When is a pat on the back

  really a kick in the butt?

A client tells you your service is great, then complains about it later to others. Assuming nothing changed along the way to erode the value of your praiseworthy performance, your sense of anguish may simply be the result of of a mixed message. Mixed messages find their way into everyday business exchanges with increasing regularity.

“Pretty good job . . . for a woman!” is a typical example. “You’re doing this the right way, but you need to slow down and think it through better!” is another. Have you ever heard something like: “We need to move forward with plans to collaborate, but not at the expense of our own department (division, team, group)?”

Mixed messages are nonproductive. Mixed messages often couch hidden agendas. Unlike much problem solving that requires “two to tango” and cannot be realistically addressed by a single entity alone, mixed message situations can be resolved by one person taking preventive measures. These include paraphrasing, note taking, feedback, diagramming, and offering/ requesting examples. 

1)  PARAPHRASING. Instead of simply taking statements at face value and then squirming with them later, ask: “Do I understand you correctly to mean . . . (and repeat back what you think you heard, using your own words)?”

2)  NOTE TAKING. The biggest problem with note taking is that most people do not take notes. And even when they do, they fail to directly request the speaker to allow for it. “Would you mind please slowing down on (or repeating) that point for me  so I can make note of it because I don’t want to forget what you said.” is not just called for; it’s flattering to the speaker. But write it!!

3)  FEEDBACK. Speakers need to pause periodically and take inventory: “How are we doing here so far? Do you have any questions? Is all of this information clear?” Listeners need to politely interrupt periodically and take inventory: “Excuse me. Can we take a ‘Time Out’ minute here to summarize this last bit of information? I want to make sure I understand what you mean.” Write it!!

4)  DIAGRAMS. When speaker or listener is not 100% sure that communications are clear, ask for a diagram of the information; arranging keywords and ideas visually helps ensure accuracy, and can often illuminate a new perspective.

5)  EXAMPLES. Ask for them. Very few exchanges of information fail to become transparently clear when examples are offered and discussed.

Getting tangled up in miscommunication can be frustrating, annoying, and stressful. One person who is determined to “get it right” the first time, and who is willing to accept that it may take longer and be more work, will ultimately experience greater accuracy in dealing with others, and accuracy spells success.                               

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 Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US  or comment below.

Small business owners, doctors, lawyers, accountants, consultants, and sales reps…

It’s all about what you DON’T say!

It’s what you don’t say that makes a sale, that brings in new patients and clients and customers. Try sharing this bit of wisdom with any fast-talk car dealership or mattress store (the most distrusted U.S. businesses) then step back to get laughed at… which, all by itself, should be sufficient to convince you.

It’s true that being on the sales end of the spectrum in any given conversation, presentation, meeting, or conference, carries with it the responsibility to pay attention more, listen more, and shut up more! I’m not always smart enough to DO it, but I try because I think the old axiom that we should listen 80% of the time and talk 20% is true!

Besides forcing me to listen more carefully, the 80/20 formula enables me to be more patient with others and myself. It also prompts me to be more concise, more to the point — we inevitably choose our words and examples more carefully when we do take our 20% slice of a discussion.

People buy from knowledgeable people who excel at active listening. We like to hear –or at least I do– about what we don’t know when we ask for it but, Boy! I really resent the intrusion on my time and mindset by those who flaunt it when I plain just don’t care? Talk does not cook rice!

Oh, and how about those who simply pay no attention to my verbal, facial, and body language signals? How do they miss my scowls, my squinted or rapidly-blinking eyes, my folded arms and jittery feet? Ah, then there are those who stare dumbly into space, or at my shirt collar, shoes or hair (or lack of), or their own hands or feet?

Or, yikes!… their wristwatch!

How many times have you—as a prospective customer/patient/client—been scared off by a know-it-all sales rep/ doctor/ lawyer/ accountant/ consultant? You know the type. “Everything is under control, my friend” (not a particularly ingratiating line from a friend I’ve never met). The great sales asset of genuine empathy is an entirely different matter.

Perhaps you’ve heard someone tell you: “Don’t worry. Be happy.” Worse yet, that was the song my former CPA played on his outgoing phone message. After producing an April 14th “minor” ($10,000) “IRS payment that needs to be paid with tomorrow’s taxes,” you’ll surely understand why I referred to him as “former.”

Instead of hearing and responding directly to my purchase interests and concerns, I get tons of information I don’t care about. And how much do you love token, dismissive head nods offered as pathetic attempts to pretend to be listening, but serving instead as a “yes but” lead-in to the next round of information dumping? Can you hear me now?

