Are Students Ready For The Future?

December 21, 2011
Kennesaw- Are we preparing our high school students for success in the 21st century?  When dreaming about the perfect job, not everyone wants to become an engineer and help design the next space shuttle for NASA.  A classical Liberal Arts and Sciences education is, of course, great to have but a paying career in a field where you can be passionately engaged is the ultimate goal for most Americans.  The latest edition of Wilson Quarterly (wilsonquarterly.com/article.cfm?AID=2012) dives into this area with some thought provoking observations.
The first glaring issue facing the American education system today is the horrendous dropout rate of high school students.  Should we be focusing on preparing our students for college when they are dropping out of high school at sixty percent (60%)?  My hope is that high school students should be able to learn about real world careers, and pursue technical internships such as IT operations, or business administration where skills can be applied immediately to the real world where most new jobs are found in the small business sector.  Entrepreneurs are the creative drive in the new economy. 
Creative educators have to prepare our students to succeed without having them go into student loan debt that will saddle them for years beyond graduation.  My hope would be to give students the ability to try jobs that they might like before they go to college as undecided and have to change majors three or four times before settling onto a career path where they will be starting out at an entry level position and barely making ends meet before  finding their passion and taking risks to peruse the American dream.
Mentorships are as necessary as scholarships.  If we could match up people with real world skills to mentor young people who would like to learn about the new skilled trades in today’s economy, they could then learn whether or not they would like to pursue technical careers or even liberal arts careers BEFORE they spend thousands of dollars drifting along taking core classes in colleges.  I hope that you take the time to read the article that I referenced above in the Wilson Quarterly and drop me a note or email.  I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on how we can change the world together.

5 Factors for Success in Sales

August 23, 2011

I recently attended a day long sales seminar by John Asher (www.AsherStrategies.com).  It was a terrific overview of sales and typecasting the high performing sales professional.

The 5 Factors for Success in Sales are:

1.  Product Knowledge – They know their business, their client’s business and their competitors’ business extremely well

2. Aptitude – They are born with a natural talent for sales

3. Skills – They know and use the proven top ten selling skills

4. Motivation – They are self-motivated, are in the right type of position to continually sell

5. Sales Process – They are already working in companies that have best-practice branding, marketing, sales and customer relationship processes to support them.

AND……they have the values and discipline to follow through

– Dr. Larry Craft

Utilipath growth

November 10, 2010

Utilipath is a growing company headquartered in Mooresville, NC.  I’ve been very impressed with the leadership of this company and the ambitious goals that it has set for itself for the next decade.  Diversifying beyond the construction industry into products and services which augment its core offerings will be huge in the coming business cycles as we come out of this sluggish economy.

Atheism, by Rebecca A. Wilson

July 10, 2010

Atheism

“The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.

Makes Perfect sense.”

– Rebecca A. Wilson

ROI and promotions using e-mail

July 1, 2010

Here is an excellent quote by Joel Comm that hammers home the new marketplace of the 21st century:

In 2006, according to the DMA, every dollar spent creating and sending an e-mail with a promotional offer generated $57.25 in return.  By 2009, that ROI had fallen to $43.62.  But that’s still twice the amount earned from search-based advertising.  (By way of comparison, the ROI of traditional, mailed catalogs was estimated at just $7.32)”  p.142 Joel Comm,  KaChing: How to Run an Online Business that Pays and Pays, 2010

“Lone Survivor” by Marcus Luttrell

June 29, 2010

I was given a book recently on the experiences of Marcus Lutrell of the US Navy, specifically, the Seal Team member of the US Navy.  He was wounded in Afghanistan and lost friends and comrades who fought to save him and accomplish their mission.  This was an excellent book which details what training the Seals undergo and the sheer will and determination it takes to become one of the most elite fighting groups in the world.  If you have ever know someone who has been through this training, you will better understand them as a person.  bw

Review of “It Works” by RHJ

March 16, 2010

A very old friend of mine once gave me a small pamphlet that I carried around for years inside my checkbook.  It was a positive mental thinking article that outlines how to focus on your objectives and obtain your goals.  I found it when I was reorganizing my library shelves and thought I would write-up a little summary.

IT WORKS. anonymous (Published by De Vorss & Co. 1926)

Executive Summary

A concise, definite, resultful plan with rules, explanations and suggestions for bettering your condition in life.

  1. Know exactly what you really want.  This is the first and most important step. (Identify)
  2. Tune in to your mind and call upon your thoughts to create a vision of accomplishing or obtaining your desire. (Objectify)
  3. The Plan (Action). Review daily and make corrections, updates and changes.
  4. Read the list of objectives out loud at least 3 times a day (Repetition).
  5. Dwell on the list as often as possible (Focus)
  6. Do not worry and over analyze how you are going to accomplish your goals, just focus on having them. (Attraction)

Good luck.

Bryan

“Nothing can prevent your having that which you earnestly desire. ” That’s it in a nutshell.

Five S’s for Success

March 4, 2010

Robert, my son, and I have developed a 5 step strategy for success that can be applied to goal setting and meeting personal objectives.  Here are the 5 S’s and I will follow up with a brief history of where I learned about these ideas.

1.  Speed

2. Simplicity

3. Self-Confidence

4. Smarts

5. Strength

Robert uses these 5 words to simplify his thoughts and reduce his stress when playing ball and learning at school.  I learned these principles when working for GE in the 1990’s in Cincinnati, OH.  As a new manager, my mentor, John Kerinuk, taught use these principles when growing our business unit and applying these concepts during our project deliveries.

If someone applies these words to their thinking and personal branding, most of their goals will be realized by conceptualizing their activities and obtaining their objectives.

Hope this helps.

Bryan