It’s easy to make mistakes at work.  The good news is that in most cases, they’re minor and won’t spell disaster for your career. If you’ve already made a few of these, don’t panic. With the right damage control, you can successfully move ahead and even gain the respect of colleagues for the way you handled the problem.

Some Common Mistakes

Try to avoid telling your manager or superior that you are “too busy” if they ask you to do something. While you may have an enormous workload, you don’t want to appear unavailable. If you feel your workload is already heavy enough and are struggling to keep up, itemize the list of ‘to do’s’, take a crack at prioritizing them, and then run this plan by your manager to confirm you’re both in agreement on it.  Knowing that business circumstances and priorities can change often is key and having a flexible attitude in this regard can help tremendously.

Failing to interact with others can also hamper your career prospects. While a company always appreciates a hard worker, if you’re hiding in your cubicle and never coming up for air, you’ll make it more difficult for colleagues and management to get to know you.  The best employees are those who have a proper mix of a work ethic with socialization with others in the workplace.

Another mistake professionals can make is dressing inappropriately for work.  Many companies today have moved away from requiring formal or business attire at work.  ‘Business casual’ is the norm at most companies now – but what does it mean?  It’s open to interpretation of course and this is what makes dressing the part difficult.  Try to approach the task of dressing for work by observing how those around you dress.  Look for cues on what’s expected.     As Heather Huhman, career expert and hiring manager has written, “dress at least one step above your current position. It helps others picture you working above your current position and makes you look extremely professional.”

How to Overcome Your Mistakes

Sometimes, despite your best  efforts and intentions, mistakes will happen.  You might miss a deadline, a detail in an important report, or misspeak at a meeting.  How do you proceed? First,and most importantly, never pass the buck. If you messed up, own up to it immediately.

Next, asses the damage.  Sometimes mistakes are small enough that they are easily amended.  If that’s the case, you’re in luck.  Make the fix and move on.  If your mistake has impacted the company adversely, create an action plan to fix your mistake and share it with your boss. Your management will appreciate your earnest efforts to make amends. Even better if you make time outside of your regular work hours  to fix what went wrong.  This stepwill show that you are willing to go above and beyond.

Lastly, once you’ve acknowledged your mistake and you’ve taken steps to fix it, don’t beat yourself up over it. You are human and mistakes happen. Let it go.  If you continue to bring it up, you’ll only reinforce the memory of what happened.

If you are not familiar with how contract staffing works, your company may be missing out on substantial opportunities. There are numerous benefits that go hand in hand with contracting out specific projects or tasks and most companies, large or small, can take advantage of these benefits quite easily.

Let’s take a look at just a few reasons why hiring contract staff may be advantageous for your organization.

1. Fixed costs and the potential to save money. Unlike regular employees, contractors aren’t hired on your payroll.  Plus, employees typically require benefits, regular wages and overtime, while contractors work on a per-hour or per-project fee. Companies don’t have to calculate payroll or withholding with this type of staffing solution. Contractors work independently, paying for their own insurances and benefits or with a staffing firm that may provide these services to them. Either way, it is often  easier for companies to accommodate contractors, as opposed to full-time employees who require additional headcount and come carrying a myriad of overhead costs, into their budgets..
2. Easier to implement hard deadlines and deliverables. Employees are typically juggling numerous tasks and they may not have the luxury to focus on what needs to be done immediately. Contractors are familiar with a variety of different jobs and they know how to bid their time appropriately. You’ll get specifics on how long the job will take. While there is always room for error, the majority of the time when you work with contract staff, they will have a set schedule and deliverables that are clearly defined, and they will be comfortable delivering on both.
3. Workforce scalability. Seasonal businesses and companies that have typical dry and busy spells during the year can benefit greatly from working with contractors. They can add more people when necessary, even with short notice, and it’s only a temporary arrangement.  Even other companies, not necessarily subject to seasonal highs and lows – but who see unpredictable or unstable cycles of business for a variety of other reasons – can benefit from this business model.  Simply put, contractors allow businesses to scale resources as and when required, quickly and painlessly.
4. Expertise. Contractors know that they need to stay on top of their game to stay competitive. In many cases, they’ll have specialized knowledge, job-specific certifications and experience in several different types of tasks related to their job.

