How to Be a Good Manager Motivating by Tom Viren

How to Be a Good Manager

In every large organization, there's a hierarchy of management that keeps the whole operation running smoothly. A good manager acts as a facilitator while blending into the background, tweaking small things here and there to great effect. Being a good manager is about calmly leading and showing by example. It's one of the toughest jobs out there — in part because you have to manage egos and expectations — and also one of the least acknowledged. Despite this, there are several tricks of the trade that will help you successfully manage all your responsibility, in style and with verve.

Part 1 of 5: Motivating Your Employees

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   Motivate people. Why are the employees there? What keeps them with your organization and stops them from going somewhere else? What makes the good days good? What makes them stick with the organization after a bad day or a bad week? Don't assume it's money - most people aren't that one-dimensional.
   • Remember, our values are what makes us "tick." If you manage by respecting your team's values, they will give you 110 percent of their effort.
   • Ask the employees how they're liking their job on a regular basis. Encourage them to be honest with you. Then take action based upon what they tell you.
   • Offer perks that your employees will value. If health is important to them, give them time to go to the gym and work out. If their family is important, respect the time they may need to send their kids off to school in the morning or pick them up in the afternoon.
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   Make people feel good about what they do. The successful manager is great at identifying his employees' strengths and applauding them every once in a while. That's because good managers know that happy people make productive people. Try to applaud your employees' strengths both publicly and privately.
   
   
   • In a meeting with your boss, for example, mention something one of your workers did well. If your boss happens to mention to that worker that you said something good about them, they're likely to feel that you appreciate them and made the effort to put in a good word. That sort of compliment doesn't go unnoticed.
   • Privately laud what your employees do well. Tell them when you have a moment. Go into detail. A private chat, however short, can have a big impact on morale, resulting in more self-motivation.
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   Tell your employees how much you appreciate them from time to time. Just go out and say it. Ask them out for a cup of coffee and tell them what you appreciate about them: They're a hard worker; they effectively motivate other people; they're easy to coach; they're disciplined or go the extra mile; they always cheer you up, etc. Don't mince words — just lay it out there. An employee who knows just how much they are appreciated will work harder, enjoy what they do more, and pass that psychic happiness along to other employees.
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Part 2 of 5: Setting Goals

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   Under-promise, over-deliver. This idea can apply to several different areas of life, but it's a great managerial mantra. Do you want to be the kind of person who has wildly optimistic goals that they never meet, or do you want to be the kind of person who sets measured goals and ends up exceeding them by leaps and bounds? Although this is about image, image is extremely important.
   • Don't be the kind of person who never shoots for the moon. Staying measured in your goals doesn't mean that you should always play it conservative, never setting high goals. A manager who never punches above her weight can come across as lacking ambition. Even the conservative poker player knows they need to go all-in from time to time.
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   Make sure each employee knows what's expected. Having concrete goals empowers your employees and keeps them focused on work. Explicitly outline what you expect, when the deadline is, and what you'll do with the results.
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   Offer goal-oriented feedback. Providing your employees with quick feedback that's focused on their work can help foster improvement. Meet in small teams or one-on-one, and go over your comments in detail.
   • Set up a schedule for feedback. Offer it regularly so that your employees know when to expect it and can make space for it in their workflows.
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   Hold yourself to the highest standards. We all know the kind of manager who constantly busts his employees' chops but gives himself a pass when he fails. Don't be this kind of manager. Ideally, be harder to on yourself than you are on your employees. This can have a trickle-down effect: Employees see the types of goals and standards you set for yourself and want to emulate you because they look up to you.
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Part 3 of 5: Delegating Responsibility

