Is your business

constipated?

     Have you withdrawn from your industrial, professional, or community contacts in order to economize time and effort, and consolidate expenses?

     Have you pulled your business back from expansion ventures and marketing budgets in favor of maintaining salaries and benefit plans?

     These questions are reminiscent of the old story about the successful hot dog wagon vendor whose son returned home from college filled with fresh learnings from his economics class:

Dad,” he said, “my business professor says this economy is going belly-up and that small businesses will suffer the most. He says small business owners should pull in their sidewalks, cut back on expenses, and stop advertising because there really is no hope.”

Well, the father thought to himself, I guess I’d better do as my son says. After all, I saved up all my money to send him off to college to learn about what business decisions to make. So, the father cut back on hot dog and bun quality, and took down his sign.

In two weeks, he was out of business, and telling everyone how smart his son was to have predicted the hot dog wagon shutdown.

     Now if any of this is even remotely familiar, I am not at all suggesting you run out to stock up on laxatives, enemas, and prune juice. But maybe it’s close to the point where you may want to evaluate how much you’ve given up in the process of thinking about giving up.

     If you’re continuing to draw a consistent salary while cutting back quality, service and marketing, you’re going to win the national spelling bee with an example of how you use the word, “disaster.”

     Look again at your business priorities.

     In fact, no matter what your current status of business “regularity,” it’s a good idea to re-check what exactly you and your business are actually doing? Who is in fact doing what? And in what order of  importance?

     Do your daily priorities match up with your adjusted goals? If you must continue with marketing cutbacks, are you at least substituting other less-expensive-than-media alternatives . . . like blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, BizBrag, MerchantsCircle, and email blasts?

     Are you and your people making yourselves more visible in your industry or profession? In your community and neighborhood? Are you letting go of old ideas about how to cope with a tight economy? Hopefully. . .

www.TWWsells.com or call 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

It used to be:

“Do this, Do that!”

But today’s leaders 

teach by example,

  so it’s: “Here’s how!”

     Leaders –true leaders– may or may not embrace the whole transparency theme that’s wormed its way into the management apple over the past couple of years, but one thing’s for sure: they are leading others by teaching and they are teaching by giving and being and using examples. “Here, let me show you how to do that in a way that will save you more time” are words that work wonders.

     “Why don’t we stop this meeting right here, order lunch in for everybody, and let’s see if we can all tackle this problem that’s surfaced? We can start by each of us writing down three possible solutions in the next three minutes without any discussion. Then we’ll . . .” Almost makes you want to be in that meeting, doesn’t it?

     Leadership is best delivered with quiet assertiveness, back-pat coaching and extreme simplicity. I call the words we use to motivate others most effectively: LEADERSHIPLICITY. I’ve never met anyone who had trouble getting their arms around a challenge or opportunity that was labeled 1-2-3 or A-B-C.

     We humans seem to have an acceptance fixation on groups of three steps, three items, three bullet points, three ways. 1-2-3 and A-B-C are simple. Life is complicated. 1-2-3 and A-B-C make things simple. Anytime we can reduce a seemingly complex problem or how-to directions into three chunks, we produce and get better results.     

     Now, there are probably as many alternative number choices as there are people on the planet, and there are most certainly some very strong-willed advocates out there who are willing to bet the farm on the number 7. Hmmm, 7? Well sure there are Steven Covey’s 7 Habits, 7/11 stores, Mickey Mantle’s shirt, the 7 Dwarfs, and 7 days in a week. 7 works.

     But 7 is an advertising copywriter’s sales tool. People BUY 7. Seven reasons are usually enough to justify any purchase. But 3 is the number that prompts action. Anyone will take three easy steps; most of us will balk if asked to DO seven things. Oh, are you kidding? 7 bullet points? Who wants to read all that? Seven ACTS? As in A-B-C-D-E-F and G? That’s a lot of stuff to do. You’re going to lose me after C or D.

     LEADERSHIPLICITY means making a daily commitment to eliminate the complicated and accentuate the simplicated. If your grandparents wouldn’t understand the word, don’t use it! How hard is that? Why care? Because effective leadership depends exclusively on the leader’s ability to communicate.

     Fancy words get in the way. They don’t impress others; they frustrate others. Nobody wants to be checking their thesaurus every time you have something to say. 

www.TWWsells.com or call 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

And now . . .

DANCING TOGETHER

for the first time as

Mr. and Mrs. Business

. . .

     Okay, the honeymoon is over (thanks to our business-deficient federal government leadership that is relentlessly trying to drive small business into the ground). The envelopes of cash have been spent. The champagne has fizzled away and been replaced by more economical tastes:  a “cupala brewskies” we tell the bartender.

