STOP SYNCHRONIZED DIVING.

STOP PLAYING CHESS.

 GET THE PUCK OFF THE ICE. 

BURY THE FOOTBALL.

NOW.  IT’S 2017!!!

And there’s only room for Baseball!                                                                   

 What? Why Baseball? Because… ta, ta, ta, ta, tah-tah!… baseball is THE ONLY competitive-physical-prowess-speed-agility-and-psychology sport with no time limits. And 2017 business success demands COMPETITIVE teamwork!

So, baseball has no ending time or closing minutes? Correct, but there can always be extra innings. Extra innings translates to endurance. Show me a business success not built on endurance.

Baseball serves business enterprises best as a teamwork model because teams must work together hard, as a team, to win. BUT, every single team member gets an equal chance to get up to bat and get a game-winning hit every game — as well as make great game-winning plays, with every pitch, every inning!

It’s all about teamwork wrapped around individual performance and a sense of competitive spirit. Yes? Well, how great would that be for your entire organization to practice? (Regardless of draft choice round involved ;)) 

Imagine management and employees supporting one another all day every day, while encouraging each other to rise to the occasion of ongoing conquest because every individual effort can potentially pay back the entire team in the process.

Imagine all individuals and departments involved making a daily practice of supporting and backing-up one another instead of finger-pointing, or making excuses for shortfalls. A dream? Only if you choose to let it be.

BEHAVIOR IS A CHOICE.

You (and your people) can just as easily choose to work together as a winning baseball team as you can choose to keep struggling along as a ragtag collection of aspiring superstars with no investment in the success of others. Oh, and as for critiquing along the way? Criticize BEHAVIOR, not the person at fault!

Even as a single, unified force, this kind of team will fall apart when any individual fails to perform in precision-matching her or his teammates. (Ask any oarsman on any 4 or 8-person crew team what happens when one rower is out of sync by even a second, or raises an oar just inches more than the rest of the team.)

All it takes to make a REAL difference is experienced coaching and training guidance, plus a fresh informed perspective on the best (most appreciated) ways to reward exceptional individual and team performance . . . rewards that do NOT become long-term financial burdens.

If this is a missing link in your organization– old, new, large, small, mid-sized, retail, service, B2B, industrial, sales, professional practice, healthcare– call me. I provide all of these services for fees you can afford now. And results are guaranteed! Ready? Then let’s “PLAY BALL!”

# # #

931.854.0474

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY / CONTENT / CONNECTION

Coaching for Higher Branding Impact

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

    This week, I re-discovered a Christmas ornament my 15-year-old granddaughter made . . . six years ago when she was 9!!!

     The brightly painted piece of heart-shaped plywood is the stage for her blobby-marker-printed starstruck words — six statements!

“But where did you get those words?”

I asked.

“I just thought them up in my head,”  

she said.

GWYN’S WORDS ARE THE BEST WISDOM I CAN SHARE FOR  CHRISTMAS & FOR 2017:

“Life is a question.

No person on earth

is your enemy but you!

You can’t decide

what you’re born with,

but you CAN decide

how you end up!

“Being happy is beyond a feeling

. . . it’s a way of life!

“Questions are endless. But

  the only one answer is YOU.

“You can dream

without imagination but . . .

you can’t dream without a belief.

“You are who you are,

and no one can stop you!”

—  Gwyneth Murphy, Age 9

As you head into 2017 building your life, your career, and your business, do Gwyn’s words have as much “start the new year” clout for you?

Please let me know YOUR thoughts . . .

# # #

God Bless You One And All . . .

My Best Wishes for a Merry Christmas

and HAPPY NEW YEAR To You & Yours!

# # #

“The real voyage to discovery

is not in having new landscapes,

  but in having new eyes.”

— Marcel Proust

For your people to have “New Eyes,” they need only have new food for thought that fits and boosts the dynamics of their individual personalities.

• This includes some effective but unobtrusive, practical stress management techniques they can take home, and a fresh perspective on how to revitalize often lazy or overkill communication skills.

• The combination of strengthened self-control and ability to “come across” more effectively serves as the foundation for absorbing and applying new levels of leadership and competitive teamwork coaching.

