses, you cannot operate without trust. So if you want to achieve better things for your projects make them feel that you trust them to do their best for you. Give positive reinforcements to your VAs.

“The key is to get to know people and trust them to be who they are.”

Your Business, Recession Proof!

The times call for business imperatives that will see your company through the effects of global recession. Many firms have succumbed to the damage brought by the worldwide financial slowdown. But though many, it does not mean, all businesses have experienced this. Yours can be an exception.

Make your business recession proof. How do you do it? There are several ways you can save your business from going with the downward flow. You can swim against the current, because your business is active.

With time-tested schemes in promoting your site, such as search engine optimization, being seen is not a problem. Your products and services can be displayed in sites and in virtual places where people frequent.  This is the power of internet marketing.

If you want to make your business a real income generating channel, you have to get the right people to make things happen for you. A professional virtual assistant who knows how to bring your name to the forefront is the solution!