Are you close with your business? Ask yourself what really would you answer to big questions asked about your company. We will have found the must know questions all business owners need to be able to answer about their company business.

This is also useful for starting your business and getting prepared for new business ideas.

1. What are your business’s greatest strengths and weaknesses?
2. What are your biggest challenges and opportunities?
3. Who are your current customers, and why are they patronizing your business?
4. Who are your competitors’ current customers, and why are they patronizing their businesses?
5. What changes or new programs would have the greatest potential to boost your sales?

Answer all of these every six months to keep track of new shifts that happen to most businesses.

1. Appeal to your followers desire
2. Truly believe in what you are saying (evolved leaders get the trust of their followers by being part of the crowd)
3. Have humility (ghandi, martin luther king) The best leader is the one that has been said to lead rather then someone who seeks it.
4. Have simplicity, be organized, and focused.
5. Never confuse passions with authority, don’t use emotion, people want someone stable.
6. Never raise your voice or lose control.
7. Be respectful to everyone. This gives you charisma

The interview may be over, but your chance to make an impression is not. Here are 10 strategies to continue boosting your candidacy.

1. Show that you’re still interested

Leave no doubt in the interviewer’s mind about where you stand. Ask for the job at meeting’s end with a phrase such as, “I would really like to contribute to this company and am hoping you select me.”

Also, don’t leave the room without a clear idea of what will happen next in the hiring process. Will select applicants be invited back to meet other people? By what date do they hope to fill the position? Such questions demonstrate enthusiasm for the job, and knowing the hirer’s timeframe will help keep you from panicking if a week has passed without a phone call.

2. Set the stage for further contact

Nobody wants to be a pest, but could your silence as days pass be misinterpreted as indifference? Avoid the guesswork by finding out before heading home what the employer prefers in terms of checking in. Lizandra Vega, author of “The Image of Success: Make a Great Impression and Land the Job You Want,” suggests asking the recruiter about her preferred method of follow-up communication and whether it would be okay to touch base again.

3. Be punctual

If you tell the interviewer you’ll send a list of references tomorrow morning, make sure you do it. Keeping your word and answering requests in a timely manner speaks volumes about the type of employee you might be.

4. Know when to sit tight

If an interviewer requests that you follow up by phone in a week, respect her wishes. Calling the next day can be construed as pushy and desperate.

5. Send a prompt thank-you note

A positive, nonintrusive way to stay on an employer’s mind is to send a thank-you note. Vega recommends emailing one within 24 hours of the interview, then following up with a handwritten note that arrives one to three business days later.

6. Send each interviewer a personalized, powerful follow-up letter

This piece of communication is another chance for you to shine, so don’t waste space with generalities. Ford R. Myers, a career coach and author of “Get the Job You Want, Even When No One’s Hiring,” recommends including specific references to each person you met and tying your accomplishments directly to the company’s stated challenges.

You also can use the letter to introduce achievements that didn’t get discussed and to elaborate on interview answers that you felt lacked punch.

7. Address one of the company’s needs

Another effective way to follow up is to act more like a consultant than an applicant. “During the interview, you learn a lot about a company’s weaknesses and/or areas where the company wants to expand,” states Linda Matias, president of CareerStrides.com and author of “201 Knockout Answers to Tough Interview Questions.”

“Consider creating a proposal on how you would address one of those areas. Doing so will demonstrate that you have the knowledge and also the enthusiasm to make a significant contribution.”

8. Keep thinking and learning about the company

Be prepared for additional interviews or follow-up phone calls by continuing to research the organization and the field. Gain new information about a topic brought up in conversation. Think of additional questions you’d like answered. These actions show the hirer that you didn’t stop caring about the company after the interview was over.

9. Leverage outside resources

Networking should never stop. “If you have contacts and connections with anyone who might influence the hiring decision, or who actually knows the interviewer, ask her to put a good word in for you,” Myers says.

10. Accept rejection with grace

Finally, keep emotions in check and don’t burn bridges if someone else gets hired. One never knows what the future might hold. The accepted candidate may not work out, or a different position may open up.

“If you are rejected, the first thing you should do (ironically) is send a thank-you note,” Myers says. “This will help distinguish you from other rejected candidates and put you in a positive light.”

