Tips on How to Improve Your Sales Meeting With the Use of Corporate Entertainment
Break away from the ringing phones, keyboard clicking and incoming faxes by providing entertainment for your sales meeting. “Sales meeting” may seem like a stuffy word, but you will find a variety of ways to entice your audience to get involved.If you are planning to organize a sales meeting, you have to ensure that this event will turn into a productive and entertaining one. The best way to improve your sales meeting is through the use of entertainment. How can you do that? The answer is very simple. If you don’t know how, simply use the following as your reference:
Provide Your Audience a Perfect Reason to Attend the Meeting – As the host of the sales meeting, you have to entice your audiences to participate in the event. This reason should give a precise sense of purpose and also relate to the company’s goals and missions. A precise purpose creates a feeling of teamwork and shared ownership to unite everyone in the room.
Provide Your Core Message – The core message of the corporate meeting entertainment should include company news, strategic thinking and insight. This message shows that the company values its employees enough to share their vision, challenges and expectations.
Help People Visualize the Message – You can help your audience visualize the message with the help of supporting graphics and even MAGIC. Say for instance, if you want to introduce a certain product, you can hire an entertainer or a magician to make the products or CEO appear and disappear. You can also meld the magic with the message you opt to convey to your audiences.
Make a Compelling Pace – As a facilitator, you have to strictly follow the company’s agenda and create a logical conclusion. Your main goal is to establish momentum and deliver a momentous payoff, whatever size of the sales meeting.
Get People Excited about the Message – Make sure that you give them reasons to act on it. Your meeting entertainment must give people a reason to believe in the company, the message and the future.
When it comes to sales meetings, meetings incentive travel or other corporate activities, some say that it is hard to entertain their audiences since they are discussing meticulous and important business deals. However, what they don’t realize is that most businessmen and audiences encourage participating in the sales meeting if there is an exceptional and exciting activity. This is the reason why most people prefer to hire not just an ordinary magician, but a professional corporate entertainer.
Teen Drug Rehab – How to Make an Informed Decision
There are over 1 million teenagers who are dependent on illegal drugs. There is a nearly equal number that are alcohol-dependent. Not all of these teens need inpatient care or teen drug rehab. But to avoid that, two things need to be achieved: a total cessation of substance abuse and a demonstrated among the teen’s family of open and improving ability to talk about the problem and find solutions.But that’s easier said than done. And, if you are the parent of that teen, what should you do if your doctor recommends inpatient teen drug rehab?The good news is that there is an upside to this kind of recommendation. Most kids — nearly 75% — who need teen drug rehab never receive it. So look at the recommendation not as something to be dreaded. Look at it as an opportunity, a “wake-up call,” that you can address to help your child.So feel good that your son or daughter has an opportunity to get the teen drug rehab that they need. And by helping them sooner rather than later, their brain and their psyche (which is still forming and maturing) will improve greatly. This will improve their quality of life far into adulthood.So how can you make an informed decision about teen drug rehab that works and is affordable?First of all, get multiple referrals or recommendations for teen drug rehab from your doctor. Then scan the websites of these facilities. Even the most basic info is useful at this stage:
Where are they located?
Location is most critical because you are not going to simply drop off your child and go away. It is imperative that you play an important role in your teen’s drug rehab. You must plan to visit your child on a regular basis. Not only that: many teen drug rehab facilities will not accept your teen in the first place unless you commit to participating actively in their recovery. Later on, your child will be OK’d to spend weekends in your home — as recovery warrants it. So find a facility that is close to home.
How much do they charge?
Take an active role in finding out all the costs involved, whether or not you have insurance coverage for teen drug rehab or not. Knowing all the costs helps you make informed comparisons between one facility and another. Also, it will help you better understand what is likely to be covered by insurance and/or Medicaid. Also, be aware that some programs facilitate your getting aid that will cover the difference between what is covered by insurance and what is not. So ask about what is available in the way of financial assistance.
What kind of accreditation does the facility have?
Look for a facility to be accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) or equivalent body. You should not consider a teen drug rehab facility that is not accredited. Also inquire about licensing. Ask if the facility is licensed by the state, e.g., the Dept. of Health.
What is their treatment philosophy?
Does the facility treat people of all ages together? Or are teens kept separate? Research indicates that teen drug rehab has a higher rate of success if the adolescent patients are strictly separated from adult patients.What about the 12-step model: does the facility subscribe to that? If so, be aware that there is a spiritual component to this kind of treatment. Are you sure your child is receptive to that? If not, it could have a negative impact on their recovery. Find out if there is an alternative offered.Will there be allowances made for the educational needs your teen will have? Just because your child is in teen drug rehab doesn’t mean their education should be sacrificed.What about their emotional needs? Is there psychological therapy offered? How often would your child meet with a therapist? What kind of goals would this therapy have?What kind of parental participation is encouraged? Is there a regular “Family Day?” Does the teen drug rehab facility provide support and encouragement for the entire family?