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   Delegate. You're a manager because you're good at what you do, but that doesn't mean you're supposed to do everything yourself. Your job as a manager is to teach other people how to do a good job.
   • Start small. Give people tasks that, if performed incorrectly, can be fixed. Take the opportunity to teach and empower your employees. Then gradually give them tasks with greater responsibility as you come to understand their strengths and weaknesses.
   • Learn how to anticipate any problems they might have so you can coach them properly before they begin.
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   Assign tasks that will stretch your employees. As your workers begin to take on more responsibility and demonstrate that they're capable, give them tasks that will expand their skill sets and help them take more ownership of their work. Not only are you finding out how much your employees can handle, you're making them more valuable to the company.
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   Assume responsibility for your employees' mistakes. When one of your underlings makes a mistake, don't lord it over them; assume the mistake as your own, even if it isn't technically yours. What you're doing is creating a culture where your employees feel comfortable making mistakes.^[1] This is a very important concept:
   • Doing this allows your employees to innovate and, ultimately, to learn or grow. Workers who learn from their mistakes will grow to become better workers; those who fail to make mistakes in the first place usually play it too safe, never venturing out into deep water.
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   Don't take credit for your employees' achievements. Let them take credit for their own achievements. This motivates them to continue to chase after success. The successful manager is like a conductor. He orchestrates the music so that each element sounds as good as possible and resonates with the group as a whole. A great conductor will lead by example, blending into the background.
   • What happens if you're the type of manager who "steals" someone else's idea and plays it off as your own? You send the message that you only care about your image and are ruthless enough to sacrifice someone else in order to get ahead. That's not a great image to have, and it certainly doesn't motivate the people below you to work harder.
   • You may be thinking — take responsibility for other people's mistakes and don't take credit for what your employees do; where does that leave me? If you do good work and you're an effective manager, you shouldn't worry about dressing up your laurels. People will recognize the work that you do. Even more important, they'll be impressed that you motivate your employees, know how to be humble, and stay out of the way. If you work hard, you'll get your dues.
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   Acknowledge your own missteps. When things don't turn out the way you expected, recognize what you could have done differently and verbalize this realization to your employees. This shows them that you make mistakes too, and it also shows them how they should handle their own mistakes.
   • Whenever you're doing something correctly after having done it incorrectly in the past, let whoever is watching know. For example: "The reason I know to press this button is because this happened to me when I first started out, and I made the mistake of pressing the blue button, thinking 'This will shut down the system, which should resolve the issue' and I found out — the hard way — that it makes the issue even worse!"

