Wednesday, September 17, 2008

How to Write a Profile for Your Business

DEVELOPING A BUSINESS PROFILE


You can showcase your purpose and strength of your company in a business profile. Your profile is like a resume for your business. It’s crucial to building your marketing visibility and letting the reader know exactly what your business does. You can mail your business profile, fax it, upload it to the net, or add it to your website as a marketing tool

You can hand carry it to sellers with a cover letter or mail it to out of town owners or financial people with copies of your testimonials. The business profile is key to selling the services of your business. It’s a sales document that provides a way to show value to a seller, private lender or institution that know virtually nothing about your company.

GUIDELINES FOR CREATING A BUSINESS PROFILE

Develop a hook or lead to draw the reader in to make them want to read more about your businesss·

Discuss how long you’ve been in business and what the business does
· Champion the services you provide and the clients you serve
· Describe the mission of your businesses and goals
· State how many houses you’ve sold and the money you’ve made
· List your telephone, address, and website

How do you build a profile? Begin with a hook or lead to interest the reader in finding out more about your business. List the services you provide. Next, tell what your business does. As a wholesaler, for example, you may be in charge of managing the following sequence of invents: finding properties, researching them, estimating rehab costs, acting as a trouble shooter when negotiating with the seller, and clearing up title problems.

STANFORD REAL ESTATE ENTERPRISES INC.
Quality Service since 1992”

The competitive edge that investors look for in planning renovation of undervalued properties is available at Stanford Real Estate Enterprises Inc, located in Dupont Circle in Washington, DC. This wholesaling enterprise manages the process of finding distressed properties and works with a network of rehabbers, private lenders and institutions to renovate and restore them to the market place. Stanford Real Estate troubleshoots problems caused by neglect, structural damage, clouded titles and urban blight. Properties that were once eye sores and havens for crime are targeted for rehabilitated. After restoration, they provide tax revenue for the community as well as improve the neighborhood.

A winning situation is created for everyone. Sellers are able restart their life with credit and cash in their pocket. And through team efforts the property can be returned to circulation in the real estate market. Stanford provides outstanding service as change agents for residential properties. During the past ten years, this wholesaling company has been instrumental in restoration of over 10,000 properties in the Washington Metropolitan area with earnings of 3 million dollars per year.

Stanford Real Estate builds relationships with rehabbers, lenders, and title companies, providing jobs while improving the community. Through knowledge and experience, this business solves tough, complex problems that evolve when dealing with distressed sellers and older properties. Proud of its reputation, Stanford Real Estate Enterprises has built a reputation based on integrity, dedication and a 100 percent track record of problem resolution. Call for an appointment today at 202 244-0479 or contact us at our website at Stanford Real Estate Enterprises@Yahoo.com
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Saturday, September 13, 2008

Tips to Craft an Executive Summary


Writing an Executive Summary


An employer’s attention span could be limited to 30 seconds at least that’s what recruiting experts tell us. Every executive resume should have a summary that introduces the applicant and provides a quick snapshot of a job candidate’s background.

A potential boss may have the perfect candidate in mind. Most likely the keywords for this special job have already been selected and a search has been performed using the latest scanning device. The applicant with the most of these impressive keywords in their Executive Summary will most likely have their resume read or will get a call about their background and possibly an interview.

So how do you get and keep a competitive edge in this process?

Let’s start with writing an executive summary because it’s one of the most challenging parts of a resume. It represents an overview of your current work and what you’ve done in the past. Key words are used to describe your experience also represent your career. They tell the reader in a few seconds, if you have the background an employer is searching for.

To write a summary yourself, requires self knowledge and acceptance plus the ability to create a positive description from your achievements at work. Too many times, we’ve grown sick of our past and have lost sight of our salesmanship and wordsmith ability. These are tools that can be used to create a glowing portrait of your background.

How come it is easy to assist a friend when it comes to highlighting successes in their resume and so difficult to mirror our own? While no one has a 100 percent positive view of the past, you must be able to put unfortunate, embarrassing, hurtful, and terrorizing episodes behind you and focus on the positive. If you are unable to do this yourself, then it is probably less stressful and saves time to hire a creative resume writer to craft your resume for you.

But seriously, if inducing amnesia or purchasing the services of a resume writer is too costly, you can always write it yourself. Begin your summary with a catchy phrase or description about your career. For example, you could start with:

“Results driven executive with 20 years experience in sales and marketing” or “Seasoned professional with a background in financial services and operations.”

There are many phrases that could describe what you’ve done to show you have business skills and the soft skills to manage others. To open up a world of ideas search on different careers which display job descriptions at Monster.com or other search engines or go to your local library to read resume books on Executive Resumes that contain resumes that have been collected by expert resume writers. Then begin tailoring your resume to fit the job.

If you are applying for an executive position most employers will want to know about your managerial skills such as the number of people you supervise and how you help them develop skills, take initiative and experience job growth.

Other possible questions are:

How do you inspire staff to meet the company’s mission? Or how do you distribute the work load, develop and implement strategies, procedures and follow-up and perform evaluations that ensure quality results?

Other answers to questions you may want to integrate into your summary or resume are:

Ø How do you build effective collaborate relationships for managing staff and stake holders?

Ø How do you demonstrate ethical vigilance and model behaviors that support the companies’ values of integrity, service, respect and excellence?

Ø How do you motivate and inspire others?