Instead of trying to hire permanent staff for a short-term solution, consider hiring contractors to get the job done. Chances are, once you realize the benefits of working with a contractor, you’ll want to keep using this solution again and again.

Hiring great employees is one matter – keeping them with your company is a whole other ball game. Some of today’s best companies have very high employee retention rates and there is a lot that can be learned from the strategies they use to retain their staff. A happy employee is a productive employee, and you may be surprised at how simple it can be to boost your retention rates.

1. Make them feel needed within your organization. No one wants to feel disposable. Let your employees know, on a regular basis, how much you appreciate their contributions and how necessary they are to your day-to-day operations.
2. Allow them to advance. Keeping employees stuck in the same position for numerous years can lead to a high turnover rate. Most employees want at least some chance to advance in their careers and achieve their goals. Make sure you hire from within and that all of your employees understand what it is needed to advance in your company.
3. Keep the work environment fun. A gloomy workplace is soon an empty workplace. You can keep your employees happy by making sure the environment is pleasing and as stress-free as possible. Hire a professional decorator to make the work area less industrial and more welcoming. Even simple touches can transform a stark office into a happy workplace.
4. Offer unique benefits. Not all employees are motivated by money. Find unique ways to reward your employees such as offering paid days off for achieving their goals, special office parties, or even regular treats that make employees feel valued.
5. Never lose the personal touch. Corporate drones are not only unproductive and uninspired, they don’t often stick around very long. Make an effort to learn your employee’s names and address them personally when you see them.

With just a little effort on your part, you can keep your team members happy, productive and ensure that they will be with your company for the long haul.

Contractors are typically in a unique position when they begin working for your company. Unlike your regular employees, who have developed into a team, contractors can be viewed as outsiders. They work on their own schedule and are not subject to the same rules and restrictions as regular employees. This can lead to tension within your workplace.

On the other side of the equation, your contractors may not feel as though they are part of your team. It is only natural that they might feel ostracized when starting their work for you. In order to make sure your team doesn’t feel threatened, and your contractors are happy and productive, it is necessary to take a few steps to integrate them into your team.

First, begin with introductions. Do this in a friendly atmosphere and make sure your employees know that they are not being replaced and that their positions are not in jeopardy. Find a few key employees that have the most leadership skills and speak with them privately beforehand. Ask them to help you welcome your contractors into the team and do what they can to smooth things over.

Once you’ve gotten the introductions out of the way, you can make your contractors feel like part of the team by treating them as team members. Ask them to attend team meetings and encourage their participation. While they may only be with your company temporarily, you’ll get a higher quality level of work out of them by including them in the activities in your office.

If your contractors are going to be working with your company for longer than a few weeks, find them an actual office space. This will help them feel more grounded and provide them with a sense of security, which contractors rarely have.

Lastly, don’t forget to show your contractors a high level of respect. These are highly skilled people who will helping your organization and they deserve to be recognized for the work that they do.

You’ve just interviewed what appeared to be the perfect candidate and all systems are go. However, if you’re not taking the time to check their references, you may end up with a nasty surprise. Most employers ask for references during the hiring process, and it’s all too easy to gloss over this last step, especially if everything seems to be just perfect. In addition, it’s a given that applicants are only going to provide you with references they know will have glowing reports. You may not be getting the whole story.

In this instance, adding blind reference checks to your fact-checking routine is essential. Thankfully, with services such as LinkedIn, it’s become relatively easily to track down who an applicant has worked with in the past.

Blind reference checks can reveal the complete story of your applicant’s past work history. Search through your candidate’s LinkedIn and Facebook accounts to develop a list of blind references. Even a simple Google search can reveal where they have worked in the past. Find the human resource contacts for this company or the managers of their former departments.

Next, make sure you follow some basic guidelines about reference checks. You are allowed to: confirm details that are on an application or came forth in an interview, confirm dates of employment, ask questions about an employee’s past performance, and encourage the reference to supply any additional information that may be helpful.