Part 4 of 5: Communicating Effectively

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   Keep the door open. Always remind people that if they have any questions or concerns, you're ready and willing to listen. Maintaining an open channel of communication will make you aware of problems quickly, so that you can fix them as soon as possible.
   • Don't be one of those managers who inadvertently makes an employee feel like they're bothering you when they bring up a question or concern. Instead of seeing it as another crisis to manage, look at it as an opportunity to show your employee how much you want this organization to be a fulfilling place to work.
   • Never minimize or dismiss the concerns of your employees, and always make sure that you've answered their questions completely.
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   Take an interest in your employees. Don't make every interaction with your workers strictly business. Ask after their well-being, chat with them about yourself, and establish a personal connection.
   • Being in-tune with your employees' lives outside the office can potentially alert you to times when that person needs extra consideration from you, for instance if he or she requires sudden time off for a family funeral. If you can be accommodating about upheavals in the personal lives of your workers, they'll feel good about rewarding you with loyalty.
   • Know your boundaries. Don't overstep and ask your employees about anything too personal, such as religion, politics, or personal relationships. You can keep up a friendly rapport without being invasive.
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   Don't mix positive and negative feedback. Say you're giving your employee feedback in a performance review. You start off by mentioning how swell the employee is to work with, and note one or two additional things they've excelled at. Then you launch into an extended itemization of their deficits — "production was down this quarter," "revenue slipped," etc. What do you think the employee hears most resoundingly, the positive or the negative?
   • When you mix positive and negative feedback, both areas suffer. The positive becomes overshadowed by the negative, and the negative doesn't carry the full force of its potential impact. Of course, there may be situations where you'd want to communicate this, but on the whole it makes communication less effective.
   • When you silo positive and negative feedback, the positive stands out even more and the negative becomes more urgent.
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   Listen. Listen to what your employees and coworkers have to say. You don't always need to be the driver of meetings, boxing others out by dominating the podium. Always make a sincere effort to listen, but be on the lookout most during the following situations^[2]:
   • When employees are actively sharing ideas. Don't butt in and talk just to make sure your voice is part of the mix. This can put the idea-sharing into a stranglehold.
   • When emotions are turbulent. Let people voice their emotions in a safe, controlled environment. Stifled emotions can turn into resentment, eroding your working relationship. Similarly, emotions that are not adequately dealt with can interfere with rational discussion, which should be the mainstay of your work environment.
   • When teams are building relationships or having discussions. Offer your employees a receptive ear when they're building relationships and getting creative.
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   Clarify what you're hearing. A good manager not only strives to make herself clearer, but also strives to understand what those around her are saying. You can do this by repeating what the other person has said as a part of your conversation. Use this technique when you're not exactly sure what the other person is saying.
   • Instead of asking your co-worker "I'm sorry, can you repeat what you just said? I'm not sure I understood." say something like "So you're saying that we could drive up productivity by offering more meaningful incentives. What might that look like in the flesh?"
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   Ask questions. Intelligent questions show that you can follow the flow of the conversation and clarify when necessary. Don't be afraid to ask questions because you're worried about appearing "stupid." Effective managers care about understanding what's important; they don't care about how they get there. Know, too, that others will probably have questions and may not ask. If you ask their question for them, you can act as a facilitator and build your team's engagement level. That's the true mark of a manager.

Part 5 of 5: Embracing Egalitarianism

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   Treat everyone equally. Most of us aren't as egalitarian as we'd like to be. Many times, favoritism happens on a subconscious level. The tendency is to give morepositive recognition to the people who remind us of ourselves somehow and who actually like us, rather than to the people who make the biggest contributions to the organization.^[3]In the long run, it's people in the latter group who will make the most progress in achieving the organization's goals, so monitor your own behavior carefully and make sure you're not accidentally short-changing them, even if they give you the impression that your positive regard doesn't affect them. Some people shy away from positive feedback but appreciate it nonetheless.
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   Treat your employees well. If you're good to your workers and they're happy with their jobs, they'll pass that kindness on to customers and invaluably bolster the image of your company. Or, they'll do the same for their employees and maintain a positive corporate culture.

6 Follow-Up Emails You Should Be Sending by Dean Levitt Chief Of Culture

Winning loyal customers is as simple as sending the right email at the right time.

MAY 15, 2013 

Good customer service is about getting the basics right. If you answer inquiries quickly and sincerely, you'll build a reputation of being responsive and your customers will feel that they can reach out to you when there's an issue. Excellent customer service, however, goes beyond the basics and can greatly differentiate you from your competition. One simple way to do this is to perfect "the follow-up."

By follow-up, I mean the email you, or your customer-service team, send to a customer after a transaction takes place. That transaction may be a customer support solution, a product or services inquiry, feedback, or any other type of communication. Not every type of follow-up is right for every situation or for every business. Here are six follow-up emails you should familiarize yourself with and implement into your customer-service strategy.

The “Insight and Understanding” Email

If you can't deliver, your customers interpret the failure based on their outsider’s knowledge of your industry. If a package isn't delivered on time, the customer imagines a dismissive guy who was too lazy to make it to the post office. The reality may be an unavoidable logistical problem, and there are benefits to explaining that.

Once the issue is resolved, it's worth following up to explain to your customer the steps you've taken. Describe not only what happened and how you rectified the issue, but also how you’ll avoid it in the future. This gives the customer some insight into your business and the challenges you’ve overcome.

