Well, HOPE never accomplished anything, but we DID get change . . .

Budget-Squeezed

Consumers,

Unemployment Line

Stampedes,

Fleeing lenders and

Investors,

Slithering and Sinking

Suppliers

The days are done of having stationary targets and goals to focus on. We are a civilization on the move. Some of the action, we asked for. Some, we didn’t. Most threatening are those that have been foisted upon us by a naive, incompetent American government that has zero experience with, or appreciation for, all things business.

Even before I give you the build-up, here’s the bottom line:

You cannot start a fire with a magnifying glass if you have to keep moving the magnifying glass because the object you’re trying to ignite keeps moving!

It’s a wonderful thing when your targets stand still for you and you have all the luxury of time to aim carefully before pulling any triggers. But that’s fantasy. Reality is that in today’s still sinking economy, everything is moving and changing — customers, employees, funding sources, referrers, vendors, and the competition are all in motion.

If you really want to put a fire under your ideas, your customers, your employees, et al, you’d be best advised to ditch the magnifying glass and figure out the best way to turn sparks to flames. You need to first explore the nature of the tasks and people involved, and assess your goal structure.

If your goals aren’t specific, realistic, flexible, AND due-dated, you’re headed into fantasyland and running on empty.

You are dealing in (with apologies to Mr. Obama) hopes and dreams: meaningless time-wasting, money-wasting, energy-wasting illusions that savvy entrepreneurs avoid like the plague.

Dreams, ambitions, and intentions are great, but only when they are followed promptly by action. Taking action is the mark of a true leader, and all successful entrepreneurs. And some action is always better than noaction. Why? Because –again– trimes have changed and the new old motto is:

“If it ain’t broke, fix it anyway!”   

Be careful to not misread the implications here that you should suddenly fly by the seat of your pants (which could undoubtedly make for an interesting journey, but highly questionable landing). Yes, do charge at your business targets, but remember that –even when they least appear to be– they are moving and changing.

Your ability to adapt effectively to changing, moving circumstances will determine your ability to succeed. How does one prepare for vigorous activity? By stretching of course. What kinds of stretches do you need to build into your daily routine to enhance your flexibility, elasticity, ability to adjust and respond?

Writers read. Language teachers do crossword puzzles. Designers go to the movies. Doctors and dentists invent gadgets. Actors “people watch” in crowds. Musicians hum. Drivers walk. Chefs try different restaurants. Shrinks join therapy groups. Figure out what works for you.   

The world’s greatest athletes –regardless of the sport– are those who practice and practice, and practice again, hitting a moving and/or changing target. The world’s greatest entrepreneurs do the same thing. Remember high school physics class and Newton’s First Law?. . .

“A body in motion tends to stay in motion!” 

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  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

 Thanks for your visit and may God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

If you own a small business,

then small business

politics owns you.

You can run but you cannot hide. 

Even if you are a one-man-band or one-woman-band with no internal politics, you have no choice but to deal with external politics.

