Exceptionally Rewarding?

OR Extremely Frustrating?

     Common to most volunteer groups  I’ve experienced as a management consultant and trainer is that they bite off more than they can chew! Goals are generally vague and too all-encompassing, which creates feelings of frustration, prompts rapid turnover, and frequently results in failure.

     Remember that group goal structures  and criteria are no different than the ones I’ve discussed here for individuals. http://bit.ly/aaCJpz     http://bit.ly/ay6N2C   are two good examples worth checking] 

     For a goal to be a genuine goal  and not a “wishlist” item, you’ll find at the above links — among other points — that a goal must be specific, realistic, flexible, and have a due date, and it must adhere to all 4 criteria. You may want to re-read the last sentence. It contains the guts of establishing goals that work for individuals as well as groups, and it’s worth giving some thought to each of the 4 criteria.

     Why are meaningful goals  particularly important in working with volunteers. Because achievement leads to feelings of success, and feelings of success are the ONLY attributes that can sustain and justify volunteer effort. 

All other problem solutions mean little unless (volunteer group) members feel that they are progressing toward an achievable goal.

     According to  the training profession benchmark University Associates Editors Jones and Pfeiffer in one of their classic  Annual Handbooks for Group Facilitators, “All other problem solutions mean little unless (volunteer group) members feel that they are progressing toward an achievable goal.”

     One way to accomplish the task  of setting realistic objectives — based on consensus and group decision-making methods — “is for volunteers to set aside a block of time to devote totally to planning,” say Jones and Pfeiffer.

     Volunteer groups,  the much-acclaimed editing team experts go on to say, also need to establish meaningful and appropriate contracts between group members and the organization. And these contracts need to spell out what each individual can and will do.

     To function at a high performance level,  volunteers should also have regularly-scheduled group meetings, individual written job descriptions, and a permanent agenda item of “Are we meeting our job descriptions and how should they be upgraded as we go forward?”

     Leadership and accountability  require designation of project leaders and a volunteer coordinator, plus a “buddy system” orientation arrangement for introducing new group members. Rewards (e.g., expense grants, certificates, academic credits, extra training opportunities, news release coverage, commendation letters), and attention to the process that evolves are all critical ingredients in making volunteer group leadership work.    

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Your Small Business

Management Methods 

Getting Stale? Try This.

     It’s already September.  If your business is going to survive the year, you’d better get on the stick! Counting holidays, you’ve only got about 70 business days left in the year! Now is the time to hustle your butt! With Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Jewish holiday slowdown periods thrown in, you’re looking at super crunch time.

     This impending brain drain  is only going to be worse if you’re starting to feel like the economy has clobbered you into la-la land (and you don’t even live near Los Angeles!), and you and your business are getting stale.

     You’re trying? BS!  Stop trying and DO something about it! Hold a garage sale! You will get such a rude awakening by forcing yourself (and neighbors, if you’re the energetic type) to face up to the realities a garage sale produces:

• agreeing  with yourself to let go of prized possessions for a fraction of the prices you paid

• collecting  all these items together from every corner of your home

• pricing  and labeling each item

• picking  appropriate hours, obtaining necessary permits, and scheduling your life accordingly

• promoting  and advertising with posters, local newspaper ads, flyers and signs

• moving  your complete inventory into your driveway or yard or garage 

• making  sure you have enough change and single dollar bills on hand     

• displaying  your inventory in the most appealing manner (and, heartily recommended, writing an informative or enticing headline for each major piece you offer for sale

• dealing  with garage sale “professionals” who will come knocking at your door 30-60 minutes before your announced time — an interruption you can count on even if you advertise 6am; they’ll show up with flashlights; set your coffeemaker for 4:30am

• smiling  and greeting every visitor like a long lost cousin without being too pushy or too salesy

• moving  and rearranging items to keep most enticing-looking items up front and to keep table surfaces constantly filled

• accepting  that some people will rip you off by short-changing you and/or by outright stealing stuff when your back is turned — and that it’s generally best to bite the bullet and ignore these incidents by reminding yourself how desperate or deranged an individual has to be to be trying to make off with an extra dollar and a quarter’s worth of junk

• returning  unpurchased merchandise without feeling rejected

• inventorying  your sore feet and back, as you count up your meager profits

     If this experience  doesn’t turn you and your business attitude into a fresh new direction overnight, I’d be astonished. The experience of being the whole business and making all decisions and responding instantly and keeping positive customer relations as you make sales, is enlightening to say the least.

