Jun
14
2017
Books, billboards, news
releases, website content,
magazines and magazine
articles, posters and
displays, newspaper
columns, surveys, signs,
postcards, brochures,
commercials, promotional
emails, direct mail, photo
captions, jingles, branding
themelines, package labels,
training curricula, promo
literature and exhibit
materials, webinars, sales
presentations, seminars
lyrics, booklets, speeches,
ebooks, blog posts, scripts
business plans, marketing
strategies, love letters,
manuals, greeting cards,
and matchbook covers
Ever write any of these yourself? How’d it come out? Did you get the results you wanted? What happened? Are you a skilled writer? An experienced wordsmith? Probably not. If you’re reading posts on this blog site, it’s because you’re an entrepreneur, a small business or professional practice owner, manager, or principal, a student, or a leader.
If you fit any of those kinds of career descriptions, odds are that you are marketing a product, service, or idea (or some combination) and the daily challenges of keeping your business or organization moving forward leaves little room for you to indulge in fantasy of seeing yourself as a talented writer. And you’re smart enough to know when to get help.
One telling characteristic of successful entrepreneurs, in fact, is that they know how to pull their ideas forward while leaving necessary professional services up to professionals they engage — CPA, attorney, management consultant, and more often than not: creative services, especially writers and designers.
Entrepreneurs, after all, are the catalysts of business and the economy. They are agents of change. They serve as mirrors of society wants and needs. They alone are responsible for new job growth (not corporations, and certainly not government). As a result, entrepreneurs are also the most sensitive of business people, and the quickest to recruit outside expertise when they see the need.
Small business owners are far more in touch with reality than their big business counterparts who are obsessed with analyzing what message content and structure communicates best, and sells.
They recognize that one dot or small sweep of a design line, or one word can make the difference between sale and no sale. (And remember, with online content: WORDS are still King!)
Entrepreneurs respect and appreciate the value of expertise.
So the list above is not just a teaser or composite of writing applications. It is a list of real business-related (yes, even love letters!) writing needs that most entrepreneurs are confronted with at one time or another. It is also a list of writing applications that anyone you hire to write for you should have experience with, at least most of them.
I know. I’ve written all of the above many times over. And I can tell you that a marketing writer who hasn’t written a book doesn’t know how to tell a story, and stories sell. A website content writer who hasn’t written radio and TV commercials has no sense of writing concise, punchy stuff that’s short, sweet, and memorable . . . and “short, sweet, and memorable” sells!
Someone who’s never written a billboard hasn’t even a clue about how to write branding lines because the discipline is the same: Aim for 7 words or less and tell a story in those 7 words or less that has a beginning, middle, and ending . . . and is persuasive. Ah, then comes the opposite: Direct mail. In direct mail, the more you tell, the more you sell — that means, literally, a blanket of billboards.
The writing you have now?
Does it work as hard as you do?
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Hal@Businessworks.US 931.854.0474
Open Minds Open Doors
Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.
Make today a GREAT day for someone!
Jun
03
2017
Dear elected representatives:
it’s NOT “All or Nothing!”
Progress is measured in increments.
Increments require step-at-a-time management.
As a House or Senate representative, you are not making progress on The People’s Agenda because you are not serving the wants and needs of the people you were elected to represent. And even if you think you are, you’re not because you’re not genuinely working on behalf of those wants and needs. If you were, they would already have been satisfied.
But it’s not too late! Consider the following:
*** Studies of VOTE and NON-VOTE actions and non-actions suggest to many voters that the odds are you 
are preoccupied with your own personal agenda, your own individual needs and desires, and that you are blocking progress with a make-believe “All or Nothing” attitude.
*** Are you kidding yourself into thinking that delays and rejections of step-at-a-time changes will get you re-elected?
*** Are you pretending that every step toward progress requires you to necessarily avoid commitment to get started without unanimous finality?
*** Are you rejecting the wisdom of the Bible, and Einstein, and Thoreau, and other true genius’s who have reminded us that limited knowledge is all we ever have?
*** Are you relying on failed long-ago replaced 1970’s management strategies founded on consensus-seeking — on safety in numbers– and holding out for something that everyone can at least agree with somewhat?
That kind of posturing, after all, offers protection of one’s hind quarters,
and serves as a platform for rallying the support that you as a politician are likely convinced will get you re-elected.
BUT IS THIS why you were elected . . . to build yourself into a position you think will best facilitate getting RE-elected?
Seriously?
Truth is that you are far more likely to be re-elected by throwing your wholehearted self into solving the problems . . . by supporting what the public wants instead of devoting yourself to seeking the spotlight for representing the positions you think will most likely return you to your cushy, high-paying, job.
Take a page from successful entrepreneurs.
Ever-armed with a burning desire to make their ideas work, entrepreneurs are NOT— as commonly (and incorrectly) believed– betting the farm!
Real entrepreneurs take only REASONABLE risks. They are agents of change, not of hot-dogging heroics.
Yet time-after-time, most of those in your shoes take only POLITICALLY-CALCULATED risks.
Politically-calculated risk-taking accomplishes nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zippo. Zero. Make the most of what you have . . . NOT of what’s not here.
Stop being afraid to step up
with just a piece of the puzzle
. . . instead of standing around and holding out, waiting for others to find the missing pieces. Speak up with what you have because only pieces can create the whole solution. And if everyone else with just one piece is holding back, the puzzle will never be solved.
Repealing and replacing Obamacare is NOT an all-or nothing challenge . . . aren’t there many steps involved? So isn’t it a step-at-a-time process? Can’t you begin by taking a step in the right direction and returning to make it better as another worthy step comes to the surface?
That’s called: GET STARTED and PASS S-O-M-E-THING that moves us forward, instead of stubbornly trying to grab hold of a tree (or a hand) as you continue to sink in quicksand!
Entrepreneurs don’t succeed by bursting onto the scene and being suddenly thrust into “Shark Tank” spot-lights. They do act quickly (but not recklessly) and they succeed by taking measured steps and building each on the one before it. They don’t worry about what competing businesses are doing; they just keep moving forward step at a time.
And entrepreneurs don’t hope, wish, analyze, or try. They act. They act now, today, this minute. They get the job of taking a step forward done, instead of just talking about it.
Success is FAR more likely achieved with solid stairways than with shaky stockpiling of all the issues until unanimous agreement can be reached on every detail . . . which is how quicksand originates.
Get started!
You can make a difference, piece at a time.
A favorite pastor of mine recently noted that “you can’t build a house in a hurricane!” Waiting for the perfect solution that everyone can agree to is allowing the storm to build and get worse.
First-aid ointment and a Band-Aid is a quick-fix when a cut is bleeding, but they do usually work as a temporary solution.
It’s really okay to take on healthcare and the tax package and the tighter immigration rules with step-at-a-time quick fixes instead of standing around with your thumb you know where until a comprehensive overhaul of each item can be perfected (which may never happen… and then, by the way, where do your reelection prospects stand?).
# # #
Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales
Entrepreneurship & Expansion Coaching 931.854.0474
Go for your goals, thanks for your visit, God Bless You!
“The price of freedom is
eternal vigilance!”
[Thomas Jefferson]