The “Turn Feedback Into Fandom” Email

Consider the customer who sends an email with some feedback about your business. Maybe your website has a typo or needs a user-experience improvement. It's likely that you'll take action, because you care. When you do—even if you make the changes three months later—let that customer know. You'll demonstrate that you appreciate and value the feedback, and it gives the customer recognition for helping you improve. That, in turn, confers an emotional ownership to the customer and builds real loyalty.

RELATED: J.C. Penney Playbook: 5 Tips to Win Back Customers

The “Building Genuine Relationships” Email

This is probably the most effective, yet difficult, style of follow-up emails you can send, and requires you to be organized, use a CRM effectively and have an elephantine memory.

Let's look at a real world example: Let's say customer Alex has some support issues. While resolving them, you learn a little about him. Perhaps Alex runs an e-commerce site specializing in tech products and, on the side, he's an avid blogger about the latest gadgets.

Six months down the line, your business releases a product or service that would be of interest to Alex as a blogger. By writing to him personally, in advance of a general newsletter, you open the door to a business-oriented friendship.

And yet it needn’t be strictly promotional. One of my customers, Tim, had sent out a newsletter detailing his around-the-world trip. When I learned he was heading to New York City, I reached out to him to tell him about some sights he shouldn’t miss. That simple act led to him encouraging other businesses to join us—and he even crashed on my couch. 

By initiating genuine interaction based on your knowledge of your customers, you will unavoidably build positive relationships.

The “Turn Your Team Into Their Team” Email

Not everything can be solved by the customer support folks on your team. Sometimes, they will need to pass the issue on to an engineer, developer, salesperson or CEO. In these instances, there's a two-part follow-up.

In this case, don't pass the customer off to someone else. Bring the customer along.

First, before sharing the issue with a colleague, let the customer know you're doing so and introduce the customer to the next team member they'll be interacting with. Explain who the new person is, what they do, and how you think they can help. This shows genuine concern for the customer and a humble commitment to making sure the right person does the job. 

After the issue is resolved, a note to check in is a great way to show the customer that you didn't pass the buck, but rather handled the issue in an inclusive way. This makes your customer think, "Wow, they have a few people working on solving this for me." This is infinitely better than a buck-passing, and turns your team into your customer’s team.

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The “Very Long Solutions” Email

When a customer service issue is clearly going to take more than a week to resolve, customers can begin to get frustrated. Your team is working behind the scenes to help, but the customer doesn't see this and might feel neglected.

A short email follow-up after one day, letting the customer know that it's going to take more time, but that you're actively on the case, goes a long way. A second follow-up email two or three days later reiterates that you haven't forgotten about them. This lets the customer know that they're valued. It's an opportunity to update the customer on where you are with the solution, what work you've currently done on their behalf and helps the customer see the hard work you're doing for them.

In some cases, though, it's better to stop following up after the initial one or two updates unless there’s some important progress. Use your judgement, and if you're not sure, remember less is usually more.

The “Just Checking In” Email

This is a really easy way to show you care. A one- or two-sentence note to a customer is a brilliant way to show you value them:

"Hey, I was thinking of you. Even though your concerns were addressed a couple weeks ago, I wanted to just check in. I'm standing by if you have any questions or thoughts."

Can you beat it? Nope! This is the mark of a customer support team that excels. With these follow-up ideas, you will incrementally improve your interactions with your customers. Remember, it’s not an all-or-nothing approach. Just do what you can, when you can, and soon following up will become a valuable habit.

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Delivering an effective presentation by University of Leicester

An effective presenter needs to be flexible, energetic and enthusiastic. This guide will help you turn your written presentation into an imaginative public performance

Presentation as performance

Making a presentation puts you on public display. An audience not only listens to your ideas, it also responds to the way you use your voice and your body. You need more than a well written presentation to make an impact. You will also need to deliver it in a lively, flexible and interesting way. In this leaflet we suggest many ideas for invoking energy in your presentation style.