How long will treatment last?
Find out how long the average residential treatment stay might last. Obviously this will depend on the facility — and your child. Is it measured in weeks or months? You’ll also want to find out how many teens are typically being treated at any one time. Regarding group therapy, how big are the groups? What sorts of rules does the teen drug rehab facility have — specifically, what rules (if broken) are grounds for being dismissed from the facility?You may also want to ask about the availability of aftercare, i.e., what kind of support does the facility offer after your child leaves the inpatient program? This is perhaps most crucial of all in determining your teen’s long-term success. It is customary for there to be at least 12 months of active involvement by your teen in the form of outpatient therapy, both one-on-one and in a group setting. Again, this is another reason to pick a teen drug rehab facility near your home.
What is involved in the admission process?
This is when your teen will be evaluated for the severity of their condition and for the most appropriate level of treatment necessary. Sometimes this involves your child undergoing psychological and/or medical testing. In addition, some basic decisions will be made about your child’s level of treatment, e.g., outpatient, partial hospitalization, etc. Stay involved — find out what steps are followed in this phase. This includes finding out what all the costs are (e.g., charges for urine screening, etc.) and determining what your insurance carrier will cover.
Who is on staff?
What qualifies the staff at the teen drug rehab facility to work there? What education level, background experience level, etc. Does the facility have medical personnel on hand in case of personal injury? How many staff are there in relation to the patients? Is the rate of turnover high or low?Do you feel comfortable with the demographic make-up of the staff on hand? Are they sensitive to cultural diversity?
Other important considerationsIf this hasn’t been made clear up to this point, you need to visit the teen drug rehab facilities that are on your short list before you make your decision.All the photographs in the world, all the websites, might help you narrow your choices down, but in the end you need to be on site to make a final decision. And look at the facility the way your child might look at it too.Some things to look for:
Is the facility well maintained?
Are there places for residents to go and remain active when the weather is bad?
How do the meals look?
How do the interactions between adults and teens seem? Observe the activities during an entire day, if you can.
Are classrooms well stocked?
Perhaps most important of all: Contact the parents of teens who have graduated from the facility. Invest some time in speaking with them about how it went. There are some difficult questions you need to ask, but it is worth it. For example: did their child suffer a relapse after leaving the teen drug rehab facility?SummaryIf you have to pick a teen drug rehab facility for your child, it will not be an easy choice for many reasons. You will need to spend some time doing it and educating yourself about drug abuse. But it is worth it because it will help your teen make a faster — and longer lasting — recovery.
Obama’s Small Business Loans – Rescue Plan For Small Businesses – Part 1
How does the Obama administration really feel about small businesses? This is a good question, especially since the recent State of the Union address mentioned “small businesses” fourteen times. Is it lip service or the real thing? Better yet, does this mean small businesses will finally begin receiving loans or lines of credit? Since talk is proverbially cheap in Washington, let’s look at Obama’s actual initiative in detail to answer this question.As you have probably heard, up to $30 billion of TARP monies that have recently been repaid by the big banks is used to fund the program. It is not “live” yet–it must be enacted into law by Congress and must pass muster through its various subcommittees. Here is a summary of its major provisions:1. It is a separate program distinct from TARP. TRANSLATION: This is an attempt to distance it from the bad press of the TARP program.2. Money will be invested in community banks having assets less than 10 billion. Banks with assets less than 1 billion will be able to loan up to 5% of their risk weighted assets. Banks with assets between 1 and 10 billion can use up to 3%. There are approximately 8,000 community banks. TRANSLATION: the big boys like Bank of America, Wells Farg3. Loan guarantees with the SBA will remain at 90%. The SBA doesn’t make loans unless you are in a disaster zone (FEMA Loans). They guarantee the losses suffered by private banks in making these loans, which in turn gives those banks more incentive to lend. TRANSLATION: We want our local small business bankers to feel warm and fuzzy when they make the loan. And hopefully a lot of them.4. Eliminating SBA guarantee fees. When you get an SBA loan you have to pay a fee at closing which goes to Washington and helps defray losses from the banks. It can be expensive, especially for larger loans. TRANSLATION: Aren’t we all tired of paying excessive closing costs and fees?5. Big banks, don’t bother applying. It doesn’t take a NASA rocket scientist to know most of the lending is done by small community banks. Only they can participate. TRANSLATION: Although community banks make up only 20% of all bank assets, they account for over 50% of all small business loans.Fortunately there is a loan program out there and SBA lenders are actually making loans currently: the Community Express Loan Program. This gives unsecured small business loans between $5,000 and $50,000 with very little paperwork, answers typically in two days, interest rates presently at 7.75%, funding and two weeks, and monies wired directly to your business account. And, there are lenders participating in this program currently.The point: why wait for the trickle down effect to occur within the next year so when you can go to banks right now who are actually participating in the community express program?