Topic: The ball is in your court
As I sit here trying to think of a topic appropriate for this column, I can’t help but be distracted by the chaos all around me. No, I don’t mean a chaotic office or kids running around or anything like that. I mean the constant bombardment from all directions of bad news about the economy.
This barrage of bad news begins for me at about 6:00 a.m. with Fox news before I go to work. Then once settled into my workspace, there is my Google home page with all of its news and reminders (including an RSS feed of the DOW), then to top it all off there is a healthy dose of industry news reports that hit my email inbox all day long.
Enough is enough with all of this gloom and doom. I want to use this time here to talk about things we can do to work towards a more positive direction.
Lets all take a hard look around our workplace to see what we can do ourselves to make a difference. I'm talking about getting back to the basics in some ways, about being more efficient, and trying new things to generate new business.
I’ve listed a few ideas and suggestions below that I came up with to help get you started in the right direction. I challenge everyone to take a few minutes to create your own list. Don’t forget to share these ideas on our bulletin boards in the Finishing Talk Community.
• Attend a webinar or other online training event.
• Take a class or workshop to hone your skills or to learn new ones.
• Ask your boss once a week if there is anything else you can do to help.
• Attend a local association meeting and stay in touch with your industry.
• Participate in a corporate brown bag program.
• Look for and share cost cutting and efficiency ideas with your boss or management team.
• Share helpful print and online articles with your co-workers.
• Participate in online forums and blogs about your industry.
• Take a good look at your market niche, thoroughly review your competitions positioning, and update your website.
• Use the telephone more often rather than email. You’d be surprised how well this works.
You may not have noticed but we go out of our way to print only positive news for the industry in our News and Events section of this publication. This may seem especially difficult these days but you’d be surprised….. there are a number of interesting and positive things going on in our industry these days and I encourage you to stay open to finding them.
I think once we all refocus our attention on “the ball” rather than succumbing to all of the negative media, not only will we feel better about taking control of our situation, but we’ll find more of the opportunities that are out there for personal and professional growth. Above all please remember - you can choose to use this time wisely!