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re an owner, operator, partner, or manager of an American small business or professional practice. You may own all or a piece of what you do, but the government (and politics) owns all of you!

~~~~~~~~~~

Regardless of all other influences in your life, when you own or run a business of any type or size, you still must face the fact that the massive amount of government controls and regulations alone can ruin more than your favorite breakfast, a good night’s sleep, and even a kaleidoscopic sunset. It can ruin your health and your family.

Since the government for the most part dictates what you can and cannot do; what you must pay for goods, services, and taxes, and when; who you can and cannot do business with and hire or fire; how you must treat and insure those you hire and how you must treat and pay off those you fire

. . . since it dictates what kinds of tools and equipment and forms and suppliers and shippers and transportation you must use . . . even how you state your business to others . . . and since government is born of politics, while somehow managing to also be its inseparable twin . . . There IS a breaking point.

It’s a never-healing small business stress fracture!

And now, clearly on track toward a Marxist dictatorship by way of the nonstop and sorely misguided Obama Socialism freight train, America’s small business community has reached that breaking point.

First off, there are 30 million small businesses in the U.S. Don’t believe the White House; they are patently and intentionally wrong; home-based businesses are conveniently ignored. The government doesn’t consider home-based businesses as worthy enough enterprises to allow them to be included under useless SBA jurisdiction.

You run an online business out of your closet, a jewelry-making business out of your garage, a cookie business out of your kitchen, or a grass-cutting business from your truck . . . you don’t count! The government only wants your tax dollars. Beyond that, you don’t exist! So, back to the beginning: there are 30 million of us!

If you are anything like the vast majority of small business owners and operators, home-based or otherwise, you clearly have a goal to make a difference with your life and your enterprise . . . for your self, your family, your community and hopefully –by the ways that you do what you do– for our nation as well.

That means taking some minutes out of your hectic schedule. It means putting down your tools, equipment, keyboards, dishtowel and whatever else you make a living with, for just long enough to take that step you dread into the sleazy world of politics. It’s time to do your part — show and inspire others to leadership.

It means taking just long enough to visit or write a couple of letters or emails to politicians about why you think small business matters. Take just enough time to support those who support your ideas about why small business matters. Why? Because small business does matter. And because it matters that we all step up.

Imagine the impact: 

THIRTY MILLION

visits and letters and emails calling attention to the economic recovery role of small business and why government must invest in small business –not with more wasted cash handouts– with tax incentives for innovation and tax incentives for job creation.

# # #

  Hal@Businessworks.US  

  Open Minds Open Doors 

 Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Big-mouth

media muckity-mucks

bullying your business?

Is it just me or are you as fed up as I am with all those annoying, pestering, mean-spirited, arrogant, nasty, intolerant, rude, feeble, badgering excuses for news reporters and interviewers that we see on mainstream media TV?

1) They are stupid!

2) They need to shut up and listen!

These people –and “these” includes nearly all of the biggest network news anchors and interview specialists– should be (willingly of course, in the interests of media integrity) duct-taped to the wall (nicely, with no circulation cut off), socks (clean ones you can breathe through) stuffed (gently) in their mouths and made to listen for just a minute or two to the answers that the objects of their insults provide to their printed questions. 

(Gee, Hal, say what you really feel. Hmmm. Well, no need to call out the ACLU, Law & Order’s SVU, or a friendly neighborhood SWAT Team, but it is a way to finally hear someone’s complete uninterrupted response; hey, you can un-duct them and give them lemonade after the questions are answered; how’s that?)

TV interrogations (er, interviews) are so relentlessly overbearing and obnoxious that audiences never get chance to hear responses that could make a difference. Have you seen or heard a single interview of any politician who’s not part of the Obama regime who has not been talked over and pummeled in the questioning process?

Even waterboarding might be kinder. 

Are you unconsciously absorbing media badgering techniques and integrating them into your dealings with partners, investors, employees, suppliers, customers? Are you sure?

I have yet to hear a talking-head question that’s not a camouflaged accusation. Is that little bit of manipulation finding its way into your business dealings? Are media people making it seem like an okay way to conduct yourself?

I mean we’re not talking about the sharpest tools in either shed when it comes to news people interviewing politicians, but come on now; someone’s going to be representing us, and it won’t be a media prima donna, right? As for your business . . .

If you are buying into these methods, you’re being psychologically bullied.

If your ego is as big as the TV puppets you know we’re talking about here, so big that you have had to reduce yourself to bullying and badgering in order to create controversy and get industry or professional attention, for example, you are probably missing the defined purpose of your career.

News “Reporters” are. It’s their job to illuminate and enlighten . . . to report what happens. How many actually make that a priority? (I can name two out of thousands.)

The media people I speak of should only know what bitter, uninformed jerks they look like to their viewers. Clearly they have no regard for their own self-respect or anyone else’s who happens to disagree with the producers and owners who pull their puppet strings in order to win audience shares that attract corporate advertising dollars.

Too bad they’re so dependent, and so blindly convinced that they are digging for “the truth.” Nothing could be farther from . . .

Sure, everyone has heard their parents and grandparents start a sentence out with: “When I was growing up . . .”

And you know what? There’s enormous wisdom locked up in statements that start that way. 

But discovering those gems requires listening — opening ears, and minds, instead of rolling eyes.

So try this on: “When I was growing up, a “Reporter” was a respected observer, not a wise-guy loud-mouth more invested in self-promotion than in bringing enlightenment to reader/viewer/listener audiences. When Walter Winchell reported the news, he didn’t put an egotist spin into every statement. He was a professional.

Of course there were others. Just go to Bing and Google and find them. Start with Huntley and Brinkley, and Mike Wallace, and Paul Harvey. Oh, you say, but they weren’t 100% ethical either. Who says? Who is? And isn’t 90-something percent a whole lot better than single digits? What percent are you? What percent is your business?  

