Is Trust An Evasive Quality?

A fictional exchange—–  

• “Listen, Dr. J.M., it was like pulling teeth here to get my manager to get this deal done for you today; we don’t usually…”
• “Trust me, Mr. Ripsuoff, you don’t ever want to pull teeth!”
• “Hey, why should I trust you?  You’re a dentist.  I only trust dentists when I’m in the chair!  Ha!  Ha!”
• “Well, why should I trust you?  You’re a car salesman.  I only trust car salesmen when they’re at home asleep!  Ha!  Ha!”

                                  ___________________________________

     Trust does seem to be an evasive quality these days, but –simply for that reason– it IS what customers, clients and patients want most.  In fact, it’s surprising but true that with most people buying into media exaggerations of economic woes, that more customers are actually in search of trustworthy businesses and sales reps to do business with than they are in saving a few dollars.

The bottom line is that the most desireable commodity a business can offer in today’s low trust-dominated industrial and consumer marketplaces, is high trust!

      Okay, this is not a huge problem for long-established companies, say 50-100 years old.  But because high trust has a lot to do with reputation, high trust pursuit is clearly an issue for young and new companies.

     So you’re young or new, whaddaya do?  [Sorry, the poet surfaces occasionally.]  First, you forget everything you ever knew about bending over backwards for customers, clients and patients because now you need to go one better and virtually stand on your head for them.  It’s possible, but unlikely you could ever over-communicate with them.

     I’m not talking about running your mouth; I’m talking about using frequent website updates, and blogs (because blogs attract increased search engine rankings which attract website visitors and interaction which attract sales), and emails, and telephone follow-ups and “how goes it?” calls.  And, by the way, NOTHING beats a personal handwritten note!

     In its heyday, IBMs motto was that

“The sale begins after the sale is made!” 

     Service.  Good service enhances reputation.  Voila!  Reputation unlocks the high trust treasure chest.  Who cares?  You should.

    “The demand for transparency,” says online publisher Angelique Rewers, “is at an all-time high.”  No longer, she says, do we have the luxury of communicating different messages to different audiences.  The instantaneous mindset of the social media revolution has changed this landscape, probably forever.

     As a young or new business, this means speaking the truth with a single and consistent voice to all customers –internal as well as external– ALL of the time, without exception.

# # #

     Your FREE subscription: Posts RSS Feed

Hal@Businessworks.US

“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! 

GO SIT IN YOUR

OWN WAITING ROOM!

     Every business has some kind of space designated as a waiting area for customers, clients, patients, associates, suppliers, sales reps, delivery people, visitors.  My best guess is that YOU (the owner/ operator/manager/professional practitioner . . . the boss!) haven’t sat in that space for more than a half an hour for a very long time, if ever!

     Yet, the waiting area is your most important first-impression, “silent salesman” customer service space you have, and odds are that it is undermining many of the positive values you are trying to convey and represent.  Even those spaces that are comfortably furnished and decorated can be screamingly UNcomfortable!

     Don’t make the mistake of assuming that because a waiting area space looks nice, that it is.  Be sure!  Go there in the middle of a typical workday, and sit there for 45 minutes.  Take some deep breaths.  Pretend you’ve never been there before.  Take a notebook and jot down what you see and hear and taste and touch and smell.  

•      Are coffee or other beverages available?  Are they fresh?  The right temperature?  Accompanied by the right supplies and maintained regularly?  Is there a wastebasket or garbage pail there?  Is it plastic bag-lined?  Is it overflowing?  Would you help yourself if you walked in for the first time?
•      Are there bugs, dirt or rust in the overhead light fixtures?  Are the bugs moving?  (HA! Just thought I’d see if you’re awake).  Are ceiling tiles cracked or water-marked?  Are there dead or dying or yellow-leafed plants evident?  Consider what these shortcomings communicate to outside visitors about your business!
•      Is there a TV there?  Does it work okay?  Is it tuned to a non-controversial, non-network, non-news station and maintained there (Weather, Science, History Channels, for example)?  Is the volume of the TV or music appropriate?  Is the floor or carpet stained?  Furniture? 