     As we settle into the kind of more serious and more revealing relationship that matrimonial vows give way to, we discover reality!

     BONG! I’m married to my business! OMG, what’s next? Please don’t tell me we’re expecting a new baby business. I’ve hardly figured out how to get my arms around the big one. Sound familiar? 

     The real problem is that marrying your business has a tendency to overwhelm and upset, and some-times replace, a real husband and wife marriage.

     The business “family” (customers. employees, suppliers and vendors, investors, referrers, business associations and organizations, trade and professional groups and pursuits, and the business neighborhood and community) can readily –by stampede or by creeping isolation– become more demanding, and ultimately more demanding than your real family.

     Hopefully, you saw or will see this coming in time to reinvent yourself and patch things up, or seek professional help. Many do. Some don’t.

     You’re an entrepreneur? It comes with the territory that your life has to suffer at the hands of your business spirit. Or does it?

     Plenty of successful business owners have found marriage partners and family situations that allow them to strike a balance with and harmonize their lives. Seeking and winning this balance should be the first thing students learn in entrepreneur school.

     Unfortunately, very few actually go to school to learn what has historically been a predominantly inherent skill set. Entrepreneurship thrives among those with predictable personalities and character traits.

     Almost universally, entrepreneurs dislike and rebel against authority, discipline, and organizational detail. They are innovators and dreamers with burning desires to see their ideas succeed. They are not –as popularly believed– in it for the money. They do not–as popularly believed– take unreasonable risks.

     And if you are one, you well know that personal life is a challenge that often gets in the way while trying to build a business life.

     Having worked with many hundreds of entrepreneurs over the years, I would suggest that business quests will be easier and quicker to achieve and much more productive when you can first build and strengthen the authenticity of the personal relationships and family that will support your lamebrain ideas and schemes during the tough times that will surely come. And you will be healthier and happier for their love.

     Don’t take my word for it. Take your own. Look in the mirror and remind yourself that your behavior is your choice. Choose first to be a person with a mission to make a difference in life, before running off to chase your vision to make a difference in business.  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!

God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops 

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

SOMETIMES YOU FEEL

LIKE A SCHLUNK,

SOMETIMES YOU DON’T!

It’s what you DO with bad feelings that counts!

     It doesn’t matter who you are, how great your reputation, how elevated your life-position, or how religious or nutrition-conscious you behave. Nor does it matter how physically fit, mentally alert, or in love with the world you may be.

     You will have bad days in life (and groups of bad days) when you feel like a schlunk because you screwed-up a business or personal relationship or situation.

     The thing is that many times the wheels come off, or the bottom falls out, or the roof caves in. . . accidentally. And sometimes, uh, maybe accidentally-on-purpose.

     But getting straightened out and back on track, demands concerted effort, intended purpose, and proactive pursuit. Recovery is never accidental. It requires conscious awareness that behavior is a choice.

     It also requires a plan. The most effective plans are those wrapped around the military OST management model:

OBJECTIVE/STRATEGY/TACTICS

Your “OBJECTIVE” is your goal. To be effective it needs to adhere to ALL of the following 5 criteria:

• Specific

• Flexible

• Realistic

• Due-Dated

• In Writing

     This applies to both business and personal goal-setting. Without all five, it’s merely a wish (and, with apologies to Tinkerbell and The Wizard of Oz, wishing does NOT make it so!)

     Your “STRATEGY” is your thinking avenue or approach to reaching or achieving your Objective or goal. It is the thought process part of your plan.

     Your “TACTICS” are the implementations or executions of your Strategies. They are the actual “do it” steps you take to initiate and maintain your plan. This is the point of bringing about action.

     If you’ve done this right, you’ll remember the goal criteria list includes “flexibility” which translates to being ready and able to choose to change directions or move objectives as situations and people require.

Most people fail at goal-setting and pursuit because they think goals are in concrete and that failure to reach them is too demeaning and discouraging. But keeping goals flexible means adjusting them and/or the circumstances to achieve them.

     The easy part is making it all work. The hard part is getting started. Getting started is a choice!

# # #

 931-854-0474    Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT Day for Someone !

The more you

“power-play” 

the more business

you lose!

     Customers, employees, suppliers, investors, referrers, service people . . . your trade, profession, industry, community, neighborhood, and environment, your family. Your SELF! These are your bread-and-butter individuals, groups, attributes, supporters, and biggest fans.  

     They alone determine if your business  sinks or swims. They will not stand around any longer these days (compared to past patience practices) waiting for your other shoe to drop. If you don’t feel you can be respectful and genuine in all of your dealings with others every day of the week, take a government job! (You’ll thrive there!)