To begin with, imagine that you are in the audience for your presentation. What might:

• grab your attention?
• stimulate your imagination?
• inspire your confidence?
• develop your understanding?

Now think about ways to encourage these things.

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Six steps to becoming an effective presenter

1. Practise

The more familiar you are with your material the more you will be able to inspire your audience’s trust and confidence. Do more than practise reading through your material to yourself. If possible, stand up in a room and deliver your presentation to the walls. Get used to hearing your own voice filling a room. Familiarise yourself with the words and phrases in your presentation. Play around with different volumes and see how well you can hear your own voice. Above all, familiarise yourself with the main thrust of your argument and explore how the individual elements of your presentation piece together. This will help you to keep to your chosen objectives and avoid distractions when it comes to your actual delivery.

To read or to learn?

Should you read out your presentation from detailed notes or present it completely from memory? Find a way to compromise between these two approaches. There are dangers in each.

Reading
Reading tends to focus your thoughts on your notes, thus losing contact with your audience. Reading can also reduce your voice to a monotone, removing energy and enthusiasm from your delivery. Directly addressing your audience is much more engaging.

Learning
Learning is fine until you lose your way; for example, a member of the audience asks a question or your overhead projector bulb blows. Always have some form of notes to keep you on the right track. Also, if you over learn your notes you might lose a sense of energy and enthusiasm. Always work for a sense of confident spontaneity.

Find a way of making notes to support your presentation style. The most common form of note making is to use index cards. These can be read at a glance. Use them as visual prompts to guide you through your presentation. Use one card for each main idea, including details of the supporting information for each point. Connect your cards together with a tag or a piece of string so that they can't get out of order.

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2. Assert yourself

An effective presenter needs to be assertive, not aggressive. There are two important Ps.

Posture

It is important to appear confident at all times. Different postures create different moods. A very formal, upright and still posture will create a very different atmosphere from a relaxed and active one. Remember to match your physical behaviour to the objectives underpinning your presentation. If you want to be either formal or informal, make deliberate choices about your physical style and stick to these.

Presence

Have the confidence to fill your space in front of an audience. Avoid apologising for your presence by saying “sorry” (although you must be polite if circumstances so demand— e.g. the session is running over time, or the microphone has stopped working). Also, avoid physical apologies by hiding behind a desk or lectern. You must be confident that the audience wants to listen and that you have something interesting to tell them. Don’t be afraid to wait for an audience to settle down before you start speaking or to ask for quiet if this does not happen.

3. Make contact with your audience

One of the key challenges faced by the presenter is to establish links with her/his audience (a poor presenter appears to be speaking to an empty room). Making contact helps to maintain an audience's interest and encourages them to believe that you are genuinely interested in talking to them. You can make contact with your audience in a number of ways, including:

• eye contact;
• gestures;
• spoken contact;
• your use of language.

Eye contact

Eye contact is part of everyday communication and an audience can feel uncomfortable if they are denied it. Making eye contact with individuals gives them a sense of involvement in your presentation and helps to convey your objectives on a personal level. Make sure that you share eye contact with all members of a small audience and all areas of a large audience. Regularly shift your focus around the room, not so that you look nervous, but to help involve as many people as possible in your talk.

A handy tip: if you can’t make eye contact in a large group, don’t look at the floor or ceiling (this looks like boredom or rudeness). Try looking at people’s foreheads. The people sat around them will read this as eye contact even if the individual won’t.

Gesture

People use their arms and hands in every day conversation to add emphasis or to help describe events. Presenters will therefore look rather awkward if they keep their hands in their pockets or rooted firmly at their sides. Use gestures to welcome your audience, to add emphasis to your main points or to indicate an ending. Try to use open gestures which move away from your body, extending them out to your audience. This helps to break any audience/presenter divisions. Make sure that all gestures are controlled and precise; too much movement will appear nervous and unfocussed. Always watch against distracting your audience from the content of your presentation. You should continually be trying to find ways to help them listen and understand.