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  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Dear Doctor . . .

Everyone who deals with

you –personally or  

professionally– already

KNOWS you’re a doctor.

Dear Doctor, On behalf of all those people who visit and speak with you, and who deal with you on a personal and/or business level –but who think they need to choose to be intimidated by you– please do all of them (and your professional self, and of course your healthcare practice) a really big favor:

Acknowledge, and act, and speak the truth.

Be a real person.

Don’t cast your title to the wind. You’ve worked hard for it. You’ve earned it. It’s something to be proud of. But you know what? Healthcare is serious enough. Lighten up a little and watch what happens!

Step down from the pedestal that those who surround you all day put you on (“Yes, Doctor”; “No, Doctor”; “Whatever you say, Doctor”). As you communicate with businesspeople, remember that –not very unlike many of them—  you are a regular person with special knowledge and special skills.

Those attributes do not make you a special person. This is not a come-uppance rant. This is reality. I have had the privilege of working personally with nearly 2,000 doctors in the last 30 years as a practice development consultant and as a personal and professional counselor. Here are some things I learned:

Doctors are bred to have their heads in the clouds. That they are all people who excel academically is not in dispute. That doctors who wallow in their achievements is not only distasteful to others, it also serves to undermine healthcare practice success by pulling the rug out from under the mainstays of patient and referrer loyalty.

Only you, dear doctor, can make yourself a special person by the ways that you communicate with your patients and their families, your office and professional staff, detail reps, practice development people, consultants, staff trainers, equipment and e-system suppliers, hospital personnel and affiliate operatives, insurance providers, local media people, and the communities you serve . . . oh, and perhaps the hardest of all entities: other doctors.

When a doctor is called “doctor,” it is more out of habit and fear than out of respect. Doctors who gain the most respect are those who introduce themselves by their first names. Many people unconsciously process the ways they size up doctors who flaunt their titles as being insecure, self-indulgent, and insensitive.

Well, yes, doctor, you do make a point: it is true that you deal with human lives and with issues involving physical, mental, and emotional well-being and so need to separate yourself as a professional in the patient’s eyes.

But you also know as well as anyone that the less stressed a patient and family tend to be, the quicker the path to healing and recovery. Titles are pompous and unnecessary barricades to free-flowing communications. Anything that short-circuits communications flow can create stress and anxiety, and misunderstandings..

Excel instead at the ways you present yourself and your ideas and findings and suggestions and recommendations. Excel at “bedside manners.” Excel at how you present yourself to the outside world, to how you are (forgive the crassness) “packaged.”

Find people who are as professionally skilled at marketing and writing and persuading as you are at medicine.

Straight from the shoulder: Do NOT rely on the ideas or execution of ideas put forth by loving, well-intrentioned spouses or office managers or in-laws, or parents, children, med-school classmates, your neighbor’s 17-year-old computer whiz or some SEO “expert” who jumped into your Facebook page.

DOCTORS: Want some free tips? Seeking help fining respectful experts? Proven practice development steps? Call or email me and let’s chat. No fees for getting acquainted.

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  Open Minds Open Doors 

 Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone!

You never dreamed it at

startup, but now you know

entrepreneurs don’t

vacation . . . 

 even when they can. 

Home-based business vacations usually begin –and end– in the backyard. Family business vacations are often jammed into family vacation properties, usually not more than a state or two or three, or just a few counties, away. And you thought your life just wasn’t privileged enough?

REAL vacations are the stuff of academia, corporate muckity-mucks, braindead politicians and that rare breed of entrepreneurs who have made it so big that they no longer need to tend their gardens. They have full time gardeners willing to pick up the slack for the opportunity to shine, and reach the next rung up the ladder..

Seems a little upside-down and backwards, doesn’t it?

I mean, small business owners and managers are the backbone of America. They alone know how to make things happen. They are catalysts for change. They are action-oriented, and they create virtually all of America’s new jobs. Yet they are condemned and trampled on by the White House.

Entrepreneurs whose names are not among the self-made superstars (like Gates, Job, Carnegie, Zuckerberg, Edison, Ford, Winfrey, Ashe, Page and Brin), remain a formidable collection — 30 million of them to be more precise — and the vast majority of these still-struggling 30 million do not vacation even when they vacation.

Why is this? Because entrepreneurs are married to their ideas. With a burning desire to make their ideas work, there really is no room for prolonged or distant vacations. Yes, there are exceptions. There are entrepreneurs who travel as part of growing and nurturing their enterprises. They tack on days here and there in their travels.

Vacation.

But truth is that no real entrepreneur (Yeah, there some fake ones) ever makes the time to separate her or himself from her or his business long enough to sprawl on some exotic island beach or mountain resort. Who would run the business? Trusted employees, sure, but the baby is not theirs; they are simply babysitters. 

It’s not that no one else can do the work, or that no one else can do it as effectively, It’s that no one else has invested him or her self so completely in the business as the person who started it, and who probably owns most if not all of it. It’s called putting yourself on the line.

When you are on the line, “vacation” is a visit to the corner ice cream store, a day of golf or fishing, a trip to the zoo or circus or woods with the kids, keeping the spouse company on a shopping trip, Friday nights out for dinner, watching a big football game with neighbors, or coaching a Little League team.

There is much to be said for the sense of entrepreneurial loyalty and responsibility and dedication that most non-entrepreneurs fail to see and typically have no regard for. Those people, in fact, instead see only the Friday nights out for dinner and golf, fiishing, football, Little League, and fail to assimilate the lifestyle.

Entrepreneur vacations are in entrepreneur minds.

Even when they’re away, they’re checking in. Like the rabbit beating the drum in the battery commercials, entrepreneurial existences keep going and going and going. If all this sounds familiar, keep going. But eat and sleep and exercise and breathe better while you keep going.

Take more deep breaths. Take more walks. Take more time with your family, your loved ones, and your self! 

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  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th Generation? . . . 

There’s no business

like family business!