1. Walk away from bargains

Just because you can buy a cashmere sweater for $20 or three bottles of ketchup for the price of one doesn’t mean you should. “Ask, ‘Do I have something similar?’ and ‘Where am I going to store it?’ before making a purchase,” advises New York City professional organizer Julie Morgenstern, author of “Shed Your Stuff, Change Your Life.”

2. Make peace with imperfection

Efficient people give “A-level effort” to the most important projects (say, work assignments or a kitchen redesign), and for the rest they do just enough to get the job done, says Renae Reinardy, PsyD, a psychologist who specializes in hoarding disorders. Maybe you give yourself permission to bring store-bought cookies to a school bake sale or donate a bag of stuff — unsorted! — to Goodwill. “Trying to do every task perfectly is the easiest way to get bogged down,” says Reinardy.

3. Never label anything “miscellaneous”

You put a bunch of things into a file or box and write this catchall across the front. “But within a week you’ve forgotten what’s in there,” says Morgenstern. Instead, sort items into specific groups — “electric bills,” “lightbulbs,” and so on.

4. Schedule regular decluttering sessions

Rather than wait until an industrious mood strikes (we all know where that leads), have a decluttering routine in place — whether it’s spending 15 minutes sorting mail after work or tackling a new project every Sunday afternoon.

5. Stick with what works

“I have clients who will try every line of makeup, every cell phone — it’s exhausting,” says Dorothy Breininger, president of the Delphi Center for Organization. Don’t waste time (and money) obsessively seeking out the best thing.

6. Create a dump zone

Find a space to corral all the stuff that you don’t have time to put away the moment you step in the door, says Breininger. Once you’re ready to get organized, you won’t have to hunt all over the house for the dry cleaning or your child’s field trip permission slip.

7. Ask for help

“The organized person is willing to expose herself to short-term embarrassment and call for backup,” says Breininger. Which is to say, that elaborate four-course dinner you planned? Change it to a potluck.

8. Separate emotions from possessions

It’s healthy to be attached to certain items — a vase you picked up in Paris, your grandmother’s pearls. But holey concert tees or cheap, scuffed earrings your husband gave you years ago? Just let them go.

9. Foresee (and avoid) problems

You wouldn’t leave the house on a gray day without an umbrella, right? People who appear to sail through life unruffled apply this thinking to every scenario, says Breininger. Have a cabinet packed with leaning towers of Tupperware? Organized folks will take a few minutes to short-circuit an avalanche before it happens. (In other words, rearranging that cupboard now is easier than chasing after wayward lids as they scatter underneath the fridge.)

10. Know where to donate

It’s easier to part with belongings if they’re going to a good home. Identify a neighbor’s son who fits into your child’s outgrown clothes, or choose a favorite charity. “It will save you from searching for the perfect recipient every time you need to unload something,” says Morgenstern.

Leadership is one of those nebulous terms — you hear it all the time but it has various definitions. The traits that make up a good leader can vary depending on the organization, team, manager and work environment.

Leadership can also vary in style — are you someone who dictates the group and doesn’t listen to anyone else’s opinion? Or do you lead with a more bureaucratic or democratic style?

“Every leader has a particular style of leadership that is innate. However, the behaviors, attitudes or methods of delivery that are effective for one staff member may in fact be counterproductive for another,” says Michael Burke, account supervisor, MSR Communications, a public relations firm.

“Great leaders are aware of their own style and make the effort to learn how their style actually comes across to their team. They learn to flex their leadership style to individual team members so that they communicate and behave in ways that motivate and inspire.”

Here is what five leadership professionals consider to be traits that make up a good leader:

Rachael Fisher-Layne, vice president of media relations, JCPR, a public relations agency

1. Honesty. Always do the honest thing. It makes employees feel like they know where they stand with you at all times.

2. Focus. Know where you’re going and have a strong stated mission to lead people on. If you’re not sure, how can your people be sure? You have to have strong focus and stay the course.

3. Passion. Whatever it is, you must have passion for what you’re doing. Live, breathe, eat and sleep your mission.

4. Respect. Not playing favorites with people and treating all people — no matter what station in life, what class or what rank in the org chart — the same.

5. Excellent persuasion abilities. People have to believe in you and your credibility. Image is everything and the belief people have in you, your product, your mission, your facts or your reputation are key to being a great leader. You have to persuade people of this — it doesn’t just happen.