Spoken contact

Acknowledge your audience by making verbal contact with them. At the beginning of your talk ask if they can see and hear you, or check that lighting and sound levels on audio-visual equipment are satisfactory. During your presentation, ask rhetorical questions that you can then answer (e.g. “How do we know this was true?” or “So, what does this prove?”). At the end of your talk give the audience an opportunity to ask questions or to clarify detail— this encourages them to take ownership of your material.

The use of questions is an important tool. Questions involve your audience’s mind in a more stimulating way than simply asking them to sit and listen to your talk. Draw an audience in with clear, focused questions.

Language

Your use of language is particularly important in developing and sustaining a relationship with your audience. Try using language that involves your audience. For example, asking questions such as “What can we learn from this?” or “How did we arrive at this conclusion?” involves your audience in an exploratory process or discussion. When looking at visual aids, introduce them by saying “If we look at this slide we can see that ..” or “This slide shows us that…”. Use language that is welcoming and involving throughout your presentation.

4. Use your voice

Your voice is a very flexible and powerful tool. You can use it in many different ways by varying the:

• volume;
• pace;
• pitch.

Volume

Make sure that your voice is loud enough for your audience to hear clearly. Speaking too loudly or too quietly can make it difficult for your audience to follow your presentation. Listen to people speaking in normal conversation. They tend to raise or lower their volume for emphasis. For example, they may speak loudly when giving an instruction but softly when apologising. To add energy to your presentation, use these colourful changes to your best advantage: a conspiratorial whisper can draw an audience in; a loudly spoken exclamation can make them sit up and listen.

Pace

Make sure that the speed of your delivery is easy to follow. If you speak too quickly or too slowly your audience will have difficulty following your talk. To add life to your presentation, try changing the pace of your delivery. A slightly faster section might convey enthusiasm. A slightly slower one might add emphasis or caution.

Pitch

The pitch of your voice also varies in day to day conversation and it is important to play on this when making a presentation. For example, your pitch will raise when asking a question; it will lower when you wish to sound severe.

Play around with the volume, pace and pitch of your voice when practising your presentation. Find different ways of saying the same sentence. Explore different ways of adding emphasis to your main points. Always try to convey enthusiasm and energy through your use of your voice.

5. Breathe

Always remember to breath steadily and deeply. If you are anxious about making a presentation your breathing will become fast and shallow. This will affect the quality of your voice and your ability to speak clearly for extended periods of time. Try to take a few deep breaths before you make your presentation, making a conscious effort to slow your breathing down and taking in more air with each breath. During your presentation, use pauses after questions or at the end of sections to allow comfortable breathing patterns. Don’t be afraid to slow down the pace of your presentation if your breathing becomes uncomfortable.

6. Drink

It is a good idea to have some liquid to hand to quench your thirst if you are speaking for a long time. However, be careful not to gulp ice-cold water before you go on as this constricts your throat and affects the quality of your voice. Drink a warm (not hot) cup of tea to relax your throat and ease your speaking voice.

And finally ... a note about humour

Only use humour if you know it will work. Humour needs to be relaxed and confident - if used badly, it will only heighten senses of awkwardness and anxiety if these are already present. Use humour if you know you can and if you feel it is appropriate to do so.

Conclusion

Continually explore your personal style using any or all of the above suggestions in different combinations for different effects. Above all, remember two main points:

• be yourself— even in the most formal of surroundings you will need to be yourself. No one will be impressed if you try to perform like a classical actor or act like a stand-up comedian;
• avoid any behaviour that might be off-putting to your audience— always be deliberate and clear in your use of your voice and physical actions.

The 5 Most Inspirational Business Books of 2013 BY GEOFFREY JAMES

The business books that inspired me--and hopefully you, too--throughout year and into the future.