     But if making your business work is what’s really important to you, if your associations, integrity, accomplishments, and reputation all play important roles, if your family is the end of your rainbow, you need to make sure that your business is not over-indulging in brute-force power play struggles with those who support your business and life interests . . . or even with competitors.

    Power plays may work in sports, but they don’t have a place in business or family life. The harder you push others or the marketplace, the greater the odds that you’ll be breeding porcupines. No one likes being in a corner. Hard-nosed billing policies and collection tactics that leave no room for reality will agitate a great many quill-throwers.

     A major propane gas company in Delaware makes a practice of tip-toe backyard visits, to slap padlocks on gas pipe feeders when they think they haven’t been paid on time. They don’t bother to tell families that wake up to no heat or hot water that there is no grace period for late payments, and they don’t even have the courtesy to inform them of the shutoff.

     The company is often wrong. But, when they are, they simply send someone back out to unlock the lock when they discover their error. That’s it. No apology. No anything. After all, they’re practically a monopoly. And they’ve already legalized deals that require changeovers to other suppliers carry forced removal expenses for existing underground storage that they struck deals with long-gone developers on years ago. Why should they care? 

     Because customers talk. And many are in the process of finding alternative power sources, even with storage tank removal expenses. And one day, down the road a piece, they’re going to find out the hard way that this is not how reputable people and companies do business . . . that power plays don’t work.

     Acting unnecessarily tough with employee benefit cutback explanations or time-off requests can make you a bad guy overnight. People (especially people who feel disenfranchised) talk. Words you may think you tossed off innocently can come back to haunt you quicker than you can even remember saying them. Sound familiar? You may want to step back long enough to reassess your present policies and re-set your meter (before it runs out!).

www.TWWsells.com or call 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

Hey!

Ease up on the ears

a little, will ya please?

     Where is it written that business and professional sports success must hinge no longer on performance, but on the tumult and hoopla that surrounds them?

     How did it ever get to be that attending a professional football, basketball, or baseball game meant giving up one’s sense of hearing for a week?

     I am nor referring to the yeas, boos, chants, whistles, claps, and songs of enthusiastic well-meaning fans. With or without cheerleaders, those natural outbursts of energetic support — together with the crack of a bat, the swoosh of a net, and the thud of a tackle — are the real true sounds of sports.

     I’m talking about the machine-generated, artificial bombardments of drum-banging, hand-clapping, bugle-blowing, spiral-buzzing racket that has absolutely nothing to do with the sport-at-hand, nor the performers, and which is a genuinely disruptive insult to our respective brains.

     No I’m not turning into a grouchy, out-of-touch, old guy. I am simply resentful of how noise has risen to the top of the consciousness disruption charts, and literally taken over what it was originally designed to merely support.  

     I was reminded of this again today as I went to see my favorite NY Mets play the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards. I’m not singling out any team or stadium here because it’s ALL of them; today was simply an example.

     And just like in business— some know-it-all marketing whiz-kids have literally commandeered every professional, semi-pro and college stadium and gymnasium, and forced each venue into becoming a catch-all of suffocating, obnoxious, insulting, decibel-threatening sound effects.

     How stupid is sports top management to have been sold on the idea that blasting noise (and even, but to a less annoying extent, music) through seat-and-building vibrating speaker systems will contribute to successful team status?

     In fact, it seems to me to be doing the reverse. I see many more fans staying home to watch sports on TV and not subjecting themselves to this deafening fun for the feeble-minded.  

     In business, educational and entertaining market-ing approaches seem universally preferable to those parts of the population that I’m exposed to, than the screaming in-your-face, sleazy fast-talk of car dealership advertising and many late night info-mercials. Yet the audio clutter continues.

     Greedy pro sports management convictions that noise sells . . . and that the way to an enthusiast’s heart and wallet is by prompting pounding headaches . . . is serving to set the stage for other businesses to follow suit. Does it all originate in Hollywood? Well, let’s see: how many movies can you name that haven’t wrapped their messages in earth-shattering sounds? (Oh, sorry, “Special audio effects.”)

     No matter what your business message is and no matter how you say it, when you surround it with too much noise, you will suffer the consequences of lost trust and lost credibility. People who really mean what they have to say don’t need to wrap it up in fireworks, sirens, explosions, and other deafening audio garbage.

     Just say it like it is.

If a certain sound is part of what’s being sold or sets a receptive stage, use it.

If not, don’t.

www.TWWsells.com or call 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

Can we learn and use

more words that

are more simple?