Oh, and to underscore the point, many in-person information overload spiels are accompanied by the spieler paying more attention to whom or whatever is going on behind me (or being more tuned into a blinking smartphone). And only heaven knows the distractions that keep telemarketers telemarketing.

Dynamics like these always make it tempting to ask:

“Uh, did you hear anything I just said?”

But I just walk away or hang up. How many of your prospective customers, clients, patients just walk away, or hang up?

C’mon, people! If you’re in sales, or healthcare, or law, or consulting, and you can’t get it together enough to listen attentively enough to prospective customers, patients, or clients, and be able to address their needs, go work for your nearby automobile or mattress dealer. You’ll fit right in.

# # #

Healthcare Leadership Can Mean

Only One Thing… and it’s NOT

Obamacare or “Lean” Management

Thirty years of healthcare and medical practice-development have led me to conclude that some doctors, many therapists and most nurses get it! They understand that healthcare and healthcare leadership is personal, professional and passionate.

Sadly, a great many healthcare business executives and a good number of providers have sidetracked themselves into thinking that HEALTHCARE is all about slogans, smiling doctor billboards, malpractice insurance fees and reimbursement battles.

Reckless opinionated media “reporting” has drawn healthcare providers and business managers into a tangle of confusion. Talking heads thrive on using every opportunity to convolute issues, stir up doubt, be confrontational, and aggrandize politicians who support their network bosses and stockholders. It’s all a game, and we the people are losing.

Increasingly, government political (and more quietly, insurance company) empty suits are playing God. They are continually trying to convince the world that they are answering the call for qualified healthcare leadership. They, after all, proclaim to know more than we do about what diagnostic, treatment, and doctor choice decisions are best for each of us and our families.

They can live in Nevada and pretend to understand what healthcare is about in New Jersey or Tennessee or Maine. I don’t think so! They’re just protecting their own political profiles, pursuits and plans. And many top healthcare executives simply add fuel to the fire by talking and acting like healthcare is simply a maze of administrative or operational management techniques, methods, or styles that they alone have the answers to.

Well, guess what? Reality Check:

HEALTHCARE IS ABOUT PEOPLE!

You’re healthy, you want to stay healthy. You’re sick, you want to get healthy. That’s it! What part of “get and stay healthy” is so hard to understand?

What are all these other hocus-pocus theories, political scams, new tech apps, insurance deals, Congressional posturing, and media “findings” but diversionary tactics? Is it or is it not “dancing around the issues” in an attempt to look good, or to make money, or to win votes . . . instead of just sitting down and solving the damn problem?

Healthcare professionals justifiably rely heavily on emerging technology and associated improvements in methodologies like the “Lean” management fad. But (and this is a big but) . . . BUT these are only tools. In the wrong hands, even a hammer can miss driving nails.

The bottom line is that leadership in healthcare

means stepping up to more than a diagnostic or

treatment provider role. It means having an

Advocacy Attitude . . . being on the patient’s side!

Imagine if every encounter a patient or patient family had with a healthcare provider could be –as was recently noted here in exemplary fashion by Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute provider and provider support staffers– a remarkable, high-five, bend-over-backwards experience . . . professional providers and caregivers acting like advocates on behalf of each patient and family!

Imagine if every patient and patient family could be trained in advance of every provider diagnostic or treatment exam to better manage anxiety. My best guess is that 3-4 minutes of every doctor exam are consumed with getting the patient to relax. With a 12-minute per patient insurance company limit imposed on the doctor in order to be reimbursed, that leaves 8-9 minutes to diagnose or treat . . . none of which ordinarily go well when distress is present. This is not rocket science. It is not a Madison Avenue branding campaign. It is not politics. It is reality.

Done correctly, these solutions cost nothing but initial investments in time and energy and perhaps some coaching. What’s the expected result? More accurate diagnostic readings and better receptivity to treatments. Happier patients and patient families (whose testimonials to others increase volume and referrals), improved staff teamwork, happier provider and staff and their families (who benefit from “take home” method values). Even happier insurance providers.

So, if skills, training and experience are all present, the “tipping point” factor comes full circle back to, yes, bedside manners!

It’s the “CARE” in HEALTHCARE!

# # #

 DOCTORS, THERAPISTS,

PRACTICE MANAGERS

 HOSPITAL EXECUTIVES

. . . ARE NOT

CORPORATE MUCKITY-MUCKS

You and your practice or facility are not likely to be a Fortune 500 corporate entity. So there’s no need to pretend being a marketing guru.

