Grab Your Hat

and Get Your Coat

  . . . Then Take

These 5 Steps!

     Think you’ve heard it all? You have. You’ve read the management books, trade magazines and professional journals. You’ve watched every TV special that’s related to your business. You’ve sat through endless repetitive lectures, webinars, seminars, workshops, blogcasts and stage presentations by big-name motivational speakers.

     You’ve checked hundreds of related websites and thousands of related online stories and emails. You’ve even listened to and interpreted the deep-down meanings of favorite songs and the advice of favorite uncles.

     You’ve listened to the warnings, scoldings, and tidbits of genius dished out over your lifetime by your mother, your father, your teachers, business and marriage partners, and even — in your weaker moments — politicians.

     You’ve heard it all!

     Now it’s time to do something productive with what you know, to put all that input to work. Make it make money for yourself and your family, steer it in the direction of building/strengthening  the reputation you want for yourself and your business, enlist your knowledge in directions that will help others to improve their self-worth. How?

1. By recognizing first and foremost that what you do or don’t do with what you know is your choice.
2. By priming your pump.  Take some deep breaths; get regular 3- times-a- week exercise; sleep and eat better. The more the merrier, but any and/or all of this will make you feel better and perform better.
3. By sorting out your ideas and the information that works best for you in your situation right now. [These are different for everyone] Prioritize them, then start on making Number One happen and keep at it to the exclusion of all the others; then, move on to Number Two, etc.. The most important first step is to take the first step. Some action is always better than no action.
4. By remembering Winston Churchill’s famous battle cry: “Never give up. Never, ever give up!” Be tenacious. Be persistent. Be persevering. Stick-to-it-tive-ness sells! And when you do what you do with grace and respect and confidence, you will engage others, not chase them away.
5. By recognizing that EVERY customer and prospect has an ego that’s as least as big as yours, but has not perhaps promoted it in the same ways. Back off your own self-indulgence and become a fan of the person/company/organization you seek to sell.

     Bottomline: You HAVE heard it all. You KNOW what to do and how to make it work for you. You know this in your heart and you know it better than anyone else could possibly know. You’ve just spent too much time questioning and delaying and doubting yourself. If the risks involved are reasonable ones, put your peddle to the metal. There’s no such thing as a second first chance.

Click Here to work with Hal!                                        

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! 

Yes, you get

what you pay for!

Stop wasting time looking for magazine articles to guide your way. 

     You will not find actionable, productive problem-solving steps to take in magazines. The so-called experts whose guest-lecture style writing is published routinely in trade and professional journals may arouse your interest, and may carve out some fascinating new research directions, but odds are they haven’t a clue about the kinds of help you really need.

     How can I say that so authoritatively?

1) Common sense dictates (and has been soundly proven) that the best solution to any group, organization or business problem lies within the group, organization or business that has the  problem. A good, experienced outside consultant brought in under your wing can quickly integrate into your group, organization or business— plus bring  invaluable, informed, fresh perspectives to your table. 

People who are skilled at this are generally too busy with hands-on activities to be  writing about their experiences. And even when they do manage to squeeze in a story or two, it will never be de-fined with the exact same dynamics that are giving you headaches.

2) Early on when I couldn’t make enough money consulting, I used to write many of these milquetoast monologues. And, I can assure you, practical application never factored in as long as the publisher or editor was happy and I got paid.

Besides, what on Earth would a publisher or editor know about your business? Most of them can’t even tend profitably to their own affairs. It’s like inviting  the wholeheartedly incompetent federal government to step in and run your business.

     So, let’s get back to the kinds of help you really need. First of all, you need an action approach and realistic, flexible thinking support. Whatever you might read in a trade or professional publication is not likely to be action-oriented, and even if it is, it surely won’t be flexible and realistic enough to apply to your unique needs. While problems are not usually unique, solutions–real ones, lasting ones–typically are.