Once you make contact with the references, make sure you communicate the objective of your call. Of course, it’s always good to begin by building rapport. You’re likely to get more information that way.

After that, it’s important to remember that you are speaking to the reference to fact-check, not just to obtain a thumbs up or down on whether to hire the candidate.

So, instead of glossing over the check as many people mistakenly do, ask open ended questions. Since this is a fact finding mission, your goal is to investigate, through conversation with this person, whether the claims that the candidate made about his or her work, at that time, with that person, are in fact accurate.

Keep notes during your calls and then when you’re finished with one candidate’s list of references, compile all of your notes and go over them. Look for similarities, and especially stark differences. When you put all of the information together you should have a pretty good picture of your candidate and you can see whether or not it matches your initial impressions.

Lastly, keep all of these notes for each candidate. A paper trail may be necessary if you have future issues, or if a candidate feels he or she was treated unfairly during the hiring process.

As more and more job seekers take to using their mobile devices to find jobs, a startling statistic from PotentialPark indicates that employers are not following suit. This recent study showed that while over 19% of job seekers are actively using their mobile devices in their job search, and 50% are highly likely to, only a paltry 7% of employers have a mobile site, and 3% have an actual mobile job search app.

What does this mean for your company? If you’re in the technology sector or if you are trying to attract top candidates, you may be left out in the cold if you’re not embracing mobile technology. As more job seekers look to this medium, it’s vital to begin catering to this market of savvy potential new-hires.

Mobile recruiting is also an ideal medium in a post-recession environment. Companies are still looking for ways to cut costs without reducing their chances of landing top candidates. Mobile job search apps and mobile friendly sites are the perfect answer to this situation.

As the local trend picks up speed, this is also affecting the job seeker market. For example, location based apps can be used to help you target job openings in specific areas, or ones that are a certain distance from your current location. Taking advantage of these new technology advances will help you become more attractive to job candidates and will improve your chances of landing the perfect hire.

While you may not be ready to create your own specific job app, there’s nothing holding your company back from creating a mobile-friendly job site and promoting this availability. Making it easy for top candidates to find you and to apply for your openings can only help your organization in the long run.

A motivated sales team is a successful sales team. If you want to increase your employee retention rates, as well as your sales numbers, finding the right motivators is vital. While every employee is different and will have different motivating factors, there are a few standard motivators that will work well across the board.

These motivators also have the added benefit of helping your employees to feel as though they are an integral part of your organization – and this in turn will spell better employee morale and a staff that you can count on.

Most managers rely on the use of money as a motivating factor for their sales staff, and this typically does work quite well. However, there are other, non-tangible motivating factors that may actually spark a higher level of motivation with your team members. Let’s take a look at just a few ways that you can get your team rolling.

1. Public Recognition Of Their Efforts. If you have certain team members that are going above and beyond the rest of the team, let them know that you appreciate their efforts, both in private (a note is a nice touch) and in public. This in turn helps the rest of your team create their own goals within the team and shows that you are committed to recognizing excellence.
2. Create Team and Personal Goals. While team work is vital, particularly in sales, having each team member hold themselves personally accountable for their own goals within the team is a great motivator. It’s all too common to have a few team members that know they don’t have to produce a lot because the team goals are already being met by other members.
3. Stair-Step Goals. Some team members may feel as though they are overwhelmed if your goals are too lofty. Create a stair-step plan and offer recognition and rewards for each step that is achieved. This will break down the large task into easier to master tasks and help keep your team motivated over the long term.

 Money is always nice, but your employees want more than that. They want to feel important, they want to feel as though they matter and they want to feel as though they are progressing in their careers, instead of just treading water. Setting up these motivators can get your sales team charged-up and ready to go.

The first impression you make in an interview will largely determine your success rate. You have mere seconds to get your foot in the door, or have it slammed in your face and even the most innocuous greetings could end up ruining your approach.

Much of the impression you make is based on psychological factors. Some of these, such as the words you say, you can control. Others, such as an interviewer’s personal feelings or issues, you cannot control. It is important to focus on the impressions that you can control and learn how to break through psychological barriers when dealing with your prospects.