All of that –and more– is delivered with the 2017-2020 management and staff training and development program:

“MY BUSINESS WORKS” is a 3-part, hands-on, on-location engagement that is Money-Back Guaranteed to make a difference in individual participant commitment and achievement levels, in propelling your business mission forward, and in increasing your sales revenues.

Because these How-To sessions are customized to fit the specific needs of your business, your people, your customers/ clients/ patients, and your sales, scheduling is extremely limited, so act now! 

Email Hal today: Hal@BusinessWorks.US or simply call Hal direct at 1.931.854.0474 for a prompt assessment discussion, or to schedule a callback at your convenience. 

[NOTE: Participant ages, educational levels, and physical conditions have no bearing on program content or expected results]

# # #

       Hal Alpiar is a 35-year-experienced professional coach and trainer. A business and career development mentor, Hal actively consults in marketing/PR/sales and stress management. Twice voted “Professor-of-the-Year,” he is also a national award-winning book author and national award-winning branding creator.

Serving clients nationwide since 1981, Hal has helped over 25,000 business and healthcare professional participants in his training programs, classes and workshops, and many more through his published books, articles, and over 1600 blogposts.

 [NOTE: For more details, click on About Hal tab at the top of this page]

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY / CONTENT / CONNECTION

931.854.0474 Coaching for Higher Branding Impact

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

“Employee Stress” Blocks Productivity, Vision, Focus & Health, which Costs Employers Over $300 Billion!

 What’s YOUR share?

“UNTANGLING KNOTS”

When is a knot not a knot?  Stress is like that “eye of the beholder” thing. Twenty-five years, for instance, can be forever, or a blink, depend- ing on how we’ve chosen to experience it and how we choose to see it.

Sticking a thumb out to paint scenery isn’t the same as sticking it up to show approval, or down to show rejection, plugging it into a hole to stop a leak, or waving it to hitch a ride.

Neither is twenty-five years of delivering mail the same as twenty- five years of raising a family, or hammering rocks OR tuning pianos, driving trucks, stuffing pickles into assembly-line jars, selling services to corporate muckity-mucks, doing heart transplants, being a techie, running a retail store… OR plucking escargot-bound snails off jagged rocks at low tide.

Yet, we humans do all of these things to earn a living and label them as stressful.

In fact, “most stressful” to you could well be “least stressful” to me, and vice versa. To you, twenty-five years could be an eternity of pain and anguish. To me, it might be a heartbeat of joy. Some may consider it a flash of fantasy.

Or perhaps we’ve chosen to suffer what seems like a permanent backache, endless constipation, depression, addiction, or —the opposite— we’ve cultivated some ever-deepening smile wrinkles by choosing to foster a happy, healthy, productive work-and-home balance.

Every end result gives rise and a clue to the source and choices and choice reversals made or not made all along the way.

Where does CHOICE begin and end? Or does it? Maybe it’s an eternal blanket and functions only when we’re aware of its pervasiveness. Surely it doesn’t float innocuously to our shoulders from the heavens and plot to do us in, even as we sit stunned by its presence, and puzzled by its origin and intention.

But: VOILA! As truth will have it, stress doesn’t come from outside of us. It doesn’t come from other people or circumstances—or from our jobs!

All physical, mental, and emotional stress is inevitably the result of a choice we make or have once made (perhaps within this very minute… or a week, month, year, decade or lifetime ago!). So it’s fair to say we can stop blaming others and circumstances for having put us under stress. We have only ourselves to blame.

But blame doesn’t get rid of stress and may even make it worse.

As we have championed ourselves to “bring it on,” we are equally well-equipped to “let it go.” We need only to:

A)  RECOGNIZE AND ACCEPT that it’s the result of a choice we just (or once) made,

 AND

B)  FOCUS OR REFOCUS OURSELVES on the most immediate split-second here-and-now minutes of our lives… our heartbeats, our pulses, our breathing.

When we pay attention to our breathing, our pulses, our heartbeats, we are returning our minds to this very minute, and every passing minute.

