While you are yet mastering the art of strategic business management, allow me to share some ideas on how to survive the stressful yet exciting and challenging world of business.

Determine who your market is. Most management gurus recommend the identification of your target customers before you get on with all the other plans and preparations necessary. Reversing the process would not be beneficial for you especially when you are yet starting to build your business. Know that the vital element towards succeeding in your chosen entrepreneurial field is the identification of who the market is. This allows you to foresee which products or services would best be needed and availed of by your prospective customers.

If you are going to battle it out against a vast number of competitors, you have to make sure that you know what you’re going into. Think of business as some sort of role-playing game. You get to pick which battles you want to be in and you get to choose which battlefield you want to fight in. So, if you are to emerge victorious, you need to make sure you always make the right choices.

Secure proof of your market value. This is one of the basics in *business growth strategies. It can be the most tedious thing you’ll ever have to do but it sure would help you attract more customers and even potential investors. Here are a couple of stuff you can do:

- Get product testers or quality analysts to make sure that the highest standards are being upholded.

- Try getting the press to cover your business. Minimal features can be significant infomercials for your enterprise.

- Gather testimonials. While it is oftentimes difficult to solicit these from your customers (remember: most of them would think they have better things to do than scribbling notes on what they think about your company), testimonials are not impossible to get. However, you have to remember that these can only be obtained by making sure that you exceed your client’s expectations when it comes to the products and the services that you offer. If you are able to do this, it wouldn’t hard for you to get that positive review you need.

Note: Thank you for reading the second installment of my personal development series. As you may have noticed, this write-up has not been concluded yet. Watch out for the continuation of this article tomorrow. Ciao!

Today, I want to talk about how what email habits can be annoying to readers so you can start getting rid of them.

A prominent personal development coaching firm has conducted a quick study on what mostly annoys email recipients and here is what they commonly say:

1.  Email signatures significantly affects the context of the message. Some people would think you do not know how to change your settings when they see “Sent from my iPhone/BB” on the signature line. Others would feel that they’re less important because they’re only worth a quick note via their mobile phones.

You can however turn the situation upside down by being creative. Try thinking of other ways to say that you are typing from the comforts of your mobile device. Try to use some play of words.

2. Automatic responses are good and are more often than not understandable but never include the phrase “I am busy right now. I will get back to you as soon as possible.” I mean, business people know that everybody who’s seriously working are seriously busy so there is no need to state the obvious.

You can stick with acknowledging that you have received your email and that a more detailed reply will be sent soon.

3. “Thanks” and “Cheers” can be annoying at times. Well, some people believe that nothing beats a simple “Thank you” as this is believed to be the best way to express sincere gratitude. Also, some people think that “Cheers” is very British-sounding. Remember, you have to make sure that no matter how little time you have in answering your emails, you have to make each message sound like the person you are replying to are pretty much important to you.

4. Mispelled words and poorly constructed sentences are not only irritating, they also give your readers the impression that you weren’t really putting your mind into replying to them.

5. Too many recipients of a single email that you have written to sound like it was a personal message can be a major turn-off. For those who do not know yet, BCC means blind carbon copy and you can use this to send one message to multiple recipients without them knowing that they all got the same email.

But of course, there are no hard-and-fast rules in emailing and I cannot blame you if you would disagree with some items written above. Remember, however, that this is based on a survey so before you throw a fit, think again.

He is a person who is often regarded as an extremely polished and charismatic public speaker.

Well here is a video done by a presentation coach that explains a few techniques from the playbook of Steve Jobs. – From having clear themes to his smooth transitions, it also includes how he keeps his audience hanging on his words and the material he’s presenting.

Enjoy the video and let us know if you have any speaking tips below or how you found the video