Ready For Your Business Check-Up? by Laurie Hayes

In order to build and grow your home-based business, you need to give it regular inspections, kind of like your doctor gives your body a regular check-up or your mechanic runs a computer diagnostic of your car's engine from time to time.

When you're building your home-based business, you're "it". You're the mind, the pulse, the liver, the filtering system, the reproductive system and everything else in between. It's impossible to be objective and see the bigger picture when you're fully involved in all of its intricate workings.

The best way to make sure your business gets a healthy check-up is to put it under a microscope and examine it with a fresh set of eyes at least every three months.

You need to mentally extract yourself from your business and examine it from an outsiders point of view and to be even more thorough, get other sets of eyes to assist.

To begin, mentally put your business in a box. Hold that box in your hands and place it under a powerful microscope.

Next, sit in a comfortable chair with a notepad and pen by your side. Then, lean forward, look through the magnified lenses and start examining the individual workings of the organism in front of you.

Futher Article - businessknowhow.com/homeoffice/checkup.htm

10 WAYS TO INSPIRE EMPLOYEES

Finding and keeping skilled employees in today's tight job market is no laughing matter. In some cases, finding employees to produce the work has become a bigger challenge than finding the work. And, once employees are on board, keeping them happy and productive is key.

"Companies must now sell themselves to employees," observes Debra Thompson, president of TG & Associates (Tuscon, AZ), an HR consulting firm that focuses on the printing industry. "In the current job market, most people reading the want ads are not the ones printers want to attract. Companies must instead get the attention of those employees who are already working, attracting them with a more challenging career path, a better work environment, or maybe better benefits."

Many companies are realizing this and taking care not only to put programs into place to attract new talent, but recognizing that different employees are motivated by different things. One employee may consider childcare an essential benefit, while another may be more interested in rolling over a 401(k), while still another may be most concerned that payday is weekly rather than biweekly.

No longer is a one-size-fits-all approach to motivation workable. "Once a company finds top performers, it's important to pay attention to individual needs and do what it takes to satisfy them," notes Thompson, who addresses these issues in a just-released three-part "HR how-to" series.....

To read full article - smallbusiness411.org/cgi-bin/library/jump.cgi?ID=12825