~~~~~~~~~

Nothing can compare. Quarrels, in-fighting, misunderstandings and manipulating. Pulling rank and playing of the grandparent or favorite son card. And, oh yes, the hidden card trick, where one never knows which in-law is behind which cousin’s back. Someone almost always does all the work, and someone else does almost none. Teamwork is often  just a facade. And no one dares to “jump ship” even when the engines seize up, the bilge pumps fail, and the deck is ankle-deep in water.

~~~~~

There are 30 million small businesses in America. My best guess is that at least half and probably two-thirds are some form of family business. Please correct me if you think this is way off base.

A husband or wife gets fed up with his or her job and quits (or is downsized out) and recruits full or parttime help from a spouse to venture out into some entrepreneurial venture. They work out of their kitchen or garage, secretly aiming to be the next Bill Gates. (But there’s always a little anger present.)

I’ve seen hundreds of kitchen/garage businesses. Here’s just a handful:

• “Clear Windshield Wiper Blades” that prevent accidents in the rain (Uhhuh!)

• Interlocking Plastic Bottles that allow twice the shipping space (But collapse the truck!)

• A revolutionary new accounting system that questions you daily (Daily?)

• The world’s greatest non-literary cultural magazine (Quite a feat!)

• A never-before, unheard-of approach to leadership training (Maybe “proven” would be more desireable?)

• A no-fail-no-lawyer-needed-do-it-yourself last will and testament (Who cares after they die?)

• An online course: “How to Make a Million Dollars in 24 Hours!” (Right. Rob a bank?)

Or, with some good fortune, there’s an inheritance involved — staring you straight in the face. A business someone in your family launched (or carried over from a prior launcher), and now –voila!– it’s yours. Except you didn’t want it, know nothing about it, and have little choice except to step in and keep it going, at least until you can plan an escape!

Or, you’re simply buried under excess relative tonnage doing a job you don’t care about but that puts food on your table, and with the current lunatics in the White House, you just never know when some real job that actually suits and challenges you might ever surface (probably not until long after November 6, 2012).

Here’s the deal, spiel: If you are in a family business and everything is copacetic and chugging along to your satisfaction, God has been good to you. You are a rarity. Click off this site and go watch TV. Thank you for visiting. If you are struggling with a struggling family in a struggling family business, know, first of all, that you are not alone!

You must decide if you are going to stay with it and take advantage of the guaranteed job opportunity that very few people ever get, and make it work. Or pack it in. If you choose to leave , you owe it to those you leave to make it as easy for all of them as you possibly can. They have tolerated you just as you have them. And they’re family!

If you’re going to stay and make the effort it takes to get things moving, you’ve got to get things moving. You can’t screw around with a family business —any family business– in this economy. Make it go. Or go! Staying the course means reassessing where you are and how realistic your goals are. It means becoming a sensitive leader.

You are not captaining an atomic submarine. There’s no need to push. Relatives move more productively when they’re pulled gently in directions that best suit each individual’s strengths. Charm and personality belong in the customers’ faces. Organization and discipline in operations. Creativity in marketing. Financial skills . . .

You get the picture. Be careful as you start any new exercise to go slowly at first and to listen carefully to other’s suggestions and ideas. Bring in outside experts when necessary and shop carefully for consultants and suppliers who show you that they think like you do and that they understand the sensitivity and trappings of family dynamics.   

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  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Do your part for the planet!

Sell your local products 

and services worldwide.

