The number of job layoffs continues to rise despite hopes that the economy is on the mend. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports monthly mass layoff actions (more than 50 employees per company) have increased. The daily Forbes.com Layoff Tracker counts more than 690,000 layoffs announced by America's largest public companies since November 2008.

Bosses who are tasked with delivering bad news about layoffs, salary reductions, and other job-related issues are the subject of a newly released study published in Tough Talks in Tough Times: What Bosses Need to Know to Deliver Bad News, Motivate Employees & Stay Sane (Higashi Publishing, ISBN 978-0-9826167-0-3).

Author Jean Palmer Heck researched the subject with people from companies ranging in size from 20 employees to 138,000 about the tough talks that they have given or received. Many of the interviewees emotionally recall their experiences in the 22 case studies highlighted in the book.

As a result of her findings, Heck has developed a five-step process for handling difficult discussions called the Tough Talks CHECK(SM) system. CHECK(SM) is an acronym for:

• Clarity - about the message, purpose and details
• How to - deliver the right words
• Emotions - allowing for feelings to be processed
• Comprehension - ensuring the recipient understands the message
• Kickoff - the next phase to keep the workforce and the boss moving forward

Numerous leaders from organizations such as Dow Chemical, Toyota and the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), as well as best-selling authors, have praised Heck's CHECK(SM) system and her in-depth analysis of the issues.  

Heck contends that organizations, which take too long to deliver tough talks or share information about the company's status, destroy morale and productivity. "Putting off the announcement or discussion doesn't mean that workers won't ask 'What's going on?' It just means they make up their own answers. Rumors can devastate a workforce," notes the author and speaker.

Tough Talks in Tough Times: What Bosses Need to Know to Deliver Bad News, Motivate Employees & Stay Sane also addresses the ramifications on managers who are the bearers of bad news. "The discussions and soul-searching before and after any tough talk are critical to survival, but often neglected," Heck adds. "But it is essential that bosses and business owners take action or stress can adversely impact them and their families. That's the K in the CHECK(SM) system."

Shep Hyken, author of Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller Cult of the Customer, notes, "Delivering tough news is never easy. Jean Palmer Heck provides a specific process that shows you how to do so with style, respect, integrity, and confidence."

Tough Talks in Tough Times also includes excerpts from interviews with psychotherapists, human resource managers and employment experts.

Heck is an international communications advisor, strategist and president of Real-Impact Inc. Tough Talks in Tough Times: What Bosses Need to Know to Deliver Bad News, Motivate Employees & Stay Sane is available in select bookstores and online via Amazon.com or direct from the author. For information, visit http://www.toughtalks.biz  

SOURCE Jean Palmer Heck

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FastPencil (http://www.fastpencil.com) today launched its new Concierge Thought Leadership Book Program, allowing busy executives and organizations to quickly publish a thought leadership book and solidify their credibility with customers, prospects, constituents, and partners. The Concierge Thought Leadership Book Program integrates a full-service book authoring team and best practices with FastPencil's next generation publishing platform.

Whether the author is just getting started or has existing content, FastPencil's Concierge Thought Leadership Book Program simplifies the book authoring process by providing influencers with an expert team of ghostwriters, designers, and editors. By following FastPencil's book authoring best practices, the team quickly moves from content creation, cover design, final editing, formatting, and distribution.  A project manager facilitates the entire writing and publishing process to reach book completion in 90 days.

"Executives are undeniably busy and many admit that they would never finish a book unless they had someone to drive the process. FastPencil's concierge program provides busy executives the structure and resources to complete their book quickly, so they can focus on growing their business," said Steve Wilson, FastPencil Co-Founder and CEO. "Our Concierge Thought Leadership Book Program simplifies an often time-consuming, costly and arduous book authoring process and is the best opportunity a thought leader will have to publish their book in 2010."

FastPencil's Concierge Thought Leadership Program Features:

• Expert book authoring team to produce high quality book in 90 days
• Project manager to manage details of book creation, so project runs efficiently
• ISBN registration with print and eBook distribution through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online retailers
• Rally early fan base with collaborative platform
• Includes 100 free hard cover copies of the book

"There is a reason that one of pop culture's most quotable lines is 'he wrote the book on it,'" said Ron Edmonds, author of How to Grow Your Green Business, a Guide for Green Industry Business Owners. "Becoming a published author creates unquestionable credibility and FastPencil offers amazing customer service throughout the industry's most innovative publishing and distribution services."