Why does this matter? Because stress only exists in dwelling on a past moment (older than a minute, or even a few ticks)… or worrying about a future moment (more than seconds or minutes away) that hasn’t yet come—and may never come!

Simply being aware of this thinking is often enough to make the difference. If you’ve read this far and are not interested in more, at least be interested enough in helping your SELF by trying and practicing these “Are You Breathing?” steps. They work and they’re free!

# # #

Start 2017 SMART. 

 Start with THE 2017-2020 management and staff training and development program:

“MY BUSINESS WORKS” is a 3-part, hands-on, on-location engagement that is Money-Back Guaranteed to make a difference in individual participant commitment and achievement levels, in propelling your business mission forward, and in increasing your sales revenues.

Because these How-To sessions are customized to fit the specific needs of your business, your people, your customers/ clients/ patients, and your sales, scheduling is extremely limited, so act now!

Email Hal today: Hal@BusinessWorks.US or simply call Hal direct at 1.931.854.0474 for a prompt assessment discussion, or to schedule a callback at your convenience. 

[NOTE: Participant ages, educational levels, and physical conditions have no bearing on program content or expected results]

# # #

   Hal Alpiar is a 35-year-experienced professional coach and trainer. A business and career development mentor, Hal actively consults in marketing/PR/sales and stress management. Twice voted “Professor-of-the-Year,” he is also a national award-winning book author and national award-winning branding creator.

Serving clients nationwide since 1981, Hal has helped over 25,000 business and healthcare professional participants in his training programs, classes and workshops, and many more through his published books, articles, and over 1600 blogposts.

 [NOTE: For more details, click on About Hal tab at the top of this page]

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY / CONTENT / CONNECTION

931.854.0474 Coaching for Higher Branding Impact

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

Personal & Professional Growth/ Creative Entrepreneurial Thinking

Breaking Your Back?

Your Word?  Someone’s Heart?

Did you know “STRESS” costs employers over $300 Billion a year?

After 35 years of teaching stress management to business and healthcare professionals, I believe ALL suffering comes from some form of self-induced stress. And studies I’ve seen show that more than 7 out of 10 doctors agree.

Stress does not come from outside sources. Nothing and no one can MAKE us stressful. Stress comes from INSIDE (and until it becomes negative stress, or DIS-stress, it’s not always bad; without positive stress, you’d fall out of your chair!)

Some of us clearly work too hard physically, and suffer physical consequences: backaches, headaches, pulled muscles, sore feet, cut and calloused hands, aching fingers, an increasingly-wrinkled brow –and of course more– can all take their toll. Ask any roofer!

• We blame every thing and every body outside of ourselves all along the way, truly feeling like we are, in fact, “breaking our backs.”

• Yet others of us may put ourselves in the mental/emotional stress-inducing position “between a rock and a hard place” when something happens (or fails to) that causes us to break our WORD.

But unlike the physical “break your back” labor, “breaking your word” is most often accompanied by tightened muscles, mental distractions, angry feelings, feelings of incompetence or inadequacy, emotional outbursts and mental stress, to name just a few symptoms.

• Breaking someone’s HEART can be the most destructive stress of all — and especially if it comes packaged with either and/or both of the above circumstances.

Most human beings (and, I believe, many animals) have had their hearts broken somewhere along the path of life, and know that this is the most traumatizing of all experiences because it goes to the very core of every creature’s emotional existence. And it often triggers an avalanche of mental, emotional AND physical stress!

Regardless of the source we attribute to increased stress— whether physical, intellectual, or emotional– we often head for the nearest relief.

This runs the gamut between medicine cabinets, then drugstores (or dealers), alcohol, tobacco, fortune-tellers, natural healing practitioners, dieticians and chiropractors, primary care physicians, and hopefully, we avoid hospitals and surgery… until next time.

BUT THE BOTTOM LINE is that:

A) Behavior is a choice! That choice can be the moment of upset, or the result of a choice made even years earlier. It is nonetheless, a choice. That being the case, it can be just as easy to make the choice –at the moment of upset– to NOT break your back, choose to NOT break your word, choose to NOT break a heart.