     The current issue of a major industry trade magazine features a cover story titled “The Making of a Manager” and proceeds to say nothing of any useful consequence. Instead of providing some insight on how to initiate manager development, the article focuses on all the reasons (mostly questionable) to promote from within rather than hire from outside.

     The article offers no input about the important differences that need to be addressed between, e.g., being a sales or customer service rep vs. being a sales or customer service manager. There’s no attention given to the most critical step involved with “The Making of a Manager” which is learning to let go. In order to do the job of motivating others to do the tasks that one used to do firsthand, requires learning how to let go of doing the tasks oneself.

     This is no doubt not addressed because to do so would upset the writer’s premise and purpose to promote internal promotion instead of finding the best person to do the job. 

     BOTTOM LINE: Read trade and professional press items that interest you, if you have the time, but don’t expect to find lasting and productive answers until you’re willing to bite the bullet and pay for someone who can help coach you and guide your people through the solution process.

Visit Hal at www.TheWriterWorks.com

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Only 16%

of Thirty Million

US Small Businesses 

Use Social Media!

     We have already recently heard that fewer than half of America’s 29.7 million small businesses actually have their own websites, and were astonished. When you’re clicking back and forth to your own and other sites all day, it’s incredulous to believe that everyone else is not. Well, now we have more fuel for the opportunity fires.

     Results of a poll http://bit.ly/bWvym3 commissioned by EMPLOYERS, a small business insurance company, was reported today in Angelique Rewers’ final edition of  The Corporate Communicator (rolling over next week into her new online publication, “BRILLIANCE … Rich, Smart and Happy” — Watch for it. Angelique is a sensational writer and online publisher!).

     The poll is a reality slap! 

     Bottom line: You thought the whole world was TWITTER and Facebook crazy and that any business worth their salt had to be heavily engaged in this explosive new media form with knock-’em-dead marketing messages and links galore. Not according to the 500 small business owners and managers surveyed:  the total number of small businesses using social media for marketing is hovering somewhere around a very unimpressive 16%.

     But what does this mean? First of all, consider the vast untapped market potential this information suggests. What a fantastic opportunity this awareness serves for those who focus their businesses on Internet marketing development, and on small business development and related services.

     Just consider the prospect pool. There are more businesses out there who need what you have than there are those who already have it, and clearly everyone will at some point down the road indeed have both feet in the websites and social media arenas.

     Now add to that mix those who already have websites and social media savvy. They either do or will soon need overhauls, updates, upgrades, revitalizations, and expanded, pizazzed-up, better-functioning services. Nowhere does this ratchet up service needs more profoundly than with content development (copywriting) because word content is king in the visual world of the Internet. [If you need help with this and you’ll pardon my brashness, you can find my rates and services at www.TWWsells.com]

     To top off the survey findings, the majority of small businesses leveraging social media are finding it effective, more than half those interviewed believe that having a social media presence is important, and nearly 60 % who do use it say it has provided value to their businesses. So, how much farther does the gauntlet need to be thrown down to you, for you to consider crossing the moat?

     What are you waiting for?

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! 

When you add

a splash of red

to a sea of blue,

people stop

noticing the blue…

     My wife Kathy (God Bless Her!) has been my business partner for 23 years. It takes an extraordinarily special relationship to survive and thrive in the same workspace AND the same homespace. 

     Oh, but don’t thinkI have a limited perspective on this. I’ve worked with every kind of FAMILY business imaginable … from restaurants, HVAC, farms, clothing, sewage, chiropractic services, heart surgery, landscaping, mattresses, trucking, dentistry, lumber, accounting, candy and travel, to manufacturing of computer and rocket-ship parts that fit under your fingernail. And that’s just my tip- of-the-iceberg list.

     Yeah, you might say, but just doing their brochures and websites doesn’t put you in the thick of things. How do you know what it’s really like? As a management consultant, trainer, coach, and counselor, believe me I’ve seen it all. I’ve managed succession planning, rookie coaching, crisis intervention, family foundations, partnership formations, partnership separations, and one fist fight.  