Certain words and phrases, especially when delivered to those who hear them all too frequently, will spell disaster. Common phrases, such as “Do you have a minute?” or “I’m calling because,” will instantly create resistance in your contact. Resistance is exactly the feeling you do not want to invoke in your prospect.

It is all too easy to fall into the trap of using the same phrases over and over with your contacts. If you’re finding that you simply can’t get to the hiring conversation, it’s most likely due to the fact that you are creating resistance instead of building a relationship and rapport with your contact.

So, how can you begin building the foundation for a relationship with your contact? Instead of using resistance words, such as the phrases mentioned above, start out by simply talking to your prospect. If you were referred to their company, immediately begin the conversation with the name of the person who referred you. If you’re dealing with a cold-call situation, use a little psychological trick to get their attention and ensure their interest – ask them for help. The vast majority of people will have a natural response to assist you if you simply say, “Can you help me?”

Work this to your advantage by re-learning how you start and continue your conversations with your contacts. Practice with c friends to learn how to drop the resistance words and start using the relationship words. It may take a little time, but you’ll get the hang of creating a real conversation that will get real results.

You’ve got a great new tech product or service on the market, but if you’re noticing that your sales are lackluster, chances are you may have fallen into a trap that plagues many tech companies.

While there is something to be said for speaking to the early adopters and the tech marketplace, the majority of your sales will come from the regular folks, the ones who are intrigued by technology but may not necessarily understand just how it works.

The urge to get under the hood and explain the intricate inner workings of your product is strong. It makes perfect sense to you, and as someone who is tech savvy, you want to know that information.

However, the key is knowing and understanding your core consumers. They want the latest gadgets, and they want to know what they do, but if they don’t understand what you’re trying to impart, chances are they will leave confused.

In order to bridge the technological gap, it is vital to hit on a few key premises.

1. Focus on the Benefits. The old WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) adage definitely applies. Your customers want to know what this product or service is going to do for them on a personal level, in language they are going to understand. For example, instead of expounding on the benefits of a 32 gig smartcard and how it works, tell them they can store 4,000 songs on that device. Translate the benefits into real world WIIFM’s.
2. Break it Down. Take a tech concept, and break it down into easy to digest pieces of information. The 5 Why’s concept is very helpful here. Start with a complicated description and then answer five different questions about why your product or service is necessary and what it does. This will distill complicated information down into easy to understand concepts.
3. Talk “To” Not “At” Your Customers. Those who are not tech savvy may feel as though they are lacking in some way and they don’t appreciate being reminded of all that they don’t know or understand. Find a friendly voice for your descriptions and create a conversational tone.

Learning how to translate tech speak into everyday language takes some time, but with practice, you can perfect your approach and find a way to serve all the different facets of your customer base, from the hyper-geek to the everyday Joe.

Welcome to Planetpro! We have been in business for over twelve years.  We are fortunate to have a loyal base of amazing clients, 95% of whom are repeat clients.  Many of them tell us that we have had a significant positive impact on their business.   Our clients also say that we are really easy to work with.

Yet, only a fraction of our prospective clients know who we are or what we do.

We have grown predominantly through referrals. We have been a well-kept secret! Over the last several years, we’ve focused on building out our offerings and global service capabilities. Now, it’s time to let everyone in on the secret.  Our new identity helps us take the first step in that journey.

I’m delighted to inform you of the launch of our new identity: a new logo, a new tagline and a new website.    Each of these elements helps communicate more clearly who we are, what we do, and how we bring unique value to our clients.

About our new logo: the globe and dots in our logo represent our global talent and the upward arrow signifies revenue growth of our clients.  Our tagline “Accelerating revenue with talent” articulates the essence of how we contribute to our clients’ success.

I invite you to take a tour of our website.  If you only have a few minutes, I recommend the following pages:

1)     Why Planetpro
2)     Solutions overview
3)     Global talent profiles: Professional and personal profiles of some of our professionals.  My favorite page!

If you like what you see, please share the secret with anyone you believe could benefit from our services.
Thank you,

Ravi Thota
CEO
Planetpro, Inc.