Want a Better Career in 2014? Find Your Own Way.

A new year is upon us, and many New Year’s Resolutions are already out the window. An American university study claims less than 8 percent of us achieve our New Year’s Resolutions.

However, if one of your resolutions was to improve your career, you have a slightly better chance of doing just that. If you heed my advice and find your own way.

Give up on the golden handcuffs, they don’t exist. Used to be, you’d graduate from high school, get a job, and be at that job for your entire working life, retiring with a gold watch.

Not anymore. Uh-na. Nope. Not unless you own the company, there’s no gold in your future.

Have you ever heard about someone making a million dollars working at Wal-Mart?

Unless you’re the CEO, or one of a handful of executives in that company, you’ll be lucky if you can make a quarter of that in your lifetime working there.

But being your own boss puts you all the closer to making a million dollars – and more.

Even better than the potential for a real income, comes the benefit of real job security. You can’t get fired by anyone when you are the ultimate boss. You won’t have to kiss another manager’s hairy butt cheeks, or worry about getting that promotion either. It’s your business, you call the shots.

Of course, being your own boss isn’t for everyone.

Some people like to be slaves to their employers. They enjoy being told what to do, how to do it, and for how long. They enjoy having to always grin and bare it, even if they can’t stand the person they work for, the work they do, or even the customers they serve.

Sounds like such a wonderful life. Here, let me get you a power saw, it’ll be faster to end it all with that than the dull butter knife you’re currently using.

Seriously, working for someone else is like committing suicide with a very dull blade. As hard as you try, it just never ends.

Don’t kill yourself slowly, embrace your skills, knowledge and experience and ask yourself, what would you rather do, than the job you currently do?

Don’t be vague. Don’t be ambiguous. Don’t be shy. Take a moment to ask yourself what you’d really rather be doing than your current job?

Then figure it out.

Piece together a plan with realistically achievable goals and then take action to make those goals happen.

It’s a long, tough road towards success. There will be failures along the way. Keep going. That’s normal. So long as you learn from your mistakes and keep moving forward.

Not like making the same mistake most do, and keep working for the man, hoping one day, you’ll get that promotion, and eventually a nice Rolex.

The only way towards true success, is to do it yourself.

Don’t depend on anyone, ever for your income again. Unless you like working at Wal-Mart.

The Better You Treat Your Customers, the Bigger Your Business Will Be

80’s rocker Pat Benatar was onto something when she sang the song “Treat Me Right,” because that’s how you grow your business.

Benatar was referring to how her guy treated her, but the same can be said for any relationship, especially business.

Canadians are a funny bunch. When we don’t get treated well, we get very quiet, and at the first opportunity, dart towards the exit to escape the situation. Americans on the other hand, will make a mega-stink, yelling, screaming, threatening, until they get a discount, or some other perk from the freaked out store staff, hoping the hot head will just leave them alone.

That’s according to numerous studies where Canadian and American reactions to poor customer service have been studied.

Canadians, leave, never to go back again. Americans, yell and scream.

However, there was one common thread between both Canadian and Americans that received bad customer service. Both told everyone they knew about it.

Be it Canadians, crying about it to their friends for support, or Americans, complaining about their experience with their family, regardless of which side of North America you’re on, if you piss off a customer, everyone will hear about it.

Because of the Internet and social media, news travels faster than ever before. And bad news seems to travel the fastest, because none of us wants to go through the same bad experiences as someone else.

So, bad customer service can really harm your business.

But if you want to grow your business, having exceptional customer service will do just that. Your customers will turn into repeat customers, because people want to experience good service again.

Even more importantly, thanks to social media, the better the experience, the more likely you’ll get exceptional mentions on the social networks.

From positive posts on Facebook, excellent reviews on Yelp, and loads of great pics on Instagram – social media has changed the way we respond to good and bad customer service.

I was thinking of going for a burger a while back, and wanted to check out one of those new gourmet burger joints. I checked online for reviews, and found several good ones. However, one bad review went so far as to mention how the person handling the raw beef to make the burgers did not wash his hands when they served customers.

So, I decided although the other reviews were good, I didn’t want to get food poisoning, so I went someplace else for dinner that night. I have never been to that restaurant, and may never go, simply because of that one bad review.

When strangers on social networks can influence purchasing decisions, you’d better make sure your company has the best service par none.

Otherwise, you could be losing customers you never even knew you were losing – thanks to our always on, social media world.

Always strive to provide the best service possible. And when things go wrong, as they often do, do whatever is humanly possible to make it right.

I’ve gone places where my friends said they had nasty things happen, because the staff corrected the problem right away.

No one is perfect, so mistakes happen.

Fix them!

Your customers will be happy, and will share your good deeds with their friends, and that will grow your business.

How Un-Canadian: Canada’s Big Banks Are Ruining the Country’s Economy

Last year, reporters across the country salivated over the story about Canada’s largest bank, The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), firing long-term salaried Canadians and replacing them with imported, foreign workers.

For the next couple of months, RBC’s public relations team fought back, claiming they didn’t know their policies were affecting Canadians, and that they would take steps to ensure it never happened again.