     The biggest problem with family business is family. Family relation-ships are a hotbed of emotions. Consider the statistics that claim every one comes from a dysfunctional family, which means there are an awful lot of weirdos out there. When the dysfunctional types become part of the family business, people see the business as dysfunctional. When you add a splash of red to a sea of blue, people stop noticing the blue.

Only a handful of really smart family business leaders have the good sense to realize a proven professional can help grow the business AND save the family.”

     When high emotions reign in a family business, you can be sure the business will not be a recommended long-term investment. Business ventures can be immensely emotional and supercharged, but keeping control of all that energy requires great leadership finesse, objectivity, and balance.

     Imagine a ship in a stormy sea, with an angry, blood-vessel-on-the-cusp-of-bursting, near-incoherent, screaming captain at the controls. You’d want to be figuring out the quickest route to the lifeboats. Some family businesses keep these stormy sea antics below deck, but they still take their toll.

You’d want to be figuring out the

quickest route to the lifeboats.”

     Here’s the good news: None of it is necessary. Here’s the bad news: Only a handful of family business leaders have the good sense to realize a proven professional can help grow the business AND save the family. The basic principles of anger management, stress management, time management, communication skills (especially effective listening), goal-setting, and leadership transparency are the ingredients of family business transformation and success. Someone who knows how and when to use these tools can help you get the red splash out of your sea of blue, and steady the controls.  

     The more generations involved, the greater the need. The more family members involved, the greater the need. The solution direction is simple. It takes a commitment to want to succeed, a willingness to share “dirty laundry” with an “outsider” (and a sense of partnership and perseverance with that outsider) to combine forces to make a difference.

     Family business growth and development is directly tied to the 4 R’s: Receptivity, Responsiveness, Responsibility and Respect. If those are present, an experienced coach can help them all work for the good of the business, and the good of the family.  

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! 

“We’ve been

without power

for days, and

all we hear is

‘Yeah, soon!'”

     Been there and done that just a few weeks ago. Let me tell you it’s no fun, especially with an in-home office at 40-degrees, prohibited road travel and no computer access for a computer-based business. Thank God that’s passed (88-degrees today), but recalling the no-heat/no-hot-water/no-power-anything experience, I am prompted to propose that a periodic “Leadership Power Assessment” might prove to be a valuable checkpoint for business owners and managers.

Do your business power shortages promote internal power struggles? Do circuits get overloaded? Do you bring in power washers or introduce power plays with a power lineup capable of delivering a power punch during peak power hours?  . . . Or just rely on flower-power? 

     We all have it. Many wield it. Many use it ineffectively, at the “wrong” times, with the “wrong” people, and in the “wrong” settings. True leaders (military, spiritual, business, educational, sports, home and family, and maybe a handful of government/political types in a few states and lots of small towns) recognize that leadership has more to do with HOW power is exercised than with the amount available. But it must be available. Appliances only work when they’re plugged in.

     Unfortunately, mainstream media continues to believe that the only way to sell advertising time and space is to accentuate the negative, and to focus on making incompetent government leaders appear skillful, well-intentioned, and visionary when they are none of the above. Just imagine one of these national “leaders” running your business for even a week . . . talk about power failure nightmares!

     For effective leadership to happen, power must be exercised transparently with appropriate disclosure of the rationale for a request. Power must be exercised respectfully and diplomatically (except perhaps in military and quasi-military type stress conditions, where captains in storms must order crew compliances without regard for niceties).

     Effective leadership needs also to be anchored in the the reality of best available intelligence resources and findings (turning, for example, to real small business owners for input on legislation impacting small business, or holding customer focus group studies to find out what your customers really think).

     In your own business— as with our national best interests — there cannot be successful exercising of power without the fulltime vigilance it takes to ensure freedom, without carrying Theodore Roosevelt’s big stick while speaking softly. The tools of power must be in place to start with, and fully oiled and maintained if the gentle, warm and fuzzy motivating approach is to ever produce meaningful results. Those who think otherwise are naive in their judgement of terrorist limitations because there are none.