     Could be that nobody’s getting our message, but maybe it’s because we’re just talking to ourselves?

     We need to educate ourselves to think and communicate in simpler terms. Fancy industrial and professional jargon gets us nowhere, except as the old expression goes, tangled up in our own underwear. Our central business messages must be so simple we could recite them to our grandparents and –in a flash– they would “get it.”

     We have to stop trying to impress people with how much we know, and start trying to explain how our product or service can provide them with the solutions and benefits they seek . . . in simple, easy-to-understand words and steps. Tossing off a string of tech talk when we’re not communicating with other geeks is an increasingly common happening. 

     Frankly, I’m convinced that even talking geek-talk to geeks is not necessarily the best way to go! Why? Because “GEEKS ARE PEOPLE TOO!”

     Do we trust a doctor who dumbfounds us with her anatomical references, or one who explains an ailment in ache-and-pain terms we can understand?

     This simplification process is something I call getting vocabulated (actually a word I stole from my inventive granddaughter — thank you, Talley — to use in this blog!). My meaning is to describe an attitude we all need to put into practice with our paid advertising and websites, and then remember not to then leave it (simplicity) standing alone outside the door of meeting and presentation rooms. 

     Do we just rely on public messages to carry simplistic terms, but get down on the heavy duty industry, trade and professional verbiage when we write an email or business plan or ebook or news release?

     Do we use “proximity” for “area”? Do we “mitigate” or “lessen” (or “ease”)? Are we in pursuit of “opulence” or “wealth” (or even more simply, “money”)? Does “SEO” get any simpler when we’re talking to a non-website person (roughly half the business population!) about “Search Engine Optimization”? How about just saying “Help to increase search window rankings”? 

     Are we perhaps afraid of peers looking down their noses (or critics looking over their glasses) at us if we use words that sound too childish? What’s “too childish” if what we have to say makes sense?

     Do we think underlings won’t be sufficiently impressed when we (again with a doctor example) tell a patient’s family that their son has a broken bone in his hand below his pinkie finger instead of informing the parents that he has a fractured fifth metacarpal? 

     When we’re talking with others in our industry and refer to “sustainable manufacturing processes,” we will no doubt be understood, but the general public (and probably 95% of our target markets) will not need to shake their heads in wonderment if instead we talk about “not using dangerous chemicals like lead and mercury to make our products.” 

     The simpler we can explain ourselves and the benefits of what we have to offer, the more others will gravitate toward us, and the more sales we’ll make. Now, there’re a couple of vocabulated goals. Y’think? 

www.TWWsells.com or call 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

Should You

Be Paralyzed? 

     Today’s news ushered in a bombardment of reliably-sourced economic reports that 2011 will bring complete economic collapse to the US and other nations. Why? Reports suggest the cause is  Obama administration insistence on tax increases being put in place to cover the costs of the federal government’s rampantly out-of-control spending policies.

     Who knows? I don’t pretend to be an economist. I hear the same things that you do. The talk is about major corporations jamming up their income and packing it into 2010 so that increased taxes can be sidestepped in 2011.

     Without getting into the details of how this triggers other tax-rate-related events, and what this represents, the results are expected to be a fully collapsed economy with unemployment possibly reaching even 2-3 times the present level, which as all of us know is already unacceptable. 

     If you’re looking for answers (beyond taking a correction course in the next two major elections), you might as well click off to another blog; I have nothing to offer as a quick-fix. If you’re feeling panicky about all these rumblings, I am here to tell you that you will produce what you breed.

     Freezing in your path, becoming catatonic, and paralyzing your business are not choices that are going to get you anywhere, and will in fact foreclose even the remotest possibility of survival. Recognizing that the future is fantasy; it is not here now, and it may never actually come (or may certainly never come as you expect it to) is an awareness that can carry your business successfully through the projected storm.

     Start out with the conviction that you can in fact make some things happen with your own business that will help protect it should times, in fact, get even tougher than they are right now. And begin taking steps now.

     People in the 50’s were ridiculed for building bomb shelters, but the peace of mind that these fortifications produced served to provide a level of renewed vigor and confidence for moving forward.

     This is not to suggest you run out and start constructing bunkers. It IS to suggest that you begin taking careful inventory of what’s essential to making your business run — what can you do without? How can you consolidate and collaborate and combine efforts to save expenses and maximize productivity. You already went through this exercise a year or two ago. Do it again.

     9/11 changed the world. In the same fashion that carry-on luggage regulations and examinations have correspondingly changed, you may need to once again reassess, downsize, adjust, compress, consolidate, and tighten your business controls. You cannot afford to wait until a bomb hits before building a bomb shelter. Prepare your business now. 

