Business Recommendation Quotes

Social media allows us to behave in ways that we are hardwired for in the first place - as humans. We can get frank recommendations from other humans instead of from faceless companies.

October— You were sleeping so peacefully that I was loath to wake you. Duke Torquill, after demanding to know what I was doing in your apartment, has requested that I inform you of his intent to visit after ‘tending to some business at the Queen’s Court.’ I recommend wearing something clinging, as that may distract him from whatever he wishes to lecture you about this time. Hopefully, it’s your manners. You are truly endearing when you sleep. I attribute this to the exotic nature of seeing you in a state of silence. —Tybalt

92% of respondents reported that a positive recommendation from a friend, family member, or someone they trust is the biggest influence on whether they buy a product or service.

Do not worry about who get the credit or praise of the work done. Continue work to give your best.Your reward may come unexpected.

Sexting is dangerous business. I don't recommend it.

All the same, I should like it all plain and clear," said he obstinately, putting on his business manner (usually reserved for people who tried to borrow money off him), and doing his best to appear wise and prudent and professional and live up to Gandalf's recommendation. "Also I should like to know about risks, out-of-pocket expenses, time required and remuneration, and so forth"--by which he meant: "What am I going to get out of it ? and am I going to come back alive?

Let true Christians then, with becoming earnestness, strive in all things to recommend their profession, and to put to silence the vain scoffs of ignorant objectors. Let them boldly assert the cause of Christ in an age when so many, who bear the name of Christians, are ashamed of Him: and let them consider as devolved on Them the important duty of suspending for a while the fall of their country, and, perhaps, of performing a still more extensive service to society at large; not by busy interference in politics, in which it cannot but be confessed there is much uncertainty; but rather by that sure and radical benefit of restoring the influence of Religion, and of raising the standard of morality.

Of the not very many ways known of shedding one's body, falling, falling, falling is the supreme method, but you have to select your sill or ledge very carefully so as not to hurt yourself or others. Jumping from a high bridge is not recommended even if you cannot swim, for wind and water abound in weird contingencies, and tragedy ought not to culminate in a record dive or a policeman's promotion. If you rent a cell in the luminous waffle, room 1915 or 1959, in a tall business centre hotel browing the star dust, and pull up the window, and gently - not fall, not jump - but roll out as you should for air comfort, there is always the chance of knocking clean through into your own hell a pacific noctambulator walking his dog; in this respect a back room might be safer, especially if giving on the roof of an old tenacious normal house far below where a cat may be trusted to flash out of the way. Another popular take-off is a mountaintop with a sheer drop of say 500 meters but you must find it, because you will be surprised how easy it is to miscalculate your deflection offset, and have some hidden projection, some fool of a crag, rush forth to catch you, causing you to bounce off it into the brush, thwarted, mangled and unnecessarily alive. The ideal drop is from an aircraft, your muscles relaxed, your pilot puzzled, your packed parachute shuffled off, cast off, shrugged off - farewell, shootka (little chute)! Down you go, but all the while you feel suspended and buoyed as you somersault in slow motion like a somnolent tumbler pigeon, and sprawl supine on the eiderdown of the air, or lazily turn to embrace your pillow, enjoying every last instant of soft, deep, death-padded life, with the earth's green seesaw now above, now below, and the voluptuous crucifixion, as you stretch yourself in the growing rush, in the nearing swish, and then your loved body's obliteration in the Lap of the Lord.

Parables are told only because they are true, not because the actions of the characters in them can be recommended for imitation. Good Samaritans are regularly sued. Fathers who give parties for wayward sons are rightly rebuked, Employers who pay equal wages for unequal work have labor-relations problems. And any Shepherd who makes a practice of leaving ninety-nine sheep to chase after a lost one quickly goes out of the sheep-ranching business. The parables are true only because they are like what God is like, not because they are models for us to copy. It is simply a fact that the one thing we dare not under any circumstances imitate is the only thing that can save us. The parables are, one and all, about the foolishness by which Grace raises the dead. They apply to no sensible process at all - only to the divine insanity that brings everything out of nothing.

Ramit Sethi recommends applying what he calls the “85% Solution.” So many people get wrapped up in making the perfect decision that they wind up overwhelming themselves and doing nothing.

A slogan that accurately conveys the essence of your Purple Cow is a script. A script for the sneezer to use when she talks with her friends. The slogan reminds the user, “Here’s why it’s worth recommending us; here’s why your friends and colleagues will be glad you told them about us.” And best of all, the script guarantees that the word of mouth is passed on properly – that the prospect is coming to you for the right reason.

Today’s businesses can’t just use social media; they have to become social businesses, inside and out and from top to bottom. Ultimately, that is the goal of this book: to harness the power of being a social business to become the most highly recommended organization in your industry/category/niche.

Never call yourself a philosopher, nor talk a great deal among the unlearned about theorems, but act conformably to them. Thus, at an entertainment, don’t talk how persons ought to eat, but eat as you ought. For remember that in this manner Socrates also universally avoided all ostentation. And when persons came to him and desired to be recommended by him to philosophers, he took and recommended them, so well did he bear being overlooked. So that if ever any talk should happen among the unlearned concerning philosophic theorems, be you, for the most part, silent. For there is great danger in immediately throwing out what you have not digested. And, if anyone tells you that you know nothing, and you are not nettled at it, then you may be sure that you have begun your business. For sheep don’t throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digesting their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk. Thus, therefore, do you likewise not show theorems to the unlearned, but the actions produced by them after they have been digested.

In the 1990s, the ratio of buy to sell recommendations climbed to 100 to 1, particularly for brokerage firms with large investment banking businesses.

Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people. This is my final recommendation:

Demi-glace. There are a lot of ways to make demi-glace, but I recommend you simply take your already reduced meat stock, add some red wine, toss in some shallots and fresh thyme and a bay leaf and peppercorns, and slowly, slowly simmer it and reduce it again until it coats a spoon. Strain. Freeze this stuff in an ice-cube tray, pop out a cube or two as needed, and you are in business — you can rule the world. And remember, when making a sauce with demi-glace, don't forget to monter au beurre. Chervil,

It’s not always easy to follow the subtle energetic information the universe broadcasts, especially when your friends, family, coworkers, or those with a business interest in your creativity are offering seemingly rational advice that challenges your intuitive knowing. To the best of my ability, I’ve followed my intuition to make career turns, and been recommended against doing so every time. It helps to realize that it’s better to follow the universe than those around you. Interference may also come from the voices within. The ones in your head that murmur you’re not talented enough, your idea isn’t good enough, art isn’t a worthwhile investment of your time, the result won’t be well-received, you’re a failure if the creation isn’t successful. It’s helpful to turn those voices down so you can hear the chimes of the cosmic clock ring, reminding you it’s time. Your time to participate.

Heroin is a fine business,” the directors of Bayer announced proudly and advertised the substance as a remedy for headaches, for general indisposition, and also as a cough syrup for children. It was even recommended to babies for colic or sleeping problems.

Heroin is a fine business,” the directors of Bayer announced proudly and advertised the substance as a remedy for headaches, for general indisposition, and also as a cough syrup for children. It was even recommended to babies for colic or sleeping problems.4

October 16, 2009 Avengers Paintball, Inc. 1778 Industrial Blvd. Lakeville, MN 55044 Esteemed Avengers, This letter recommends Mr. Allen Trent for a position at your paintball emporium. Mr. Trent received a C– in my expository writing class last spring, which—given my newly streamlined and increasingly generous grading criteria—is quite the accomplishment. His final project consisted of a ten-page autobiographical essay on the topic of his own rageful impulses and his (often futile) attempts to control them. He cited his dentist and his roommate as primary sources. Consider this missive a testament to Mr. Trent’s preparedness for the work your place of business undoubtedly has in store. Hoping to maintain a distance of at least one hundred yards, Jason T. Fitger Professor of Creative Writing and English Payne University (“Teach ’til It Hurts”)

The Harvard Business Review recommends 15 words max for your big point. We would advise the shorter, the better.

