Reinvigorate Your Business to Grow It

According to Patricia Ryan Madson, author of "Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up," an effective way to improve your business to take a fresh look at what and how you are doing in your business. Learn to work with situations that used to be interpreted as mistakes in a new light. Improv consultants can help alter a work environment by creating novel situations and encouraging individuals to react in new ways. This addition of humor and decrease of the fear of making mistakes can help reduce tension in the workplace. Ms. Madson and other improv consultants, including a team out of Portland, Ore., called On Your Feet (www.oyf.com), are hoping to create "a culture of yes." Developing a culture of yes can allow entrepreneurs to consider ideas that they previously may have discarded. Often "happy mistakes" can occur when one idea opens the door to another pathway of thinking. Robert Poynton, a co-founder of On Your Feet said "if anything, we know rather less about what is coming next, and how it will affect us, than our ancestors did," in "A Turtle and a Guitar Case: Improvisation and the Joys of Uncertainty." The On Your Feet site also refers to a "cool mistake," something seemingly negative that has a positive outcome when interpreted in a different light. As all business owners know, even the best made plans can fail. According to Ms. Madson, "improvisers avoid spinning their wheels because they see quickly what isn't working, or simultaneously, what might be successful that didn't occur to them at first. Improvisers, by definition, take risks and make mistakes, lots of them, but that's what leads them in fresh directions." Ms. Madson acknowledges that this change away from structured planning can be difficult; however, she suggests that this method can still help your business move forward. Mike Kwatinetz, a venture capitalist who is co-founder and general partner at Azure Capital Partners in Palo Alto, embraces improvisational thinking as a way to get companies moving. This way you are reacting to what is happening around you and making appropriate changes and improvements.

Build a stronger business by letting go of the future.

Understand First In Order to Motivate Yourself and Others

According to Parker-Pope, in "In You Find the Motivation, Exercise Follows", in The New York Times, a Consumer Reports survey found that 40% of individuals who own home exercise equipment use then less than they expected. This is a massive population, considering consumers spend an estimated $4 billion on home exercise equipment, yearly. The purchase of home exercise equipment appears to influence whether people start an exercise regime, but research suggests that those with home exercise equipment are less likely to stick with an exercise program, over time. These studies are showing that ownership of personal is not the most important factor in sticking with an exercise plan; rather, self-efficacy is more influential. Self-efficacy is one's true belief that they have the ability to achieve their goals. The journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine reported that individuals who scored high on measures of self-efficacy were "nearly three times as likely to be exercising after a year as those with lower self-efficacy scores, whether or not they owned an exercise machine." Your ability to meet your own expectations was also shown in influence whether you stuck to your exercise plan.

Research has shown that individuals often fail to take these factors into account when they embark on a new exercise plan. David M. Williams, assistant professor at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University, suggests the following to help increase your chance of sticking with an exercise plan:

• work out with friends or family members
• master an exercise
• work with someone who motivates you (ex. a personal trainer)

These changes to your exercise plan can increase your confidence and improve your chance of continuing it. Along this line, Ravi Dhar, director of the Yale Center for Customer Insights and a professor of marketing and psychology, suggests that "'most goals we set for ourselves tend to be unrealistically high.'" Therefore, when one purchases a home exercise machine, they tend to focus only on the positive without taking the barriers into account, such as giving up spending time with friends or on the Internet. In a study of undergraduates, those who were guided in making decisions based in the reality of life were willing to spend less money for home exercise equipment, as they understood the disparity in their expectations and what they would more likely accomplish. It is important to understand the difference of an ideal setting and the actual life that you live. Kurt A. Carlson, assistant professor at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke, clarifies that "we're not telling people to stop buying treadmills. The question is how to get the right people to buy them. Everyone else should recognize they don't have the motivation, and take the money and use it on a personal trainer or something else that's going to get them motivated."

Build a stronger business by setting realistic expectations.

Avoid Looking for Excuses

Do you find yourself always looking for an excuse when something goes wrong? According to Edward R. Hirt, a psychologist at Indiana University, "this is real self-sabotage, like drinking heavily before a test, skipping practice or using really poor equipment. Some people do this a lot, and often it's not clear whether they're entirely conscious of doing it - or of its costs." This type of self-sabotaging behavior was coined "self-handicapping" by psychologists Steven Berglas and Edward E. Jones, in 1978. According Dr. Hirt and other psychologists who have studied this tendency, this urge self-sabotage is more common in men than in women. Another study showed that if one thought that they had a good excuse for poor performance, they were predicted to have worse performance, since they could rationalize their execution. This phenomenon was studied by Dr. Dean McCrea, a psychologist at the University of Konstanz in Germany.