     There is a thin line between flaunting power and quietly having others know it’s available. But removing power from the equation will greatly weaken your business clout and ability to get things done. On a national level, it’s an unforgivable and highly threatening decision . . . all the more reason to shore up what you’ve got invested in your business now, and begin to work at it with a stronger sales focus. Sales are, after all, the only business activity capable of driving economic turnaround. 

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! Blog via RSS feed or $1/mo Kindle. GRANDPARENT Gift? http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

“Go West, young man!

Then South, then East,

then North, then West

again, then . . .”

You may think you’re a creature of habit and that you have your daily routines to follow, but as truth will have it, you consciously or unconsciously reinvent little pieces of yourself every day by choosing the clothes you wear and the foods you eat, the ideas you think about, and even the people you choose to smile or snarl at.

So, you’re already on the path of reconstruction. How about re-visiting the parts of you and your business that are most exposed to others, and decide if those parts are really holding their own, or if maybe it’s time to consider reinventing yourself . . . or your storefront, or your website, or your business name, or your logo, or branding identity, or lineup of services you offer, or the ways you communicate your business message to the the outside world?

I learned that most successful entrepreneurs, and particularly those with service-oriented businesses — whether run from a garage, a kitchen, a fancy office, a warehouse, or the back of a truck — are those who work at staying flexible and at communicating that flexibility to their investors, employees, and customers with the frequency of a Twitter Tweet.

In applying that thinking over the years, I changed the name and identity of my business many times to best fit changing operational logistics and market dynamics. When I left the NY ad agency life for NJ college professorship and was still restlessly seeking a more entrepreneurial existence, I went into business to compete with the college that I believed was too invested in status quo curricula, and I started UNcollege.

As more businesses sent participants to the nontraditional instructional programs UNcollege provided, I switched gears to become Management Training Center. When the recession wiped out business training budgets, I segmented the training programs and took them onto the air waves with my own daily radio show, BusinessWorks On The Air, then into editing Business Talk magazine, as I folded Management Training Center into BusinessWorks.

The media exposure drove more business startups and revitalization consulting and marketing projects my way and BusinessWorks  evolved to specialize in healthcare practice development work. I wrote and published two well-received “doctor” books and opened HealthCareWorks.

As my writing turned more literary, and then more marketing focused, I closed down BusinessWorks and HealthCareWorks and opened my four year-old business, TheWriterWorks.com, LLC. which hosts this blog site and www.BusinessWorks.US and within a week will add a third site while participating as partner in two other upcoming online ventures. I now write business websites, ads, news releases, articles, and books . . . and specialize in reviving struggling organizations with customized ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP consulting services that get results!

None of this is job-hopping, or suggesting of insecurity or fly-by-night businesses. It is the layering on of ongoing knowledge pursuits with fresh, new-look entities — each providing better, more targeted services than the last.

Has it been easy? No. Worth it? Yes. Exciting? Yes. Challenging? Yes. Has it cost client relationships? No; it’s called: “Stay in touch!” Has it cost reputation? No; I’m still me and I still deliver overkill value. Has it opened more doors? Yes.

Reinventing what you do is a reasonable risk because it’s not changing what you do; it’s changing the ways you communicate what you do to better apply your services to take advantage of market need opportunities. Scared? Stay as you are. Bored? Reinvent yourself by challenging the business you currently run to be as spirited as the business you once started.

# # #

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!

“So, ARE you

The Boss,

or not?”

(Part II of II)

    I heard a couple of resistant barks over my post last night which identified business owner / manager / operator limitations as being “self-imposed,” and which attributed business behavioral limitations to titles.

     Okay, I can accept that certain out-of-touch types of people find it difficult to buy into the thinking that they could possibly be doing themselves in, but the truth is that every limitation IS chosen and self-imposed, or is the result some choice that set that limitation in motion to start with.

     As for behaviors attached to titles, one need not look any further than government and corporate life to see evidence of this. For those who inhabit such grand seas of incompetence — titles are security blankets. Titles are used more to impress others than to designate responsibility.  

