Boston Consulting Group is changing the way managers evaluate employee performance.

• To increase employees’ confidence in their work, they recommend focusing on the positive aspects of their performance. They recommend giving frequent praise and focusing on a particular worker’s strengths instead of talking about mistakes.

• The idea is to point out their talents and explain how they could be used to work on aspects of the job that come less naturally. The boss should also help them celebrate their wins.

• In any performance review, managers should mention only one or two areas that require development. Employees often feel unappreciated, according to Sheila Heen, author of Thanks for the Feedback. Performance review criticism tends to overshadow appreciation or coaching, especially among young workers.

• Tough criticism is demoralizing and could derail an employee. The rising popularity of tools like Gallup’s StrengthsFinder, which measures a person’s talents in any of 34 areas, shows that many more companies are using a positive tack.

You hear many conflicting ideas about when is the best time to retire: 

As soon as I’m able?

On your 62nd birthday and get those early retirement benefits?

At the full benefit time- 66-67?

Should you just wait till age 70 or later?

To whom should you listen?

A recent survey conducted by New York Life Insurance Company shows that retirees themselves wish that they had retired sooner…an average of 4 years sooner.  Why? They wanted the time to enjoy retirement life while their health was still good.

The survey showed that the people who responded in this way did have some moderate retirement savings. The problem is that many boomer who participated in the study, report having far less savings than that of the generation prior.

Have you made any plans for retirement? Do you have enough to retire a bit sooner? Let RetirementView Software help you see where you stand and what you can do to improve the outlook for your retirement.  Check us out at www.torrid-tech.com and let us help guide you to a more secure retirement.

You can read more of the details of the survey at http://tinyurl.com/lcsajos

Torrid Technologies’ April 2015 Advisor Newsletter

Torrid Technologies’ April 2015 Consumer newsletter.

Is your financial picture a cluttered mess? Spring brings a time to attempt some major/minor clean up. MarketWatch.com suggests the following 7 tips:

Sweep Away Winter Bills

Carrying bills from the past season into the new. Pay off those old Christmas bills so you have better ability to save throughout the remainder of 2015.

Polish Your Budget

Are you meeting your budget? Spending more or less than you planned? Maybe there’s been a life change that has affected your plan. It’s time to make  some adjustments and get the numbers to match up.

Tidy Up Bad Credit

Make payments on time and avoid carrying large balances on your credit cards. Also check your credit reports to see if they contain any errors. Dispute those errors.

Purge Clutter

Shred old paperwork (as a rule of thumb- keep 7 years). If you need to, you can always scan or make a digital copy.

Dust off Unwanted Items

Earning extra money can help pay down debt.

Clean Up Accounts

Consolidate accounts or close unused accounts. Roll over retirement accounts from former employers.

Straighten Out Spending

Spending has never been easier. You can purchase from your phone, now your watch. Ads are everywhere and surfing your favorite sites a way to pass the time. You have to spend less than you make, so find your triggers to spend and monitor those things carefully.

We at Torrid, of course recommend that you continue to update your RetirementView software, watch the green and be encouraged to prepare for your retirement. If you don’t already use it…check it out here: www.torrid-tech.com

http://tinyurl.com/kfa2u8p

Everyone has advice on how to plan your financial future. To make it easier, financial advisors for USA Today recommend this road map for retirement.

In your 20s: Put small amounts into your IRA or a 401 (k) as you lay the ground work for your future. At this point, your mission is to get out of credit card ad college debt.

In your 30s: Increase your savings, maybe to as much as 10 percent of your net income. Save for a down payment on a house, if you haven’t already. Most people marry their 30s and children might be on the way. Avoid debt.

In your 40s: These are the peak years for earning and saving. Coordinate your plans with your spouse and put salary increases and bonuses into your savings. Start calculating how much you will need for retirement. Invest in a Roth IRA so you’ll have money you won’t have to pay taxes on.

In your 50s: Try to save more than 20 percent of your income. Consider downsizing your home if it’s too big. Decide when you want to start taking Social Security. Try living on a fixed income. What then? If you’ve planned and saved well, you can retire in your 60s. If not, you can work a little longer. Or you can retire anyway and find a part time job that you will enjoy. Many retirees work. They want the money but also enjoy the routine and social contacts

By Dan Kennedy

The Secret of Getting Referrals

There has never been any argument in advertising circles that the most effective business advertising is word-of-mouth advertising.