~~~~~~        

Now we know for a fact (in spite of Mr. Gore’s ranting and raving), that there simply is no such thing as manmade global warming (which has clearly proven to be a figment of the man’s imagination), it’s probably time to turn up the planet’s heat with our businesses.

There’s no need to defend that global warming discrediting statement, by the way, just ask any credible scientist instead of the pseudo ones Mr. Gore carries in his pocket.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is no greater opportunity to market your goods and services outside the neighborhood, town, county, state, or region that you’ve been limiting yourself to . . . than now . . . with the Internet (Oh, and thank you again, Mr. Gore; where oh where would we ever be had you not invented it?).

Why “now”? Because, as my mother used to say, there’s no time like the present. How to do it? Like what are the steps?

Step number one is to cast aside the political creeps behind creeping Socialism (November 6, 2012). 

Step number two is to extract the small-mindedness from your brain that’s been locked in there, afraid to let you step outside your business comfort zone.

With inexpensive –often free— media options to exercise (from emails and texting to Twitter, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn), you will gain by exploring (or expanding your mastery of, if you’re already dabbling) the market opportunities for what you sell. Now is the time to Action Plan your way into marketing your offerings worldwide.

Exactly where are those opportunities for you and your business? Odds are you know what they are and where they are, but you’ve simply not been willing or motivated enough to consider their pursuit. Be willing. Be motivated. Make that choice for yourself.

Stop thinking you need to be limiting local services and products you sell to the neighborhood or town that supports you.

If you truly care about your neighbors, help stimulate your local economy with global money!

Illegal aliens have been doing it for years. They work in the U.S., typically tolerating inhumane living conditions in order to wire maximum amounts of American dollar wages earned to their desperate families in countries whose governments intentionally keep their people in poverty.

How about bringing other country’s money into your town? How about working to help change the opression of other countries’ governments to make them do a better job so that their people won’t want or need to come to the U.S. for their families to survive? Isn’t that a better, more permanent solution? 

Does it mean cracking down on illegal border entries and drug lords and war weapon distribution channels?

Absolutely, but isn’t that a smarter, better thing for our grandchildren than to continue with the Socialism “share the wealth” mentality that strips away America’s freedom that small business job creation built, and that America’s servicemen and women have preserved?

I’m talking about the freedom that we have all earned and enjoyed, that strengthens core family values and that serves to undermine the terrorist acts, threats, and organizations that rise from the rubble of America’s economic weaknesses. 

It all comes back to the economy. And job creation. And America’s 30 million small businesses.

With government support in the minus zone, there can be only ingenuity, innovation, self-reliance,  guts, and gumption. Are you up to it, or ready to go down without trying?

There are no limits except

those in your mind.

And those limits are a choice.

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  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

What Makes You Think

You Can Wing It?

 Farmers, carpenters, doctors, lawyers, firefighters, pilots, seamstresses, stylists, realtors, even Cub Scouts do it.

So what makes you think that you can wing it? Now I’m not talking any hundred-page document with 37 pull-out spreadsheets and an annotated bibliography featuring a gazillion itemized resources. Who cares? I’m talking about an Entrepreneurial Action Plan.

Yes a plan of any kind needs a goal.

And that goal has to be realistic and specific and flexible and due-dated. If it’s not all four of those criteria, it’s not a goal, it’s a wish. Wishing may work in Disneyland, but business success comes from taking action. Taking action without a goal-based action plan is like trying to control a rudderless ship in a storm.