If you’re interested in more detail on this topic, I highly recommend Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs by Karen Berman and Joe Knight with John Case.

Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist’s business is lying. The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will be like, and the Rand Corporation will tell you what the twenty-first century will be like. I don’t recommend that you turn to the writers of fiction for such information. It’s none of their business. All they’re trying to do is tell you what they’re like, and what you’re like -- what’s going on -- what the weather is now, today, this moment, the rain, the sunlight, look! Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don’t tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming another third of it spent in telling lies. [Introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness]

Any man who can spend a million a year and have nothing to show for it, don't need a recommendation from anybody. He's in a class by himself, and it's a business that no one else can give him a pointer about.

I am not sure the loneliness of the place was not one of its chief recommendations. I take no pleasure in watching people pass the windows; and I like to be quiet.’ ‘Oh! as good as to say you wish we would all of us mind our own business, and let you alone.’ ‘No, I dislike an extensive acquaintance; but if I have a few friends, of course I am glad to see them occasionally. No one can be happy in eternal solitude.

Business judgment is best developed through professional experience. The next best alternative is to be reading business articles. We recommend Bloomberg Businessweek and Economic Times/Business Standard, if time permits.

We distrust doctors because it’s obvious that good health does not promote good business, and we go to them only when everything else has failed, after we’ve tried all the remedies recommended by our friends and acquaintances.

The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will be like, and the Rand Corporation will tell you what the twenty-first century will be like. I don’t recommend that you turn to the writers of fiction for such information. It’s none of their business.

I’ve found in my career that though everyone has an opinion, clients will pay for your analysis. It’s also important to be able to say with authority that you are recommending these options because the client needs them and not because you are trying to sell them something.

Nowadays, the majority of people are searching online for any business. They want to see that you are credible and want to hear it straight from another customer’s mouth. People will still look your business up even after getting a recommendation from a trusted family or friend.

Another segment of society that has constructed a language of its own is business. People in business say that toner cartridges are in short supply, that they have updated the next shipment of these cartridges, and that they will finalize their recommendations at the next meeting of the board. They are speaking a language familiar and dear to them. Its portentous nouns and verbs invest ordinary events with high adventure; executives walk among toner cartridges, caparisoned like knights. We should tolerate them--every person of spirit wants to ride a white horse.

There are five degrees of initiative that the manager can exercise in relation to the boss and to the system: wait until told (lowest initiative); ask what to do; recommend, then take resulting action; act, but advise at once; and act on own, then routinely report (highest initiative).

We’re all busy. Meditating monks in their cells are busy. That’s adult life, filled to the ceiling with things that need doing. (It seems only children and the elderly aren’t plagued by lack of time—and notice how they enjoy their books, how their lives fill their eyes.) But every person has a space next to where they sleep, whether a patch of pavement or a fine bedside table. In that space, at night, a book can glow. And in those moments of docile wakefulness, when we begin to let go of the day, then is the perfect time to pick up a book and be someone else, somewhere else, for a few minutes, a few pages, before we fall asleep.

I recommend every young entrepreneur do some gig work at least for research purposes. Get out there and work for Lyft or Uber or Instacart or whatever. These platforms allow a person to experience a direct conversion of value created to income earned, whereas most jobs and most entrepreneurial ventures have a lag. And the more intimately you understand value, the better.

In contrast to advice, our UN-VICE is not a suggestion of behavior or a mandate. Instead, our UN-VICE is a way to decipher changing circumstances imaginatively. All advice should be carefully considered, combined with an emphasis on developing and trusting our own capabilities. In our increasingly UN-VICE world, the value of recommendations is rapidly decreasing. Systemic disruption has devalued ad-vice; instead, we offer our best UN-VICE. Inspired by Richard Feynman, we must explore unanswered questions, rather than adhering to unquestionable answers. Zen Master Suzuki Roshi said “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” Our UN-VICE draws from the three stages of the Japanese martial arts concept shuhari. In the first stage, shu, the student masters the established fundamentals. In the second stage, ha, the learner practices and experiments with novel approaches, guided by their own unique perspectives. In the third stage, ri, they break loose from confining rulebooks to adapt freely to any situation. Shuhari is a journey, a continuous process of learning, experimenting, and letting go.

Every pregnancy results in roughly two years of lost menstruation. If you are a manufacturer of menstrual pads, this is bad for business. So you ought to know about, and be so happy about, the drop in babies per woman across the world. You ought to know and be happy too about the growth in the number of educated women working away from home. Because these developments have created an exploding market for your products over the last few decades among billions of menstruating women now living on Levels 2 and 3. But, as I realized when I attended an internal meeting at one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of sanitary wear, most Western manufacturers have completely missed this. Instead, when hunting for new customers they are often stuck dreaming up new needs among the 300 million menstruating women on Level 4. “What if we market an even thinner pad for bikinis? What about pads that are invisible, to wear under Lycra? How about one pad for each kind of outfit, each situation, each sport? Special pads for mountain climbers!” Ideally, all the pads are so small they need to be replaced several times a day. But like most rich consumer markets, the basic needs are already met, and producers fight in vain to create demand in ever-smaller segments. Meanwhile, on Levels 2 and 3, roughly 2 billion menstruating women have few alternatives to choose from. These women don’t wear Lycra and won’t spend money on ultrathin pads. They demand a low-cost pad that will be reliable throughout the day so they don’t have to change it when they are out at work. And when they find a product they like, they will probably stick to that brand for their whole lives and recommend it to their daughters.

Holacracy obsoletes the habit of making commitments about when you will deliver a particular project or action. In tactical meetings, for example, we capture next-actions, but do not attach deadline commitments to them. Why? As much as the practice of setting deadlines is generally recommended in today’s business world, allow me to offer a contrary view: committing to deadlines has important downsides, and using them obscures a more dynamic, reality-based approach.

resources on self-promotion, specifically targeted to introverts and accessible online, now abound. Popular examples include Beth Buelow’s The Introvert Entrepreneur blog and podcast (bethbuelow.com) and Nancy Ancowitz’s Self-Promotion for Introverts® site (selfpromotionforitroverts.com). Ancowitz, business communication coach and author of the book Self-Promotion for Introverts, recommends that introverts build on what they do naturally rather than try to replicate extroverts:

verbal fluency and sociability are the two most important predictors of success, according to a Stanford Business School study. It’s a world in which a middle manager at GE once told me that “people here don’t even want to meet with you if you don’t have a PowerPoint and a ‘pitch’ for them. Even if you’re just making a recommendation to your colleague, you can’t sit down in someone’s office and tell them what you think. You have to make a presentation, with pros and cons and a ‘takeaway box.

When investing in cryptocurrencies, one must exercise extreme caution. My capital investment was locked along with all of my returns at a binary investment firm, which was the exact issue I was having. Though I genuinely think there are legitimate businesses you can invest in, the difficulty is how to know for sure before making a decision. It was almost like watching a movie as the whole thing played out for me when I fell for these con artists posing as investors. Before it happened to me, I was unable to believe that such things exist. But when it turned out that I couldn't withdraw my money, I started looking for a way to get it back. Fortunately, through recommendations from others, I was introduced to a recovery agent named Fastfund Recovery. When I discovered that the scammers' website had been taken down, Fastfund Recovery was such a lifesaver; they were able to access it and helped me get my money back. I can't be more grateful. You can catch up with them by email. Fastfundrecovery8(@)gmail com . w/a 18075007554

Recommended Reading The Definitive Guide to Getting Your Budget Approved by Johannes Ritter and Frank Röttgers provides a systematic guide for creating a financial business case. The book includes examples as well as the methods for using Monte Carlo simulation and sensitivity analysis to create the business case. The methods described in the book can also be used for quantifying risks and project costs. Mary and Tom Poppendieck in their book Lean Software Development: describe the lean principles and the types of waste in software projects.