Darcy Eikenberg, a leadership and workplace coach, Red Cape Revolution

1. Confidence. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one will. I hear leaders worrying that if they show too much confidence, others will think them arrogant. The reality is people want to know what you know for sure — and what you don’t. Having the confidence to say “I don’t know” is a powerful skill.

2. Clarity. The only way you can get confidence is by becoming really, really clear about who you are and what is most important to you. New leaders fail when they try to become all things to all people, or try to do too much out of their area of excellence. Clarity helps you say “yes” to the right things — and “no” to others.

3. Care. The strongest, most effective leaders I’ve met care not just about the business, but about the people in it and the people impacted by it. Plus, they show they care through their words and actions, even proving how they care for themselves and their family by taking unplugged vacations and continuing their own professional development. Care shouldn’t be a four-letter word in our workplace today — and the best leaders know it.

Tom Armour, co-founder, High Return Selection, a recruitment firm

1. Integrity. They are people who are respected and worth listening to. I find in general due to all of the economic difficulties, employees prioritize and seek leaders and organizations that are honest and meet their commitments.

2. Compassion. Too many leaders these days manage with the balance sheet, often times at the expense of their employees and long-term customer relationships. Talented people want to work for leaders and organizations that truly care about their employees and the communities in which they operate.

3. Shared vision and actions. People produce real business gains and smart people need to understand what is needed and be part of the solution.

4. Engagement. Great business leaders are able to get all members of their teams engaged. They do this by offering them challenge, seeking their ideas and contributions and providing them with recognition for their contributions.

5. Celebration. In today’s work environment, people are working very long hours and they need to take some time to celebrate their successes in order to recharge their batteries. Those leaders who fail to do this create burnout environment overtime.

Mike Sprouse, CMO, Epic Media Group, and author of “The Greatness Gap”

1. Humility. True leaders have confidence but realize the point at which it becomes hubris.

2. Empowering. True leaders make their associates feel emboldened and powerful, not diminished and powerless.

3. Collaborative. True leaders solicit input and feedback from those around them so that everyone feels part of the process.

4. Communicative. True leaders share their vision or strategy often with those around them.

5. Fearlessness. True leaders are not afraid to take risks or make mistakes. True leaders make mistakes born from risk.

Nancy Clark, author of “18 Holes for Leadership”

1. Genuine. You need to be clear on what your values are and must be consistent in applying them. As part of that, you need to have the courage to hold true to them. You must not lose sight of reality. Lost values may be one of the biggest causes of downfalls.

2. Self-awareness. You need to be clear on what your strengths are and what complementary strengths you need from others. This includes understanding others and learning how best to utilize their strengths. Many unsophisticated leaders think everyone should be like them; that too can cause their downfall. They surround themselves with people like them. “Group think” can blindside them and cause failure.

3. Leverage team strengths. Part of awareness is don’t expect people to change. If you think you can change someone, think again. This doesn’t mean you can’t help them grow and develop. But don’t expect to change anyone (even yourself) behaviorally. We are who we are. Your job as a leader is to understand each person’s strengths and place them in positions where they can flourish and grow. If you are good at that, you have a huge part of the equation for success.

4. Leadership transitions. Going from individual contributor to supervisor is only the first of many transitions along the leadership pipeline. You need to understand the business model, how it applies to your current position, what you need to do to provide the greatest value, and how to leverage your strengths at this level. This requires building competencies and focusing on the right things. No one ever tells you that there are many levels and many adjustments you need to make along the way.

5. Supportive. You need to foster a positive environment that allows your team to flourish. Also by aligning the reward and recognition systems that best match your teams profile and deliver results.

Check out our new twitter updates page for CEO’s. Have a favorite CEO you want added? Contact us here

The new page at MarketingSpot.com allows you to see all of the listed top CEO’s Twitter posts all at once. It also filters out the replies and junk so you just get wind of the good stuff. “This is a fun page to leave open on a second screen” Says DWHS Inc. President, Charles Yarbrough. You can get lots of great information in real time without running a full program or getting stuff you don’t need from other Twitter update sites.

Check out the new Twitter CEO Posts here.

We will also add a link at the bottom of each page.

In a tight market, every job seeker needs to find a way to stand out from the crowd. What separates the great from the good and makes a particular candidate too irresistible to pass up? Often, it is one of these three things:

1. Ability to prove worth

It is one thing to call yourself an outstanding communicator or an effective leader. It is another to back those claims with proof. Employers want to know what you’d bring to the table if hired.

