Motivate Entry Level Employees in 2008

As the New Year begins, many supervisors look for ways to make 2008 more productive by motivating their entry level staff. After all, isn't it easy to get employees to perform at their highest capabilities? Simply offer lucrative stock options, three-day work weeks and generous salaries. Oprah Winfrey actually gives employees new cars and trips around the world. On the other hand, if you are like most businesses, it takes creativity to motivate employees when your budget is tight.

Motivated employees rely on their own resources to get the job done. They have an inner drive that causes them to provide outstanding customer service. Unmotivated employees simply want to get by doing the minimum amount of work possible. Experts agree you can't force someone to be motivated. Supervisors can, however, provide a workplace environment that encourages employees to make decisions, deal positively with co-workers and receive recognition for hard work. A key factor is knowing that "entry-level" is not the same as "unimportant". Your entry level employee is very important in projecting a professional image about your programs and facilities.

In a January 1998 Roper Poll, it was found 9 out of 10 employees will work harder for you if you show an interest in their growth outside of work. This statistic opens up a wealth of ways to motivate employees. One company had a bulletin board in the staff lounge with the caption "Greatest Pets In The World". It was constantly covered with pictures of adorable puppies and all types of pets owned by the staff. Silvana Clark, a speaker who presents keynotes and workshops on employee motivation, offers these additional suggestions:

Discover your employee's interests. If an employee loves gardening, give them a small plant in appreciation for their hard work. People appreciate knowing you gave them a gift geared towards their interest or hobby.

Never underestimate the power of meaningful conversation. Asking an employee, "How did your son do at the basketball tournament?" shows you care about more than the employee's ability to change linen.

Some companies offer brown bag seminars on non-work related topics. Contact local speakers to give presentations on how to select a summer camp for children or even tips on signing up for continuing education classes.

Acknowledge birthdays. I once had an employee thank me for sending a birthday card. He told me that card was the only recognition of his birthday he had that day. One company honors birthdays by making a large card out of colored tag board with, "Happy Birthday Jeanette!" at the top. Throughout the day, other employees sign their names, write birthday greetings or draw comical pictures on the giant card. The completed card is one you'll never find at Hallmark, but will make the birthday person feel special.

These types of activities help employees feel staff cares about them as individuals, not simply employees. The University of Kansas psychology department studied other ways to motivate employees. Their results showed recognition was a strong factor in developing employees with high work standards. Again, giving recognition doesn't take a huge budget. One supervisor gives "psychological paychecks". When employees receive their paychecks, he attaches a Post-it note on the envelope with a specific positive statement such as, "Helen, Thank you for coming in early last week during 4th of July Weekend. I appreciate your help in decorating for the company picnic during such a busy time." Employees take pride in knowing their extra efforts are acknowledged. Begin staff meetings with public praise for an employee's efforts or contributions to the department. Wouldn't you enjoy being in a meeting that starts with, "Last week, Jennifer came in as a substitute on incredibly short notice. I'd like to thank her by giving her this gift:a submarine sandwich!"

In a survey for American Express, pollsters asked employees, "What do you want most from your employer?" The results? 46% of employees said they wanted personal feedback and 32% stated financial rewards would motivate them. Personal feedback involves communication on a regular basis. Sound simple? Here's a startling statistic: In a study of 22,000 shift workers, almost 70% said there's little communication between them and management. Communication can be walking the halls and asking, "How's it going?" Tim Van Houten, director of Quinault Beach Resort and Casino in Washington State says, "We (myself and my supervisors) motivate through our personal example...modeling eye contact; smiles; name recognition; caring and concern for both our internal guests (fellow team members) and our external guests (those visitors we have the privilege of serving.) If it works for a casino, it can work for your staff!

Entry level employees often work long hours at minimum wage. The following are additional general ideas for motivating employees:
Recognition in front of peers. One property offered "standing ovations" at staff meetings to employees demonstrating outstanding customer service.
Ask for employee feedback and acknowledge their input. The Towers Perrin survey polled 250, 000 employees. Only 48% said, "My boss listens to my opinions."
Chocolate is always a great motivator! Or buy small gifts such as a novelty red PANIC button to attach to their keyboard when the urge to panic strikes.
Take a tip from the CEO of Eze Castle Software. Everyday at 2:30 he gathers all his staff for an actual milk and cookie break. The casual atmosphere keeps him in touch with all his employees. (OK maybe that's not possible, but it does show the importance of meeting informally with staff.)
Keep people informed. As much as possible, let employees know what is going on. Rumors and gossip uncertainty do little to motivate employees. Reward employees who recommend new employees.
Send balloons or flowers to an employee's home if he/she does something outstanding.
Select employees to help interview other entry-level employees. They'll learn valuable job interviewing skills.
Ask employees this simple question: What would help you do a better job? Follow up on as many suggestions as possible.