This program is for CEOs and other key executives, influencers and others who desire to build their brand in well-defined communities of prospects, peers and organizations. By combining the power of self-publishing with community social networking, thought leaders can promote their views and reach a wide audience, without having to actually type every keystroke themselves. Authors can then publish their finished work to hardcover, paperback or eBook and the write-once, publish anywhere approach ensures an author's book can be read anywhere today and in the future.

FastPencil Features:

• Select from a variety of book templates including the personal memoir, the great American novel and children's books
• Publish in print and eBook formats supported by the iPhone reader, Kindle and soon the Apple iPad
• Distribute to thousands of online retailers
• Flexible content upload through blog to book or direct PDF to publish
• Expand readership through Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, AOL, Yahoo and MSN
• Capture inspiration from anywhere with an iPhone or iPod touch

Availability

The FastPencil Concierge Thought Leadership Book Program is available at http://www.fastpencil.com/leaders.

About FastPencil

FastPencil is leveraging the disruptive trends of self-publishing, social media, print-on-demand and eBook distribution to deliver a new unified online service that streamlines the book publishing process offering more control and higher margins for authors. The FastPencil writing and publishing service enables authors to create books online, collaborate, publish and distribute from one engaging, simple, cost-effective solution. For more information please visit FastPencil.com.

For regular FastPencil updates follow us at www.Twitter.com/FastPencil

Become a Fan on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/FastPencil

FastPencil is a registered trademark of FastPencil, Inc. All other registered or unregistered trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners.

SOURCE FastPencil

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On Wednesday, April 14, at 7 p.m., the National Archives will host Megan Smolenyak, author of Who do You Think You Are?, a comprehensive guide for conducting genealogical research and the official tie-in to the NBC show of the same name that traces the genealogy of a famous person. Smolenyak, chief family historian and spokesperson for Ancestry.com, will be joined by Andrew Carroll, editor of the New York Times bestsellers War Letters and Behind the Lines.

Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080925/DC35252LOGO)

This event is free and open to the public and will be held in the William G. McGowan Theater of the National Archives Building, which is fully accessible. A book signing of Who Do You Think You Are? will follow the program, and the book is available at a discount from the Archives Shop (202-357-5271) before and during the event. The program is presented in partnership with the National Archives Sixth Annual Genealogy Fair, to be held April 14-15th, 2010.  The Genealogy Fair is free and open to the public, and presented in partnership with the Foundation for the National Archives.

The National Archives Building is located on Constitution Avenue at 7th Street, NW.  Winter hours (through March 14) are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Spring hours (March 15 through Labor Day) are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., daily. Admission is free, and the building is fully accessible.  Metro accessible on the Yellow and Green lines, Archives/Navy Memorial/Penn Quarter station.  To request an accommodation (e.g., sign language interpreter) for a public program, please e-mail public.program@nara.gov or call (202) 357-5000 at least two weeks prior to the event. To verify the date and times of the programs, view the Calendar of Events online at www.archives.gov.

Background:  National Archives staff in Washington, D.C., and New York City worked closely with the producers and researchers of this genealogy-based program for over a year to identify National Archives documents that help tell the story of famous Americans featured on the programs.  

National Archives records are an abundant resource for genealogical research. "Who Do You Think You Are?" features many such records – including pension applications, census schedules, and Freedmen's Bureau records – that are used by thousands of researchers every year.  A new National Archives web page links to some of the most popular records of genealogical interest, including records used in some of the shows (http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/topics/who-do-you-think-you-are.html).

The web page also includes information about how to begin genealogy research.  Interested viewers can also email questions to National Archives genealogy experts at WhoDo@archives.gov.

Follow us on:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/archivesnews

Facebook:  USNationalArchives

SOURCE National Archives

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When you call customers or prospects do you leave a rambling, boring or informal message? Or even worse, do you simply hang up if they do not answer?

"Maybe that's why these people (and maybe even some of your friends!) don't call you back," says Ron Karr, business development expert and author of Lead, Sell, or Get Out of the Way: The 7 Traits of Great Sellers.

"With Caller ID, regardless if you left a message or not, they know you've called. Plus, if you didn't feel your call was worth a message, why would they want to waste any effort in calling you back?"