“Candidates who can provide real, tangible examples of successes at their current and past jobs certainly stand out,” say Western Union’s Chris Brabec, director of leadership talent acquisition, and Laura Hopkins, vice president of talent acquisition.

Alan Guinn, managing director and CEO of The Guinn Consultancy Group in Bristol, Tennessee, agrees.

“More and more of my clients simply aren’t interested in questions like, ‘If you were an animal, what would you be?’ They are exponentially more interested in seeing if the candidate for a position understands the value that he or she brings to the employer when hired.”

Guinn says that most applicants for commission-driven jobs know they can demonstrate competency and quantify value by discussing how they met quotas, exceeded sales objectives or searched out new clients.

Candidates in other fields who are not accustomed to thinking this way may have more difficulty, but trying to do so may ultimately land them a job.

To come up with examples, it might help to examine your résumé and performance reviews.

What have you accomplished that sets you apart from others? How can those achievements be applied to this job? Is there a way to quantify or explain results in terms of time or money saved, output or improvement?

It can be especially effective to search for instances that would be noteworthy for the specific position or employer. For example, since Western Union is a global company, a candidate who highlights his international experience would grab the attention of Brabec and Hopkins.

Examining the job ad for keywords can offer clues as to what might be most significant.

2. More than a simple knowledge of the company

An acceptable candidate looks at the company’s website before heading to the interview. An irresistible one learns more.

“To stand out, you need to show that your research was a mile deep and not an inch deep like most candidates,” says Jim Langan, partner and manager of the investment and financial services division for Winter, Wyman — one of the largest staffing firms in the Northeast. “You need to go above and beyond in your efforts to show that you understand this company inside and out.”

Annual reports and financial statements can help. Likewise, check for any recent news events or press releases. Langan says these things also might be helpful to know about a company:

• Its motto or vision.

• Its products and what makes them stand out in the market.

• Its competitors.

• Its stock price.

• Its senior management and their history with the company.

(Bonus points: If any of them have written a book or been quoted in a publication, see if you can mention that in the interview.)

3. Enthusiasm

If you’ve taken the time to demonstrate your worth and to do homework on the company, chances are you’re well on your way to becoming the final thing an employer can’t resist: an enthusiastic candidate.

How does enthusiasm shine through? “First and foremost, I believe, is the candidate’s interest in the interview itself,” Guinn says. “It’s directly in proportion, I think, to how excited the candidate might be to be offered the job.”

He says the questions that enthusiastic candidates ask are not only about the job they would be doing but also about the job in the future.

“They ask the interviewer how they may expand positional responsibilities. They demonstrate interest in upward mobility. They want to know who has moved up and why the position they are being interviewed for is vacant. They also are interested in how they will fit in with the group to which they are assigned.”

Let a potential employer know that you have spent time learning about this particular job and reflecting on how you’d be the perfect person for it. Chances are your genuine excitement could be contagious.

As Langan says, “Companies love to hire people who have passion and enthusiasm for a position rather than a candidate who sees this as just another job.”

You’re sitting at your desk, staring at your Dilbert calendar, loathing everything from your company-distributed coffee mug to your co-worker, Earl, who is swirling his pencil in the crevices of his ear. “Time to blow this popsicle stand,” you think.

Thankfully, you’re sitting in front of a job-finding goldmine: your computer.

While you might be tempted to just utter a few expletives and surf on over to Monster.com, know this: There’s a smart way to begin an online job search while you’re gainfully employed.

A recent study from UCLA and the State University of New York-Stony Brook found that unemployed folks — even if they left voluntarily — are stigmatized when it comes to procuring jobs, unlike those who are collecting paychecks.

So suck it up and start your search wisely — and maybe bring some headphones to save your eardrums from Earl’s nail chomping.

E-Ask around

Let’s say you work for a home design website, but your true passion is collecting Hummels (you know, those frightening children figurines that people always give to old folks for Christmas). You’re talking with a Hummel distributor for a story and suddenly it hits you: “Why not just work at the Hummel factory, coming up with new little-boy-leading-sheep-around tableaux?”

Well, you have the dude’s ear, why not ask him if there are any openings? Dr. Katharine S. Brooks, author of “You Majored in What? Mapping Your Path From Chaos to Career,” suggests doing so in a less-than-direct manner, however.