In fact, if you are feeling even a little bit over your head with marketing, you’re likely to be wasting money, time, and energy!

Maybe you’re unearthing a monster budget expense at the behest and/or persuasion of some big-time marketing company, PR firm or ad agency you’re working with or thinking of hiring? It can often feel (and be real) that such entities are simply throwing away your money to create a mumbo-jumbo branding program aimed at earning an award for themselves.

If you’re working with or considering  “experts” who are trying or promising to “position” you as the brightest star in the heavens . . . you may want to re-think it with a dose of reality.

Reality? Yes, you are a healthcare provider. That makes you an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs challenge the system. In healthcare, they use (or retain) innovative thinking to establish, re-establish and upgrade the authenticity of themselves and the “saleability” of their services, careers, investments, and reputations.

You can accomplish this with: much less expense of money, the same expense of time, and sometimes greater expense of energy. Oh, and –by the way– having and practicing a sense of entrepreneurial reality tends to get far better value and results than engaging one of the “big-time-expert” groups noted above.

Just to be sure we’re on the same page here, I’m talking about –specifically– how to increase patient volume, how to stimulate patient and patient-family loyalty, and how to strengthen referral bases, channels, and networks without having to bet the farm!. Is that what you’re looking to accomplish?

Stay with me on the next few weekly blog posts and I’ll tell you HOW… or call or email me (info below) if you can’t wait!

Let’s start with the idea that what truly “sells” people is to be entirely focused on them and not on ourselves. Chest-beating, posturing messages about how great you think you are and smiling-face billboards, ads, and Facebook pages –regardless of expense involved– make no difference whatsoever. In fact, they often do the opposite… annoy, antagonize, create doubt and distrust, and send the people you’re trying to reach galloping off to your quiet competitors.

So do you have to be “quiet”? No, but you do need to be your authentic self. You do you need to be more conscious of the training and talent and experience gifts you deliver in your vital societal role as a healer and healthcare provider. Because THAT is your best marketing!

Is that hard? Of course, especially given the volatility, misdirection, intrusiveness, and mismanagement of government agencies, insurance companies, and today’s Obamacare circus, but –in the end– difficulty (as most entrepreneurs learn) is a choice.

There is much more coming to you at this blog in the hands-on, specific-how-to-steps departments in the days ahead. So, do return for more on how to get started and how to re-start.

In the meantime . . .

CHECK THIS disarmingly true, insightful post

at www.HealthcareTalentTransformation.com  

by David Lee Scher, MD, titled:

“Five Ways Physicians Can Change Patient Behavior“

 # # #

Healthcare Pros STILL

Flushing Money Down the Drain!

Thanks for your visit. We have recently relocated to Cookeville Tennessee (between Nashville and Knoxville), home of Tennessee Tech University. Return here often for new posts in this series for Doctorpreneurs©and Healthcare professionals.

Why not just open the window and throw your money out? Why bother spending it on meaningless, confused thinking about marketing? Why keep feeding the nonperformance of media, mobile apps, direct mail magazines and newsletters, social media and, oh yes, outdoor advertising? Can we look at this open-mindedly?

The business and sports worlds have fed your fires since childhood that you must be competitive at all costs in order to win… that’s 100% false for healthcare professionals! In fact, many healthcare pros have marketing success expectations as unrealistic as imagining that a heart attack can be treated with a BandAid®

REALITY: No one “buys” billboards with smiling doctor faces (or, even worse, the recent trend toward somber looks!). Most people are not so stupid as to think that hospital “magazines” and “newsletters” with feature (dressed-up PR) stories are interesting or meaningful enough to be worth reading. My guess is that –other than the few and far between genuine healthcare educational mailing pieces– most of these exorbitantly expensive items go straight to the recycle pail. All this nonsense came and went thirty years ago. [Interesting how America’s healthcare institutions are accelerating these feeble old-fashioned attempts at marketing. Is it some kind of knee-jerk attempt to cope with the Obamacare muddle?]

BOTTOM LINE: No one cares! The public simply doesn’t care how great hospitals, doctors, therapists (or any professionals for that matter) think they are! Healthcare consumers may have more (and more personal) issues on the line than other kinds of consumers, but they really and truly only care about the same thing that every consumer cares most about: What’s in it for me? Period.

So if you’ve read this far, perhaps it would be useful to explore and reassess your current “marketing” practices, and decide if your money could be better spent on strengthening patient, patient family, and referral network relations. If you’re looking for a role model institution, consider the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center… you’ll find no shallow representations of professional skills… “Treatment” is their specialty, and it applies to everyone who enters their doors. Oh, and guess what? The only expense is training and training maintenance time.