There are no second first impressions!

     I sat in a waiting room today that measured 16x16ft, with 8ft. high ceilings.  It had a doorway, two large windows, and a corner shelf unit that extended 5ft along each wall it hugged and rose from the floor to within two feet from the ceiling.  Not a lot of wall space, right?  Right.  But guess what? 

     What wall space that did exist –in between a coffee set-up and cabinet, a water cooler and five (5!) floor-stand candy dispensors– held– are you ready for this? — 19 posters and 35 (really!) plaques! 

     And most of that was hard to even notice because the TV was blasting away with warped nonstop network news.  And stupid me thought it would be an opportunity to steal a half hour of stressfree reading and writing time. 

     No, I won’t be headed back there anytime soon.  In fact for the same prices, the competitor down the road apiece offers a clean, quiet, comfortable lounge space for customers. 

     Why should I want to be sufficated by awards and candy machines, overhead lighting that blinked and a blaring TV spewing out continuous doom and gloom updates in between commercials for drugs to ask your doctor about that work wonders for you but have death as a possible side effect?  Duh. 

So, you know what?  You owe it to yourself and your business or professional practice to take a good hard look and listen to your waiting area, and give it a regular checkup.  Magazines do get torn and tattered, rugs do get spilled on , light bulbs do go bad, bugs do crawl around . . . and sales do get lost!          halalpiar  

GET YOUR FREE EMAIL SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS BLOG BY CLICKING ON  Posts RSS Feed

# # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 160 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

Others are not living

in your shoes…

     When your business is struggling is not the time to be joining hands with other struggling businesses.  It’s time to bail out and back off all your good-intention, admirable community do-gooder projects before they end up flushing you down the tubes and out of existence.  There comes a time when you need to muster your forces to be able to come from a position of strength.

     Clinging to involvements with borderline business value when your business is suffering, for example, simply because they’ve gained you a reliable, responsible reputation in your town or county –and you’re reluctant to let anyone down who’s counting on you– is just plain stupid!  

     The local chamber of commerce and Rotary Club and Kiwanis and Little League managed just fine before you got involved and they will survive economic downturn times because someone will always run to the rescue.  But, if your business is sliding rapidly downhill, and you’re starting to worry about upcoming meals, get off the public service merry-go-round and tend to your own needs until you are back on your feet. 

Is what I am doing this very minute

leading me to where I need and want to go?

. . . is the first question you must ask yourself. 

And, once I get to where I need and want to go, will I then be in a better position to contribute even more time, money, and effort to achieving the community goals that my present pursuits alone are draining from me and my business?

. . . is the second question to answer.

     Don’t be worried about what others will think.  Others are not living in your shoes.  Others are always quick to drain your resources when they don’t want to contribute their own.  No one will fault you for doing what you have to do to survive. 

     And in this economy, you need not feel ashamed or embarassed.  Instead, feel smart that you are taking proactive steps to make yourself better and put youself in a position to be able to contribute more to your community.  Others will be much happier to see you return a year down the road and come roaring back into the organization running on all cylinders. 

     Tuck in your tail.  Realize that the best thing you can do to help others is to help yourself first so you can be in a position of strength to reach out to those who need it, instead of offering your hand while you are standing on thin ice yourself.  Take a sabbatical and work to restore the solidity of your business foundation.     halalpiar

GET YOUR FREE EMAIL SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS BLOG BY CLICKING ON  Posts RSS Feed

# # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 157 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

What’s going on, America?

Got economic guilties?

Who’s confiding in whom?

“Trust me…!”   “To tell you the truth…!”   “Let me tell you like it is…!”   “Okay now, this is no B.S….!”   “To be honest with you…!” (or even worse): “To be perfectly honest with you…!”   “To be totally honest with you…!”   “To be 100% honest with you…!”   Whew!  Wait right here.  Let me run and get my hip boots and shovel!