Oprah Winfrey has the budget to motivate her employees with exotic gifts and luxury vacations. Most supervisors and managers need to rely on creativity and a few pieces of chocolate. The point is the same. Let entry-level employees know you appreciate their efforts and hard work.This results in highly motivated employees.
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Silvana Clark presents interactive keynotes and workshops on motivating employees and providing outstanding customer service. The author of 11 books and over 300 articles, she recently appeared on the Fox reality show, Trading Spouses. 360-933-4046 http://www.silvanaclark.com

Outsourcing Your Call Center

New businesses are faced with difficult challenges that are unique to their varying situations. Because there are so many unique aspects to any given business, there are likewise a myriad potential problems and therefore, solutions. From executive leadership to company morale, from marketing to business development and from technology to customer service and support, all businesses, large and small, have a potentially rigorous uphill battle to fight in the pursuit of success.

Arguably, the most important aspect for any patron-driven business is its ability to successfully perform customer service duties. Customer service solutions provide the face of the company to its patrons and are charged with the primary responsibility of ensuring the overall satisfaction of the client base as a whole. A company with a successful customer service branch ensures that clients needing assistance or having questions or concerns can be handled professionally and in a manner that represents the company in positive light.

The problem is, for many companies, that an entire team of in-house customer service professionals may not be necessary to adequately ensure the utmost in quality customer service solutions. Furthermore, it may be difficult in some areas of the country to find qualified customer service professionals to meet the needs of your company. For these companies, there may be an excellent contact center solution available that can meet your company's needs at a fraction of the cost of hiring an entire team.

Additionally, there are contact center software solutions available that can help you streamline your customer service processes by enabling you to manage your telephone, interactive voicemail (IVR), email, web chat, and faxes in a universal, organized interface. These contact center software programs can drastically cut the budget of your customer service team by cutting the response times for individual phone calls, emails, and faxes.

It has been said that most businesses are doomed to fail within the first five years of existence and it stands to reason that, for businesses that highly depend on patronage, a good customer service branch could be the secret to the longevity of a business. Customer service workers are perhaps the most undervalued and underappreciated members of the company dynamic, but they should be regarded as the life-blood of the company because they truly can be the difference in a company's life and death.

Finding a Contact Center Solution
Finding a contact center or customer service solution can be an arduous task, but should not be done hastily. There are many willing and able companies out there and it is imperative to find one that can help your business create and maintain end-to-end services, including superior service and support. Finding a company that can create personalized services that maintain a value to the you based on the level of support that that you desire is important because you don't want pay a "flat rate" when the services you need may not be on par with larger corporations.

Keep in mind that it is important, regardless of how desperate you are, to find a company that can represent your company's values, goals, and beliefs. They are now part of your company and they will represent you to your clients on a mass level. Make sure that they keep you in the loop regarding problems and concerns coming from your customers and they will increase their level of importance to your business.

Syntellect (http://www.syntellect.com) is a contact center solution and contact center software company that is dedicated to helping businesses of all sizes achieve their customer service and company-wide goals by providing state-of-the-art solutions at competitive prices.

Choosing Time Billing Software For A Hassle Free Business

In today's world of fierce competition any business which is not clear about its transactions will not function smoothly and will waste many man hours, effort, energy and time in tracking its transactions clearly. This can help its competitors to over take the business very easily.

One simple thing that can eat many man hours like this is invoicing or billing. More often than not, offline billing systems make some sort of error in the invoice management. It can be as simple as mismatch of the billing records or it can be as complicated as missing a bunch of invoices. However, even a simple mismatching or misplacing problem can eat into so many crucial and important man hours. Just assume the case of such thing happening at a financial year end audition before an external auditor. That should be the last thing that you will expect at such times.