Marketing –if it’s done right– might sometimes succeed at building brand loyalty for some products and services in some markets and marketplaces. But when the two end-results people seek most from healthcare professionals are 1) Reassurance and 2) Trust, it’s not likely either will ever be achieved with empty images or promises.

Doctorpreneurs© Copyright Hal Alpiar, 1994. All rights reserved.

BandAid® is a Registered Trademark of the Johnson & Johnson Company

 # # #

“Got here safe & sound, Y’all!”

AND STILL UNPACKING AND SETTING UP NEW OFFICES . . .

GUESS WHERE?????  Email your guess: Hal@Businessworks.US  (“New Office” in Subject Line) Winning guesses entered in drawing for a FREE first edition signed copy of HIGH TIDE fictionalized account of America’s biggest drug deal! See www.HighTideNow.com

Thank you for your visit.

If you’re new to this blog, please mark your calendar to return on April 16th for the beginning of Tax Return Recovery, and to help kickoff an exciting new series of posts you won’t find anywhere else!

If you’ve been visiting here regularly since the birth of my blog in April, 2008 (and now closing in on 1500 posts), thank you even extra!

You, especially, will want to return April 16th to see what’s in store for innovative, spirited business and healthcare professionals. You’ll get  proven new ways of thinking to boost your sales and make the most of your leadership skills — for profit and nonprofit businesses and professions alike. You’ll get coaching that works in the office and meeting room, on the phone and on paper, on the smartphone and the computer. You will get specific how-tos for building and enhancing your leadership posture in your industry, your marketplace, and your community.

When you return here April 16th, you will get the beginning of an input stream that no one else dares to share . . . on ways to feel better about your SELF (no product or service sales pitches, no lectures, no gimmicks). You’ll get ways to be encouraged, ways to make a difference with your career and family pursuits, ways to rise above the clutter.

You’ll get solid substance based on more years of experience than you probably are old. Not just passive observations, you’ll get frontline/hands-on experience with over 2,000 business consulting and return engagements AND with more than 20,000 students and management training participants. PLUS –as incredible as it’s always been–it will be free on this blog. Try it. You’ll like it. Send your friends.

In the meantime, to better serve our Entrepreneurial Clients (Including Business Startups, SalesPropreneurs©, Doctorpreneurs© and Corporate Entrepreneurs©), BUSINESSWORKS.US and TheWriterWorks.com, LLC will be in the process of relocating to another State. You’ll get the details as soon as we’re settled. In the meantime, Happy Spring!

See you the day after taxes!!!

 # # #

Every Entrepreneur

–And Every Business–

Experiences Exhaustion

The hardest part of being reborn, reinvented, revitalized is knowing when you need it, and then making the commitment to make it work.

For a business, the same entrapments lie in waiting. Does your business need help now? Are your organizational viability, adaptability, finances, and market position in lockstep with zooming technology changes? If they’re not standing tall, do they seem to be plummeting… or slowly disintegrating? Are you prepared mentally, physically, and emotionally to pick up the pieces and lead the charge?

The rate of business exhaustion will of course determine the pace and extent of your pursuit. And even if you’re thinking no special effort is needed, it’s never a bad idea to step back and assess where you and your business are headed. If the present path leads to a cliff, you’re going to want to have a pretty clear idea of  how long it will take to hit bottom.

Why? Because without some sense of the speed you’ll need to crank up, there’s no way to know whether you’ll have the resources, support, and personal energy it will take to get you where you’ll need to go. Being born the first time is pretty hard all by itself. Being born again is definitely not a matter of cruise control.

If you’re too entrenched or stuck or resistant to take the risk of jolting things back into place, or into an entirely new place, but know deep inside that some survival steps are, or will soon be, necessary, it may serve you well to begin thinking more about opportunities than about consequences. In other words, be aware of where you’re headed, but don’t dwell on the sunset. Take a hard look instead to the sunrise!

Avoid falling into a savings frenzy! Cutting back expenses does not make money. Only sales produce money.

So if you’re going to jump on something, jump on sales! Assuming you have a viable product or service and make it available at a price point that’s affordable for the market your business targets, then don’t waste time analyzing who did what to whom and when and why and what the circumstances were. Just jump on sales!

What can you be doing right this minute that

you’re not doing, to be able to help boost sales?

If you’re a true entrepreneur, odds are you’re good at representing your products, services, and business ideas to others. If this does not describe your skill set focus, find a great salesperson ASAP and tie her or him to a great reward system. Don’t give the farm away, but do pull out all the stops that bogged things down to start with.