Specify Level of Initiative Your employees can exercise five levels of initiative in handling on-the-job problems. From lowest to highest, the levels are: Wait until told what to do. Ask what to do. Recommend an action, then with your approval, implement it. Take independent action but advise you at once. Take independent action and update you at an agreed-on time; for example, your weekly meeting. When an employee brings a problem to you, outlaw use of level 1 or 2. Agree on and assign level 3, 4, or 5 to the monkey. Take no more than 15 minutes to discuss the problem.

10. What books would you recommend to an aspiring entrepreneur? Some quick favorites: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk! by Al Ries and Jack Trout The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King by Rich Cohen Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism by Matt Mason Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals by Saul D. Alinsky The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story by Michael Lewis Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success by Phil Jackson and Hugh Delehanty Billion Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years by Paul B. Carroll and Chunka Mui Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices by Christopher Locke

The Logic of the Double or Triple Threat On “career advice,” Scott has written the following, which is slightly trimmed for space here. This is effectively my mantra, and you’ll see why I bring it up: If you want an average, successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths: 1) Become the best at one specific thing. 2) Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things. The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try. The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.

Most of [this record] originates from things he told me directly, though certain parts are based on information that people close to him told me, people he trusted. Admittedly, a certain amount is also conjecture, based on my own observations of things I thought might be true. Like soft pâté nicely filling in the gaps between one fact and another. In other words, the portrait that follows is not based entirely on fact. As the writer of this account, I cannot recommend that the reader treat it like evidence submitted in a trial, or supporting documents for a business transaction (though what sort of business transaction this could possibly be, I haven’t a clue).

Look at it, a whole drawerful, men and women, every one of them a real executive, or auditor, or manager of some business, and when I recommend one, I know somebody is getting something for his money. They're all home, sitting by their phones, hoping I'll call. I won't call. I've got nothing to tell them. What I'm trying to get through your head is: You haven't got a chance. Those people, it hurts me, it makes me lie awake nights, that I've got nothing for them. They deserve something, and there's not a thing I can do. But there's not a chance I'd slip you ahead of any one of them. You're not qualified. There's not a thing on earth you can do, and I hate people that can't do anything.

One way to get a life and keep it is to put energy into being an S&M (success and money) queen. I first heard this term in Karen Salmansohn’s fabulous book The 30-Day Plan to Whip Your Career Into Submission. Here’s how to do it: be a star at work. I don’t care if you flip burgers at McDonald’s or run a Fortune 500 company. Do everything with totality and excellence. Show up on time, all the time. Do what you say you will do. Contribute ideas. Take care of the people around you. Solve problems. Be an agent for change. Invest in being the best in your industry or the best in the world! If you’ve been thinking about changing professions, that’s even more reason to be a star at your current job. Operating with excellence now will get you back up to speed mentally and energetically so you can hit the ground running in your new position. It will also create good karma. When and if you finally do leave, your current employers will be happy to support you with a great reference and often leave an open door for additional work in the future. If you’re an entrepreneur, look at ways to enhance your business. Is there a new product or service you’ve wanted to offer? How can you create raving fans by making your customer service sparkle? How can you reach more people with your product or service? Can you impact thousands or even millions more? Let’s not forget the M in S&M. Getting a life and keeping it includes having strong financial health as well. This area is crucial because many women delay taking charge of their financial lives as they believe (or have been culturally conditioned to believe) that a man will come along and take care of it for them. This is a setup for disaster. You are an intelligent and capable woman. If you want to fully unleash your irresistibility, invest in your financial health now and don’t stop once you get involved in a relationship. If money management is a challenge for you, I highly recommend my favorite financial coach: David Bach. He is the bestselling author of many books, including The Automatic Millionaire, Smart Women Finish Rich, and Smart Couples Finish Rich. His advice is clear-cut and straightforward, and, most important, it works.

I quickly found the dating/hookup app to be a dangerous addition to my iPhone. A friend recommended it after shit hit the fan with my boyfriend. With enough breakups under my belt, I knew that the healthiest remedy was a solid rebound fuck or two. Tinder made it easy- too easy. Suddenly, I could sit in traffic, on the toilet, or in line at the DMV and carelessly swipe, swipe, swipe my way to dick-on-delivery. Tinder selections are based on proximity via smart phones, so there are tons of tourists, travelers, and young professionals on business trips swiping through new hunting grounds. Its loose, easy-come-easy-go method made hookups as convenient as picking up lunch. Tinder’s nonchalance went both ways. We had nothing to lose.

L.A. Burning is a great ride, a blast of adrenaline, a lightning-paced insider's tour of the movie business with a memorable heroine in the driver's seat. Cody Bonner is a true original--we're rooting for her from page one, and she holds us in suspense to the very end. Excellent. --JOSEPH FINDER, New York Times bestselling author of House on Fire. Some books stay with you long after you finish them, and I can’t get Cody Bonner’s voice out of my head. Tough, resourceful, and hell-bent on revenge for the death of her twin sister, she leads us on a thrilling yet heartbreaking journey through some of LA’s most glittering—and meanest—streets. Unforgettable, original, and highly recommended. —HILARY DAVIDSON, bestselling author of Her Last Breath

But influential business leaders were eager proponents of numbers-driven merit pay for teachers. Ross Perot, for example, pushed Dallas to implement a plan to use test scores alone to evaluate teachers and distribute pay increases. So it was ironic that private industry had, by the 1980s, mostly turned away from efforts to pay white-collar workers according to strict productivity measures, finding that such formal evaluation programs were too expensive and time-consuming to create and implement. Research showed that companies with merit pay schemes did not perform better financially than did organizations without it, nor were their employees happier. Instead, management gurus recommended that workers be judged primarily by the holistic standards of individual supervisors.

Read! Read cookbooks, trade magazines — I recommend Food Arts, Saveur, Restaurant Business magazines. They are useful for staying abreast of industry trends, and for pinching recipes and concepts. Some awareness of the history of your business is useful, too. It allows you to put your own miserable circumstances in perspective when you've examined and appreciated the full sweep of culinary history. Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London is invaluable. As is Nicolas Freleng's The Kitchen, David Blum's Flash in the Pan, the Batterberrys' fine account of American restaurant history, On the Town in New York, and Joseph Mitchell's Up in the Old Hotel. Read the old masters: Escoffier, Bocuse et al as well as the Young Turks: Keller, Marco-Pierre White, and more recent generations of innovators and craftsmen.

If absolutely everything important is only happening on such a small screen, isn’t that a shame? Especially when the world is so overwhelmingly large and surprising? Are you missing too much? You can’t imagine it now, but you’ll look like me one day, even though you’ll feel just the same as you do now. You’ll catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and think how quickly it’s all gone, and I wonder if all the time you used watching those families whose lives are filmed for the television, and making those cartoons of yourselves with panting dog tongues, and chasing after that terrible Pokémon fellow…well, will it feel like time well spent? “Here lies Ms. Jackson, she took more steps than the other old biddies on her road”—is that the best I can leave behind? Is it all just designed to keep us looking down, or to give us the illusion that we have some sort of control over our chaotic lives? Will you do me a small favor, dears, and look up? Especially you New Yorkers and Londoners and other city dwellers who cross all those busy streets. How else will you take in the majesty of the buildings that have stood there for hundreds of years? How else will you run into an acquaintance on the street who might turn into a friend or a lover or even just recommend a good restaurant that no one has complained about on that app yet? If you never look out the window of the subway car, how will you see the boats gliding by on the East River, or have an idea that only you could have? Just look up for no reason, just for a moment here and there, or maybe for an entire day once in a while. Let the likes go unchecked and the quality of sleep go unnoticed. Que sera sera, my dears—whatever will be will be, whether we’re tracking it on our GPS devices or not.

As World War II was ending, the great engineer and public official Vannevar Bush argued that America’s innovation engine would require a three-way partnership of government, business, and academia. He was uniquely qualified to envision that triangle, because he had a foot in all three camps. He had been dean of engineering at MIT, a founder of Raytheon, and the chief government science administrator overseeing, among other projects, the building of the atom bomb.4 Bush’s recommendation was that government should not build big research labs of its own, as it had done with the atomic bomb project, but instead should fund research at universities and corporate labs. This government-business-university partnership produced the great innovations that propelled the U.S. economy in the postwar period, including transistors, microchips, computers, graphical user interfaces, GPS, lasers, the internet, and search engines.

The Major's laughter boomed out again. "And I never kept a diary in my life!" he cried. "Why there's enough cream in this situation to make a dishful of meringues. You and I, you know, the students of Tilling! The serious-minded students who do a hard day's work when all the pretty ladies have gone to bed. Often and often has old--I mean has that fine woman, Miss Mapp, told me that I work too hard at night! Recommended me to get earlier to bed, and do my work between six and eight in the morning! Six and eight in the morning! That's a queer time of day to recommend an old campaigner to be awake at! Often she's talked to you, too, I bet my hat, about sitting up late and exhausting the nervous faculties." Major Flint choked and laughed and inhaled tobacco smoke till he got purple in the face. "And you sitting up one side of the street," he gasped, "pretending to be interested in Roman roads, and me on the other pulling a long face over my diaries, and neither of us with a Roman road or a diary to our names. Let's have an end to such unsociable arrangements, old friend; you lining your Roman roads and the bottle to lay the dust over to me one night, and I'll bring my diaries and my peg over to you the next. Never drink alone--one of my maxims in life--if you can find someone to drink with you. And there were you within a few yards of me all the time sitting by your old solitary self, and there was I sitting by my old solitary self, and we each thought the other a serious-minded old buffer, busy on his life-work. I'm blessed if I ever heard of two such pompous old frauds as you and I, Captain! What a sight of hypocrisy there is in the world, to be sure! No offence--mind: I'm as bad as you, and you're as bad as me, and we're both as bad as each other. But no more solitary confinement of an evening for Benjamin Flint, as long as you're agreeable.

To return to central Rome, it’s another two miles north along a busy stretch of road, not recommended on foot or bike. Instead, catch bus #118 from the bus stop about 75 yards past Domine Quo Vadis Church (across from the TI). Bus #118 makes several interesting stops (see below) on its way to the Piramide Metro stop. (Note that another bus, the #218, also goes from here to San Giovanni in Laterano.) For those with more energy, there’s more to see, especially if you’re renting a bike and want to just get away from it all. Other Sights on or near the Appian Way Consider these diversions if you have the time and interest. More of the Appian Way: Heading south (away from downtown Rome), past the Tomb of Cecilia Metella, you’ll find the best-preserved part of the Appian Way—quieter, less touristed, and lined with cypresses, pines, and crumbling tombs. It’s all downhill after the first few hundred yards. On a bike, you’ll travel over lots of rough paving stones (or dirt sidewalks) for about 30 minutes to reach a big pyramid-shaped ruin on its tiny base, and then five minutes more to the back side of the Villa dei Quintili.

In the preface to The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins describes how he refines his writing by asking his wife, the actor Lalla Ward, to read his words aloud to him ‘so I could apprehend very directly how it might seem to a reader other than myself… I recommend the technique to other authors, but I must warn that for best results the reader must be a professional actor, with voice and ear sensitively tuned to the music of language’, he says. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to see the amusement value of Professor Dawkins – who I think is a terrific writer – listening to his wife declaim all 420 pages of his book, maybe from a little lectern in his front room. And she did the whole book twice, he explains. She must love him very much. Dawkins’ advice to marry an actor so that he or she can read your work to you might seem impractical, especially to your current spouse, but Dawkins has a point – which his prose reinforces. You might disagree with his concept of a godless universe, but if you have read The God Delusion you wouldn’t say that he expresses himself with anything less than complete clarity. You can disagree with him because you know exactly what he’s thinking.

1. To whom are you going to sell? You start by identifying your person. It can be you or someone you know, but once you identify them, look at what group of people they belong to. Are they CrossFitters? Do they eat a paleo diet? Are they nurses? Are they Christians? If you don’t know the answer, start with yourself. What groups do you identify with? 2. What do they already buy? Can you list at least three to five products that your group already buys? If you can’t list at least three products, you’re in the wrong market. At this point in the process, it’s really tempting to make up a product idea from scratch, but I recommend that you start by identifying what your person already buys. Just start writing down what your person already buys on their journey to be a great mom, a great entrepreneur, or a great designer. 3. Which product out of that suite of products do you want to focus on, to either make a great version of it or a version that solves one of their problems? Looking at the list of products you came up with, ask yourself, “How are those products not serving my group right now?” Does one of them jump out as a potential “gateway” to the rest of the list? If you identify the first product that solves a pain point or serves as a gateway into other purchases, then you know exactly where to start.

My morning schedule saw me first in Cannan’s office, conferring with my advisor, but our meeting was interrupted within minutes by Narian, who entered without knocking and whose eyes were colder than I had seen them in a long time. “I thought you intended to control them,” he stated, walking toward the captain’s desk and standing directly beside the chair in which I sat.” He slammed a lengthy piece of parchment down on the wood surface, an unusual amount of tension in his movements. I glanced toward the open door and caught sight of Rava. She stood with one hand resting against the frame, her calculating eyes evaluating the scene while she awaited orders. Cannan’s gaze went to the parchment, but he did not reach for it, scanning its contents from a distance. Then he looked at Narian, unruffled. “I can think of a dozen or more men capable of this.” “But you know who is responsible.” Cannan sat back, assessing his opposition. “I don’t know with certainty any more than you do. In the absence of definitive proof of guilt on behalf of my son and his friends, I suggest you and your fellows develop a sense of humor.” Then the captain’s tone changed, becoming more forbidding. “I can prevent an uprising, Narian. This, you’ll have to get used to.” Not wanting to be in the dark, I snatched up the parchment in question. My mouth opened in shock and dismay as I silently read its contents, the men waiting for me to finish. On this Thirtieth Day of May in the First Year of Cokyrian dominance over the Province of Hytanica, the following regulations shall be put into practice in order to assist our gracious Grand Provost in her effort to welcome Cokyri into our lands--and to help ensure the enemy does not bungle the first victory it has managed in over a century. Regulation One. All Hytanican citizens must be willing to provide aid to aimlessly wandering Cokyrian soldiers who cannot on their honor grasp that the road leading back to the city is the very same road that led them away. Regulation Two. It is strongly recommended that farmers hide their livestock, lest the men of our host empire become confused and attempt to mate with them. Regulation Three. As per negotiated arrangements, crops grown on Hytanican soil will be divided with fifty percent belonging to Cokyri, and seventy-five percent remaining with the citizens of the province; Hytanicans will be bound by law to wait patiently while the Cokyrians attempt to sort the baffling deficiency in their calculations. Regulation Four. The Cokyrian envoys assigned to manage the planting and farming effort will also require Hytanican patience while they slowly but surely learn what is a crop and what is a weed, as well as left from right. Regulation Five. Though the Province Wall is a Cokyrian endeavor, it would be polite and understanding of Hytanicans to remind the enemy of the correct side on which to be standing when the final stone is laid, so no unfortunates may find themselves trapped outside with no way in. Regulation Six. When at long last foreign trade is allowed to resume, Hytanicans should strive to empathize with the reluctance of neighboring kingdoms to enter our lands, for Cokyri’s stench is sure to deter even the migrating birds. Regulation Seven. For what little trade and business we do manage in spite of the odor, the imposed ten percent tax may be paid in coins, sweets or shiny objects. Regulation Eight. It is regrettably prohibited for Hytanicans to throw jeers at Cokyrian soldiers, for fear that any man harried may cry, and the women may spit. Regulation Nine. In case of an encounter with Cokyrian dignitaries, the boy-invader and the honorable High Priestess included, let it be known that the proper way in which to greet them is with an ass-backward bow.

Adventists urged to study women’s ordination for themselves Adventist Church President Ted N. C. Wilson appealed to members to study the Bible regarding the theology of ordination as the Church continues to examine the matter at Annual Council next month and at General Conference Session next year. Above, Wilson delivers the Sabbath sermon at Annual Council last year. [ANN file photo] President Wilson and TOSC chair Stele also ask for prayers for Holy Spirit to guide proceedings September 24, 2014 | Silver Spring, Maryland, United States | Andrew McChesney/Adventist Review Ted N. C. Wilson, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, appealed to church members worldwide to earnestly read what the Bible says about women’s ordination and to pray that he and other church leaders humbly follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance on the matter. Church members wishing to understand what the Bible teaches on women’s ordination have no reason to worry about where to start, said Artur A. Stele, who oversaw an unprecedented, two-year study on women’s ordination as chair of the church-commissioned Theology of Ordination Study Committee. Stele, who echoed Wilson’s call for church members to read the Bible and pray on the issue, recommended reading the study’s three brief “Way Forward Statements,” which cite Bible texts and Adventist Church co-founder Ellen G. White to support each of the three positions on women’s ordination that emerged during the committee’s research. The results of the study will be discussed in October at the Annual Council, a major business meeting of church leaders. The Annual Council will then decide whether to ask the nearly 2,600 delegates of the world church to make a final call on women’s ordination in a vote at the General Conference Session next July. Wilson, speaking in an interview, urged each of the church’s 18 million members to prayerfully read the study materials, available on the website of the church’s Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research. "Look to see how the papers and presentations were based on an understanding of a clear reading of Scripture,” Wilson said in his office at General Conference headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. “The Spirit of Prophecy tells us that we are to take the Bible just as it reads,” he said. “And I would encourage each church member, and certainly each representative at the Annual Council and those who will be delegates to the General Conference Session, to prayerfully review those presentations and then ask the Holy Spirit to help them know God’s will.” The Spirit of Prophecy refers to the writings of White, who among her statements on how to read the Bible wrote in The Great Controversy (p. 598), “The language of the Bible should be explained according to its obvious meaning, unless a symbol or figure is employed.” “We don’t have the luxury of having the Urim and the Thummim,” Wilson said, in a nod to the stones that the Israelite high priest used in Old Testament times to learn God’s will. “Nor do we have a living prophet with us. So we must rely upon the Holy Spirit’s leading in our own Bible study as we review the plain teachings of Scripture.” He said world church leadership was committed to “a very open, fair, and careful process” on the issue of women’s ordination. Wilson added that the crucial question facing the church wasn’t whether women should be ordained but whether church members who disagreed with the final decision on ordination, whatever it might be, would be willing to set aside their differences to focus on the church’s 151-year mission: proclaiming Revelation 14 and the three angels’ messages that Jesus is coming soon. 3 Views on Women’s Ordination In an effort to better understand the Bible’s teaching on ordination, the church established the Theology of Ordination Study Committee, a group of 106 members commonly referred to by church leaders as TOSC. It was not organized

I don’t recommend working with larger stories and breaking them down into technical items, often called Tasks. If we use Tasks, the business people do not have a clear look at how things are going, and they often do not get a good sense of how to help until the end of the two-week Sprint interval. Stick with stories: they work better all around.

Clerics and senior government officials are promoting temporary marriage as a way to deal with the undeniable realities and to stem the social chaos they fear if fornication were to go totally unregulated. None other than former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, often portrayed as a “pragmatic conservative,” first broached the matter in a sermon in 1990, eleven years after the revolution. “Don’t be promiscuous like the Westerners,” he told his flock, and then, in one of the familiar somersaults of the pious, he recommended sigeh as the solution.

Disruptive innovation" is increasingly "devastating innovation," or what we call "big bang disruption." Businesses that wait for the disruptor to arrive before figuring out how to incorporate it in their products - as Christensen recommended - are already too late.

Commercially prepared formula is recommended for infants during the first 6 to 12 months.

When the 75 members of Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Advisory Council were asked to recommend the most important capability for leaders to develop, their answer was nearly unanimous: self-awareness.

MIT Probabilistic Computing Project7 for recommended readings and tutorials.8

The Implementation of GDPR into law is a sensible and proactive approach to help protect data, systems and remove neglect and possible misuse or data breach of data.  It is unlikely that all EU and UK business will be ready on time, but we do recommend that serious consideration is given to the topic and your approach going forward.

We recommend evaluating business systems and your approach to data security and how data is managed across your organisation.  We consider data access and IT policy with regards to data storage devices fixed and external.  We also give consideration to data backups and data retention within your organisation, and any external 3rd party services that store data from your organisation.  In detailing all these vital topics, we relate to the individual Articles and Recitals of the GDPR Regulation.

The reward for serving customers well is not only repeat business, but recommendation of your services to other people, and that cannot be inherited or bought, it is earned by reminding them about your existence and providing timely solutions to their problems not becoming one of their problems.

For a complete explanation of the dangers of managers with the wrong kind of ambition, I strongly recommend Dr. Seuss’s management masterpiece Yertle the Turtle.

Mr Moffat was a young man of very large fortune, in Parliament, inclined to business, and in every way recommendable. He was not a man of birth, to be sure; that was to be lamented;

I’m sorry to hear that. You know, I’ve been taking your insults for a while now, and it’s unfortunate that it seems we won’t be able to do business anymore. I’d recommend you take a good look at where this unhappiness and anger is actually coming from. In any case, I wish you well. If you would like to order product, we’ll be happy to supply it, but only if you can conduct yourself without profanity and unnecessary insults. You have our fax number. All the best and have a nice day.

You need a professional rotary cold-cut slicer for that, like they have at the deli. The home versions suck. But I highly recommend, if presenting sausage or meat on a buffet, that you slip the neighborhood deli guy a few bucks to slice what you need before you arrange it on platters. It makes all the difference in the world. Or if you have a few extra bucks, read the back of the paper for notices of restaurant auctions. As you've probably gathered by now, restaurants go out of business all the time, and have to sell off their equipment quickly and cheaply before the marshals do it for them. I know people who buy whole restaurants this way, in what's called a turnkey operation, and in a business with a failure rate of over 60 percent they often do very well. You can buy all sorts of professional quality stuff. I'd recommend pots and pans as a premium consideration if scavenging this way. Most of the ones sold for home use are dangerously flimsy, and the heavyweight equipment sold for serious home cooks is almost always overpriced.

CONFUSION 5: HOW TO DEAL WITH CUSTOMER DISSATISFACTION If you have hit each step to this point, customer dissatisfaction will be rare. But dissatisfactions will happen. Here’s what to do about them: 1. Always listen to what your Customers are saying. And never interrupt while they’re saying it! 2. After you’re sure you’ve heard all of your Customer’s complaint, make absolutely certain you understand what he or she said. You could ask, “Can I repeat what you’ve just told me, Mrs. Jones, to make absolutely certain I understand you?” 3. Secure your Customer’s acknowledgment that you have heard his or her complaint accurately. 4. Apologize for whatever your Customer thinks you did that dissatisfied him or her even if you didn’t do it! 5. After your Customer has acknowledged your apology, ask exactly what would make him or her happy. 6. Repeat what your Customer told you would make him or her happy, and get his or her acknowledgment that you heard it correctly. 7. If at all possible, give your Customer exactly what he or she asked for! But what if your Customer wants something completely unreasonable? If you’ve followed my recommendations to the letter, what your Customer asks will seldom seem unreasonable. That’s assuming you’ve got the right Customer. CONFUSION 6: WHO TO CALL A CUSTOMER At this stage, it’s important to ask some questions: Which types of Customers would you most like to do business with? Where do you see your real market opportunities? Who would you like to work with, provide service for, and position your business for? A Tactile Customer for whom people is most important? A Neutral Customer for whom the mechanics of how you do business is most important? An Experimental Customer for whom cutting-edge innovation is important? A Traditional Customer for whom low cost and certainty of delivery are absolutely essential? In short, it’s all up to you. No mystery. No magic. Just a systematic process for shaping your business’s future. But you must have the passion to pursue the process. And you must be absolutely clear about every aspect of it. Until you know your Customers as well as you know yourself. Until all your complaints about Customers are a thing of the past. Until you accept the undeniable fact that Customer Acquisition and Customer Satisfaction are more science than art. But unless you’re willing to grow your business, you better not follow any of the above recommendations. Because it will definitely grow.

CONFUSION 6: WHO TO CALL A CUSTOMER At this stage, it’s important to ask some questions: Which types of Customers would you most like to do business with? Where do you see your real market opportunities? Who would you like to work with, provide service for, and position your business for? A Tactile Customer for whom people is most important? A Neutral Customer for whom the mechanics of how you do business is most important? An Experimental Customer for whom cutting-edge innovation is important? A Traditional Customer for whom low cost and certainty of delivery are absolutely essential? In short, it’s all up to you. No mystery. No magic. Just a systematic process for shaping your business’s future. But you must have the passion to pursue the process. And you must be absolutely clear about every aspect of it. Until you know your Customers as well as you know yourself. Until all your complaints about Customers are a thing of the past. Until you accept the undeniable fact that Customer Acquisition and Customer Satisfaction are more science than art. But unless you’re willing to grow your business, you better not follow any of the above recommendations. Because it will definitely grow.

CONFUSION 5: HOW TO DEAL WITH CUSTOMER DISSATISFACTION If you have hit each step to this point, customer dissatisfaction will be rare. But dissatisfactions will happen. Here’s what to do about them: 1. Always listen to what your Customers are saying. And never interrupt while they’re saying it! 2. After you’re sure you’ve heard all of your Customer’s complaint, make absolutely certain you understand what he or she said. You could ask, “Can I repeat what you’ve just told me, Mrs. Jones, to make absolutely certain I understand you?” 3. Secure your Customer’s acknowledgment that you have heard his or her complaint accurately. 4. Apologize for whatever your Customer thinks you did that dissatisfied him or her even if you didn’t do it! 5. After your Customer has acknowledged your apology, ask exactly what would make him or her happy. 6. Repeat what your Customer told you would make him or her happy, and get his or her acknowledgment that you heard it correctly. 7. If at all possible, give your Customer exactly what he or she asked for! But what if your Customer wants something completely unreasonable? If you’ve followed my recommendations to the letter, what your Customer asks will seldom seem unreasonable. That’s assuming you’ve got the right Customer.

To digress a bit, I also think that one-on-ones at home can help family life. As the father of two teenage daughters, I have found that the conversation in such a time together is very different in tone and kind from what we say to each other in other circumstances. The one-on-one makes each of us take the other seriously and allows subtle and complicated matters to come up for discussion. Obviously, no notes are taken, as father and daughter usually go out for dinner at a restaurant, but a family one-on-one very much resembles a business one-on-one. I strongly recommend both practices.

Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive. Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge), by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore more honored in their day than prophets), and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist’s business is lying. The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will be like, and the Rand Corporation will tell you what the twenty-first century will be like. I don’t recommend that you turn to the writers of fiction for such information. It’s none of their business. All they’re trying to do is tell you what they’re like, and what you’re like—what’s going on—what the weather is now, today, this moment, the rain, the sunlight, look! Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don’t tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming, another third of it spent in telling lies

As a result, the most important recommendation for organizations of all shapes and sizes moving forward is to anticipate worst case scenarios at a minimum. Even in cases where organizations cannot or will not make some of the operational changes recommended below, the exercise of focusing on nonsoftware areas of a given business can help identify under-realized or -appreciated assets within an organization. Particularly ones for whom the sale of software has been low effort, brainstorming about other potential revenue opportunities is unlikely to be time wasted. One vendor in the business intelligence and analytics space has privately acknowledged doing just this; based on current research and projecting current trends forward, it is in the process of building out a 10-year plan over which it assumes that the upfront licensing model will gradually approach zero revenue. In its place, the vendor plans to build out subscription and data-based revenue streams. Even if the plan ultimately proves to be unnecessary, the exercise has been enormously useful internally for the insight gained into its business.

Where to?” Max asked as she climbed in. “I assume that you had some destination in mind when you cooked up that nonsense about needing your bags.” “I want to join Dom.” She stared him down, daring him to gainsay her. She’d take a hackney if she had to. “He’s probably still at Manton’s Investigations, so let’s start there.” Though a smile tugged at the duke’s lips, he merely gave the order to the coachman. As soon as they set off, however, he said, “You do realize that Dom is going to throttle me for helping you.” “I don’t see why,” she said lightly. “You are head of the Duke’s Men, aren’t you? Surely you can go wherever you please and involve yourself as much as you like.” As Lisette burst into laughter, Max shook his head. “My brother-in-law doesn’t exactly like having his agency called ‘the Duke’s Men.’ I’d keep that appellation under your hat, if I were you.” “Oh, that sounds so much like Dom,” Jane muttered, “not to appreciate a fellow who showed faith in him and was willing to use him to find his own cousin, not to mention invest in his business concern.” Lisette laughed even harder now, which only made Max wince. “What?” Jane asked. “What is it?” A flush spread over Max’s face. “Let’s just say that my part in…er…’the Duke’s Men’ has been greatly exaggerated by the papers. Rather tangential, really.” “In other words,” Lisette teased, “he pretty much did nothing. He didn’t even come up with the name, and he certainly didn’t hire Dom to find Victor. Tristan stumbled across Victor himself, and then…” Lisette spun out the story of how she had met Max and how Dom had become involved. How Max had made a grand gesture for the press to protect Tristan from George. “Oh, Lord,” Jane breathed. “That’s why you were all at George’s house that day.” The day she’d first seen Dom after nearly eleven years apart. “Exactly. I mean, Max does what he can to recommend the agency, and certainly Dom benefits from the excellent press he received as a result of Tristan’s finding Victor. But beyond that, Max has nothing to do with it. He has tried to invest in it, but Dom gets all hot under the collar every time he suggests it.” “What a shock,” Jane said sarcastically. She thought of Dom the Almighty, having his hard work and keen investigative sense attributed to some duke who’d simply taken up with his sister, and began to laugh. Then Lisette joined her, and eventually, Max. They laughed until tears rolled down Jane’s cheeks and Lisette was holding her sides. “Poor Dom,” Jane gasped, when she’d finally gained control of herself. “No matter how carefully he plans, someone always comes along to muck things up. We must all be quite a trial to him.” “Oh, indeed, we are,” Lisette said, sobering. “But honestly, he takes himself far too seriously, so it’s good for him.” She smiled at Jane. “You’re good for him. He needs a woman who stands firm when he tries to dictate how the world must be, a woman who will teach him that it’s all right if plans go awry. He needs to learn that he can pick up the pieces and still be happy, as long as he does it with the right person.” “I only hope he agrees with you,” Jane said. “I really do.” Because if she could be that woman for Dom--if he could let her be that woman for him--then they might have a chance, after all.

You do realize that Dom is going to throttle me for helping you.” “I don’t see why,” she said lightly. “You are head of the Duke’s Men, aren’t you? Surely you can go wherever you please and involve yourself as much as you like.” As Lisette burst into laughter, Max shook his head. “My brother-in-law doesn’t exactly like having his agency called ‘the Duke’s Men.’ I’d keep that appellation under your hat, if I were you.” “Oh, that sounds so much like Dom,” Jane muttered, “not to appreciate a fellow who showed faith in him and was willing to use him to find his own cousin, not to mention invest in his business concern.” Lisette laughed even harder now, which only made Max wince. “What?” Jane asked. “What is it?” A flush spread over Max’s face. “Let’s just say that my part in…er…’the Duke’s Men’ has been greatly exaggerated by the papers. Rather tangential, really.” “In other words,” Lisette teased, “he pretty much did nothing. He didn’t even come up with the name, and he certainly didn’t hire Dom to find Victor. Tristan stumbled across Victor himself, and then…” Lisette spun out the story of how she had met Max and how Dom had become involved. How Max had made a grand gesture for the press to protect Tristan from George. “Oh, Lord,” Jane breathed. “That’s why you were all at George’s house that day.” The day she’d first seen Dom after nearly eleven years apart. “Exactly. I mean, Max does what he can to recommend the agency, and certainly Dom benefits from the excellent press he received as a result of Tristan’s finding Victor. But beyond that, Max has nothing to do with it. He has tried to invest in it, but Dom gets all hot under the collar every time he suggests it.” “What a shock,” Jane said sarcastically. She thought of Dom the Almighty, having his hard work and keen investigative sense attributed to some duke who’d simply taken up with his sister, and began to laugh. Then Lisette joined her, and eventually, Max. They laughed until tears rolled down Jane’s cheeks and Lisette was holding her sides. “Poor Dom,” Jane gasped, when she’d finally gained control of herself. “No matter how carefully he plans, someone always comes along to muck things up. We must all be quite a trial to him.” “Oh, indeed, we are,” Lisette said, sobering. “But honestly, he takes himself far too seriously, so it’s good for him.

1. Fire them (in a nice way) Give them plenty of notice, and recommend other people that can do your job. Keep it short and sweet. You don’t have to justify why you made this decision, but you can add that it doesn’t fit into your business model at this time. It can go something like this… Tactful Client Dismissal Letter: Mr. Jones, I have decided it would be best if we did not renew your contract for next year. While I appreciate the opportunity to work with you, my business is moving towards a more automated model. I will not be able to handle your account the way you want or expect. Therefore, to ensure accounts success, I will be recommending three people who can replace me. Kind Regards, Liesha Petrovich 2.

PERSONAL PROFILE FOR EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION Consider the following list of twelve characteristics that are central to communicating both in an interview and on the job. If you feel you are lacking in a particular category, you can use the explanations and suggestions given to enhance your interactive ability in the workplace. 1. Activation of PMA. Use positive thinking techniques such as internal coaching. 2. Physical appearance. Make sure to dress appropriately for the event. In most interviews, business attire (a suit or sport coat and tie for men; a suit, dress, or tailored pants for women) is recommended. What you wear to the interview communicates not only how important the event is to you but your ability to assess a situation and how you should behave in it. Appropriate grooming is essential, both in an interview and on the job. 3. Posture. Carry yourself with confidence. Let your posture communicate that you are a winner. Keep your face on a vertical plane, spine straight, shoulders comfortably back. By simply straightening up and using the diaphragmatic breathing you learned in Chapter 6 (which proper posture encourages), you will feel much better about yourself. Others will perceive you in a more positive light as well. 4. Rate of speech. Your rate of speech ought to be appropriate for the specific situation and person or persons it is intended for. Too fast is annoying, and too slow is boring. A good way to pace your speech is to speak at close to the rate of the person who is talking to you. 5. Eye contact. Absolutely essential for successful communication. Occasionally, you should avert your gaze briefly in order to avoid staring. But try not to look down at your lap or let your eyes wander all around the room as you speak. This suggests a lack of confidence and an inability to stay on track. 6. Facial expressions. You gain more credibility when you are open and expressive. The warmer personality will seem stronger and more confident. And perhaps most important, remember to smile in conversation. If you seem interested and enthusiastic, it will enhance the chemistry between you and the interviewer or your supervisor. You can develop the ability to use facial expressions to your advantage through a kind of biofeedback that makes use of the mirror and continuously experimenting in real life. Look at your reflection for several minutes. Practice being relaxed and create the expressions that are appropriate. Do you look interested? Alert? Motivated? Practice responding to an interviewer. Impress the “muscle memory” of these expressions into your mind.

I highly recommend running through grassy trails in the rain. There is a haven of serenity out in nature, the sound of raindrops and the scent of flowers, the feeling of the water along my skin. Even in the middle of a busy city and an insane world, there is beauty everywhere. All we have to do is pause long enough to notice.

If you avoid the presenter’s eyes, yawn, or read the newspaper it’s worse than not being there at all. Lack of interest undermines the confidence of the presenter. Remember that you are spending a big part of your working day at the review. Make that time as valuable for yourself and your organization as you can. Pay attention and jot down things you’ve heard that you might try. Ask questions if something is not clear to you and speak up if you can’t go along with an approach being recommended. And if a presenter makes a factual error, it is your responsibility to go on record. Remember, you are being paid to attend the meeting, which is not meant to be a siesta in the midst of an otherwise busy day. Regard attendance at the meeting for what it is: work. Mission-Oriented

I highly recommended running through grassy trails in the rain. There is a haven of serenity out in nature, the sound of raindrops and the scent of flowers, the feeling of the water along my skin. Even in the middle of a busy city and an insane world, there is beauty everywhere. All we have to do is pause long enough to notice.

We recommend companies with new business models be patient for growth (to allow the market opportunity to unfold) but impatient for profit (as an early validation that the model works). A profitable business is the best early indication of a viable model. What Rules, Norms, and Metrics Are Standing in Your Way? In

The Ultimate Guide To SEO In The 21st Century Search engine optimization is a complex and ever changing method of getting your business the exposure that you need to make sales and to build a solid reputation on line. To many people, the algorithms involved in SEO are cryptic, but the basic principle behind them is impossible to ignore if you are doing any kind of business on the internet. This article will help you solve the SEO puzzle and guide you through it, with some very practical advice! To increase your website or blog traffic, post it in one place (e.g. to your blog or site), then work your social networking sites to build visibility and backlinks to where your content is posted. Facebook, Twitter, Digg and other news feeds are great tools to use that will significantly raise the profile of your pages. An important part of starting a new business in today's highly technological world is creating a professional website, and ensuring that potential customers can easily find it is increased with the aid of effective search optimization techniques. Using relevant keywords in your URL makes it easier for people to search for your business and to remember the URL. A title tag for each page on your site informs both search engines and customers of the subject of the page while a meta description tag allows you to include a brief description of the page that may show up on web search results. A site map helps customers navigate your website, but you should also create a separate XML Sitemap file to help search engines find your pages. While these are just a few of the basic recommendations to get you started, there are many more techniques you can employ to drive customers to your website instead of driving them away with irrelevant search results. One sure way to increase traffic to your website, is to check the traffic statistics for the most popular search engine keywords that are currently bringing visitors to your site. Use those search words as subjects for your next few posts, as they represent trending topics with proven interest to your visitors. Ask for help, or better yet, search for it. There are hundreds of websites available that offer innovative expertise on optimizing your search engine hits. Take advantage of them! Research the best and most current methods to keep your site running smoothly and to learn how not to get caught up in tricks that don't really work. For the most optimal search engine optimization, stay away from Flash websites. While Google has improved its ability to read text within Flash files, it is still an imperfect science. For instance, any text that is part of an image file in your Flash website will not be read by Google or indexed. For the best SEO results, stick with HTML or HTML5. You have probably read a few ideas in this article that you would have never thought of, in your approach to search engine optimization. That is the nature of the business, full of tips and tricks that you either learn the hard way or from others who have been there and are willing to share! Hopefully, this article has shown you how to succeed, while making fewer of those mistakes and in turn, quickened your path to achievement in search engine optimization!