B) The “HOW-TO” of choosing to reverse direction to get better results dictates that your mind be in the present moment, not dwelling on anything more than a minute old (or a minute into the future). It can admittedly be difficult to conjure up present-moment awareness in the midst of trauma . . . unless you choose for it to be easy!

C) The best, easiest, most-effective way to choose a non-stress-imposing action or thought to eliminate or minimize the trauma of the moment is to first: be aware of and acknowledge your upset feelings, and remind yourself that you are choosing them, then: second…

D) Follow the simple, quick, discreet (the more you practice, the less noticeable) steps outlined HERE . Your persistence at doing this even for a minute, even while in a discussion, will calm your nervous system and send more oxygen to your brain. It works no matter what age, physical condition, or type of upset feelings.

MORE?

Give me a call. I run sessions like this by phone,

and in person with employee groups and teams

to help relieve the employer burden of paying

for the results of employee stress.

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY/ CONTENT/ CONNECTION

931.854.0474 Coaching for Higher Branding Impact

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

Personal & Professional Growth/ Creative Entrepreneurial Thinking

WISHING FOR CREATIVITY?

Take this lesson from farmers:

Stop wishing and start cultivating!

• If you truly seek or expect creativity (or crops)  to flourish—plan your objectives, strategies, and tactics… dig the soil, get rid of the rocks, add nutrients, plant seeds, provide water, allow for sunshine, and get rid of energy-draining weeds.

  

• If of course you prefer fantasyland, go right ahead. But for your own wellbeing and those who live and work with you, don’t waste time looking for shortcuts, and don’t waste energy under some false pretense that you dwell in reality.

• So, okay, you ARE serious about wanting to be more creative, and/or wanting to find more creative souls to support your quest, here are some tips I guarantee will kickstart your creative juices, or the talents of those to whom you delegate. And age is not a factor.

• Study and practice stress management so your emotions, body and mind are better prepared to free up and stimulate creative deeds and thoughts that already exist. You may think you or someone else has no real creative skills, but the truth is that the talent IS there; it just may not have been productively stimulated. Learn how to use deep breathing to untangle your creative spirit.

• 
  

  Dismiss trivial, unimportant problems. Farmers don’t bother with stray pebbles. Stop torturing your mind. Simply learn to say to yourself: “Oh, well…” and then move on, when small things don’t go your way. Expectations, remember, breed disappointment.

• Do things differently. If you wash your left side first when you shower, switch over to wash your right side first. Take a different road to work than you normally do, even if it means getting up a few minutes earlier. Notice what you see along the way. Force yourself out of bed one morning and watch the sun rise. Serious!

• Take creativity trips and make creativity visits… fair grounds, animated movies, art and sculpture museums, a symphony instead of “Top 40,” a crafts show, daycare center or kindergarten, experimental theatre, an animal shelter, flower gardens, zoo, waterfalls, caverns, rivers, lakes, the ocean, a walk in the woods… ANY AND ALL with your eyes and ears and nose and tongue and fingertips alert to what’s new and different.

• OBSERVE people. Sit with a notebook in Grand Central or Union Station, or a sidewalk café, a high school or college sporting event you wouldn’t normally visit, a graveyard or cemetery, ask for a tour of your local fire department, or—if you’re really brave and have a strong stomach—a local jail. Visit a manufacturing plant… and observe and listen and absorb new images and thoughts and ideas.

• Keep a journal for 3 weeks. Date each entry. Heading for left-hand page: “WHAT HAPPENED” and for facing right-hand page: “HOW I FELT.” Among other things, this helps improve your ability to separate fact from opinion. Can’t think of what to write? Then draw something. Spit on the page. Do SOMEthing each day!

• All this is for openers. And completely up to you. But if you want more, let me know.

If you stumble and fall, get up.

Brush yourself off.

Think about what happened.

Adjust the process or steps you took.

Then do it again!

After all, your new found channels of

creativity could be birthing the next

“Nationwide is on your side” or “Got Milk?”

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY/ CONTENT/ CONNECTION

931.854.0474 Coaching for Higher Branding Impact

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

Personal & Professional Growth/ Creative Entrepreneurial Thinking

IN SEVEN WORDS, WHO ARE YOU?