Ron advises sales executives, professional service providers and entrepreneurs:

• If you are going to call a business contact, be prepared to talk - don't hang up.
• Know what you want to say and keep it brief.
• Leave a message that is customer-focused, not self-focused. Give them a reason to call you back.
• If you've called several times without getting a return call, change your message - it's not working.

If calling your spouse, friend, relative or someone you know very well, the act of hanging up can merely act as a silent code between the two of you that says "Hey, it's me. Call me back."

If calling a prospect, customer or someone you don't know well at all, hanging up is simply too risky. For one thing, they have not established that silent code with you.

Secondly, people hang up thinking "if I don't leave a message, they will never know I called." Hello! Is anyone home in your mind? Of course they know you called!

In fact, because the relationship is not all that strong, you have now given that person carte blanche to come up with their own reason as to why you did not leave a message and create their own message. Messages that often lead to false assumptions, emotions and actions based on those false assumptions.

Here's the problem with most voice mail messages and why they don't generate call backs. They are self-focused vs. customer-focused. Every time you hear a message, you make the mental decision as to whether or not that caller deserves more of an investment of your time. Leaving messages that record your name, company name and the request to call you back simply does not motivate many people to call you, especially if you are someone they don't know. Leaving messages with the above and talking about a product or service will not get a callback either.

So how do you get callbacks? Simply change your message from being self-focused to being customer-focused by putting an outcome in the message. A result the person will get from calling you back that will benefit them.

"A client of mine was selling x-ray technology. Getting frustrated that the radiologists were not calling her back, she changed to message to: Please call me if you want to put an end to the irate calls you are getting from the Docs because of lost films. She claims to have gotten 70% of her calls returned. Would you appreciate 70% of your voice mails being returned?" commented Karr.

"Bottom line, if you want your voice mail messages returned, then give the receiver a good enough reason to do so.

"Want to learn how to get your calls returned and get people to buy your ideas? Then make the investment and get the book Lead, Sell or Get Out of the Way," added Karr.

http://www.ronkarr.com/store/lead-sell-or-get-out-of-the-way  

About Ron Karr

Ron Karr is the President of the business consulting firm Karr Associates, Inc. Ron specializes in helping organizations and professionals generate remarkable sales and operational results. Ron has been interviewed by Entrepreneur Magazine, Bottom Line Business, and Selling Power, as well as Bloomberg TV, CBS Morning Show in New Orleans, Joe Connolly's Wall Street Journal Report and many other shows.

View Ron's recent interview on The Rhode Show on FOX TV in Providence, Rhode Island: http://www.ronkarr.com/media  

SOURCE Ron Karr

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Smaller available spaces for gardens, a national movement to forego the use of synthetic chemicals in the environment and a desire to utilize low-maintenance and native plants are all addressed in "A Year in a Rock Garden - An Organic Gardening Guide."

According to OrganicGardening.com, sales of organic products are estimated to have topped $25 billion in 2008.

"... There's more capital going into organic agriculture than ever before." (Michael Pollan)

The book is published by CreateSpace, an Amazon group company.

Ron Kushner, the author, is a Master Gardener and Pennsylvania Certified Horticulturist who has spent many years establishing and maintaining gardens utilizing organic methods. He is a graduate of The Barnes Foundation Horticultural Program and his organic internship was served at Worden Farm in Punta Gorda, Florida. He is employed by Albrecht's Nursery and Garden Center in Narberth, PA.

Specific gardens are featured each month, along with Kushner's own garden, photographs, specific garden chores, directions and organic practices for an entire year.

Throughout the book readers will:

• Understand specific gardening direction as to what must be accomplished each month.
• Have guidelines for gardening organically without the use of synthetic chemical products.
• Be given input on specific plants, their needs, bloom time, flower color and an appendix of close to 300 appropriate plants and their cultural needs.
• Learn which plants are to be avoided.
• Have a comprehensive list of sources for seeds, plants, gardening tools and supplies.
• Be advised of the up-to-date explanation of what the term "organic" actually means in the United States today.
• Be introduced to a different rock garden setting every month.

The most popular, comprehensive rock gardening books were published in Great Britain in the 1930's and this work is the first rock gardening book ever published with organic gardening guidelines and methods.

This release was issued through eReleases(TM).  For more information, visit http://www.ereleases.com.

SOURCE Ron Kushner

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