The only thing that can save your business and your company from all such head aches is good time billing software. A full feature packed time billing software suit can be a real good solution to solve all the billing and invoice related problems. A good solution will ensure that you and your company will never miss out on even minute things that are related to the invoicing or billing.

Let's take taxes as a simple example. You normally will not like your company to be late on paying taxes. Doing so may not only ruin your dignity as a responsible citizen but also will show adverse effects on your relation with the tax related government agencies. This will definitely become a huge head ache not only in the sort term but also in the long term.

But, with proper time billing software you are saved from these issues. It will help you remember all the nuances of taxation issues. It will help you in detailing all the issue when audition takes place in your company. It will help you in keeping the records properly and in accordance with the financials laws of the land. It will help you clear all the doubts that the tax man gets during audition.

In case of large corporations the above processes can be streamlined by having full time department with professional financial consultants. They will assure that all the billing and invoice issues in a proper way. But, this associates with a lot of cost in terms of salary and the support material that these professional financial consultants need.

How ever if you take the case of smaller companies and more so in the case of a start-up, this can be a daunting task because of the huge amount of cost associated with the process. In either of the cases we can avoid any troubles and we can also cut the cost and time associated with the process quite dramatically just by going for a right time billing software.

One most important aspect of a professionally developed time billing software is the ability to have repeated invoicing. The software can easily be configured in such a way that it can deal with repeated invoicing. This can do wonders especially in long term projects and in the case of repeated customers with almost same type of billing information.

You can also customize the time billing software in such a way that it can produce customized invoices for different clients. This increases the ability of the business to talk to its clients in a much customized manner. This can increase the satisfaction levels of your customers by multiple folds and hence it shows direct impact on your future deals with those customers and even on your bottom line.

One basic thing that you need to know before you can bill a client is the amount for which you have to make the invoice. Even when you are working on long term projects where you need not have invoices raised every week, it always better to know how much billing has to be done on a weekly basis. This helps you in making right decisions with your deals. You can use nice time billing software for this purpose as well. Some feel that, this much needed feature for all the top and middle management guys to take right decisions. After all right decisions can only be taken when you are provided with the right information at right time.

Hence an investment in a right and professionally designed time billing software can help you in dealing with all the issue that are related to the traditional invoicing system.

Ron McNeil promotes billing software to to easily billing customers through a time billing software powered by ClientBill located at http://www.clientbill.com/

Create Informative Articles Based on Your Customers Questions

Customer service is noted as the best way to attract customers and keep them coming back. Create informative articles based on your customer's questions to provide the best customer service.

Answering your customer's questions is one way to provide good customer service. Customers love it when people go above and beyond what is necessary to keep them happy and earn their loyalty.

It's the same reason people like going to mom-and-pop stores. Customers get the inside scoop and outstanding customer service that makes them truly feel special and valued.

It isn't easy for Internet sales people to come across as sincere and genuine. One way to do this is to give their customers more than they expect. If you e-mail the webmaster a question about your hair care product, for example, you might expect a reply consisting of a sentence or two as the reply, in a sales pitch for their hair care products. Take customer service up a notch by turning your answer into an informative, educational article that completely answers the question.

Avoid the Hard Sell When Replying to Customer Questions
When a customer reaches out and asked a question online, either on a forum or through an e-mail, they are seeking more information about a product before making a purchase. It's important to treat these customers carefully because they already show interest and will easily become a client if handled correctly.

That doesn't mean assume a customer with a question is automatically interested in your product. Nor does it mean go ahead with your hard-sell or badger the potential customer until he or she makes a purchase. A better route is to provide excellent customer service.

To do this, answer your customer's questions quickly and effectively. Answering the question by hitting the reply button is one way to go and it will surely get the job done. Take it one step further. Use the question to create an informative article. Post the article online then answer your customer with a brief reply and a link to your article that directly relates to their question.

Create Informative Articles from Customer's Questions
How you create informative articles from your customer's questions will have a lot to do with your personal writing style. If you are well versed in your topic area, you may be able to create a whole new article based on the question off the top in your head. Most writers need to put in a little more effort, though.

I pick out the main idea in a few keywords from a customer's question. I brainstorm about the main idea to come up with a topic and title for the article. Then I research the key words to find information that will back up what I have to say. I look for ways to help the customer and thoroughly answer their questions.