     Here’s what happens: I ask you what do you do for a living? You define yourself by saying, “I’m a business owner. I run the Outer Space Music Company; you know, songs for the future; that sort of thing.” I ask you for some recent examples. “Oh, my New Release Manager handles those. But I could check my Archive Manager for some older titles. What is it you’re looking for?”

     Well, I hate to tell you, Good Buddy, but if you own and run a business and have to rely on others to answer questions about the products or services you produce, you have let (chosen for) your title to get in the way of success. You are thinking “I am the Boss.

     When you think of yourself AS the Boss, you think you are entitled to let your specialists handle the day-to-day stuff while you go to The Downtown Presidents’ Club, the Better Business Bureau, and the Chamber of Commerce, and lunch with the bankers and play golf with the investors and . . .”

     You have created self-imposed limitations to be doing what you think you SHOULD be doing instead of what needs to be done. 

     There are in each person’s mind different specific sets of words, terms, responsibilities and behaviors associated with every title. Here’s a quick little word association game for your brain . . . What do you conjure up in your mind when I say: “President”? “CEO”? “Business Owner”? “Senior Executive Vice President”? “Practice Administrator”? “General Contractor”? “Captain”? “Post Master”? “Sales Manager”? “Officer”? “Shrink”? “Lawyer”? “Coach”? “Consultant”? “Princess”? “Union Leader”? “Community Organizer”? “Trainer”?

     Try these titles on 100 different people; you’ll get 100 different answers.

     When you think of yourself as “The Boss” you are preventing yourself from taking necessary steps outside that “Boss Box” to move your business forward. You are limiting yourself, and consequently your business. And it’s your choice.

Open Minds Open Doors. 

# # #

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

So, ARE you the Boss, or not?

(Part I of II)  

     Other than bad news from your accountant, there’s very little you can hear that’s worse than, “It’s not my job!”  Nor does it make any difference which of those four words is most emphasized (and of course the absolute worst place any boss can hear these words is when an employee says them to a customer!).

The example, though, serves to make a point:

You’re “The Boss” . . . What’s YOUR job?

     If you want to start making more money by tomorrow morning, you’re going to have to change a few things. If you’re going to change a few things, you have to be very clear and keenly aware of what exists right now — beforeyou charge in with your wheelbarrowful of shovels, dynamite sticks, battering ram, hammer and nails, concrete, and power tools.

     Probably the most important first step (which, by the way, takes at least 3-6 seconds!) is to accept the fact that the sooner you can get yourself to STOP thinking of yourself as a “business owner” or “operator” or “manager,” the quicker you’ll get to that money-making part. Why? Because . . .

Because  the minute you think of yourself as some title, like “the owner,” there are certain defined behaviors and privileges that go along with that title, and each of those is limiting.

They unconsciously require you to behave in certain ways.

They actually block you from exercising your true entrepreneurial pursuits, your innovative ideas, and your ability to move your business forward in high gear.

     To put aside your self-imposed limitations, you must first put aside your thoughts of being “the owner/operator/manager,” and start to think of yourself as more of the free spirit that started your business, or that started working with it from that very first day. Remember that? You were all cranked-up and uninhibited in your thinking?

     Forget about what happened since then and focus on where you are right this minute. And as for “down the road,” if you know where you want to end up, don’t waste time checking the finish line; stay with your heartbeat and pulse and breathing! 

     This “New You” also needs to throw off any and all “Get Rich Quick” schemes. Reality note:There is no such thing! Forget about all those slick email and Twitter and Facebook and YouTube come-ons and one-time-only deals that promise transformation of your life and business into an overnight kingdom for just four easy payments of $29.95.

     Instead, you might give some thought to what you could do for your your business yourSELF for the $119.80 [oh, right, “plus S&H” . . . or now it’s “P&H” . . . “P” for Processing. Apparently “Shipping” is now free and you pay only for “Processing.”  Hmmm, “Processing” PLUS “Handling”? Aren’t employees PAID to do “S” and “H” and “P”?  Is somebody double-dipping?]

