Tweet To sell your business, and yourself, you must be a great leader. Great leaders project themselves with confidence, skill and ease. Through leadership skills you can unite team members behind your vision, and convincingly sell that vision to potential clients and buyers. An Inc.com article, “Is your Leadership Showing?” outlines five competencies of a top leader. Among them are two that are closely related: Preparation and Comfort. On Preparation, the article says: “Many leaders are great at preparing the logistics of leadership (the facts and figures in a plan, or the pitch for a presentation). Too many leaders, however, don’t prepare regularly for the deeper daily requirements of leadership. This is a shame, because most leaders face complex challenges, [...]
Read More »Tweet In big public spaces like corporate boardrooms, hotel lobbies or hospital waiting rooms, you may not always notice the artwork on the walls. But if those walls were bare? Something would seem not quite right. “Art really adds to a space. It’s one of those things that can influence your mood. I think it’s critical to a space feeling warm. If you don’t have any artwork in a public space, something is lacking. It makes a space look more polished and professional, and it’s just as important as the colors on the wall or the carpet you chose,” says Artonomy senior art executive Jennifer Feld. Artonomy is a woman-owned small business that supplies custom photography and other artwork for [...]
Read More »Tweet Technology is supposed to save us time, right? But with mountains of emails to check, social media accounts to update, blogs to read, schedules to set and cell phone to answer, it sometimes can feel like technology is taking over our days instead of making us more efficient. Don’t fear! You can take tech into your own hands. Managed correctly, technology can be a help and not a hindrance in getting work done. But it does take a little planning, focus, and willpower (don’t touch that smartphone during lunch!) to make that happen. An article on Mashable.com, Five ways to get your email under control, gives some handy tips, including this little gem: Don’t Open Mail Twice. Inbox Zero [...]
Read More »Tweet There are certain times in the business life cycle when you need an infusion of cash. It could be in the startup phase, a hyper-growth phase or during a new product or service launch. Whatever the reason, there are times when business revenues alone can’t support your small or diverse business. So what can you do? Well, there are a multitude of ways to finance business growth, but you have to be smart about it. An article in Bloomberg Businessweek sets the right frame of mind, saying “getting the right money at the right time on the right terms is what matters.” The article, Rules of Raising Capital, expands on four important questions you should ask yourself before you [...]
Read More »Tweet Startup company Square Inc. just made a major announcement: the mobile payment processor inked a deal with coffee shop powerhouse Starbucks. As part of the deal, Starbucks will invest $25 million in the 2-year-old company, and Starbucks will use Square to process credit cards in the U.S., a Reuters article says. Processing credit card payments by mobile phone is increasingly becoming an option for large and small businesses alike. Some have even speculated that one day all types of bill and retail payments will be done by our mobile devices. These new programs are downloaded as apps to your smartphone or a tablet (like an iPad). A small card reader attaches to the mobile device where you can swipe [...]
Read More »Tweet Employees can make or break a company. There’s a business adage — Hire Slow, Fire Fast — that rings especially true for small, diverse businesses whose employees may fill more than one crucial role. Unlike larger companies, your small business probably doesn’t have an HR person devoted to employee issues. So it’s up to you to put practices in place to streamline hiring and firing practices. There are a couple of good resources on Inc.com that explore both these challenges. In “How to Hire Extraordinary Employees: 7 Rules,” the writer outlines specific steps to doing just that. The first is: Define your “extraordinary employee.” The author writes: Study your best employees to determine the characteristics that differentiate them from [...]
Read More »Tweet Numbers don’t lie. Hispanic populations across the U.S. are growing, and so are their buying power. Hispanics are the country’s fastest-growing population group, and along with that growth comes a boost in Hispanic-led entrepreneurship and spending. It’s estimated that Hispanic-owned small businesses are growing at more than twice the rate of the national average. Additionally, Latino purchasing power is set to reach $1.5 trillion by 2015. Despite this, American businesses have yet to really tap into the talent and the strong economic boost Hispanics can offer companies. The Center for Hispanic Leadership’s (CHL) Hispanic Training Center launched a new program to harness that potential employee and consumer power. CHL’s new Hispanic Leadership Certification Program, aims “to help talented Hispanic [...]
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The ConnXion Point is the blog for connXus.com, an online service connecting small, minority- and woman-owned businesses with companies seeking to hire diverse suppliers.
I'm Rod Robinson, founder and chief connector of connXus.com. I've spent 15 years in the procurement business as a minority business owner, company procurement officer and industry consultant.
The ConnXion Point will focus on issues, events and news about procurement and supplier diversity. So, whether you're purchasing or selling, we'll have information you can use. We also hope to facilitate a healthy, respectful exchange of viewpoints on issues surrounding supplier diversity and procurement.
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