Oh, and do remember when it comes to getting the support you need from others who work with you, that pulling teammates along gets MUCH more done than pushing them… every time… all the time.

If a bit of personal stress management or self-appreciation is in order to help your psych up for the task at hand, try clicking on a couple of links in this post. Good luck!

Catch you on the rebound

— you and your rebirthed business!

 # # #

 STOP TURNING OFF LIGHTS

AND START SELLING!

Reality: The economy still sucks, and no amount of government or media mumbo jumbo will change that. We are sunken into knee-deep muck in the worst of economic quagmires. Yet entrepreneurs continue to rise and fall with the sun as they position themselves to save every dollar possible.

But saving money doesn’t make money.

ONLY SALES MAKE MONEY! ONLY! SALES!

In other words, being thrifty is good, but being thrifty will not end the revenues nightmare, so adjust your spotlight. to focus on what’s important. 3 things:

1) STAY IN THE PRESENT “HERE & NOW” MOMENT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY HOUR OF EVERY DAY.

2) INVEST IN YOUR SALES EFFORT.

3) MANAGE YOUR STRESS & TIME TO BE MOST PRODUCTIVE.

If you can’t do all three of these, quit trying to jamb your corporate or government brain into running a small business, and –instead– go flip burgers, sort mail, or get into politics. Anyone with some energy and half a brain can be a superstar in one of those roles.

Being successful as an entrepreneur takes gigantic amounts of gumption, endless hours of devotion to an idea, and willingness to take reasonable risks (which, contrary to popular myth, does NOT include “betting the farm”). It requires enormous sacrifice of family time and attention and the ability to ignite innovative thinking in a heartbeat!

No, it’s not a career for everyone. Mostly, because it’s not really a career. It’s a lifestyle. Entrepreneurs don’t shut down at 5pm, they don’t sleep and party all weekend, they don’t gamble or buy lottery tickets more than one or two a month, they don’t over-analyze, they take action and make ongoing adjustments and keep moving forward.

Entrepreneurs are passionate and inspired about what they believe is possible, and that overrides fear of falling or running off a cliff. They don’t get breaks in life. They make them. And they are needed now more than ever. This economy will NEVER turn around because of government. It will only turn IN SPITE OF government.

Government, after all, is what put us in the position of having to worry about saving money instead of earning money. Government is the instrument of uncertainty and the pile-driver that continually forces small business to take steps backward. The SBA? That’s a joke. SBA Advisory Boards are comprised of corporate executives!

So bottom line: Entrepreneurship requires internal spirit to start up and fan the fires of small business success. The road is always rocky. The quest has to rise above all else. But for those who have what it takes, they will leave their mark, and they will drive the economy back to reality. Encourage and support those who fight that good fight!

 # # #

 GUESS WHAT?  You don’t need

January 2014 to think NEW!

Seriously? Just because the new year has begun is no reason to start thinking about new business directions and goals. You can do that ANY time. It’s called attitude adjustment, and I’m not talking about some happy hour event.  It’s a fact that every one of your behaviors is your choice.

It may not be a conscious or present-moment choice. It may be the result of something you choose subconsciously (or “unconsciously” as scientists now define the phenomena) and may therefore be a choice you don’t recall or claim you never made, but the truth will out!

You chose your every behavior (and attitude)

and continue to make those choices every day.

So, what’s with the calendar programming? Many of the most successful businesses in the world were conceptualized or began or expanded or were revitalized in months other than January. I’m not suggesting you ditch your New Year’s brainstorm. I am simply saying it’s your choice to not limit your “NEW” thinking to any time period.

Playing the odds that your competitors are also planning some kind of new year launch right now can set you up for taking the best path to stand out from the pack — by planning to not be part of the pack. Any new business activities you kick off in January or start planning in January can get lost in the hubbub.

Besides, delaying your target date helps ensure you get it right. Being first is not always being successful.

Are you choosing to put undue stress on yourself? You can just as easily choose to make the implementation of your decisions be easy. In other words, it’s just as easy to choose for something (including a new product or service launch, a revitalization program start date, or a new business launch) be easy as it is to choose for it to be hard!

It’s your choice.

and

you become what you think about!

When you choose to push yourself and others to get something done by some imagined deadline, you are choosing increased stress for yourself and all involved. Stress is not always bad, but when stress turns into DIStress, emotional, mental and physical health become threatened. Choose courageously, but choose carefully.

It’s like driving cross country: stay alert!

# # #

God Bless You and Happy,

Healthy. Peaceful 2014!

# # #

Watch where you’re going,