“Contact (your potential employer) and say you’re helping a colleague out who is interested in any openings at their company,” she says. “If it turns out they have an opening, you can always say later (when you apply) — ‘I wasn’t even thinking about looking for a job until I saw this opportunity — I just had to apply.’ ”

That way, it won’t make it through the knickknack grapevine that you’re considering jumping ship to trod greener pastures — like working as a professional metaphor mixer.

Social network

If you don’t have time to go to a ton of mixers and whatnot IRL (or you’re an agoraphobe), you can easily use the Web to cultivate contacts in the field you want to get into and do so in a discrete manner.

“Don’t just network when you need something,” says Krista Canfield, spokeswoman for LinkedIn. “A ‘gimme gimme’ mentality is a surefire way to lose professional contacts and get deleted from peoples’ networks.”

Canfield recommends joining special interest groups on LinkedIn, and talking with others about something other than work opps.

“Joining different or new professional circles will help you meet other people and also open the door to other opportunities,” she says.

Brooks suggests starting a new Twitter account under a different name, on which you can post stories and thoughts about the field in which you want to work. Then, when you turn in your resume to the Hummel folks, you can direct them to your account, @AppleTreeBoy, and all your illuminating ruminations on what Berta Hummel would have achieved had she lived past 37.

Don’t be stupid

OK, this may seem really obvious, but we need to say it anyway: Do not apply for new jobs from your work e-mail or during work hours. Earl is probably watching.

“It isn’t just about the ethics of your current situation — it’s also about the impression you’re creating,” says Brooks. “If your potential new employer sees that you use your company’s e-mail to correspond with them, use the company phone to call them, and appear to be contacting them during work hours, they will assume you will do the same thing when you work for them.”

Less obviously, it’s wise to cover your tracks when you’re doing all that networking we were talking about before. Canfield recommends that you familiarize yourself with LinkedIn’s settings. You can control whether your connections will be notified when you change your profile, making recommendations and follow companies.

You can also control whether your connections can see your connection list or find out when you add a new connection. It looks a little suspicious if you suddenly add 15 recruiters from various and sundry tchotchke factories to your connections list.

And if you have, in fact, been fired or laid off …

After you’ve sobered up/stopped crying/put on pants, take a big swig of your pride. While you might not want to tell anyone that you were replaced by a computer algorithm, keeping your current jobless situation under wraps is actually really stupid.

Every expert we spoke to told us that it was best to let everyone in your network know about your loss — upping the odds that news will strike the ear of someone who can help. Donna Flagg, author of “Surviving Dreaded Conversations,” says, “Here I think it’s smart to work Twitter in because you can tweet the experience openly and perhaps connect to other like-minded folks.”

Still, keep the news-sharing professional. Even if Earl did tell everyone about your secret rendezvous with your girlfriend in the storage room, thereby leading to your untimely curtain call, telling the whole digital world about how he once had a panic attack in the break room and wept under the snack table isn’t the way to your potential new employer’s heart.

Keep it classy, and you’ll be back in a cubicle in no time, sipping from a new company logo-emblazoned chalice.

The phrase “shoot yourself in the foot” didn’t create itself. In fact, job seekers probably coined it.

Every day, thousands of people look for a job — and almost every single one of them makes at lease one mistake (or 10) in the process. The worst part is, many if not all of these blunders are completely avoidable.

“It never ceases to amaze me when people make mistakes, then slap themselves on the forehead and say, ‘I can’t believe I did that.’ I feel the need to pop them on the head,” says JaLynn Hudnall, of Ravenwood Forest Consulting.

1. Not using a professional e-mail address.

“It is wonderful that you are proud of your heritage and cultural roots. However, please don’t use ‘juicygapeach’ as your e-mail address,” Hudnall says. “There are enough free e-mail hosts out there that you can set up a plain first.last account that is professional and non-descript.”

2. Jumping into the fire without your fireproof undies.

“[Don't start] your search without a plan or much thought as to where you want to go and how you plan to get there,” says Julie Bauke, author of “Stop Peeing On Your Shoes- Avoiding the 7 Mistakes that Screw up your Job Search.” Also, make sure you can answer these three key questions: Why are you in the job market? Tell me about yourself. What are you looking to do next?