     You cannot continue day-to-day business operations without contingency plans. Set your goals. Adjust your goals, Go for your goals. But don’t focus on the finish line. Stay with the journey! And don’t choose for worry to get in your way!  

www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless:  You, America, and Our Troops. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

What we perceive 

is what we believe! 

Leadership transparency is more than just another fancy management training term. Most employees haven’t a clue about what you really do. Sure, they see you in meetings and hear you on the phone and pay attention to your messages and emails.

Certainly, your people notice your interactions with customers, suppliers and service providers . . . with the community-at-large. But odds are pretty good that if you ask around, you’ll find that very few if any really know or understand how you spend your days.

  So? So the more your employees are in the dark about your comings and goings, the less visibility you afford them, the more likely they are to doubt and mistrust your leadership. It’s human nature to be suspicious of other’s actions when those actions are intentionally hidden or even inadvertently not apparent on the surface.

The harder it is to see and hear what’s happening at the top of an organization, the greater the tendency for organization members to see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear. Imagination creates perceptions. Perceptions trigger rumors. Rumors readily result in perceptions becoming beliefs.

And beliefs become facts! 

So-called “facts” evolve from beliefs which come from perceptions that are triggered by rumors. Rumors are routinely given birth by insecure followers based on their observations of leaders who insist on “playing everything close to the vest” or who frequent the use of “hidden agendas” in their daily routines.

These kinds of rumors have toppled whole companies, whole governments, whole nations. You don’t need those examples listed here; you already know them. A quick check on industry, regional. national, and global news will provide plenty more.

What you may not know is that employees never stop sizing you up — in the workspace, out of the workspace, in the parking lot, on the sidewalk, at community events, in restaurants and stores, at schools and church. It comes with the territory. Business owners and managers are in the spotlight even when they think the lights are out.

The challenge is to gracefully and consistently walk the thin line between A) being totally open and honest with everyone all the time and B) seeking refuge or over-socializing within the ranks.

  In other words, you must always be willing to freely give up information, but — unless company security is at stake — keep your personal opinions to yourself, and always conduct yourself like the example you want to set for others . . . because everything you do and say is an example to others . . .

 . . . and because perceptions are, in the minds of the perceivers, facts. That’s a fact.

Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You. 

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Helping the needy 

doesn’t mean

competitors will 

eat you for dinner

  In fact, quite the contrary. When you slow down or stop your business-wheels long enough to reach off your merry-go-round and help some of those who can only afford to stand off to the side and watch you calliope-music your way around in circles, you are investing in your community . . . and ultimately in your own business, if you’re smart enough to make it newsworthy.

“Charity starts at home” isn’t just a sarcastic jab at humor.

But most businesses either fail at trying to make newsworthiness out of nothing, or at thinking that efforts to proclaim newsworthiness out of acts of generosity somehow taints the integrity of the charitable offerings. Both are wrong. First of all, the public is not stupid. People can see through thinly-veiled acts of self-proclaimed greatness with one eye shut and both hands behind their backs.

Don’t invent situations in order to gain favorable news exposure and publicity. Editors typically reject such self-serving efforts, and even when something does manage to slide by and end up getting attention, the public sees it for what it is.

But when your business does something heartfelt to help someone or group of someones, don’t be overly timid about spreading the word. Why? Isn’t that too much like bragging? Doesn’t that rub people the wrong way to be tooting your own horn?

The truth, since you asked (okay I asked for you) is that the more exposure your business gets for having sponsored an employee fundraising for some worthy organization or situation, the more you will have primed the pump to prompt others to follow suit. Then what? Then you will have shoe-horned (have you ever seen a shoehorn?) in even more helpful acts than your own.

The soft side of business — whether it’s charitable fundraising, or giving an employee or supplier or community family the support it needs to get through a crisis, or sponsoring a neighborhood clean-up project, or donating products or services or time, or providing technical or administrative back-up to a local or regional nonprofit organization — can work wonders for business reputation.

People (your customers, clients, patients, and prospects) BUY reputation! Connect the dots.

You haven’t time for all the solicitations at your doorstep? That’s like saying you haven’t enough time to learn time management. Ask for someone in your organization to follow a criteria list you hand off to screen applicants and make periodic recommendations for situations that fit inside the annual or semi-annual or quarterly budget you set and insist on.

When the tax-deductible budget is spent, solicitors go on a waiting list, or apply again next year. Make sure arrangements are made for news release announcements before and after (at least) every event, with content that’s always focused on the benefiting individual or organization, and always urging others to get on the bandwagon (or your merry-go-round!).  Soft is good.

 Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!

God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops 

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!