I have heard every one of these statements in the past couple of weeks.  They have come from a wide range of product and service salespeople . . . including senior salespeople who should know better! 

I have noticed some variation of these little “aside” comments in two different TV commercials, three radio commercials and four different print ads.  I saw the same or comparable wording on two websites and in three blogs.  It was even in a news release!

What’s happening here? 

The mainstream media is driving us all into the ground with relentless reports of the glass being half empty!  This bombardment of negativity is creating a tsunami of low trust in business.  And that is prompting piles of desperate businesspeople engaged in marketing into thinking the only way to keep their jobs is to reverse the trend to low public trust by proclaiming that they are telling the truth. 

Only trouble is by doing that, they are simply causing the public to doubt them and wonder what the hell they’ve been saying right along (maybe for years in some cases) that NOW, all of a sudden, the truth is coming out!  Like the proverbial lady who “doth protest too much,” every statement of the type noted above is a step in the direction of casting even greater doubt and DIStrust!  A vicious circle.

And doesn’t it all remind you of the classic sales character who looks right and left over his shoulder while twisting the ends of his moustache and whispering, “Tell ya what I’m gonna do for you…”?

Do NOT tell people to trust you, or believe you, or that now –at long last– you’re going to be honest.  This junk makes you look bad.  Period.  When these expressions pop up (even in unconscious references) as part of your spiel, or your advertising, or on your website or in a news release, they will collapse any consumer confidence you may have already succeeded at building up.  You are killing your self!

Just TELL the truth.  Don’t tell people THAT you’re telling the truth!  EARN customer confidence and trust.  Don’t talk about it!  People buy from businesses whose marketing walks the walk!  halalpiar  

GET YOUR FREE EMAIL SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS BLOG BY CLICKING ON  Posts RSS Feed

# # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 155 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

COMPUTER UNDERWARE

I was prompted into a business consciousness stream today by a reference I saw to socio-economic, attitude, and taste divisions between generations having symbolic significance in changes over the years represented by underwear.

I noticed the analogy in Angelique Rewer’s brilliant online publication, The Corporate Communicator www.bonmotcomms.com , and remembered a Time/Newsweek/Sports Illustrated ad I did (over 25 years ago!) for a fledgling computer service company. 

Over an illustrated ghosted assemblage of computer hardware and floppy disks (You DO remember those? They came after carbon paper), the headline said simply:

COMPUTER UNDERWARE

The copy that followed reasoned that “HARDWARE & SOFTWARE CAN GET YOU NOWHERE without COMPUTER UNDERWARE, the ongoing professional training and reliable service support you’ll require to go under your hardware and software . . . “

You’re stunned, huh?  Hey, it was Toms River, NJ, in the early 1980’s.  What did you expect, “I’m Lovin’ it!” or “It’s In You!”?  I could count the personal computer owners I knew on one hand then.  It was strictly an elite IBM and knock-off business market then that was focused on word processors in law offices. 

Take my word for it, for it’s time, my ad was ahead of it’s time.  

Much of what an entrepreneur does in life is ahead of its time. 

I’ve seen (and still have 30 year-old samples of) interlocking plastic bottles that would have revolutionized the shipping and warehousing markets because two cartons worth of bottles could be packed in one carton and cartons could be stacked 2-3 times higher.  Too much, too soon.  Too undercapitalized.   

How about “Clear” windshield wipers?  Spectacular prototypes made everyone oooh-aaah, but not enough funding to break through market monopolies.  3-D motion analysis for physical therapy . . .

On the surface, lack of money to make ahead-of-their-times products and services go, but underneath –the UNDERWEAR—is always lousy, self-centered, self-absorbed, fantasyland day-dreaming management that has great ideas, great intentions, great persistence, and no realistic sense of what it takes to bring their babies into the world and nurture them to maturity. 