That’s why direct selling is so dramatically successful as a method of marketing every imaginable product and service, and why direct selling is such a great business in which to be.

As a direct salesperson conversationally telling another person why you like a particular product, you are much more convincing advertisement than any TV commercial or magazine ad.

The tremendous persuasiveness of your personal endorsement of a product is what word-of-mouth advertising is all about.  Much to the chagrin of professional ad agencies, such word-of-mouth advertising cannot be purchased.  But you, as a direct salesperson, can put this special type of advertising power to work for your business.

Because you are fortunate to be on friendly, personal terms with your customers, you can enlist their aid in promoting your services.  You can actually turn your present customers into a personal advertising department.  All you need to do is master the right way to ask for their help.

Develop Personal Relations

If you learn how to properly ask for their help, your customers will enthusiastically go to work advertising your business.  This will help promote your services, lead you to scores of new services, and give you all the valuable benefits of word-of-mouth advertising.  There are two types:

1. The customer actually becomes an advertising agent and tells others about you and the service you provide.

2. The customer gives you referrals to people who may be good prospects and allows you to use their name as an endorsement.

Either type can be extremely valuable in multiplying your customer list.

Avoid Pressure

The most important thing to remember is that this kind of help cannot be bought from your customers.  It must never seem like you are offering a bribe in exchange for a list of names.  As a rule, people will not “sell” their friends to you.  Offering an “inducement” also might raise doubts about the quality of your services.  If they are as good as you say they are, why should you bribe people for their recommendations?

Remember two very important things about human nature: first, people usually enjoy telling others about products they try and like.  Second, people like to be appreciated.  One way they get appreciated is by being helpful to others.

In short, offer an incentive for help without appearing to be paying for it.

Show Appreciation

In this way, you’re thanking the person, not bribing them.  They’ll be pleased, won’t feel guilty, and will be more willing the next time you ask.

The next time you call on that customer you should remember to again thank them for their help.  Report to them on the reactions of the prospects they suggested.  Let the person you know you did call on them, that Mrs. Jones did become a customer and purchased such and such, and that Mrs. Walters was interested but wished to purchase at a later date.

In many cases, after reporting these results, you can obtain a couple of additional prospects from them.

Prospects are the lifeblood of your business.  Your greatest asset in direct sales is your inventory of prospective new customers.  And there is no better way to maintain that inventory, converting prospects to customers, than by using the power of word-of-mouth advertising …with recommendations from your present, satisfied customers.  Put this power to work now and watch your profits and your list of customers multiply.

DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; advisor to countless first-generation, from-scratch multi-millionaire and 7-figure income entrepreneurs and professionals; and, in his personal practice, one of the very highest paid direct-response copywriters in America. As a speaker, he has delivered over 2,000 compensated presentations, appearing repeatedly on programs with the likes of Donald Trump, Gene Simmons (KISS), Debbi Fields (Mrs. Fields Cookies), and many other celebrity-entrepreneurs, for former U.S. Presidents and other world leaders, and other leading business speakers like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins, often addressing audiences of 1,000 to 10,000 and up.  His popular books have been favorably recognized by Forbes, Business Week, Inc. and Entrepreneur Magazine. His NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, one of the business newsletters published for Members of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, is the largest paid subscription newsletter in its genre in the world.

Get $633.91 in FREE Money-Making Marketing Tools from:

 http://dankennedy.com/incrediblegift/#.VSQraVzxZUR

As the pool of talented employees shrinks, businesses aren’t waiting to hold exit interviews. They want to know now how they can keep a great employee. A new trend is the “stay” interview, which can discover the aspects of their work that people like and which ones make them, if only for a minute, want to leave.

Beverly Kaye, author of Help Them Grow or Watch them Go, recommends these questions:

* What about your job makes you want jump out of bed in the morning?

* What are you passionate about?

* If you changed your role completely, what would you miss the most?

* If you won the lottery and didn’t have to work, what would you miss?

* What makes for a great day at work?

* If you had a magic wand, what would be the one thing you would you change about your work and your responsibilities?

* What bothers you about your job?

John Sullivan, professor of management at San Francisco State University, says the informal one-on-one meetings help management reinforce positive elements in that person’s job and deal with bothersome issues.