However, as a former consultant with many of the large financial institutions, I can tell you the practice of importing cheaper foreign workers had been going on for several years, and just like trying to quit smoking, it’s a tough habit to quit.

When I worked in the banking sector for some of the largest banks in the country, it wasn’t all that uncommon to see entire departments – hundreds of people – from outside of Canada, working here on temporary employment contracts.

When I worked for American Express’ technical division, American Express Technologies (AET) in Markham, Ontario, Canada, out of a department of almost 300 people, you could count on one hand the people that weren’t imported from India or China.

A similar situation reared it’s ugly head at BMO Bank of Montreal. When my team was re-located temporarily to the First Canadian Place BMO Tower, we had an amazingly beautiful view from our 52^nd floor window over Toronto’s downtown. And right across from my team, sat about 100 people from the trading help desk – all of them Chinese – except three other people on that team.

I mentioned to my colleagues numerous times that the hiring practices of that team didn’t appear to fit with the written policies and procedures of BMO Bank of Montreal to be a reflection of the Canadian population, and not discriminate based on race.

As with many things at big corporations, I was told not to worry about it, it wasn’t our team, so it’s not our responsibility.

However, when Canadians are put out of work because of unspoken hiring practices, isn’t it everyone in this country’s responsibility to speak up?

According to the Canadian Banker’s Association, over a quarter of a million Canadians work for Canada’s top five banks. The association also claims that 108, 740 people are employed by these banks in other countries. That’s 40 percent of the Canadian banking population NOT being Canadian.

By farming out jobs that Canadians can do to other nations, Canada’s banks are harming the Canadian economy.

Displaced Canadian workers are stuck looking for work, often being forced into short-term employment contracts with no job security, no benefits, and little chance of ever seeing a pay increase.

In fact, when you work on a contract for our Canadian el-cheapo banks, you’re lucky if you keep earning the same amount from contract to contract.

Every time my contract at BMO Bank of Montreal came up for renewal, I’d ask if I could get an increase. Obviously, they liked having me around because they were offering me another term. 

Most of the time I was told no.

Twice my pay actually went DOWN – they told me they didn’t have the budget to keep me at my present wages, so if I wanted to have the privilege of working for them, I’d take the pay cut.

Well, okay, they didn’t quite put it that way – but I did have the choice of two evils – take the pay cut or be unemployed.

What other company in the world rewards it’s team members for a job well done, by telling them they can keep their petty jobs, if they are willing to take a reduction in earnings?

Canada’s big banks are killing our Canadian economy by forcing more people into short-term contracts, creating an unstable society, where only a handful of people can afford to have a life.

The rest can be homeless and on the streets for all the big Canadian banks care.

Just so long as you pay your mortgage, and those crazy service fees to take your own money out of the bank, they don’t give a rat’s ass.

Maybe if we all started keeping our money in our sock drawer, instead of with the evil banks, then they’d wake up?

Business Networking Is NOT a Sales Call

The most important thing any entrepreneur does, aside from taking action on their ideas, is meeting people.

Networking – the idea has sent a chill up the spines of many – putting yourself out there for public viewing isn’t an easy task.

Though some mistakenly take networking as an opportunity to make a sale.

I hate it – no – I despise it – when I exchange business cards with someone, agree to meet up with them to talk business, and the first thing they do is force me to watch a sales presentation, then immediately after try to close a sale.

Although in a sense, you are always selling something, WHAT you are selling during networking isn’t your products or services.

YOU are the only thing that matters during a networking event, because it is YOU that is being sold.

How knowledgeable, resourceful, helpful, encouraging and inspiring YOU are is what really matters. Because networking is NOT about making a sales call, it’s about assisting others with their business.

WTF? You ask yourself – how do I grow my business, by helping others?

The greater your professional circles, the greater your business success.

Although you may not have an immediate need for someone in the business of widgets, you never know who that person knows that can help you in your business.

It isn’t always what you know, but WHO.

There’s a story, about a man, hired by IBM to create an operating system for their then-new line of personal computers, the original IBM PC. This man was a computer genius, and created the IBM Disk Operating System (IBM-DOS) which launched the original IBM PC and later the IBM PCjr to stardom in the 1980’s.

However, like many genius’, he didn’t get along well with his bosses over at Big Blue. So he left, and brought with him some associates he made at IBM, to create a rival operating system as he went down his own career path.

That man was Bill Gates, and that rival operating system was Microsoft’s MS-DOS, which IBM itself started using with it’s PCs, and later MS-Windows, which run the majority of the world’s computers today.

Bill Gates would never have built Microsoft without his prior experiences, knowledge and contacts from his days at IBM.

And you’ll never build anything in the business, or personal world either, if you try to go it alone, without anyone’s help.

However, you’ll be alone in the world, if every time you go to a meetup, a networking function, or even a personal function, shove your business card in front of everyone you meet, and try to sell them your products and services.

That’s NOT very helpful.

But if you offer to help others as you meet them, you’ll be amazed and delighted with just how far in business – and in life – you’ll go.

SO next time you think about pitching someone, think again. And just ask them: “how can I help you?”