Bottom line: Entrepreneurial inventing, innovating, and selling rarely come equipped with savvy management skills – money management, people management, task management. 

If you are an entrepreneur, study management or find management you can trust to work with you.  But don’t keep wasting your time and money and energy banging your head against the wall trying to move forward.  The wall won’t move.          halalpiar 

# # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 153 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

“Failure is an event,

not a person.

Yesterday ended last night, and

today is your brand new day.”

– World renown motivational sales guru ZIG ZIGLAR

(And special thanks to Zig’s son Tom)

Because you run your own business, you subject yourself to a steady diet of challenges.  When you’re faced with challenges, your mind automatically shifts to having expectations.  Expectations breed disappointment. 

Let me say that again:

Expectations breed disappointment! 

So here you are, steadily challenged, trying to see problems as opportunities, and trying not to have any of those nasty expectations.  Because you run your own business, you undoubtedly have plenty of reasons to take home angry feelings or feelings of failure. 

And since no one’s ever taught youto turn them off, or remind you that you’re CHOOSING them, sometimes you do swish (or clomp) your way into the entranceway of your home, loaded for bear!  But you know what?  Your spouse, your kids, your dog, the neighbor’s cat are not the growling, bloody-fanged enemy killers that batted you around all day.     

So, tune your brain to another station!  Tune in to easy-listening.  Take some deep breaths.  [See 4-step “Are You Breathing?” feature under Magazine Articles tab above.]  Remember that Failure is an EVENT, as Zig Ziglar says, not a person.  Not you.  You may have experienced a failing set of circumstances, but YOU are not a failure!

Then Zig reminds us that “Yesterday ended last night!”  Whoa, there!  Think on that one for 7 seconds!  Is he talking about literal day and night?  No, but maybe.  Is his point that staying mentally and emotionally attached to past events, in time that is past, makes for an unhealthy present, which can practically foreclose your future?  That’s certainly part of the message.  

If it’s true (and it IS true) that even a single day wasted this way wastes others, then the message should be loud and clear that we must make every effort possible as much of every day as possible to keep our minds focused on what is happening in every passing present moment. 

Make the choice to pack away all the junk that happened on a bad day at work, and leave it at work, so that it is there ready for you to succeed with it when you return on your next brand new day.  Then make it a brand new day at home tonight too! 

Make it your Rule to never choose to go to bed feeling angry or defeated.  Yes, you DO have a choice about this.  Anger and feelings of failure are behaviors.  You choose your behavior.  You can just as easily choose to not be angry and choose to not feel like a failure.  If you think it’s not easy, it’s because you’re choosing for it to be not easy.  THAT is a choice too.  Choose to make it easy.   

# # #

No, this isn’t about donuts!

Here are a dozen leadership arenas:

• Corporate
• Military
• Political
• Industry
• Community
• Organizational
• Family
• Neighborhood
• Religious
• Sports
• Classroom
• Worksite

Where do entrepreneurial leaders fit?  Everywhere!  What about other leaders –those who are not entrepreneurs– are they locked into the individual arenas where they perform?  Not to suggest this is a bad thing; it’s just limiting. 

It’s part of the great appeal of entrepreneurial life that there are no limits.  Yes, there are laws, but no: there are no rules. 

Neither are there any theories to dictate performance because there are no theories of any value because (beyond some common character traits like poor school performances, engagement in childhood enterprises, rejection of authority, and childhood exposure to family business) entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial behaviors cannot be quantified or categorized. 

Yes, entrepreneurs take reasonable risks, but –no– there’s no traditional action plan approach to follow.     

Entrepreneurial leaders pop up in each of the arenas noted above (and many more as well) because in every arena on Earth there is always room for improvement.  Entrepreneurs are the agents of change who step up to the plate, who bring improvements to the table, who have the foresight and resilience to attack a problem over and over to produce the answers they believe in.