Continue to create informed articles based on your customer's questions and you'll earn their loyalty. If you repeat this process enough you'll have a collection of high quality articles with information that is in demand. Using this method will help you come across as a genuine person and an expert in your field. Customers soon realize they can depend on you for quality information and they trust your services and recommendations.

Tiva Kelly is the Head of Article Coaching and offers advice to authors at http://www.articlemarketer.com, a highly popular article distribution service. Learn how to market your small business by submitting articles through Article Marketer.
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If the Economy Sours, What Will Your Customers Do?

Recent news coming from Wall Street won't exactly fill your stockings with Holiday cheer. In fact, it may make you think about tucking a bit of your discretionary cash under the mattress for the proverbial rainy day. If the economy does sour, what will your customers do? Will they continue to spend as they always have, or will they begin to pare back spending?

Typically, the U.S. consumer is a hearty bunch. Despite previous economic setbacks, consumer spending has kept the economy moving forward; the result has been six consecutive years of U.S. GDP growth, including a robust 4.9 percent growth rate in the 3rd quarter of 2007 according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. But the latest round of economic signs should prompt all businesses to think twice about where the economy might be headed.

The economy may very well weather the latest storm of rising energy prices, falling home values, and tightening credit markets and continue its long running growth trend. If so, then businesses should simply ignore all of the shouting and arm waving about a potential recession. But what if consumer spending doesn't bail out the economy this time?

Recent economic news won't do much to comfort the U.S. consumer psyche:

Consumer Confidence Drops: The November 2007 Consumer Confidence Index as reported by The Conference Board fell to 87.3, continuing a downward slide since the feel-good ratings of 105.6 posted in August.

Property Values to Decline: The U.S. Conference of Mayors report that property values could decline as much as $1.2 Trillion across the U.S. in 2008.

Personal Income Growth is Slowing: Personal income grew only 0.2 percent annually in October, down from 0.4 percent in September according to a report published on CNBC.

For more news on the US economy, see the article 'US Economy Sees More Signs of Weakness' posted on CNBC's web site.

Perhaps nobody can truly predict how the economy will perform or how consumers will respond. But the U.S. consumer is being squeezed on a number of different fronts. Personal income growth is slowing, home values are declining, and variable rate mortgages will affect millions of households. As a result, consumers may change their spending behaviors to respond to these financial pressures.

Being prepared for a potential change in consumer spending behavior may be the best medicine for your business. Don't be caught off guard if your customers cut back spending or defect altogether because of increasing price sensitivity. Instead, develop a strategy that can better prepare your business for a variety of potential scenarios.

Every business should incorporate some form of scenario planning into their business strategy, especially in times of economic uncertainty. Scenario planning is a strategy planning method that identifies and anticipates how the business will respond given a series of potential economic or business outcomes.

For example, how would you compete for customers if your competitor cut prices by 25%? Or 50%? What would happen if an economic recession cut the demand for your product or service in half? Would your business be in a position to capitalize if a chief competitor went out of business? What would your business do to prevent a spike in customer defections? Although not every scenario is equally probable, being prepared with a plan or strategy can better position your business to weather any potential economic storm.

Begin your preparations today by creating a comprehensive list of potential scenarios that could impact your business. List all scenarios, regardless of how outlandish they may seem. Then assign a probability factor to each scenario. Those scenarios that have the highest probability should form the foundation of your business strategy in the short term. Evaluate your business's ability and readiness to respond to each scenario then develop a plan to fill any gaps.

Changing economic and market conditions can have both short and long term affects on consumer behavior. Therefore, businesses should review their list of scenarios regularly and continually adjust the probability of each scenario. By doing so, you just might be better prepared to handle whatever the economy might throw at you and your business.

Robert Howard is the Founder and Chief Executive of ClearBrick LLC, an innovative business services company that provides do-it-yourself business solutions and advice.

ClearBrick can be found online at http://www.ClearBrick.com.
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Top Ten Tips to Ensure Your Virtual Assistant Business Succeeds

The virtual assistant industry is a booming one. However, if you are just starting out, you might be experiencing some concerns. Perhaps you are having a hard time getting new clients or maybe the long hours were not something you bargained for. Has the start-up process been slower than you thought it might be? There are many concerns that anyone new to the virtual assistant industry might have.

Making your business a success must involve some really hard work on your part. Below are my top ten tips to making your virtual assistant business a success.