Your Entrepreneurial Action Plan

Like any good news release, your Action Plan must answer the questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? And be realistic, specific, flexible and due-dated. It’s always a worthy endeavor to include a Mission Statement and a Vision Statement at the beginning of your plan to set the stage.

A quick market assessment, a marketing plan, a management approach and/or team lineup, an operational outline and a financial plan and projections — that all answer the questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? (and that are realistic, specific, flexible, and due-dated) will do the trick.    

                                                                                                          

Is this over-simplified?

No. It’s actually very simple. An Entrepreneurial Action Plan is simple and quick to execute. It is not a formal business plan. Many of the same ingredients are in both, but business plans are primarily done for the purpose of raising investor or lender money. Action Plans are to get things going, and build momentum; they are not fancy.

An Entrepreneurial Action Plan can be scribbled on the back of a large envelope.

It is definitely not for the feint-hearted crossed-t-dotted-i perfectionists or analysis-paralysis corporate types. The best results come from those who chunk up their plans and adjust them frequently. This doesn’t take thousands of hours or a rocket science degree. Oh, and what a great amnd illuminating collection the saved scribbles make.

BUT your Action Plan does need to capture.

It needs to capture the five “W” questions and one “H” question above, and it does need to target goals that are realistic, specific, flexible, and due-dated. Otherwise, you are captaining a rudderless ship in a storm, and are bound to have schools of lawyers circling you, closing in for the kill.

Yes, put it in your pocket, not a spiral-bound or 3-ring binder.

It’s a working document for the day, week, or month. I do daily scribbled Action Plans for each blog post. I do weekly versions for my writing/consulting/marketing business. In the end, it’s all about why you are an entrepreneur in the first place . . . to make your idea work by exercising the freedom to continually adjust it.

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Hal@Businessworks.US

 Open Minds Open Doors

 Thanks for visiting.     God bless you.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone

Welcome, and thank you

for joining me on this

personal milestone of

  1,000 posts at this site.