If you can’t answer that question for your SELF and

for the business you own or operate or represent,

odds are no one else can answer it either…

and it’s a good bet that things are

probably going nowhere fast!

Think about this:

With very rare exception, every great branding line, theme line, identification line, logo line, jingle line, motto, slogan,

and email “Subject” . . . is 7 words or less.

This is not to suggest that websites and online articles should be short. Remember, that just because you have great graphics to offer or viral- bound videos or Earth-shattering embedded links included doesn’t mean you can expect sales or even attention.

On the Internet,

Graphics may serve to attract attention, and maybe even stimulate desire, but words are what sell. Words bring about action. Words deliver satisfaction. Words alone can answer the only “radio station WII-FM question” every consumer has with every purchase:

Successful exceptions to the 7-words-or-less identity formula are few and far between, and are usually the product of creative and manage- ment teams that work days on end —often weeks or months. The right words do not come easy, especially for those branding lines that succeed at breaking the 7-words rule of thumb.

Examples that come to mind are often created with intentional violation of limited word memorability by going way over the top (like the purposefully-long catchiness of ACE Hardware advertising phraseology and rhythm) . . . or by segueing a 7-words-or-less message directly into a memorable piece of music (like Farmers Insurance: “We are Farmers… dum, da, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum”). Yes, and sometimes one small extra word will cut it: “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.”

But REALITY? Reality is that “7 words or less almost always work best” . . . which is why the challenge attached to coming up with those words is so daunting. It’s not a matter of going into a closet with an armload of junkfood, and emerging a couple of hours later with the “genius” one-liner.

The kinds of 7-words-or-less combinations that work magic (“Do it!”, “I’m lovin’ it!”, “America runs on Dunkin’”, “Should I stay or should I go?”, “It’s in you!”, “Thank heaven for 7/11”,  “We’ll leave the light on for you”— Add your own!) are most often born only after weeks or months of studying the products, services, markets involved, and even then creating an innovative little twist on the most provocative way to represent the message.

Consider that it’s long been the ad agency absolute rule for successful drive-by billboards to max out at 7 words because more than 7 cannot typically be read and absorbed at parkway speed. The same is true for email subject lines. Here, by the way, in case you missed it, is a “Clear Channel” billboard with no words OR graphics… just their name on the “provider plate” at the bottom:

Most ideal, of course, is:

A)  to have 7-words include the brand or company name (but it needs to be a natural fit; forcing it defeats the purpose), and/or

B) to use a (good taste) double entendre whenever possible, and

C) to, of course, rhyme when the occasion permits.

The trick is to make it all flow in a natural way… especially in the use of humor! When anything seems or feels forced, it defeats the purpose… and will usually backfire.

Here’s an assignment you can do, and grade yourself on: Carry a piece of paper with the first 7 words you can think of that describe your SELF and the first 7 words you can think of that best describe your business. Look at it every day for a week and as you do, edit it, change and substitute words. Keep at it even after you think you have an “Aha!”

(BUT BEFORE YOU KISS YOURSELF IN THE MIRROR BECAUSE YOU HAVE JUST PRODUCED BRILLIANCE, and just for curiosity, how do your two sets of words compare?)

[Hint: You’ll wish you had done this pen to paper and kept each scribbled out version along the way. That scenario learning curve far surpasses electronic notepad use.]

MUCH more about all this in quick take-home thoughts that span decades of successful branding experiences can be found –no obligation, no tracking cookies, no arm-bending, no strings attached, no bombardment of followup emails, no deals— just good free input stuff at https://www.halalpiar.com/todays-branding-tip/

# # #

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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

Hal@Businessworks.US         931.854.0474

Guidance to 500+ Successful Business Startups

Creating Record-Sales for Clients Since 1981!

“Today you are you,

that is truer than true.

There is no one alive

who is youer than you“

— Dr. Seuss

“Show me an authentic boss

. . . I’ll show you a winning leader!”

Real. Actual. Genuine. Bona Fide. Not False or Imitation. “Honest-to-Goodness.” Being Exactly What is Claimed. Good Faith. Sincerity of Intention. Legitimate. “The Real Deal.”