Alexander the Great was an historic entrepreneurial leader who proved that innovative strategies and tactics can defeat even the most overwhelming of military odds. 

“America’s Mayor” Rudy Giuliani was a great entrepreneurial political leader for his time and place, and the circumstances that changed our world. 

Cal Ripkin, Jr. was a dedicated entrepreneurial leader with his never-say-die attitude that re-invented value systems in the world of baseball – and all of sports. 

Mother Teresa, Frank Lloyd Wright, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Ghandi, and so many more you could surely name . . . people whose entrepreneurial spirits have in some way made a difference to us all.  Though each of the kinds of leaders we’re talking about here made their mark in one arena, none ever limited themselves in the lives they live or did live.  Who would be on YOUR list?

What do those noted above (plus those you can think of) share?  What qualities would you list?  Here are a few for starters: Persuasiveness, Assertiveness, Communication, Self-Reliance, Self-Confidence, Insight, Recognition that behavior is a choice, a strong focus on the present, the ability to cultivate (cross-pollinate?) leadership in others.  What would YOU add to this list?   halalpiar

 # # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 151 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

” Entrepreneurs are agents

of change BECAUSE they

reject traditional approaches.”

     I just read a blog post that goes into the depths of theoretical discussion about what is attracting entrepreneurial innovation and it suggests that entrepreneurs care about this slop. 

     The author goes so far as to toss out my 30 year-old “Entrepreneurs are the agents of change” quote that I picked up from Entrepreneurial guru Bob Schwartz when I attended his New School for Entrepreneurs in Tarrytown, New York, back in another lifetime, and this Disneyland bloggette uses it as justification for further suggestions that entrepreneurs run on theoretical fuel.

     Please people.  Entrepreneurship is a state of existence brought on by those with independent business streaks running through their blood that are far beyond being able to be classified in any kind of theoretical dissertation.  Entrepreneurs are agents of change BECAUSE they reject traditional approaches to doing things.  And certainly, they have no regard for theory under any circumstances.

     Let’s put away all the B.S. rationalizations and just accept the fact that entrepreneurs cannot be quantified or categorized by any standard or traditional measure.  And you know what?  Thank God!  Entrepreneurship is what’s made this country great.  It’s the reason there is even a shred of optimistic existence in today’s economic suckiness. 

     Leave entrepreneurs alone.  Be grateful they exist.  Nurture them.  But stop trying to figure them out, and PLEASE don’t pretend they care about your theories.  They care only about pursuing their ideas and convictions.  They care only about making things happen.  If you’re going to analyze them, be one first.  You’ll realize how foolhardy your psychoanalysis ambitions can actually be.    halalpiar   

 # # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 150 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

“Opportunityville” . . .

every entrepreneur’s weekend! 

     Prowling America’s corporate halls on Fridays still produces an eerie aura of management abandonment and employee lethargy.  Given that weekends in this country now seem to start on Thursdays, the fact is that Fridays have become a sharp thorn in the side (poke in the eye?) to 9-5’ers who can’t sprint from their offices to their weekend festivities fast enough! 

     “HA!” you exclaim, “Good riddence to bad garbage!” you rudely proclaim.  Why?  Because YOU are an entrepreneur! 

     You started, or are in the process of starting (or probably both), your own business and you are TGIFing all over the place because now (FRIDAY!) starts the best time of the week to get some productive work done. 

     For the first time since last Sunday night, you have wrangled your way through 50 or 60 hours of sweat equity without financial disaster or customer base collapse, and have now earned the blessed arrival of 5pm Friday when –like living a dream– you can finally work for two whole days more with no interruptions. 

     It’s time to followup, catchup and plan (sounds like a law firm!).  Weekends, to you, are Opportunityville! 