A good business book informs and educates but the best business books inspire us to do better.  Here are my picks for the most motivational and inspiring books published this year:

5. Start

Subtitle: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters

Author: John Acuff

Why You Should Read It: The author takes his experience as a youthful slacker and turns it into a parable for how to succeed in today's crazy business world.

Best Quote: "The best map in the world doesn't matter if you don't know where you are."

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4. An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

Subtitle: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything

Author:  Chris Hadfield

Why You Should Read It: Reading about the real challenges that real astronauts face is far more interesting and inspirational than the film Gravity.

Best Quote: "Square astronaut, round hole. It's the story of my life, really: trying to figure out how to get where I want to go when just getting out the door seems impossible."

3. The ONE Thing

Subtitle: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

Authors: Gary Keller and Jay Papasan

Why You Should Read It: A simple method for focusing on what's important to you and using that to motivate yourself throughout the day.

Best Quote: "What's the ONE Thing you can do this week such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?"

2. Choose Yourself!

Subtitle: Be Happy, Make Millions, Live the Dream

Author: James Altucher

Why You Should Read It: Using examples from his own life, the author explains how to turn misfortune into happiness and wealth.

Best Quote: "I had to look back at my life and figure (finally!) what I did every time I got off the floor, dusted myself off, went back out there and did it again."

1. The Business of Belief

Subtitle: How the World's Best Marketers, Designers, Salespeople, Coaches, Fundraisers, Educators, Entrepreneurs and Other Leaders Get Us to Believe

Author: Tom Asacker

Why You Should Read It: This instant classic provides the key to motivating yourself, your friends, your family, your coworkers and your customers.  A must read.

Best Quote: "Beliefs touch every facet of our lives, mundane and profound, from the religions we choose to inform our spiritual and moral lives to the products we purchase to make us look 'hot'."

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History's 50 Greatest Enterpreneurs By Philipp Harper (Special to msnbc.com)

How many entrepreneurs have there been in the history of the world? Millions, certainly, probably even billions. These are the men and women who take capital -- their own or somebody else’s -- and use it to beget more capital. Some fail, some succeed, some excel.

With so many candidates to choose from, any list of the 10 greatest entrepreneurs of all time will necessarily be somewhat arbitrary. It will also be top-heavy with Americans, just as a list of great chefs would be disproportionately French or of great eccentrics dominated by the British.

Business is what America does. If that sounds chauvinistic, get over it.

Here, without further ado but with tongue occasionally in cheek, are history’s 10 greatest entrepreneurs.

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1.  King Croesus. A pick by our veterans committee, Croesus, who ruled the Asia Minor kingdom of Lydia in the sixth century B.C., is owed a huge debt of gratitude for minting the world’s first coinage, thereby creating in a single stroke the lifeblood of every business: liquidity and cash flow. Moreover, his opulent lifestyle has given entrepreneurs throughout history something to shoot for. Is there a greater distinction for the commercially inclined than to be deemed “as rich as Croesus”?

2.  Pope Sixtus IV.  Sixtus gets the nod for realizing that the “wages of sin” meant more than unpleasant repercussions. There was money to be made in damnation, and Sixtus mined it by opening up a new market -- the dead -- for the indulgences the church had been selling for years. Relatives of the deceased quickly filled the Vatican’s coffers with payments intended to lessen the time their loved ones spent in purgatory. In 1478 Sixtus “grew his market” by authorizing the Spanish Inquisition, which swelled purgatory’s ranks by 100,000 souls in 15 years. He also was the first pope to license brothels.

3.  Benjamin Franklin. In a real sense, Franklin was America’s first entrepreneur. Unlike other of the Founding Fathers -- the hypermoral Washington, the prodigiously intellectual Jefferson -- whose virtues and attainments are seen today as anachronisms, Franklin truly was a model of what many of us would become. Beneath the statesman’s mantle resided a popular author, a printer, an inventor (the lightning rod, bifocals) and a very savvy businessman who knew how to commercialize the fruits of his fertile mind.

