More finance executives plan to spend cash reserves

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January 26, 2012 CONNECT WITH SMARTBRIEF Share | Sign up | Archive | Advertise The Leaderboard    Is it time you had a leadership makeover? Pekka Viljakainen writes about how changing his leadership style helped improve his relationship with employees on two continents. Talking to employees revealed that they wanted a more equal and open relationship with their leaders. That meant spending more time visiting team members in person and using technology to connect and share knowledge, Viljakainen writes. Harvard Business Review online/HBR Blog Network (free registration) (1/23)      10 Principles for Building an Effective Human Capital Plan The Human Capital Plan is an important tool that organizations use to drive focused actions that can ensure goal achievement and business success. It allows organizations to assess, plan for, and respond proactively to its human capital challenges and needs. Download the white paper to learn more. Sales Strategies  The importance of A/B testing Marketers have become focused on using click-through rates and other click-based metrics to test their campaigns, but better techniques are available to evaluate the effectiveness of demand-generation efforts, writes Vince Koehler. It's important for companies to use A/B testing to compare marketing approaches and focus on metrics such as the cost to generate quality leads, he writes. Sales Benchmark Index/Sales Force Effectiveness Blog (1/24)      B2B sales lessons from the big-box world Sales organizations have a lot to learn from the poor customer service offered by a certain well-known big-box store, writes Colleen Stanley. Salespeople should avoid making excuses and work to please the customer, she writes. "Empower your salespeople to make decisions. Give them parameters and then trust them to do the right thing." CustomerThink/Sales Leadership Blog (1/25)      How a scoring system can bring you better leads from marketing Companies can use lead scoring to help make sure the marketing department is sending the sales department the most promising leads it gets. Using this approach, leads are given points based on various factors, and those that score above a certain threshold are sent to the sales department. It's important to figure out which attributes are the most important and have sales and marketing collectively develop the lead-scoring process. MarketingSherpa (1/25)      Earn 3X rewards points when you fly with The New Business Gold Rewards Card from American Express OPEN. Designed to earn Membership Rewards® points faster: • 3X points on airfare • 2X points on advertising, gas, and shipping • 1X points on everything else LEARN MORE AND APPLY Daily Data Points  Fed officials expect to keep rates near zero for years Officials at the Federal Reserve indicated they might resume the central bank's bond-buying program and that they expect to maintain near-zero interest rates for about three more years. Chairman Ben Bernanke said that although there has been "more encouraging news" about the economy, "I don't think we're ready to declare that we've entered a new, stronger phase" of growth. The Wall Street Journal (1/26), Reuters (1/25), Los Angeles Times (1/26)      More finance executives plan to spend cash reserves More than a third of companies plan to spend some of their cash reserves in the coming year, according to a survey of finance executives by Deloitte. The most common spending plans included making acquisitions, boosting capital spending and buying back stock. CFO.com (1/24)      Other News Industry giants see potential in IT services for small business The Wall Street Journal (1/26)      Google performance drives mobile estimate to $2.6 billion PaidContent.org (1/25)      Newspaper, magazine, radio ad revenues seen falling in 2012 MediaPost Communications/MediaDailyNews (1/25)      December saw $10.8 billion in capital-equipment financing The Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones Newswires (1/24)      On the Road  How to land discounted business-class tickets There's a three-step process to follow to find the best deal on business-class tickets, writes Ed Perkins. Just don't expect miracles. "A handful of agencies sell discounted business-class tickets, and a few of these also now handle premium economy. But don't expect any genuine 'fly business class for the price of economy' opportunities." Chicago Tribune/Tribune Media Services (1/24)      App Update    3 tips for using your mobile device on a trip overseas An inability to make sense of international wireless standards and roaming rates can end up costing you plenty. "If you aren't careful, what initially seems like a few phone calls, text messages and basic Web searches can end up costing more than your airfare," Jonathan Blum writes. Luckily, there are ways to stay connected while keeping the costs in check. Entrepreneur.com (1/25)      Other News Xactly software helps small companies handle sales compensation ZDNet/Small Business Matters blog (1/24)      Is Your Business Listed Correctly Online? Online business listings give you the ability to get found by millions of potential customers online. If your listings are missing or incorrect then you're costing yourself business. Check to see how your business is listed by using our scan. Featured Content    Obama's Plans for Small Business Suzanne Sataline NY Bath House Stays Together Despite Epic Feud Shira Levine How to Get Facebook Fans Vivian Wagner After Some $90 Million in Funding a Music Startup Goes Bankrupt Courtney Rubin One Sure-fire Way to Be a Better Leader Bruna Martinuzzi Making Small Talk  A battle for facial-hair bragging rights The West Coast Beard & Mustache Championships were held in Portland, Ore., last weekend, and the region's most extraordinary beards, mustaches and mutton chops were on display, vying for an array of titles. Wired.com/Playbook blog (1/23)      Position Title Company Name Location Market Sales Manager MSC Industrial Supply Multiple Locations, United States VP, Sales Operations & Pricing TravelClick New York, NY National Sales Manager Hargrove Experience Washington, DC Regional Sales Director Regenesis Biomedical, Inc. Multiple Locations, United States Click here to view more job listings. 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