Ø How do you increase the bottom line or save the company money?

Ø In your summary briefly highlight your most important skills. For instance, you may have an operations and managerial background that could be summarized in a succinct statement.

Ø Don’t forget to integrate information about personal qualities into your summary.

But keep it short. Information in the summary should not be repeated in the body of the resume. If you want to get into more detail about one of your achievements describe it in the body of the resume, if you’ve got space.

If you’re writing about your current job, the writing should be in the present tense using the nominative case but leaving out the pronoun. For example, “As topnotch manager, spent 17 years acting as a risk consultant in the oil and gas industry.” In stead of writing, “As a topnotch manager, I spent 17 years as a risk manager in the oil and gas industry.”

When writing KSA’s for Federal positions, a job applicant always uses “I” to describe their background unlike the format that is traditionally used in a corporate or executive resume

For examples of Executive Resumes go to http://www.resumecrafters.com/. Find the index on the left and click on Samples

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

A Work Place Phenomenon

A Work Place Phenomenon

Currently there is a workplace phenomenon called Munchausen at Work that’s now attracting attention. Workers are making up stories about events that never happened to take credit for fixing them according to a story in the Washington Post by Phred Dvorak.

A night manager, for example, called the owner of a restaurant to report that she had handled an out of control customer by giving her a free meal. The owner subsequently reviewed the surveillance footage only to discover the manager had made up the incident to look good and was afraid to confront the employer about a raise.

Munchausen at Work is a type of illness that has been named after the Baron Munchhausen who lived during the 18 century and told may dramatic and untruthful stories to gain attention. Later a book was published called The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolf Raspe.

This type of behavior is considered by psychologists to be a form of Munchausen syndrome and now refers to a psychological disease where people make up history about an illness or create sicknesses in others to gain attention.

At the work place such stories about heroic deeds may be hard to detect and get rid of. Perpetrators may gain promotions or recognition. According to work place psychologists, this syndrome happens in many industries. For example, executives may withhold help or key information and then step in to save the day. Some executives don’t want to give up control. Instead they undermine their staff favorites and then suddenly appear to repair the damage to show how indispensible they are.

In another case, a woman celebrated fixing a problem that she had secretly created. The manager blamed computer glitches as the reason for a delay in depositing insurance checks only to discover that the manager had them squirreled away in her desk. Subsequently, she was fired.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

What To Include In Your KSA's


You Don't Need A Special Form To Answer KSAs...


Each KSA should be listed on a separate piece of paper. The average length is from one full type -written page to a half a page. Be sure to list your name, job announcement number and position title at the top of each page.

In order to be selected for an interview for a Federal job, you must compete with other folks to describe your Knowledge, Skills, Abilities for a particular job.


If the KSAs are submitted on-line do not use bullets, bold lines, or under lined text. Each agency has its own address and method for submitting the KSA, so thoroughly read the job description on line at http://www.usajob.gov/.

Begin writing your KSA by using “I” to start each work experience or accomplishments.

Ask your self these questions “When, Where, or Why" did you accomplish these tasks, how often did you do them and what were the results. Incorporate this information in the KSA.
Use forceful verbs to describe your activity summarizing your experience. Discuss examples that support your statements or attach examples of your work that show a detailed description of what you did.

Be sure to note the kind and level of training that you completed.

Include computer based on-line training, seminars, classes, hands-on training on the job or self-taught tutorials you completed for new software. Include special licenses or certifications that are relevant to the job description.

Discuss your experience for all agencies, offices, and departments you worked for to show the depth and range of experience.

Write about how you used your skills in the office and for other offices to produce results using software to achieve results.


If you supervised people tell how many and what your special duties were in regard to your employees.


If on the other hand, if you do not have a supervisory background but performed in a leadership role with those you worked with for such tasks as planning the work load and assigning work to others describe what you did.


Did you work independently with little supervision? Were you a self starter who had to draft memorandums or letters? Did you assist in managing and supervising programs? If so, include this information in the KSA.


Did you coordinate large projects and coordinate activities for several groups? If so describe how you coordinated responsibilities and acted as a strategic planner.


Does your job impact the safety of others? If so discuss the standards you followed in your current and past jobs.


If you oversaw the work of others, discuss how many employees you supervised, their titles, and what were your supervisory responsibilities.



If you have worked as a Supervisor you must elaborate on your leadership skills:

Demonstrate leadership qualities by discussing how you helped others work towards the organization’s vision, mission and goals in an environment that fosters reduction of conflict, self development, cooperation and teamwork.

Show how you used technical knowledge, analysis of problems and risks to achieve high quality results; manage human, financial, and informational resources; and build coalitions with other Federal Agencies, state and local governments and non-profit organizations.

Mention in your KSAs, new groups you may have contact with such as different process engineering work environments, partnerships, and quality work groups.

Describe how you showed initiative and creativity in your office while working under stressful conditions. Name the projects, programs, products, or activities you were responsible for and how you used your experience and strengths to get the job done. Tell what you did in a detailed explanation to save time and money and how you achieved results in percentages. For example: I implemented Sarbanes Oxley cost procedures that saved the office over 50 percent in miscellaneous expenditures during the last year.

List all the monetary and other recognition awards such as letters of achievement, write-ups in your office newsletter and scholarship, service, or volunteer awards.

Name contacts and your relationship with headquarter staff, agencies, inspectors, government officials or authorities.
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