3. Not checking yourself in the mirror before walking into an interview.

“I once interviewed someone who had a giant piece of lettuce hanging off his mustache,” says Mario Schulzke, founder of CareerSparx.com. “I should have said something to him, but it was just too awkward and instead I spent 30 minutes staring at the guy’s upper lip.”

4. Falling into the ‘black hole.’

Many job seekers misunderstand the role of the Internet in their job search, Bauke says. “It is good for research and connections,” she says, but “you are not most likely to get a job that way.”

5. Being forgetful.

“One mistake that I have seen a number of times over the years is people using a cover letter template and forgetting to change the company and name to who it is addressed,” says Paul Peterson, MA, MBA, national talent resource manager, human resources. “Your cover letter should always be customized to the company and position to which you are applying.”

6. Going to networking events — but not really networking.

“Real networking is building mutually beneficial relationships,” Bauke says. That can be hard to do in a group setting. “Make sure you are having at least three to five one-on-one meetings per week.”

7. Omitting a signature block in your e-mail.

“A signature block is a perfect place to give a brief 20-word teaser and include a link to your online résumé,” Hudnall says. For example, “Georgia Environmental Engineer with 7 years experience, seeking job in new locale, click here for full résumé.”

8. Casting your net too widely.

“You are not a fit everywhere and you are not good at everything,” Bauke reminds. “Your search will be much more effective if you focus on exactly what kind of work you want to do and where you want to do it.”

9. Not paying attention.

“Job seekers aren’t reading the job description carefully and following the specific directions provided by the employer, recruiter or hiring manager,” says Eddy Salomon, founder of Workathomenoscams.com and Workathomecareers.com. “The job description may state ‘please apply by visiting x site. Please do not send a résumé.’ But many job seekers are guilty of scanning the information provided and will end up doing the opposite of what has been described and send a résumé. Employers can’t help but disqualify these candidates because it shows a lack of attention to detail and the failure to follow directions.”

10. Overlooking the interviewing “gimme” questions.

Prepare to answer the basics questions: What are your strengths and weaknesses? Tell me about yourself. Why should we hire you? “You know they are coming. Be prepared!” Bauke says.

11. Not joining your local Chamber of Commerce.

“Every Chamber across the United States has a monthly get together usually called something like ‘Business After Hours,’ and many even have young professionals associations,” Hudnall says. “Not using this an as opportunity to network and meet others in your field is a missed opportunity.”

12. Having grammar or spelling errors on your résumé or cover letter.

“No matter how many résumés you send out, each customized to fit one job description, you must review each one closely for grammar and spelling errors,” says Rick Saia, CPRW, content writer for Pongo Résumé . “Even the tiniest error will cast a bad impression on the hiring manager, especially if you write ‘attentive to detail’ as a strength. It’s good practice to have a trusted friend or relative read through your documents before you send them.”

13. Not being mindful of social media presence.

“Job seekers need to be mindful of social profiles and pictures they may have out on the Web that may be deemed inappropriate. In some cases employers may secretly try to ‘friend’ you on a given social network so they can have access to your wall and photos,” Salomon says. Before applying to any job, one should search for his or her own name to ensure there isn’t anything out there that would be deemed inappropriate.

14. Trying to turn an informational interview into a job interview.

“This is probably the worst form of abusing your network contacts. An informational interview is to get information, not an offer,” says Ron Katz, author of “Someone’s Gonna Get Hired … It Might As Well Be You!” “When people start peppering the contact to see if there are any openings or jobs available, the person with whom they are meeting feels duped, taken advantage of, and at worst, angry and resentful.”

15. Not having a LinkedIn profile.

“Many employers and HR professionals use LinkedIn as their go-to resource for more information about a candidate,” Schulzke says. “If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile, you are missing out on a critical opportunity to showcase your skills and experience.”

16. Failing to research the company.

“At least take some time to review the company’s website and use some of that knowledge in your résumé and cover letter,” Saia says. “When you get to the interview, you’ll need to know much more, especially to show how your skills and experience match up with the demands of the job and how your skills and experience can benefit the company.”

17. Not following up after applying for a job.

“Following up is critical to set you apart from other applicants. Job seekers often neglect this key step because, for example, they applied online and don’t have a name to follow up with,” says Amy Olmscheid, manager of the Career Center at Capella University. “But if you don’t have a name of a person to follow up with, find one. Use the Internet or use your network. Get the name of a contact in human resources or a manager in the department you want to work in and then follow up with a call or e-mail.”

