Skills Which Can Help Your Affiliates Stand Out in SFI Business

Many affiliates may be looking for many good skills in their affiliates while others may not even bother at all. For me, the following are the skills I look for in affiliates which I believe can quickly help them to become stars in SFI business.

1. Good communication skills.
2. Ability to work with others as a team.
3. Willingness to learn.
4. Self-motivating skills.
5. Keen attention to details.
6. Good reading skills.
7. Good marketing skills.
8. Ability to take risks.
9. Excellent social skills.
10. Resilience and can-do skills

I believe any affiliate with the foregoing skills can easily become a star in SFI.

You can give them a try out too on your own affiliates.

5 Ways Collaboration Helps Your Small Business

Every small business owner always wants results, good results. That is why there is always an endless struggle to make the businesses more efficient, reputable and profitable. From experience, going it alone is at times very difficult but there is always a way around that which is simply by “collaboration.” Any small business owner who manages to engender a collaborative environment can drive better bottom line results. That is great! Here are 5 direct benefits small businesses can derive from collaborative efforts.

01. Access to More and Better Workers

Business collaboration makes available a wider potential pool of employees. You have available for use, outsourced workers, remote workers who may prefer their home environments to work for you and even part-time workers depending on your own business model. That arrangement gives you the flexibility to hire only persons who are best for the job, regardless of their locations. 

02. More Effective Communication

You may be aware that information is only valuable if it’s available to the right people at the right times. And, these are the people who can make use of that information for the sake of your business. Without a true collaboration system for your team, what happens is that your team gets to rely on regular communication methods like phone systems, text chat or email which could fragment such information. Fragmented information hurts your business real time but with systems collaboration, that problem can be resolved.

03. More Efficient Processes

Collaboration in the use of processes engenders efficiency by eliminating duplication of efforts. Duplication of efforts brews avoidable crisis and dissipation of energies resolving crises which would have been avoided in the first place. With crises, projects take longer to finish thereby making customers unhappy. But with better collaboration, employees and systems roles are better clarified leading to reduced crises and increased efficiency.

04. Better Customer Satisfaction

When systems work efficiently and employees stick with their roles, there is always better customer satisfaction. When friction is eliminated, your employees are happier and do give a better account of themselves in getting the work done. Naturally, that translates to better service for the satisfaction of customers. Employees’ collaboration engenders that and many small businesses can now take advantage of online collaboration tools to get things done in a better way.

05. Using Employee Strengths More Efficiently

No small business which is unable to tap into her employee strengths can ever be sufficiently productive. When project managers encourage their employees to work together on projects, they get the benefit of each person being able to work on activities that are most suited to their specific skills/strengths. That way, projects can be divided up more effectively based on proven skills. That is one great way to tap into employee strengths, a consequence of which a better and more effective job gets done. End result is improved productivity.

How to Set up Proper Communications with New PSAs

In SFI business, you do not need to set up any additional ways to communicate with your new PSAs. The good news is that all communication channels you need to reach your PSAs are graciously set up for you by SFI. All you need do is to use the channels effectively as expected. On your home page, just press the correct button to communicate and you are on. As set up by SFI, the following ways are available and reliable for you to communicate with your PSAs.

1. PSA Mailer.
2. E-mail address.
3. Telephone.
4. Team mails.
5. Stream posts.
6. Forum posts.
7. A2A messages.
8. Each PSA’s contact message handle.
9. SFIM chat handle.
10. Surface mail postal address.
11. E-cards messages.

The foregoing channels are the best ways you can use to effectively communicate with your PSAs. They have been set up for you to use by SFI. Your duty is to use them effectively as expected.

 

10 Common Obstacles to Avoid When Negotiating

In negotiating, it is absolutely important to remember at all times that you are dealing with other persons who are in every material detail different from you. Their values, motives and expectations are also different. To make headway with such persons therefore, you must be absolutely certain to avoid all obstacles that can obstruct you from coming across clearly to them when you want to make a deal with them. Anything that directly or indirectly impacts on this ability should be avoided at all costs. Some of these obstacles are:

01. Poor communication. Whether written or spoken, poor communication is a major obstacle to negotiations and deal-making. If you are incapable of communicating clearly to your negotiating partners what you want from them or need them to do, your chances of making a deal are severely limited. Same situation plays out when they too are unable to communicate to you what they want from you. Conflicting communication is a deal-killer any day. 

02. Non-congruent personalities. When you do not “flow” with a particular person, it is difficult to negotiate with or to make deals with such a person. This is one obstacle that must be avoided.

 

03. Different perceptions of same issue. There is not likely to be a meeting point in negotiating with persons whose views on same issues are not in tandem with yours. When perceptions are different, it is difficult if not impossible to know what concessions to give that will meet the other person’s expectations. Striking a mutually beneficial deal in such circumstance is near impossible.

04. Non-congruent goals. When negotiating partners are not working towards same goals, striking a deal is not very likely. This is another obstacle that should never be overlooked in negotiations. When goals are non-congruent, both parties hardly know when they meet the expectations of each other.

05. Contradictory expectations. This prevents mutually beneficial deals from being struck. If you do not know what the other side wants, it is impossible to provide them what they need.

 

06. Inconsistent values and beliefs. When your values are not consistent with those of your negotiating partners, anything you do may be offensive to them. That can create a major conflict capable of jeopardizing the deal being negotiated. Depending on the cultural differences between the negotiating partners, their use of language and mannerisms may be offensive to others. These can create a major obstacle to negotiations.

07. Subtle coercion. No one no matter their stations in life likes to be forced to do something they do not like or are unwilling to do. If any party in the negotiations senses that they are being coerced to make a deal, no matter how subtle the coercion is, it could create suspicion and resistance. That scenario can create a major obstacle to the deal.

08. Poor timing. As the saying goes, “there is time for everything.” When you do not get the timing right, you could create an obstacle to the negotiations.

09. Third parties outside the immediate negotiating environment. Too many negotiators usually spoil the deal. When there are third parties involved in the negotiations who are not immediately visible, that creates an obstacle to successful negotiations.

10. Unsuitable negotiating environment. Naturally, any environment you are directly impacts on who you can meet with and what you can discuss. An unsuitable negotiating environment is an obstacle to successful negotiations.

Unresolved conflicts during negotiations primarily prevent deals from being struck. The obstacles that cause conflicts when identified in good time can be avoided. Avoiding obstacles paves the way for smooth negotiations and successful deal-making. That is what smart entrepreneurs need in the day-to-day running of their businesses. They need to avoid these obstacles because without negotiations and deal-making, it is difficult for entrepreneurs to make money or even to run any business successfully.