     At last there’s no one around to bother you.  It’s your chance to think through how you’re going to shoot your business out of the cannon Monday morning . . . or how you’re going to open your 27th business while you keep juggling businesses 21 through 26.  (1-20 are either running on their own or –more likely– folded or sold or squandered or lost, but big-time learned from). 

     That’s okay.  It is, you know, what entrepreneurs do best is learn from their mistakes, get up and dust themselves off, and plunge back into things from a different direction. 

     Imagine what a solid strong economy we’d have today if corporate and government executives who are floundering around in their vast sea of incompetency could do what entrepreneurs do! 

     But asking them to learn is really asking too much.  It would after all fly in the face of their instincts to believe that they need only repeat what failed, again and again, until it eventually succeeds, which of course it doesn’t. 

     If you just clicked on this post and are reading this because you were perhaps thinking about igniting those deep-seated entrepreneurial fuses that you think you have because you had a lemonade stand as a kid, and you were thinking that this whole life pursuit direction seems glamourous, think again.

     Being an entrepreneur means being committed.  It means your business will be your spouse.  It means you may be living for your business more than your family.  Always?  No, but neither does it always rain (unless you’re in Ireland, where you carry your raincoat as often as your wallet!). 

     As an entrepreneur, you must be prepared to think, then act (vs. corporate tendencies to think, then think, and think again) every day . . . and especially on weekends! 

     TGFE = Thank God For Entrepreneurs!  Without them, we’d have zero jobs and no economy whatsoever!  Now, if we could just get government decision makers to make some decisions that assist small business in creating real and meaningful job growth . . .   halalpiar         

# # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 149 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

The secret of college is

in learning how to learn.

Make your kids work to earn at least part of their college education.  Even if you can afford it, don’t give them free college, especially business majors!  They won’t appreciate it, and no matter how great their grades may end up because they are unencumbered from having to work, the odds are they will fail in business.  Disagree?  Read on.

First of all, this advice is coming to you from a former two-time business professor-of-the-year and student work internship program director who is also an entrepreneur (having helped start hundreds of successful new businesses) on top of solid Fortune 500 corporate experience.

At some point your college-bound son(s) and/or daughter(s) will have to face the reality of the need to gain real-world work experience.  Sooner is better than later.  And, in fact, it’s been my experience that those who hold jobs while attending college tend to be universally better performers both in class and on the job.  

Most college and university internship or cooperative education programs produce vastly superior students AND better workplace candidates.  Why?  Because nothing in any business textbook or computer program can come close to the value of hands-on experience gained on a factory floor, a retail store, a business or professional practice office, a showroom, studio, warehouse, or any form of sales.

Be aware that in today’s and the foreseeable future’s business climate (unless a college graduate is headed toward a career in law or medicine or allied medical sciences), college grades matter to absolutely no one except maybe the students and maybe the parents.

Recruiters and hiring interviews are more focused today on candidate answers to open-end questions.  How someone handles herself/himself on his or her feet (and has shown the ability to apply on-the-job experience to the classroom and vice versa) is light years more important than what an individual memorized in a management course, or than reiterating what is already on the person’s resume.

The truth is most business employers prefer an ambitious 2.5 GPA graduate with good communication and social skills who worked his or her way through college in a sales or office or manufacturing position, than a 4.0 GPA graduate with zero real-world work experience, who mumbles, shakes hands like a fish, and can’t look you straight in the eye.  That shouldn’t be surprising.  Wouldn’t that be your preference too?          

Sorry to burst bubbles here, but the secret of college is not being able to ace tests in accounting, finance, management, marketings, sales, advertising, economics, retailing, promoting, packaging and pricing, public relations, Internet business, etc. 

At least two truisms support this platform: 1) There are no rules in business.  Business moves forward by experience and innovation, not formulas, 2) The secret of college is in learning how to learn.  Subjective teacher ratings are far less important than having learned how to learn.

If you’re sending your kids off to college to learn business, let them prove to themselves that they can earn business learning by working while they learn.  The ROI is better for all involved.  

# # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 148 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.