     How many of these qualities do you carry in your pocket and empty onto the table when you’re talking, meeting, and dealing with others? How often? How influenced are you by good or bad moods? By past experiences or self-doubts? By your own past or present choices?

     Does it matter whether the “others” are customers, prospects, employees, associates, investors, or suppliers? Does it matter whether you’re on the phone, in person, texting or emailing?

     How much do incidents, environments, and issues beyond your control play a part?

     What is it that you are most afraid of having others you work with, or sell to, learn about the real you?

What’s in the back of your closet

that you’re choosing to put

in the front of your mind

that’s holding you back from

being the up-front person

you’ve always wanted to be?

     Have you made yourself be a victim of circumstances? Is this an identity you cling to?

     This is not some ridiculous Hollywood exposé, or some empty suit government or political probe. This is about you, your business, your daily performance, and the way you “come across” to others.

     Here’s why it matters. When you own or represent a business, the business is an extension of your ego. It is the career stage on which you have chosen to perform.

     Depending on how true to character you allow yourself to be, and how persuasively you present yourself and ideas, your business will rise and fall with the curtain calls and appreciative audience applause.

     If you elect to play a hard-nosed character, and you’re convincing in that role, you will attract hard-nosed critics and audiences who may not hang around until intermission . . . or who are harder-nosed than you!

     I’m not suggesting you or I or any of us has the ability to simply turn the authenticity faucet on and become (now finally “SAINT“) Mother Teresa. But I am saying that we all have certain qualities of genuineness as human beings.

     Exercising these strengths of character (in spite of closed closets) will serve to free up unnecessarily-guarded business behaviors and–in the process–open opportunities we may never have thought possible.

     It’s a choice that I can encourage, but only you can make. I urge you to take the risk to rise above your past memories, your own doubts and show more customers, employees, and suppliers more of what the real you is all about. Let them see that they can trust your judgement and earn your confidence.

     You don’t have to “become one of the guys” to let others know that you possess compassion and humor alongside your insightful and visionary leadership. Hey, give it a try. You may even like your self better. Have fun!

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY/ CONTENT/ CONNECTION

931.854.0474 Coaching for Higher Branding Impact

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

Personal & Professional Growth/ Creative Entrepreneurial Thinking

BOOST YOUR BUSINESS?

…STOP LOOKING OUT SIDE!

If you thought leadership, teamwork, investors or data-based analysis would boost your business into the spotlight, you’re probably wrong.

All of these are ingredients –that used wisely– can contribute to business success, but none will make the kind of difference that entrepreneurial thinking can deliver. This single quality offers the greatest success dynamic possible.

It is at the heart of all Internet, and tech innovation, as well as product and service-product development.

It is the cornerstone of all brick and mortar and service businesses. Yet it is most often overlooked, unacknowledged, intentionally disregarded, and seldom credited.

But it is entrepreneurial thinking that ignites and electrifies all other business-boosting ingredients. Entrepreneurial thinking is what launches leadership, teamwork, investor support, and data-analysis meaningfulness into a flexible productivity orbit.

Entrepreneurial thinking is the funnel through which energy, enthusiasm, and reality must pass in order to lift a business enterprise off its feet.

Okay, so how does one acquire this magical capability? By nurturing free-spirited approaches to problem-solving.

Is this the same thing as “out-of-the-box” thinking? Not really:

Entrepreneurial thinking has no box to be out of.

It is unconfined to start with.

Sadly, not everyone understands it or has the wherewithal to coax it out onto center stage. Remember (especially academia!!), that entrepreneurship is an instinct — not a learned skill.

But if you are one of those who find this subject elusive, there are others –probably within your own circle of contacts– who readily exercise entrepreneurial thinking processes and who may find the opportunity to apply themselves to your pursuits in ways that prove personally rewarding to them, or at least tempting. You’ll never know unless you ask.

So use it, or find it, or buy it . . . nothing else can truly boost your business to where you think it deserves to be.

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY/ CONTENT/ CONNECTION

931.854.0474 Coaching for Higher Branding Impact

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

Personal & Professional Growth/ Creative Entrepreneurial Thinking