Beginning Business Blog

 " attractiveness is not the 'be all, end all' -- it just helps to tip the scales when competitors are otherwise equally talented or skilled ." At least for real estate agents, it turns out that beauty is indeed more than skin deep. A recent study of physical attractiveness and how it impacts real estate brokers' pay and productivity shows that the more attractive the real estate agent, the higher the listing price of the home for sale.   Those higher listings lead to higher sales prices, meaning that beauty enhances an agent's wage, said the report by Frank Mixon, professor of economics at Columbus State University's Turner College of Business.   He collaborated on the article, "Broker beauty and boon: a study of physical attractiveness and its effect on real estate brokers' income and productivity." with Sean P. Salter, from the Jennings A. Jones College of Business at Middle Tennessee State University and Ernest W. King from...

One of the most enjoyable and important parts of starting a new business is creating a “corporate culture”; in other words, an environment in which your employees are able to perform at a peak level with the least supervision while developing new products and services that meet the needs and wants of customers while growing your business. That being said, it’s not always easy to make this happen.   Many if not most businesses are so driven by the day by demands that little thought is given to where the company is going and how it’s going to get there and by what route. For example, innovation is always a hot topic in the business press.   How does a company foster innovation?   The short answer is by creating a corporate culture in which innovation is encouraged and rewarded.   Research shows that people innovation when they are given the freedom to explore those things that interest them based on their internal motivation.   Telling people that they must...

Source:  www.fremont.gov We are all creatures of habit, which is good news to owners of any small business.  This may seem instinctive to any business owner, but now this assumption can be considered scientific fact. A comprehensive study of consumers world-wide conducted by the mathmatics department at the Universidad Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M) not only documents this, but has developed a method for predicting people's shopping patterns.  Also participating in this research are scientists at the University of California in San Diego (U.S.A), M.I.T (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and NICTA (Australia).  A pretty impressive group of researchers, indeed. The conclusion of this study is that consumers are more predictable than you might assume and because of this predictability it is possible to know where consumers will shop. As explained by one of its authors, Esteban Moro of the Department of Mathematics at UC3M, " the main conclu...

Source:  DMH Design LLC Dana Henrickson's sketch of his family home in the Palouse of Washington. According to statistics released by the IRS, 72% of all the businesses in the U.S. are self-employed entrepreneurs running full or part time businesses.  The types of businesses run from buskers and shoe shine stand operators to writers and authors, attorneys, and other professionals, including architects and designers. Meet Dana Henrickson, a self-employed residential designer who started his business, DMH Design, LL.C., in Seattle, Washington in 2002.  Dana focuses on the niche need for accessibility in new and existing homes, for either older home owners who wish to stay in a home and neighborhood they know rather than moving to an assisted living center away from their home, family and a lifetime of roots.  With our country’s rapidly aging population, Dana’s skills and experience put him in an exciting niche.  The other need is for retrofitted homes ...

How to Find Good Employees : On my post of February 18th of this year, we talked about the role of managing stupidity in the success of any organization.  "Stupidity Management" refers to the real need of a business to know the difference between routine tasks that must be completed by rote and those tasks that require innovation and fresh thinking.   Every business has a need for discipline in tasks that must be performed the same way, each and every time. Every business has a need to creative thinking and fresh ideas on certain other tasks or problems, just not every task of problem.   The Hunt for the Creative Individual There are certain jobs in every organization where you, the owner, need original thinking.  Or perhaps you're running a business that lives off original thinkers.  An advertising agency is a business where the company's assets walk out the door every day at five (ish). Professor Øyvind L. Martinsen at BI Norwegian Business School ...

Source: onemansblog As long as we’re considering rude behavior, how do we treat customers who are behaving rudely?  You probably have an idea.  You might think that all humans react in the same way to rudeness from a customer.   But according to our friends at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, customer service employees - read waiters, hotel desk clerks, salespeople - born and raised in North America will actively sabotage a customer who is rude to them, while customer service representatives from China withdraw and lose enthusiasm for their jobs. "In North America, employees tend to retaliate against offensive customers -- doing things like giving bad directions or serving cold food ,” says UBC Sauder School of Business Professor Daniel Skarlicki, a co-author of the study.   “ In China, workers are more likely to reduce the general quality of service they provide to all customers -- ...

  Want a customer service employee who will drive you completely stark-raving nuts with their rude behavior?   Go with the candidate with the best credit score. Really.   That is the conclusion of Jeremy Bernerth; LSU Assistant Professor in the E. J. Ourso College of Business Daniel Whitman; Shannon Taylor of Northern Illinois University; and H. Jack Walker of Texas Tech University in a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. You want a jerk of a customer service rep who will drive away customers?    Hire the guy or gal with a great credit score.    Want an effective, warm communicator whom your customers will love?  You got it.  The one with the so-so credit score. Here’s what led the researchers to this conclusion:   " With regards to personality and credit -- it makes sense that conscientiousness is related to good credit, but what was really interesting was that agreeableness was negati...