Before I take you on my quick-read path of lessons learned, which I unabashedly believe includes something of value for everyone, let me offer up my heartfelt appreciation for the first 400 visits I had in April of 2008 when I started, and the millions of visitors who followed over the last 3+ years.

~~~~~~~~~~

Please continue your visits, comments, and free RSS Feed subscriptions.

And please note that this blog will now publish new

posts 5 days a week, every Sunday through Thursday.

But the Search Window is always open, and content is always relevant.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you

for your confidence,

trust and loyal support.

Special thanks to Kathy — the wind beneath my wings for 25 years, and to the wonderful dogs we’ve been blessed with, who surrounded my feet as I posted each night — our Black Cocker (“Tuckerton“) who left us last year at 6 years old and our Golden Retriever (“Barnegat“) who lived six months longer than him; she was 13 . . . and our new one-year-old-this-week Cavachon (“Breezy“).

For the endless stream of writing encouragement and feedback (regardless of agreement or disagreement with my representations, and there’s been plenty of both!), please indulge me long enough to use this space for special thanks to my: son, Christopher; daughter Haley; oldest granddaughter, Talley; brother-in-law Tim; mother-in-law, Marian; brother, Rick. And: my Aunt Dorothy and sister-in-law Claire; Melanie Adair, Angela Current, Doyle Slayton, Jonena Realth, Dr. Ian Fries, George Kanuck, Kevin Bousquet, Meredith Bell, Jeff Banning, Danielle-Dixon-Moyle, Peter Leeds, Jim Haines, Dr. Jeffrey Alpern, Michael Infusino, Ken and Sara Kraft, Bruce Burchell, Andrew Jackson; Jim Oliviero, Ken Poppele, Andy Larrimore, Laura Pritchett, Jeff Shactman, Barrie Proctor, Brian Smith, Dennis Forney, my friends, neighbors, Twitter and LinkedIn followers, former students, past and present clients, three special friends lost this past year: Butch Taras, Paul Harp and Ernst Dannemann, and my 150 softball league buddies in Delaware and New Jersey, and their families.

Thank you also to the young men and women of America’s military service whose devotion and courage make the freedom possible that allows me to choose to write, and to be able to write freely.

. . . and thank you, God!

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is some of what I learned that you may find helpful to be reminded of . . . to think about . . . to try, apply, expand, adjust, enjoy, and to just pick up and run with:

1)  Never assume that no one (or that no one who matters) is “out there.”

When you write and post something on the Internet, someone, somewhere, is always reading what you write . . . every thing you write! So make it count.

2)  Be gracious with your insults.

Criticize the behavior –words and actions– not the person! When you feel you must take someone’s behavior to task, take it to task, but try to “sleep on” what you write before you click Publish.

3)  Take lots of deep breaths. 

More frequent deep breathing will channel stress productively, to stay in control, to be focused on the “here-and-now” present as much as possible, to ensure that you respond instead of react. Remember, if you don’t react, you can never over-react!

4)  Be kinder than necessary

 EVERYone you meet and re-meet every day is fighting some kind of battle.

5)  “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”

(Thank you Mark Twain) 

6)  “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter–’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”  

(Thank you again Mark Twain)

7)  “Time waits for no one. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.”

 (Thank you B. Olatunji)

8)  Ask yourself the following 4 questions:

 Why?  Why Not?  Why Not Me?  Why Not Now? A few times a day is not a bad idea.

9)  Accept the fact that the news media no longer “reports” anything.

Literally every story breaks down into some stress-filled level of disguised political opinion. If you think that’s exaggeration, try testing your willpower to not watch or listen to or read any news or news-related presentations of any kind for just one week, then see and feel the results. You will be happier, healthier, less-stressed, more productive, and making a bigger difference in the world, especially if you combine this effort with #3 above. (3 weeks of it, by the way, will literally transform your life!)

10)  “To Thine Own Self Be True!”  

                                         (Authenticity + Passion = Success)

(Thank you, Shakespeare)

   11)  “There is a time for everything under heaven.”

(Thank you, God)

   12)  “Open Minds Open Doors.”

(Thank you United Technologies)

   13)  “The journey to discovery consists not in having new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

(Thank you Proust)

    14)  “The only thing that’s permanent is change.”

(Thank you Greek philosopher Hericlitus, 2500 years ago)

    15)  “Happiness is a journey, not a destination.”

(Thank you Alfred Souza)

    16)  Great blog posts only happen because of great blog followers.

If you like what I write, thank your self because I write it only for you, and only with your input. I am grateful for your every visit.

Have a wonderful week ahead, filled with everything you want.

Best regards – Hal

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Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0116 

 Open minds open doors

 Thanks for visiting.     God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone

With America’s ship

sinking, and “Captain”

 Obama busy arranging

 deck chairs, is YOUR

business credit rating

on its tippy-toes?

Would it matter? What would you (or are going to) do about it? What’s in your best interests? Your family’s best interests? Your customer’s and employee’s best interests? Is that concrete or quicksand beneath your feet? What are your personal circumstances that cornerstone (and that undermine) your business?

To what extent should you care about other’s opinions and evaluations? If your answer to that question is that it depends on whose opinions and whose evaluations, can you identify those “influentials” and jot down their names on scrap paper? Can you rank them 1-10 in terms of importance?

Can that list serve as a priority action plan target for you? 

What’s your best guess about how long ’til you can bolster or reverse your current business situation? Do you think this is another “that depends” answer? If so, what exactly does it depend on? Do you truly believe that, or are you just making convenient excuses? 

Is it worth it to answer all these questions? (It is if you’re a real entrepreneur!) Are you a real entrepreneur who has cut out your own path in the world? Or are you a make-believe entrepreneur who’s simply been in the right place at the right time to inherit someone else’s (parents? grandparent’s?) dream? Or are you making that dream reality?

Are you shifting back and forth through the gears, or coasting along in cruise control? How committed are you to your SELF and your ideas and your business . . . really?

What if anything do you need to do right now to shore up your small business or professional practice enterprise to withstand the increasing fragility of marketplace, industry, and national government credit rating downgrades? What do you need in order to get these steps started? How will you get there? 

Are you really paying enough attention to sales? Are your sales efforts as productive as you want them to be? How can you boost these efforts? Are you focusing all your resources on growing sales or on growing debt? Have you considered that your business will never make money by turning off light switches?

Can you increase revenues by courting existing and past customers more often and more attentively? Are you putting too much energy, and time, and money into trying to open new markets and gain a new customer base? Do you know that such efforts are probably ten times less effective than focusing on past and present business?

Are you tired of answering these questions? Did they make you think?

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Your FREE subscription:   Posts RSS Feed 

Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0116 

 Open minds open doors

 Thanks for visiting.     God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone