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Any new job can be scary, but jumping into the world of self storage sales is very scary.  While you would not think so at first, it does not take you long to realize that the self storage industry is a very competitive one.  If you have never worked as a salesperson before, then you are really going to have to expand your skill set to survive in the industry.  Of course, I do not mean to scare you by making these claims.  Quite to the contrary, I intend to help you sharpen your skills by sharing with you some of the advice that I had to learn through experience.  With any luck at all, you can avoid making the mistakes that I made when I was just starting out.

It did not take me very long to realize that you cannot be nervous when you pick up the phone and answer a sales call.  If you sound nervous when you are on the phone, then your self storage customers are not going to be able to trust you in the slightest.  They are going to think that you have something to hide.  That, or they are going to think that you do not really believe in the quality of your product.  To avoid these kinds of miscommunications entirely, you are going to have to be sure that you speak with confidence once you answer the phone.  Treat your phone call like you would treat a first date.  You are making a powerful impression upon your customer, and you are not ever going to be given the opportunity to flip that around.  Make it count.

Moving on, here, you are going to want to be sure that you are not forgetting to share a laugh with your callers every now and again.  I mean, if you are not making them laugh every once in a while, then you are only shooting yourself in the foot.  Over the years, I have found that making someone laugh is the quickest way to make them trust what you are saying.  And no, I am not suggesting that you use the power of laughter to mislead your callers.  All I am saying is that by making them laugh, you can more easily guide them towards the sale that you are trying to make.

Lastly, reader, you have to be sure that you are not letting all of your minor little failures fester in your mind.  You simply have to recognize that you are going to make mistakes when you are first starting out.  That is to be expected.  No matter how hard you study, and no matter how seriously you commit this advice to heart, you are going to slip up from time to time.  And that is one hundred percent all right.  Just be sure that you take a step back from your mistakes, consider them carefully, and learn from them.  So long as your mistakes are a vehicle for learning, you are never going to fail at the end of the day.

Clearly, it does not take much to get your feet wet when it comes to launching your career as a self storage salesperson.  Just be sure that you do not throw the towel in too early, and that you learn from your mistakes rather than dwell on them.

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Usually we don’t re-post published article, but today is a bit different. We ran into this article published at Yahoo.com which talks about the U.S. Navy sending its top admirals to be re-educated. The article states that the goal is to get the military leaders to acquire a business management mindset. You can view the article at

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060611/ap_on_re_us/reeducating_admirals

This is of utmost interest. The question is can you do the same thing for your small business? The answer is most likely a big No. Ask yourselves what the alternative is? 

Email us with your thoughts.

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Workforce Diversification. Diversity and diversification are rather subjective and abstract concepts which may be in the eye of beholder. There are many aspects of an organization that can be subject to scrutiny in terms of diversification, including work force diversification based on race, gender, and religious affiliation, process diversification based on standard procedures, target market diversification and many other aspects. However, in this particular endeavor, we will concentrate on definition of work force diversification and organizational behavior, process and goals which would lead to a generally agreeable diversification.

Background

As obviously implied by the word itself, diversification refers to inclusion of a greater and more unique poll of participant. According to Wikipedia “Diversity is the presence of a wide range of variation in the qualities or attributes under discussion.” This simply translates into greater unique individuals in terms of background, religion, race and gender. Naturally, as in any business related activity, measuring and controlling actions are the best way to collect data and create more effective ways of implementation.

Others have defined work force diversity as organizational commitment to value differences and uniqueness beyond statistical prove, positive internal reinforcement of individuality and diversity, legal commitment and reverse discriminatory actions in order to rectify historical discrimination against minorities. There have been also two dimension of classification within diversity. First dimension is based on natural factors “gender, race, ethnicity, age physical ability/qualities, sexual/affect ional orientation”. The second dimension which is considered changeable factors, include “educational background, geography, income, material status, religious believes and work experience”. However, there appears to be a lack of uniform and realistic ways to quantitatively measure diversity.

Necessity of Workforce diversification

One of the more important issues that has to be considered is the reason why diversification is not only necessary but increasingly vital. First and most importantly, there is an ever increasing trend in the diversified composition of the U.S. population. Secondly, there is a growing participation of foreign companies within U.S. territory and its economy. Thirdly, U.S. Owned companies increasingly conduct business in foreign countries. Thus leading to the logical conclusion that the growing poll of potential and actual participants and employees are composed of a greater diversification.

Impact of workforce diversification

Another important issue is the impact of diversification on organizations. One of the most significant issues within any organization is acquisition and retention of human capital: those firms that achieve an equal quantity of diversification within all levels of organizations are more likely to access the poll of talented minority employees. Further, a diversified workforce not only allows the managers to make better choices, it also enable the organization to market to untapped minority markets. Companies such as Wal-Mart have utilized such diversified force in order to serve to minority markets and minority consumer which feel that a diversified firm can more easily relate to their particular needs. All of these factors create a better platform for success by addressing multi dimensional aspects of business.

Levels of diversification

Further, it is important to differentiate between levels of diversification. There are three different level / stages of diversification: monolithic, pluralistic and multicultural. Monolithic refers to those organizations which are composed of a majority group with the expectation of minimal minorities to follow the norms of majority. Pluralist refers to those organization that have minority members because of creation of special programs to promote minorities, however, those minorities are still expected to follow the norms and standards of majority (Allen, Montgomery 2001; p.150).

 Multicultural refers to advanced organizations which strive for actual integration of minorities in the corporate culture by adapting values of minorities within the organization. Organizations which fall under the last category are the once which benefit the most from diversification programs.

Implementation of workforce diversification

Yet another significant issue is the ways in which diversification can be successfully implemented. One of the rather successful approaches has been social pressure on corporations to implement diversification. In this particular approach socially important goals are rephrased and reworked to fit the language and understanding of business oriented organizations in order to enable the decision makers to recognize the benefit.  This approach assumes that in order to initiate change, the internal cultural settings have to be in tune with the goals of the change. This will virtually always translate into profit, which can / should not be opposed buy profit oriented organizations. Another way to successfully implement diversification is information diversification. In this particular approach educational training which contains diversified material is supposed to benefit the diversified composition of organizations. Some studies even suggest that educational diversification may illustrate a better foundation to reach the goal of diversity than other modes of implementation. Further such approach may lead to better usage of information, knowledge advancement, knowledge creation, team work and decision making. Naturally there are other ways to initiate and implement work force diversification such as internal organizational pressure, internal and external legal actions, and customer demands.

One particular approach to manage and implement diversity effectively has been coined as “organizational diplomacy” referring to the process of deep commitment to resolving institutional and constituency conflict that may among other issues entail and oppose diversification.“Organizational diplomacy” is supposed to encounter the artificial and superficial commitments termed as “pacification”. The diplomatic approach is based on the premises that encouragement of employee input, proper policy design and implementation, and all possible attempt to minimize organizational conflict will lead to more effective implementation of diverse workforce. 

Ethics

One additional crucial factor in organizational behavior in implementing diversity is ethics. First and most importantly, a successful implementation of diversity has to be based on eliminating stereotypes within an organization. Second, emphasizing uniform and common organizational goal that will lead to increased value of diversity. Thirdly, an ethical approach will have to include affirmative action whereby it should be as a part of “valuing diversity” instead of caving into external pressure. Fourthly, the ethical implementation of diversification should be broad and inclusive of diverse workforce, thus resulting i

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One of the more noticeable concepts is virtual organizations which take advantage of advances in informational technology to combine resources and expertise from different partners and even competitors. In general such organizations are naturally more adaptable and flexible because of inherent advance usage of technology to overcome burdens such as latency in communication, implementation and execution of desired actions. Such flexibility ultimately contributes to a better performance platform which would greatly increase the possibility of success.

Just recently, I had a discussion with a potential new client which told me about some study that corporate giants’ such as Boeing are increasingly attempting to enhance their telecommuter capabilities. The discussion led to citation of some astonishing results: Telecommuters work twice as many hours at home, than they would in office. Consider the impact of such infrastructure and its implication as virtual organization: the cross sourcing, cross networking, and enhanced time and human capabilities. Personally, I believe that virtual organization are a natural evolution of traditional organizations: in the age of advanced technological tools such as VPN, Satellites,  high speed internet, and enterprise high end communication solutions, it is safe to assume that adaptive approaches have a good chance of replacing the traditional methods of collaboration.

In my experience virtual organizations have even a better chance to be more innovative: remote communication and collaboration is sometimes accompanied by unexpected challenges. For instance, using old technology such as fax maybe common in every office, but is cost effective in terms of hardware, ink, paper, maintenance, etc.? I would say no. Alternative methods such as eFax may eliminate some of the cost. I would go as far as suggesting that virtual organizations, in my opinion, are in a better position to compete with their counterparts; given the fact that the concept is in its infancy, only time will tell.

Brought to you by Public Relation Solution a division of World Consulting Solution

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In terms of public relations it is really difficult to encounter the criticism that accompanies ranking number 1 in any industry. Just look at the criticism that Wal-Mart or addidas vs. those of Target or Rebocc. Essentially it is vital to understand that besides the profits, there is a public relations dilemma accompanying the number 1 in any industry. Now, in most industries there are two situations: either there is no tremendous difference in terms of real profits between the top and the second position; or there is so much difference that a comparison is redundant. In the first scenario, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try to avoid being number 1; in the second case it really doesn’t matter, because there is a lot of work to be done before your P.R. concerns will kick in. Either way, one should be aware of the consequences that will accompany a firm once it is financially doing well.

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