4.  P.T. Barnum. Americans have always loved a good scam and Phineas Taylor Barnum took the art to new heights. He played on our fascination with the bizarre and freakish with sideshow acts ranging from the midget Tom Thumb to Jumbo the giant elephant. In between was a host of more dubious curiosities. He created the Barnum and Bailey Circus as a showcase for all this wonderment, and dubbed it “the Greatest Show on Earth.” Along the way he invented modern advertising and became rich. For the record, he never said “There’s a sucker born every five minutes,” but he left behind plenty of other bon mots. Among them: “Every crowd has a silver lining.”

5.  Thomas Edison. What do you say about the man who gave the world the electric light, the phonograph, talking motion pictures and more than 1,300 other patented inventions? That he was the world’s greatest inventor, certainly.  But he was also able to exploit the profit potential in his creations, an entrepreneurial bent that asserted itself when Edison was a teen-ager, printing a newspaper in the baggage car of a rolling train and then selling copies to passengers. His impact on the way people live was and is pervasive. As a combination of inventive genius and entrepreneurial flair, he stands alone.

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6.  Henry Ford. Ford also fundamentally changed human lifestyles by making available a vehicle, the Model T, that vastly extended people’s range of movement. The automobile would allow America’s masses to fulfill their Manifest Destiny to populate every corner of the continent. But his more profound impact was on industry. The moving assembly line he designed to build his cars was the signal breakthrough of the Industrial Age. Appropriately, Ford earned the seed capital for his enterprise by working as an engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit.

7.  Benjamin Siegel. Known as “Bugsy” to his friends,Siegel was a notorious mobster with a touch of the visionary. Legend has it that he single-handedly invented Las Vegas, and that’s a stretch. But he was the first to see what the town could become: a lush oasis of pleasure where gambling was just one of the attractions. He also proved adept at attracting other people’s money to build his iconic resort, The Flamingo. Trouble was, some of those other people belonged to an outfit called Murder Inc., and Siegel was gunned down in 1947 amid rumors he had stolen from his partners. But give the devil his due: Before there was the Bellagio, there was Bugsy.

8.  Ray Kroc. Nothing says entrepreneur like persistence, and nothings says persistence like Ray Kroc, the kitchen wares salesman who in 1954, at age 52 and in poor health, had his imagination hijacked by a family-run restaurant in the desert outside Los Angeles. Once he had bought out the McDonald brothers, Kroc proceeded to take their concept of a limited menu, fast service and low prices and expand it nationally, in the process creating the fast-food industry and dramatically affecting America’s lifestyle and, sadly, collective health.

9.  H. Ross Perot. Within every entrepreneur lurks a touch of the cowboy, and there’s no better example of the strain than Perot, the diminutive Texan who has become best known in recent years as a political gadfly. Before that, though, he was all business, using a $1,000 loan from his wife in 1962 to launch Electronic Data Systems. Perot’s winning idea was that large corporations and organizations needed data-processing help if they were to take full advantage of computer technology. When in the mid-’60s he won contracts with  two new federal health-care programs -- Medicare and Medicaid -- EDS was off and running and Perot was on his way to being one of America’s richest citizens.

10.  Jobs & Wozniak. Apple Computer’s two Steves weren’t the first Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to launch a billion-dollar business from a Palo Alto garage -- Hewlett and Packard were there before them -- but they were the first to democratize computing by creating a machine whose use was so wonderfully intuitive that even technophobes embraced it. Combine the elegance of Wozniak’s operating system design with Jobs’ marketing savvy (remember Apple’s “1984” ad?) and the result was a true phenomenon. Yes, the Apple was eclipsed by the PC, but only after Microsoft (behind the vision of two other notable entrepreneurs, Bill Gates and Paul Allen) developed Windows to ape its rival’s ease of use.