18. Neglecting to follow up after an interview.

“Always send a thank you note to the interviewer,” Olmscheid says. “Sending your note by e-mail is perfectly acceptable, but a handwritten note is a nice extra touch.”

19. Failing to ask questions at the interview.

“Remember that you want to find out about the company and hiring manager as much as you want to tell them about you,” Saia says. “By passing on the opportunity to ask questions, you’re sending a message that you’re not that interested in the job. And employers want candidates who are interested.”

20. Relying on a single job-hunt strategy.

“Some job seekers will declare that they are only using online job boards and those individuals may miss excellent opportunities,” Olmscheid says. “Job seekers typically identify more jobs and make more connections that can lead to jobs when they use a multi-pronged approach. Amp up your job search with job boards, face-to-face meetings, networking at professional development meetings, phone networking and other search strategies.”

1. Enjoy what you’re doing.

Because starting a business is a huge amount of hard work and requires a great deal of time, you better enjoy what you’re doing. When I started Virgin from a basement flat in West London, I did not set out to build a business empire. I set out to create something I enjoyed that would pay the bills.

There was no great plan or strategy. The name itself was thought up on the hoof. One night some friends and I were chatting over a few drinks and decided to call our group Virgin, as we were all new to business. The name stuck and had a certain ring to it.

For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that’s going to make a real difference to other people’s lives.

A businesswoman or a businessman is not unlike an artist. What you have when you start a company is a blank canvas; you have to fill it. Just as a good artist has to get every single detail right on that canvas, a businessman or businesswoman has to get every single little thing right when first setting up in business in order to succeed. However, unlike a work of art, the business is never finished. It constantly evolves.

If a businessperson sets out to make a real difference to other people’s lives, and achieves that, he or she will be able to pay the bills and have a successful business to boot.

2. Create something that stands out.

Whether you have a product, service or a brand, it is not easy to start a company and survive and thrive in the modern world. In fact, you’ve got to do something radically different to make a mark today.

Look at the most successful businesses of the past 20 years. Microsoft, Google and Apple, for example, shook up a sector by doing something that had never been done and continually innovating. They are now among the dominant forces.

3. Create something that your employees can be proud of.

The people on your team are your biggest assets.

4. Be a good leader.

As a leader, you have to be a really good listener. You need to know your own mind but there is no point in imposing your views on others without some debate. No one has a monopoly on good ideas or advice.

Get out there, listen, draw people out and learn from them. As a leader you’ve also got to be extremely good at praising people. Never openly criticize people or lose your temper, and always lavish praise on your colleagues for a job well done.

People flourish if they’re praised. Usually they don’t need to be told when they’ve done wrong because most of the time they know it. If somebody is not working out, don’t automatically throw him or her out of the company. A company should genuinely be a family. So see if there’s another job within the company that suits them better. On most occasions you’ll find something for every single kind of personality.

5. Be visible.

A good leader does not get stuck behind a desk. I’ve never worked in an office — I’ve always worked from home — but I get out and about and meet people. It seems like I’m always traveling, but I always have a notebook in my back pocket to jot down questions, concerns or good ideas that occur along the way.

If I’m on a Virgin Atlantic plane, I make sure to get out and meet all the staff and many of the passengers. If you meet a group of Virgin Atlantic crew members, you are going to have at least 10 suggestions or ideas. If I don’t write them down, I may remember only one the next day. Get out and shake hands with all the passengers on the plane, and again, see if anyone has a problem or suggestion. Write it down, make sure that you get their names, get their e-mail addresses, and make sure the next day that you respond to them.

Of course, I try to make sure that we appoint managing directors who have the same philosophy. That way we can run a large group of companies in the same way a small business owner runs a family business — keeping it responsive and friendly.

When you’re building a business from scratch, the key word for many years is “survival.” It’s tough to survive. In the beginning you haven’t got the time or energy to worry about saving the world. You’ve just got to fight to make sure you can look after your bank manager and be able to pay the bills. Literally, your full concentration has to be on surviving.

Obviously, if you don’t survive, just remember that most businesses fail and the best lessons are usually learned from failure. You must not get too dispirited. Just get back up and try again!