     Okay, here it is. This is what you’ve been waiting for . . . 

          To get ready to make more money starting tomorrow morning: 

1) Start focusing on what you can do immediately to shed your mental cloak of limitations that revolve around BEING (insert your title), and instead take 3 bold, positive steps toward framing your business in some exciting new, more realistic, more authentic, more transparent directions.

2) Order more deposit slips. 

 Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

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

Make it a GREAT Day for someone!

THANKS FOR

STOPPING BY!

I Hope you’ll take advantage of my blog post archives (scrolling or search window topics) while I take a blog-breather today and tomorrow.

I’ll be back Monday (4/5) with a special 2-part series for business owners and entrepreneurs on how to adjust your thinking Monday night to start making more money Tuesday morning.

Please join me. I look forward to seeing you then. Best as always – Hal

~~~~~~~~~ Visit Hal’s Recent Guest Blog Posts ~~~~~~~~~

“SHOW ME THE MONEY!” @ http://bit.ly/c7AdQB ; “Don’t Give Away The Store” @ http://bit.ly/b4HumK ; “What Sport Is Your Sales Pitch?” @ http://bit.ly/9cy9xX ; “Every Sales Pro A Small Business Owner” @ http://bit.ly/7K0s4a ; “The SALES Snow Job” @ http://bit.ly/bYHmXx ; “Got A Sick Website?” @ http://bit.ly/6iYe6g ;  “Leadership Puzzles” @ http://tinyurl.com/yfsczbk ; “What’s Your T-Shirt Say?” and “Are You Selling or Juggling Seagulls?”@ http://bit.ly/7K0s4a   

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! Blog via RSS feed or $1/mo Kindle. GRANDPARENT Gift? http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

If you failed to teach a

key employee 

something important

today, are you

missing the boat?

     With what I presume to be 55% of American employees being UNhappy [See yesterday’s blog post below this one], there’s very little “happiness-transition” wiggle room for a business owner or manager to exercise. The first important step, though, in the direction of kicking up productivity is to more fully engage employees in the day-to-day operations of your business. 

     Should you flat out trust the one person who seems most likely to head off to a competitor? Should you risk sharing critical product development or service expense information with people who you’re not confident will even be there in six months? Does it make any sense to encourage the employee your classmates would vote “Most likely to be brain-dead,” who you’ve kept around to do the slug work nobody else will touch? Sometimes the least likely people rise to the occasion. Think on that one.

     How about — instead of asking those questions about your employees — you ask some questions of your SELF? Where, for example, are you and your business headed right now? Where do you expect to be in five years? How (what’s the process you’ll use) do you expect to survive the next five months? What will you be doing differently then than you’re doing today? Why are you waiting five months?

     Keeping on that track for another minute, what’s something new you’ve learned about your business today? What’s something new you’ve learned about your SELF today? (Yes, both events did in fact occur; you just blocked them out or didn’t give yourself enough credit for the discoveries.)

     How will any of that new information help you tomorrow? When was the last time you and your family depended on someone else’s decision making? When was the last time you put yourself in your employees’ shoes and thought about their perspective of your business and your decision making? How do you think dependency feels?

     When was the last time you stopped long enough to teach an employee something important that she or he can use to do a better job, or be able to take home to share with family? Do you take active interest in your people every day? Why not? They may never admit it and you may never believe it, but all studies ever done would reinforce that you can be sure they take active interest in you every day, probably every hour! 

     So, that means you’re obliged to return the interest? No. You’re obliged to do everything you can possibly do to cultivate employee enthusiasm for the work they are doing. When financial reward is not possible, emotional support and psychological reward and teaching by example have to suffice. And if you’re consistent about making those money-substitutes work, they will. All human beings need reinforcement and reassurance. Employees need it from their bosses. Are you on it?                                                                              

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! Blog via RSS feed or $1/mo Kindle. GRANDPARENT Gift? http://bit.ly/3nDlGF