1. Manage Your Time - If you find that you are working extremely long hours, you will want to take some time management steps. Set specific hours and stick to those hours, plan your day in advance with a planner, and know what you are doing from month to month with a calendar.

2. Have a Positive Outlook - Negative thinking can be one of the major factors in failure. When you want clients to partner with you as a virtual assistant, you need to have a positive outlook on your success. Actually see the success, and it will happen.

3. Network - There are numerous places that allow you to network with other VA's. When you join a networking group, you will find support, knowledge, advice, and even recommendations for work.

4. Website - Your website is a crucial element to the success of your business. It should be attractive, informative, and functional. Without a well thought out and designed website, you will find that your business is lacking in perhaps its most crucial area.

5. Web Content - Articles can be your best friend in getting the traffic and the business you are looking for. A well-written article does many things for your business. It can instill trust in your clients, show expertise and knowledge, and with keywords, bring traffic and potential clients directly to your website.

6. Invest - No business can function without some sort of financial investment. You want to make sure that you have the right equipment for any service you offer.

7. Advertise - Advertisements are another form of financial investment. With a catchy and well designed advertisement, you will attract clients interested in partnering with a virtual assistant. Advertisements can be placed in a variety of ways including in local and national press, professional journals and on the internet.

8. Outsourcing - Even if you are not well equipped for a certain skill, you can outsource to provide your clients with the most extensive list of services. Many other VA's may be willing to partner with you to provide services that you cannot, and vice versa.

9. Dedication - You have to have dedication to make any business work. Remember why you chose this business as your career and focus on your original goals. Your dedication will prove to clients that you are serious about succeeding.

10. Commitment - You have to make a commitment to both your business and your clients. Keep to the deadlines you have set with clients for returning their work, and most importantly, make sure you are available to your clients when you say you will be.

Knowing these ten top tips to making your virtual assistant business a success will help you understand the most crucial elements to your business.

Helen Byrne is a UK-based Virtual Assistant and Owner of Virtualoso http://www.virtualoso.info). In order to promote the concept of Virtual Assistance to a wider audience, particularly in the UK, Helen also created PA-as-you-go (http://www.PA-as-you-go.com)as a simple introduction to the business.

800 Numbers Bring Leads - If It Doesn't Cost Anything, They'll Call

Anna Woodward offers the following royalty-free article for you to publish online or in print.
Feel free to use this article in your newsletter, website, ezine, blog, or forum.
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Article Title: 800 Numbers Bring Leads - If It Doesn't Cost Anything, They'll Call
Author: Anna Woodward
Category: Customer Service, Start Up
Word Count: 595
Keywords: 800 directory, 800 numbers, toll free directory, 800, 800 number directory, toll free numbers
Author's Email Address: streditorial@searchinfluence.com
Article Source: http://www.articlemarketer.com
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How do I find you, how do I find out where you are, and how fast can I talk to you? These questions are ones we all wish a consumer would ask and then pursue aggressively to find our business. The problem is that the consumer is often fleeting in their pursuit if it is not easy, thorough, and cost effective.

Think about how you look for a business or vendor when you have a broad choice.

If your two choices are to look through a phone book or look something up online, which one will you choose? You choose online, if you're like me, since you can't remember where the hardcover phone books are, if you still have them, and not to mention they're out of date when they're printed. When you do eventually find those phone books, they're not particularly helpful with outdated listings. So the real question is, how fast can I get that information reliably?

Following this train of thought, it seems that the best option is to do a search online. But, once you get online, where do you go? Most people have identified one or two search engines or sites and frequent them regularly, but when those options run out or yield information that is not convenient for them to use, without 800 numbers, they will most likely find somewhere else to look.

If you do a search by business type or title, often you will come up with several businesses to choose from. Sometimes selecting the right business will depend on their advertising, who else uses them, or these days, what kind of positive feedback is received. That is if you believe the feedback posted.

Is it honest, is it part of a larger marketing plan, and how recent is it?

The business could have taken a nose dive in service years ago, but we wouldn't know it by reading the feedback. Most of the time, though, we choose the option that won't take money out of our own pockets. If there is a choice between contacting a business via a toll free number or incurring a cost, most will decide to use the 800 number every time.

