Welcome to Productivity Central.

This site is devoted to improving the productivity, profitability, safety and sustainability of your business. I hope you find it informational and entertaining. Please bookmark the site and come back often.

Also, be sure to check out my companion blog at http://MarComCentral.blogspot.com/ for information, ideas and tools to improve your sales and marketing efforts.
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West Bend, WI, United States

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Happy Halloween !!!

I hope you had a wonderful halloween. Thought I would share a photo of my Honda "Ghoulwing". Our trick-or-treaters thoroughly enjoyed it.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

5 things your mama never told you about surviving in a tough economy.

With double digit unemployment and few signs of significant improvement in the near future, it is important to take stock of your situation and prepare for what you hope never happens - the loss of your job. It is easy to think it won't happen to you, but these days you never know. Companies can change ownership, change direction or simply go under. So what can you do to prepare yourself... just in case?

1) Give your very best possible performance at work. This may help you keep your job. If not, at least you can walk away feeling good about yourself and your efforts.

2) Do what you can to save your company money. Every dollar that you save is one less the company needs to make in profit in order to keep you employed. For those that travel for a living, there are easy ways to cut your costs.

On a single business trip, per diem food costs can really add up. Try eating at less expensive restaurants, choosing lower priced menu items, skipping deserts, drinking coffee, tea or soft drinks instead of alcoholic beverages, taking advantage of complimentary breakfasts provided by the hotel, or even packing some snacks and drinks to take along. With many sales people on the road 50-75% of the time, you would be amazed how quickly these costs can add up, especially when multiplied over the entire sales force.

Take advantage of internet-based travel service providers to book lower priced hotel rooms and airfares. I have often gotten a nice room in 3-4 star hotels for well under $100/night with Hotwire, even in cities like Chicago, Montreal, and Orlando. If you simply walk in off the street, you can easily pay twice as much.

Stay with friends or relatives when possible. I have found this not only saves a lot of travel expense, but also can be a great way to rejuvenate the road weary.

Plan ahead for trade shows to reduce airfare and hotel costs, as well as to avoid expensive shipping and overtime costs for booth set-up. Also, shop around for lower priced car rentals.
These are just a few simple ideas that can save your company a lot of money (straight off the bottom line) over time.

3) Work to improve your skill-set by taking classes, webinars, reading books, or even taking your education to the next level. These can help add value to your current position and will serve you well should you need to market yourself to a prospective employer.

4) Take care of your physical (and financial) health. There is a lot of stress in the workplace these days. Exercising more, eating better, drinking and smoking less can pay huge dividends in long-term health and short-term coping.

Get your personal budget in order. Staying on top of your bills keeps your credit score high and reduces stress.

Set up automatic transfers to savings. If you don't see the money in your pay check, you are less likely to spend it.

Take full advantage of your 401K. You may not think you can afford to increase your 401K deduction, but you can and will be happy you did. If you decrease your withholding for taxes, you can increase your retirement withholding with minimal effect on net pay. Because you have less taxable income there should be little effect on your refund, but the effect on your retirement savings will be huge. By increasing my 401K withholding each time I got a raise, I saw no ill effect on my lifestyle, but managed to inch it up to 20% over time.

5) Build your network. Linkedin, Facebook, Myspace and Twitter are some of the social networking sites. There are also industry-specific networking sites. These can be great resources for customer and supplier contact, employee recruitment, information exchange, marketing and sales techniques and much more. Inbound marketing through these sites can also be effectively used to inexpensively market your products and services.

Should the worst happen, a well developed network can be a terrific weapon in your job-search arsenal; providing job leads, recommendations and a forum to promote your education, experience and accomplishments.

Someone once said that luck is where preparation and opportunity collide. It is no fun to find yourself on the unemployment line. While your mama may never have m,entioned it, I can tell you from experience that being prepared (just in case) can be a great relief and can help you weather the storm.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Much anticipated launch of FTA - Great Lakes

FTA - Great Lakes will hold its first meeting November 5th.

FTA Great Lakes is a technical networking group of the Flexographic Technical Association.

The event will feature a tour of Lauterbach Group's new LEEDS certified eco-friendly facility, as well as a presentation by Heath Lauterbach about their environmental efforts, which resulted in receipt of an FTA Environmental Excellence award. He will also describe their participation in the Sustainable Green Printing Partnership and other environmental initiatives. Refreshments will be served courtesy of Graymills, Matik and Lauterbach Group. Social Media Coach, Mary Mekelberg, will present information on networking through LinkedIn.

Information will be available about the FTA resources available to help with your sustainability efforts.

There is no charge for this event, but reservations are requested. Please RSVP your interest in attending to Heath Lauterbach at: hlauterbach@lauterbachgroup.com .

Location:

Lauterbach Group http://www.lauterbachgroup.com/
W222 N 5710 Miller Way
Sussex, WI 53089

Agenda:

4:30 - 5:00 - Registration / networking

5:00-6:00 - Facility tours

6:00-6:30 - Presentation by Heath Lauterbach

6:30-7:00 - Social Media presentation by Mary Mekelberg

7:00-8:00 - Refreshments and networking
Please join us for this informative and entertaining evening.
To view a listing of blog topics for each month, click on the arrow on the left side of that month.





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