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A lack of clear performance expectations is often cited as a key contributing factor to employees’ happiness or unhappiness at work. In a poll about what makes a bad boss bad, the majority of respondents said that their manager did not provide clear direction. This factor affected their sense of participation in a venture larger than themselves and their feelings of engagement, motivation, and teamwork. Critical Components of Clear Performance Expectations...

In sales, qualifying your leads allows you to narrow down your lead list and find customers who are likely to make a purchase from you. Once you’ve sorted out your leads and identified the true prospects, you can move customers confidently through the sales process and close more sales. What Is It Important to Qualify Leads? If you don’t fully qualify your leads early on, you’ll end up wasting valuable time pursuing customers who will never buy from you....

With the increased popularity of porcelain tiles, luxury vinyl, and plastic laminates—all of which can now be manufactured to look remarkably like wood flooring—genuine hardwood flooring has become slightly less common in recent years. But real hardwood flooring remains a premium flooring material that is still the preferred choice whenever a truly genuine look is required. After all, the goal of newer flooring products is to look like wood—no one develops a flooring material with the goal of making it look like plastic....

We often think of architects as artists, but they are so much more. While a great deal of their focus is on the way buildings and other structures look, they are just as concerned with their function and safety. In designing structures, they must also be attentive to the needs of the people who will use them and the projects’ budgets. You will acquire all the technical skills you need to work in this field through your education and training, but without certain characteristics, called soft skills, it will be almost impossible to succeed....

If you’d like to own a new iPad but can’t justify the expense of buying one, you’re not alone. There are lots of people who would love to get their hands on a free iPad — which makes them a popular prize. However, that popularity has a dark side as well: Many scammers prey on the desire to get a free iPad to con people out of their money. Here are tips on how to win an iPad without falling for scams....

A good press release for a music album can make or break you as an artist or band. Competition for the press is fierce, and your press release can often decide whether you’re getting that coveted interview, profile or review, or if you’ll be passed over. This guide will walk you through writing the different kinds of press releases you’re likely to encounter in your music career. 01 of 07...

A gunner’s mate (NEC-814) is one of the Navy’s original job classifications—known as the rating. It dates back to 1794 when sailors originally had to maintain the cannon, gunpowder, and cannonballs on the Naval sailing ships. In the modern Navy, gunner mates (GMs) handle much more sophisticated weaponry. About the Navy NEC Coding System In the Navy, the Navy enlisted classification (NEC) system extends the rating structure for enlisted personnel. These NEC ratings help to categorize service members—on both active and inactive duty—for manpower and other purposes....

Opinion leaders are individuals or organizations that are experts within an industry or otherwise have views that are both widely known and trusted. As a result, they can influence public opinion—including the opinions of your customers. Here’s what you need to know about opinion leaders, and how they can help your business. What Are Opinion Leaders? Opinion leaders are the people who were once called “industry insiders” or “decision-makers.” They have established authority in a given area, market, or industry....

A rental concession is a compromise by a landlord made to the original terms of a lease. Concessions are usually some form of rebate that a property owner offers to try to persuade a tenant to move into the residence. They can be monetary compensation, some type of a discount, or a physical good or service. The concept behind concessions is that the money they might cost is typically less than the expense of not having a rent-paying tenant in residence....

The Rome: Total War cheats and cheat codes will help give you that extra edge when playing the single-player grand campaign and scenarios. All cheat codes are case-sensitive and should be entered exactly as shown below, but some can only be used a single time in a campaign. It is also recommended that you update your game to the latest patch version available. How to Enable Cheats in Rome: Total War...

Finding a quality wholesale product supplier for your business is essential to your success. If you have a great relationship with your product supplier, you can potentially secure better payment terms, giving you much-needed flexibility in your business. On the other hand, an unreliable product supplier may leave your shelves empty and drive your customers to your competitor’s store. Choose Your Product The first step toward finding a superior product supplier is to ensure you’ve chosen the right product for your wholesale product business....

Many people mistake time tracking for time management. They religiously keep track of everything they do each day, for weeks or even months. And then they stop doing it because they haven’t realized any positive changes. Sure, they’ve eliminated a few events and prioritized some others. But they haven’t managed anything; they’ve just rearranged it. At the end of their day, they’re still frazzled and frustrated. But keeping track of how you spend your time isn’t time management....

Convenience stores attached to gas stations are generally small in size, with a limited selection of household and automotive products and packaged and prepared takeout foods and beverages. But the largest convenience store in the world is bigger—and offers a wider variety of products—than most grocery and department stores. With 67,000 square feet of retail sales space, the Buc-ee’s location in New Braunfels, Texas, is the world’s largest convenience store. You could fit 22 average-sized 7-Eleven convenience stores or two average-sized Whole Foods stores inside this Buc-ee’s....

Each year the National Restaurant Association (NRA) releases its annual What’s Hot Culinary Forecast, outlining menu trends for the coming year. The survey studies all aspects of restaurant menus, from appetizers, to starches and side items to main dishes and desserts. Appetizers are a great way to upsell any restaurant meal and they are also easier to experiment with when trying out new menu trends. Customers are more willing to try something new if it doesn’t cost a lot....

Values are the deep-seated, personal standards that influence every aspect of our lives. Examples include integrity, privacy, family, honesty, harmony, and loyalty. Great leaders are crystal clear about what they value and how their values guide their behavior and decisions. With a clear and consistent set of values, or guiding principles, leaders demonstrate these consistently in their behavior and others come to understand what is important to them and why....

Waivers for entrance into the military are available, but they are not easy to obtain. There is a long list of reasons why the military may disqualify a potential recruit: illegal activity, medical conditions, minimum height, and even age. The recruit needs to have a compelling reason for requesting a waiver, and even then it’s not guaranteed. How to Seek a Waiver Upon Enlistment In order to get approval for a disqualifying issue, you will need a recruiter who knows how the process works and who is willing to invest the time and effort....

The days of the steno pools, where typists gathered and labored over clickety-clack typewriters, are long gone. There’s no need for them because these days most people are pretty decent typists, yet some people are more than decent at typing. However, there is still a great need for typists to turn audio recordings into text files, as well as other kinds of typing jobs. And thanks to the internet, it really doesn’t matter where the typist is....

These wedding seating chart templates will help you plan one of the most important yet overlooked aspects of planning a wedding, where your guests will sit at your reception and who they’ll sit with. A good seating chart will make sure that the reception goes smoothly and everyone has a lot of fun. All of these wedding seating chart templates are free and can be printed out from your home computer....

Maintain a healthy smile without blowing your budget. Here are several ways to save money on dental care. Schedule Regular Cleanings Musketeer/Getty Images Have your teeth professionally cleaned every six months (or at least once a year) to avoid future problems, and catch existing problems, before they become really expensive to fix. Still tempted to skip out on cleanings? Just remember: the bill for filling a cavity is much easier to swallow than the bill for a root canal, a crown or an extraction (and won’t require you to miss nearly as much time from work)....

“A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” serves up some surprisingly poignant and often funny quotes about Turkey Day. The “Peanuts” characters, including Lucy, Linus, Patty, Sally, Marcie, and of course, Charlie Brown, maybe youngsters, but they provide plenty of thoughtful wisdom about Thanksgiving traditions like football, turkey and pumpkin pie. Of course, the words are put into their animated mouths by creator and writer Charles M. Schulz, who was just five days shy of his 51st birthday when the special aired in 1973....