Uninsured and underinsured Americans often get less testing and fewer services than they need. Poor Americans are less likely to get crucial recommended screenings for colin cancer and blood pressure. But well-insured Americans suffer often from too much treatment-particularly as they age-with tests and services meted out not for health but for money.

Empathy always leads to human bonding. This changes your status from a sales person to a wellwisher. And who doesn’t like to listen to recommendations by a well-wisher?

Many of us don’t find ourselves comfortable cross-selling another product or service. The thought that we are selfish and are motivated by money creeps in. When that happens, you have to look at the entire scenario from a different perspective. Your recommendations can help in taking the load off your customers’ shoulders and saving them valuable time.

During 1983 our book value increased from $737.43 per share to $975.83 per share, or by 32%. We never take the one-year figure very seriously. After all, why should the time required for a planet to circle the sun synchronize precisely with the time required for business actions to pay off? Instead, we recommend not less than a five-year test as a rough yardstick of economic performance. Red lights should start flashing if the five-year average annual gain falls much below the return on equity earned over the period by American industry in aggregate.

During 1983 our book value increased from $737.43 per share to $975.83 per share, or by 32%. We never take the one-year figure very seriously. After all, why should the time required for a planet to circle the sun synchronize precisely with the time required for business actions to pay off? Instead, we recommend not less than a five-year test as a rough yardstick of economic performance. Red lights should start flashing if the five-year average annual gain falls much below the return on equity earned over the period by American industry in aggregate. (Watch out for our explanation if that occurs as Goethe observed, “When ideas fail, words come in very handy.")

And while seeking out the opinions and perspectives of people like ourselves may lead to a more personal and familiar buying experience, what’s even more amazing is the impact those trusted sources have on conversion rates. B2B sales cycle data from Salesforce demonstrates that, when it comes to lead conversion, the interest that originates from customer and employee referrals converts to deals at rates fifty times higher than email campaigns!9 Furthermore, data from marketing automation giant Marketo indicates that leads originating from referrals convert to opportunities at rates of four times the average, and similar to the next three highest-converting lead sources combined (those being partner, inbound, and marketing-generated).10 My personal experience over the years greatly corroborates these statistics. For example, when I started my own sales practice, Cerebral Selling, I needed to have a logo designed. Around the same time, my friend had recently had a nice logo designed for his business. I asked him who he used, he told me, and I just did the same. No further research or investigation required. A short time later, I wanted to head out of town with my wife for an overnight trip to the beautiful Niagara wine region of Ontario to celebrate our anniversary. I didn’t know where to stay or which restaurant to go to, so instead of sifting through pages of online content and reviews, I asked a friend who runs a vineyard in the region. When he gave me his recommendations, I simply booked the places he told me. No questions asked. Were there better places to stay and eat? Potentially. Were there other creative design shops that could have generated equally if not more spectacular logos? More than likely. Do I care? Absolutely not! I love my logo and had a great anniversary outing, and feel secure in my decisions around both because of the feeling I received by selecting recommendations from people I trust. Both experiences are perfect examples of the prescriptive-led sales cycle we spoke about in chapter 2. This means that when it comes to your selling motion, one of the most unobtrusive, empathetic, and authentic ways to convert prospective buyers is simply to surround them with like-minded customers who love you.

What we gave mostly was wine. Especially after we made this legal(!) by acquiring that Master Wine Grower’s license in 1973. Most requests were made by women (not men) who had been drafted by their respective organizations to somehow get wine for an event. We made a specialty of giving them a warm welcome from the first call. All we wanted was the organization’s 501c3 number, and from which store they wanted to pick it up. We wanted to make that woman, and her friends, our customers. But we didn’t want credit in the program, as we knew the word would get out from that oh-so-grateful woman who had probably been turned down by six markets before she called us. Everybody wanted champagne. We firmly refused to donate it, because the federal excise tax on sparkling wine is so great compared with the tax on still wine. To relieve pressure on our managers, we finally centralized giving into the office. When I left Trader Joe’s, Pat St. John had set up a special Macintosh file just to handle the three hundred organizations to which we would donate in the course of a year. I charged all this to advertising. That’s what it was, and it was advertising of the most productive sort. Giving Space on Shopping Bags One of the most productive ways into the hearts of nonprofits was to print their programs on our shopping bags. Thus, each year, we printed the upcoming season for the Los Angeles Opera Co., or an upcoming exhibition at the Huntington Library, or the season for the San Diego Symphony, etc. Just printing this advertising material won us the support of all the members of the organization, and often made the season or the event a success. Our biggest problem was rationing the space on the shopping bags. All we wanted was camera-ready copy from the opera, symphony, museum, etc. This was a very effective way to build the core customers of Trader Joe’s. We even localized the bags, customizing them for the San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco market areas. Several years after I left, Trader Joe’s abandoned the practice because it was just too complicated to administer after they expanded into Arizona, Washington, etc., and they no longer had my wife, Alice, running interference with the music and arts groups. This left an opportunity for small retailers in local areas, and I strongly recommended it to them. In 1994, while running the troubled Petrini’s Markets in San Francisco, I tried the same thing, again with success, for the San Francisco Ballet and a couple of museums.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, adults 18 to 65 years old need 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night to function optimally. Infants need 12 to 15, toddlers need 11 to 14, preschoolers need 10 to 13, school-age children need 9 to 11, and teens need 8 to 10. After 65 years old, 7 to 8 hours a night are recommended.

Your approach becomes objective, moving as close as you can to rational. You have enough confidence in your own decision making that you never seek out investment recommendations. You’re content to wait patiently for the right opportunity. And you’re never too proud to buy a stock making new highs, even all-time highs. For you, investing opportunities are market breakouts. Conversely, when wrong, you exit immediately, no questions asked. You view loss as an opportunity to learn, move on, and save money to play another day. Obsessing on the past is pointless. You approach trading as a business, making note of what you buy or sell and why in the same matter-of-fact way you balance your checkbook. By not personalizing your trading decisions, your emotional indecision has the chance to decrease.

A common fear for companies is that if they open up a space for customers to share their problems, that it will be really negative and toxic. To that, I always remind them that any negativity that people feel toward your product is already being shared, just not in spaces where you have access and influence. It's much better to be able to own the space where these conversations are happening, to hear what people are saying, and be able to proactively respond. Kobe always recommends taking any heated conversations offline, “Ask the member to chat over email or phone where you can address their concerns one-on-one, or even escalate to a senior customer support agent to address sensitive situations.” Even in the most negative communities, over time you can turn the corner and develop a culture of positivity and optimism by continuing to show up, make your customers feel heard, and address their concerns with honesty and transparency.

recommend getting historical data that are already split and dividend adjusted,

Develop recommendations

Frankly, I don’t know. I think this business is getting the best of me. Plus I was reading a book one of the bridesmaids recommended to me about a hockey player and a ten-year age gap. **Whispers** He fucks her in her dorm. I’ve never been more turned on.