Women in Business: Stop, Look, Listen and Succeed

Written by Sharon Michaels

As children, we were told to stop, look and listen before proceeding across the street. Today, as adults, we need to think in much the same way about succeeding in business: Stop being a wandering generality. Look at the trends in your industry carefully. Listen to the wants and needs of your customer. Then wisely proceed toward greater success. When you think about it, Stop, Look and Listen is a simple and effective formula for business-building success. Let’s go through each step in more detail so you can see how the steps fit easily and effectively into business planning. Stop! Clarify your vision and goals. The motivational speaker and author Zig Ziglar is often quoted as saying, “Don’t become a wandering generality. Be a meaningful specific.” The better you understand what you want to accomplish personally, the more focused you will become about what you want to accomplish professionally. Becoming a meaningful specific means knowing what you want, why you want it and what you are willing to do to make it happen. Ask yourself … Are my goals and vision for the future specific, motivating and measurable? The more meaningful and specific your goals, the more focused you’ll be on the day-to-day activities that can actually turn those goals into reality. Look! Study your market inside and out. Examine what is currently happening in your industry. Then look at what is specifically happening within your target market. Become a trend-watcher. The successful woman entrepreneur knows her target market better than her target market knows itself! The Academy Award winning director Frank Capra said it best: “Don’t follow trends, start trends.” It all begins by truly understanding the wants, needs and desires of your ideal market. Ask yourself … What am I doing to stay current with the trends in my industry? How will these trends affect my target market? Can I foresee a new trend for my market? How can I begin planning now to be on the cutting edge of innovation? A trend-watcher is someone who reads, studies and stays current with what is happening within their industry. It’s like the old saying, “Find a need or desire and fill it better than anyone else.” Become a people-watcher. Observe the hopes, dreams, wants, needs and goals of your target market and then find a way to address those hopes, dreams, wants, needs and goals with your products and services. Become your target market’s “go to” person. Listen! Deliver what your customers need and want. Listen to your customers and provide extraordinary products and customer service. The successful and innovative businesswoman is a great listener. Being a great listener and asking well-crafted, open-ended questions go hand-in-hand. I call it becoming an informal interviewer. The best way to learn more about the hopes, dreams, wants, needs and goals of your target market is to talk with your target market directly. Go where they go and then make time to stop, look and listen to what your ideal customer is saying about his or her current and future expectations. Become an innovator in your industry! Ask yourself … How can I seek out opportunities to better serve my target market? How can my products and services solve a problem or fill a need or desire? Being an innovator means thinking out of the box and making your own opportunities. Listening to your customers amounts to doing your homework and providing yourself with a firsthand impression of the industry and your ideal customer. Listen carefully and discover what need or expectation is not being filled within your target market and figure out a way you can fill this void better than anyone else. Ask yourself … How can I support my target market’s desire to make life easier, safer, happier or better? Succeed! Get going today. You will succeed when you stop to examine what you want to achieve personally and professionally. Success begins with your personal, professional and financial vision for the future. The clearer you are about what you want to achieve, the clearer you’ll be about how to grow your business. You will succeed when you look carefully at your target market with an open and innovative mindset and become a skilled people-watcher. Get to know your target market even better than they know themselves. You will succeed when you listen to the physical and emotional needs and desires of your customers and then provide them with innovative solutions and extraordinary customer service. Become the most innovative person in your industry—the one who expertly addresses the hopes, dreams, wants, needs and goals of the market. Are you ready to make a commitment to become the go-to person within your target market? There’s no better time than today to stop, look, listen and succeed at making your personal and business goals a reality. careers, Jobs Indonesia, Indonesia Vacancy

Short Story- Woman At Work

Dalip Singh Wasan, Advocate.

When I was in the tenth class, I participated in a seminar organized by the Employment Exchange in which they had been giving us information about the professions, trades, callings and employments available in the country and they were also telling us that every person, who has taken birth in this world, has got his own wishes, his own desires, his own likings, his own aptitudes and if he is adjusted at a right work in life, there are chances of his success and such a person shall be having efficiency and sometime he proves a blessing to the nation in which he has taken birth. I started to know myself and in due course when I completed my graduation, I immediately joined Master of Arts in English and completed the same successfully. I wanted to compete for IAS and for that purpose I joined a school which was preparing youths for such competitions. My parents were rich people and they were not liking all that what I had been doing. They were interested that after completing graduation, I should be married and because of my beauty and charm so many youths from rich families had been proposing marriage with me. But I declared that I shall not marry at this stage and shall go ahead and shall be a professional woman and shall be at work. I wanted to serve the nation and my people too.

I became an IAS officer and had been getting promotions after promotions and ultimately after my retirement I was appointed as a Chairman of a Board under the state. The girls in my relations and those who were my friends married and they had been having their own life. Some of them are wives of rich people and have got a band of servants, cars, buildings and bank balances. As and when then meet me they had been saying that I had done something wrong. This life comes once and therefore, one should enjoy this life. On the other hand I was accepting this fact that this life comes once and will never come again, but one should serve the nation, its people and even people living in other countries. Only those people become great who could get their names alive in hearts of so many people around them.

On a birth day ceremony in the house of my brothers, most of my class fellows, my friends, my relatives were collected and it was a grant party. I had the occasion to meet all of them and I was happy that such occasions could collect us all, otherwise, this life was so busy that we could not get time to meet even occasionally. When we were sitting and talking on different subjects, some of my friends passed comments on my choice of life course and they were also commenting that now I am a retired officer and a retired officer is nothing but an ordinary person. I was overhearing all these adverse comments upon my choice and therefore, I wanted to leave this group. I was not happy to hear all these adverse comments.

When I got up and each one present there had a look on my body and one of my friends passed comments, " This lady may have lost so many occasions which we had been enjoying in life, but she could maintain her body, her body structure, her health, her beauty, her grace, her charm and all that which is the ultimate desire of every woman and she could achieve everything in this field. We had been enjoying life, but we lost all grace, all body charm and now we are just decorating ourselves, but in spite of all our efforts, we are not in a position to equate ourselves with this simple lady. " and another passed remarks, " She got all that because she had been having company of men and when a woman remains in company of men, she has to maintain herself and with the passing of time, she had been developing all these habits and now she is a perfect lady and we hare just decorated corps." All laughed and I just passed away with my head up and high.

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