Build a stronger business by making commitments, not excuses.

Alternatives with Advantages

Xylitol is a natural substance found in fruits (ex. raspberries). It only has 1/3 of the calories of sugar, but tastes similar. It is sold as a powder, approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a food additive, and harvested from birch wood or other natural substances. Items that utilize xylitol, such as sugar free gum or candy, can help one avoid sugar and therefore improve oral hygeine. Mutans streptococci is a bacteria that uses sugar to make energy. Lactic acid is released in this process, which can harm teeth by dissolving minerals. Xylitol does not feed these bacteria and can interfere with their funcitoning. The method in which this occurs is not fully understood. Jason Tanzer, a dentist and microbioligist at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington, Conn. suggests that the bacteria produce less lactic acid in the presence of xylitol. Other scientists believe that xylitol interferes with the bacteria's ability to adhere to teeth.

Build a stronger business by being aware of advantageous alternatives.

Buy a Movie and Load on Your Hard Drive

Sites offering movies for sale:

* Movielink (owned by Warner Brothers, a unit of Time Warner; Sony Pictures, Universal; MGM; and Paramount, a unit of Viacom)
* CinemaNow (movies from Sony, MGM and Lions Gate)

Apple, Amazon.com and other sites are working to add downloadable movies to their sites.

Though downloading movies provides easy access, the process can be cumbersome. According to Hansell in "At Last, Movies to Keep Arrive on the Internet" in The New York Times, "'a movie will need about 1 gigabyte of hard-drive space and will take an hour or two to download using a high-speed internet connection.'" Additionaly, many of the movies have limited methods by which they can be watched. Other limitations include the downloads not having some of the features offered on DVDs (deleted scenes, bonus features and filmmaker interviews). These limitations concern industry executives since chain stores and Web retailers often discount movies below wholesale costs to gain customers; these low price items are known as "loss leaders." However, even with their limitations, about 400 films can currently be send to your hard drive.

Hotels Remembering Your Preferences to Gain Loyalty

Ritz-Carlton:

* System: New database called "Mystique" catalogues employee observations about guests for all of the company's 60 hotels. Replaces an old system that couldn't share information as easily between hotels.
* Comment: Ritz doesn't ask guests to fill out a form - it instead relies on hotel staff to notice what guests like and dislike, and tailor services accordingly.

Marriott

* System: "Rewarding Welcome" system asks guests for their preferences in pillow type, bed type, room location, extra towels or refrigerator. It now shares the information with eight brands, and 2,600 hotels.
* Comment: Guests fill out a form to participate, so the system is entirely optional.

Hilton

* System: This year Hilton's guest recognition technology is being expanded to include in-room preferences, such as pillow, blanket, need for a crib or rollaway and early or late check in.
* Comment: In 2007, the hotel company hopes to roll out RFID-tagged cards for frequent guests to carry so that the hotel can track them around the property. Example: If the guest walks into the bar, the bartender can have his favorite drink ready before he has to ask. The company is also testing a way for its TVs to greet guests with a customized message when turned on.

Hyatt

* System: In April, Hyatt is rolling out an "e-concierge" system so that guests can tell the hotel in advance about their preferences for amenities life golf, spa and restaurants.
* Comment: Hyatt has a centralized guest history system that captures preferences like room type, amenity type, bed type and location near or far from an elevator. It has special codes employees can log into the system for preferences such as a guest who prefers grapefruit peeled and sliced in a certain way.

Starwood

* System: Starwood (which includes brands like W Hotels, Westin, and Sheraton) doesn't have a tracking system other than its Starwood Preferred Guest Loyalty program.
* Comment: The properties on its more luxurious end, like W, have internal guest-recognition systems. If a guest expresses a love for a certain sports team, the welcome desk will always provide that guest with a game schedule and a list of TV channels on which the team is playing. W asks guests if they want information about preferences to remain with one property, or expect it ot be honored throughout the chain.

Build a stronger business by paying attention to your customers and showing that they matter when they return.

Technology Tip: Synchronization

SugarSync.com is used to replicate and synchronize files across various computers. SugarSync can also be used to backup files by having them saved to a source outside your computer. SugarSynch offers a 35 day free trial with 10 gigabytes of file storage. After the trial, the 10 gigabytes can be maintained for $25 a year. Five other storage plans exist from $50 a year for 30 gigabytes to $250 a year for 250 gigabytes.