The frustrating part of the search can often be the process of being forced to look through several different sites using the same key word in your search, trying to find the same information. There are occasions when we will see the same listing again and again on different sites, but since the number listed is a long-distance call, we will not dial that number. No matter how reputable a business might be, many of us are loathe to call long distance on a chance.

The safer and more cost-effective bet is to call toll free.

The more the toll free numbers appear in our searches, the more apt we are to contact those businesses, and anything that makes consumers contact a business will certainly create opportunities to sell our services or our products. Better still, if there is an 800 number directory, that surely would make life easier and allow us the opportunity to shop around easier and give businesses a better chance that we will contact them.

And as everyone knows, any increased traffic to a business is welcome. It gives more opportunities to convert that call into a paying customer. In the long run, it seems a small price to pay to have a toll free number listed on an 800 number directory to bring in more business.

Published by the editorial staff of National Tollfree Directory. For more information about the 800 Directory, Toll Free Directory and 800 Numbers, visit The National Tollfree Directory: http://www.internettollfree.com. Please direct any feedback on this article to editorial@strbusinessmedia.com.
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When the Customer is Always Right

Paul Sutherland offers the following royalty-free article for you to publish online or in print.
Feel free to use this article in your newsletter, website, ezine, blog, or forum.
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Article Title: When the Customer is Always Right
Author: Paul Sutherland
Category: Small Business, Customer Service
Word Count: 638
Keywords: business, small business, customer service, difficult customers
Author's Email Address: articles@dti.eu.com
Article Source: http://www.articlemarketer.com
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When the Customer is always right is ALL OF THE TIME! As part of your business and personal growth, you need to take this time honored concept to heart. Even when you are 200% sure you are in the right, you are required to give your customer the benefit of the doubt, and error in his/her favor whenever possible.

Why? If you want to stay in business, you have an obligation to keep the customer happy. Although it may be the ultimate challenge, here are seven tips on what to do when the customer is always right.

1. Treat each customer as if he/she is the best customer to ever visit your business. Granted, there will be many days you will feel this is the hardest part of your job, but it is definitely worth the effort. You will grow as an individual, and your business is likely to nurture a repeat customer. The idea is simple. You treat your customer as you would like to be treated.

2. Keep your word even when it would be more convenient to do something else. For example, if you say you have a no hassle return policy, then keep your word and do not give the customer a hard time, if an item is returned. You are more likely to make another transaction with that consumer in the future.

3. Give 110% to your customer. If a certain level of service is expected, up the ante and give beyond expectations. The answer may be as simple as offering to carry out a parcel, opening the door, or putting a promotional writing utensil in the sack with every purchase. Use your imagination!

4. Show more concerned for the customer than your cash register receipts for the day. Remember, your customers are how you keep your doors open. If not for them, you would have no bottom line to worry about in the first place.

5. Treat your good workers well, so they will stick around. For example, my home is largely furnished by one business. However, I will never give them business in the future. Why? I have developed a good relationship with their top saleslady, and she has been let go, for reasons unknown. Likewise, your steady customers will develop business relationships with your staff, which will encourage them to come back in the future.

6. Encourage repeat business by offering discounts on return visits, for example. Give your customers a reason to come back and develop a sense of loyalty. Sometimes, it will cost you nothing more than a kind word or a smile.

Personally, I have a favorite coffee shop. The incentive offered is a stamp card. After the twelfth stamp, the next latte is free; and on Sundays I get two stamps for one purchase. However, although the free cup of coffee is nice, I go back because I like the owners, and I want them to succeed. Thus, I am a loyal customer.

7. Admit defeat when you have a customer you will never please, no matter what you do. Chances are the customer is monopolizing your time, or that of your worker. In addition, he/she has unrealistic expectations of the services you should provide, and will never be happy, no matter what you do. In this case, politely suggest a competitor who may be better able to provide the customer with what he/she needs. After all, you cannot win them all.

If you practice these 7 principles of good business, and recognize when the customer is always right, not only will your business grow through word of mouth and customer loyalty, you will probably grow personally as well. I can almost guarantee an extra measure of patience.

Paul Sutherland is an Accelerated Business Growth Coach. His company - Daniel Thomas International - http://www.dti.eu.com helps corporate and SMEs to grow their businesses with tried tested and proven techniques and strategies, increasing their bottom line profits in 90 days or less.
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