You can always tell when someone is being paid by commission or by the hour by how annoying and aggressive they are. The place you see them most often is at those kiosks at the local mall. Most of these so called marketers have it all wrong. Begging, pleading or being overly aggressive won’t get the job done. What they need to realize is that few will buy out of pity or an obligation. Instead, take it easy and market a product so good it will sell itself.

- Edwin, CashTheChecks.com

The early bird gets the worm, buy it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese.

Sometimes it’s best to let others ahead and see what they do before trying it yourself, you just might find out the rewards are sweeter.

- Edwin, CashTheChecks.com

In life it’s usually the hard workers who get ahead, while the slackers keep performing beneath their potential. But there is still hope for procrastinators. While most people get into panic mode trying to get things done, slackers know how to fulfill their obligations, get acceptable marks and enjoy a relatively stress-free existence. Being a slacker isn’t necessarily a good thing, but it’s nice to find a balance between being laid back and being a high strung worker. Here’s a few ways how you can integrate the slacker lifestyle into your life and benefit from it.

- E-mails: you don’t need to reply to emails as soon as you get them. As long as you get to it within 24 hours,  you should be okay. So handle your other tasks first and put email on the backburner for a while.

- Take a break: While others are hard at work, it’s okay to take a break and relax. You’ll come back re-energized, re-vitalized and will be more productive even though you’ll be working less.

- Don’t multi-task: Often times when you try to do too much at the same time you end up not doing any of those tasks correctly. So take your time and get things done right the first time.

- Edwin, CashTheChecks.com

Yahoo Hot Jobs posted a some common sense rules on how to avoid sabotaging your job. Most of these are easy, but those with a carefree attitude might want to take heed to this advice, because there’s plenty of uptight people at the workplace.

- Keep your focus on the networking part of social networking
- Avoid sending a tweet in the heat of the moment
- Finding friends at the office is fine — but don’t look for love
- Appearances count around the office
- Practice proper email etiquette
- Think before you speak
- It’s good to be heard — but not all the time
- Just say “no” to complaining
- Handle alcohol with care
- Know the difference between sharing and oversharing

- Edwin, CashTheChecks.com

Don’t ruin someone’s business, even if you think it will help yours. Lend a helping hand instead. What comes around goes around.

- Edwin, CashTheChecks.com

Every night there are those late night “shortcuts to making millions online” infomercials. Ever notice how they never tell you how to make money. The only way to make money is by selling something. They never tell you what to sell. They say they create a bunch of sites for you and then you sit back and watch the money roll in. The only way to make money from those sites is to drive traffic to them. Without traffic you have nothing. They don’t give you the traffic either, that’s where your work comes in. Frankly, that’s the hardest part in the equation. So when you see one of those commercials that seem too good to be true, it usually is. There’s no elevator to success.

- Edwin, CashTheChecks.com

1. Bonuses. Someone did a superb job? Reward them with cash. A little money goes a long way to keeping up the morale around the office.

2. Create a sense of community. When you were younger, sometimes you would love going to school, not to learn, but to socialize with your friends. Make work a fun place. Allow them to communicate with each other.

3. Be a nice boss. Instead of just one lunch break, give them 4. A relaxed worker is more efficient than a slaved worker will ever be.

4. Remove hierarchy. Being the manager or team leader doesn’t mean you deserve higher pay. It just means you have a different role. Always promote within and demote just as often. Keep things fresh.

and most importantly…

5. Respect. Instead of treating your workers as “below” you, think of them as partners, all working together to increase your business.

In closing, although a high salary doesn’t hurt, it’s not all about the money, it’s all about the work environment.

- Edwin, CashTheChecks.com

When success hits you, whether by luck or hard work, it’s usually a time to reflect on your past. When you do that usually there’s negative thoughts about people in your past who doubted you, competed with you or who cheated you in some way.

These so-called negative influences actually were a driving force for you though. You wanted to prove them wrong and now that you have – you want payback. So it’s time to buy fancy things and flaunt them in their face. It’s time to show off your recent success. That’s what they deserve don’t they?

But see, in your financial climb upwards, you have passed them and now you can look down on them. If that’s what you decide to do be forewarned that: every person you look down upon as you climb upwards, they will be there if you fall back down again.

Despite your success, stay humble, stay grounded. The true mark of a winner in life is not only how you handle failure but how you handle success.

- Edwin, CashTheChecks.com

When you’re looking over applications and doing interviews for that position that just opened up, most people just look at their qualifications or experience on their resume. However in my opinion that should be the least of your concerns. I’ve compiled a list of what to look for in a prospective employee.

* Personality – Is this person going to be a joy to be around, will he/she inspire and motivate your staff. You can tell if they’re always smiling and feel very comfortable with who they are. Google their name, find their MySpace profile, see what kind of person they really are.
* Work Ethic – Will he/she show up to work early and leave late, not take days off, slack off, perform at sub par levels. You can tell their work ethic by noticing when they arrived for the interview, how neat their application was, how they dressed.
* Experience – Sure, experience is an issue, but usually someone with no experience might be more motivated and willing to learn and excel in their new skill. How legitimate is their resume? Sure, they worked as a “computer lab engineer” at their last job, but what exactly did this job entail? This may just be a fancy self imposed title.

What do employers look for when hiring jobs in education? Do you have what it takes? Research interview tips online for a job in higher education. You’ll be able to find requirements for getting a job in young childhood education to teaching adults.

- Edwin, CashTheChecks.com

Having a staff with a good personality is important, but how you treat them is equally as important. You can’t change the personality of your staff but you can change their mood and work ethic by how you treat them.

Here’s a few things a boss can do with their staff..

• Make every day different. A good example is letting them enter work later on every Monday. If work begins at 9am, make it 11am on Mondays. They’ll avoid the traffic and get the week started off on the right foot. It’s also good for those that party or go out on the weekends, now they can enjoy themselves on Sunday night too.

• Another example of making every day different is by having casual Fridays, raffle days, bring your child to work day, boss buys the lunch day.

• Let your employees leave work early on Friday, after all, mentally they’re not there anyway, thinking of their weekend plans.

• Make your staff feel like they are part of the team, when you succeed in your business, reward them too, they helped you get there. If they have an invested interest in the success of your business they will work harder for you, themselves, and the business.

• Have office parties when it’s somebody’s birthday or someone is celebrating something. Turn your staff into a business family.

• Your employees will be willing to work harder for less money if they really enjoy their job and the company they keep.

• Even though your employees will work less by having these privileges, they’ll be far more productive with those hours, so in the end, it saves you money.

- Edwin, CashTheChecks.com

Is it ethical to offer your products or services at different prices to different people? In this free enterprise system, it’s difficult to be both ethical and do good business. Here’s an example:

You run an antique shop and one of your items is an antique spoon from the early 1800’s. Now there’s nothing wrong with talking to your customers and hyping the product up, saying how unique it is, how rare it is, what people during that time and that location were like, etc. But what if the customer looks to be someone who is new to antiques and has no idea as to the real true value of this old spoon? Because with antiques, an uninformed customer might pay $100 for an old spoon when it’s really only worth $5.00. So is it ethical to make up a price on the spot, a really high price, to see if the customer will bite?

Good business or bad business? Ethical or unethical? Do you need to be a cutthroat businessman to be successful or is there any room for a “nice guy” or do nice guys finish last in love and in business.

How are your business skills? You can learn about ethical business practices when you enroll for business administration degrees. Now, with online classes, you can get your business degree online. If you want to brush up on your business skills, look into getting a marketing degree or MBA online.

- Edwin, CashTheChecks.com

Later on I’ll post some of my favorite inspirational quotes, but they’re useful in business and here’s how you can incorporate them.

• You could have a flip-book type calender / day planner that comes with one inspirational quote per day.
• If you use google or yahoo as your home page, you can add inspirational quotes to your start page.
• You can write several inspirational quotes that mean a lot to you on post-it notes and leave them on your bulletin board or somewhere on your desk.

- Edwin, CashTheChecks.com

I have no data to back this up, but I’m guessing that the suicide rates of entrepreneurs is higher than someone who has a steady 9-5 job. It makes sense, there’s no security, high taxes, no health insurance, and incomes which can have amazing fluctuations.

- Edwin, CashTheChecks.com

When Cash The Checks first began, it was a collection of articles on a broad variety of financial topics. These articles were written by others, all I did was post them here. The problem with doing that, I’m now realizing, is that people may have the impression that I wrote the articles and that I believe or recommend what they say.

Recently it was brought to my attention that I support “payday loans”. I went back and checked the old posts (back from 2005) and sure enough, posts saying quick cash loans are a good idea. I believe their business practices are irresponsible and payday loans are scams.

So instead of removing all of the old content, I’m going read all the old articles and remove articles which I believe have bad advice in them. This should be done within the next hour..

- Edwin, CashTheChecks.com

There’s a thin line between running a successful business and taking advantage of your customers. Let me give you some examples of situations where there’s a thin line between good business and taking advantage of someone.

1. You buy a tshirt for $2 and you sell it for $25.

2. You loan someone you know, who has bad credit, money at 20% interest.

3. You have a very strict return policy

4. You make it difficult for customers to cancel their recurring accounts.

5. You have excessive early termination fees.

Which ones are good business and which cross that line?

- Edwin, CashTheChecks.com