     The awareness’s  and perspectives you gain will shed new light on your business and freshen up the approach you’re taking to make the rest of this year work FOR you! 

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  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

   Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

RIP Police Officer Chad Spicer

Tonight’s blog post is dedicated to the family of Georgetown, Delaware, Police Officer Chad Spicer, 29, who was killed by gunfire last night in the line of duty during what was an attempted speeding vehicle stop after an apparent drug deal had gone bad. Officer Spicer leaves a wife and 3 year-old daughter. Another officer was wounded. Two suspects were apprehended; a third is still at large as of this writing. Details and family donation information are available at www.wgmd.com Rehoboth Beach radio.             

     It is a sad day indeed on Delmarva Peninsula.  Once again, we live through the senseless murder of a brave American who gave his life to protect those of his neighbors. One thing’s for sure, he never imagined leaving his family and friends behind like this when he woke up yesterday and reported for duty.

     If the odds for not surviving  another day haven’t crossed your mind lately, let this terrible incident be a reminder. We live lives too short as humans to devote our energy, time and attention to all the business stresses that run through our minds and shudder through our bodies every day.

     We may think that the older we get,  the closer we move to death’s door, but death makes so such exception when the suddenness arrives unannounced. When that moment is here, will we want to have spent our years and months and weeks and minutes being worried about business events that haven’t yet come… and may never?

     Will we want to have spent our time on Earth  dwelling on past business events that are over and done with, and about which we can do nothing to change? Just because we own or manage a business, do we use that responsibility as an excuse for mistreating ourselves and others, or even for wishing ill-thoughts?

     As our businesses go, so go opportunities to grow and help ourselves and others to better appreciate the riches of all that surrounds us every day. It’s easy to bitch and complain, to make excuses and blame. But “easy” is not part of being human. Genuineness is. Love is. Caring is. Hard work is. Service to others is. A sense of humor is.

     Business is our tool.  Let us use it to lead others to cultivate life by thinking and acting positively in all that we do. It may not always be possible, but it’s always possible to try.   

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Does “Boardwalk Mentality”

Dominate Your Business?

     In a diner, I might expect it,  but I visited a doctor’s office today where a beautiful, large, flatscreen TV was broadcasting full volume coverage of the funeral of a man with a track-record of highly-questionable morals, who almost single-handedly was responsible for influencing  Federal Government leadership to wreck havoc on the entire US healthcare system.

     It seemed a strange backdrop  for a medical doctor… over-the-top accolades for a leading advocate of virtually dispensing with the entire spectrum of quality physician care. Are you so out of touch, doctor, that you think it just doesn’t matter what impressions you foster in your own waiting room?

     You surely never supported  the fanatical radical ideas that man nurtured, or you wouldn’t even be in practice, yet you choose to promote them to your patients? And don’t make the excuses that your receptionist picked the station. It’s your practice.

__________________________

     As a favor to a friend,  I recently gave a retailer a sample product to consider stocking. This product performed twice as effectively, lasted twice as long, and was twice as efficient, environmentally, as the product he presently sold. Oh, and it was half the price! He refused it.

     Did I mention that this product  also had no shipping costs because it was produced in the next town and that a percentage of the proceeds was kicked back to a community program that the retailer’s wife was engaged with? “No,” he said, “I don’t want it because it lasts too long, and I need repeat sales here so it’s better that the things people buy break down; then they have to come back for more!”

     Are YOU this out of touch?

__________________________

     When I taught business  at Ocean County College, near the famous boardwalks of Point Pleasant, Belmar, Seaside Heights, Asbury Park and Atlantic City, I used to refer to this out-of-touch kind of thinking as having a “Boardwalk Mentality.”

     Boardwalk stand owners  and operators fostered the attitude for years (and some, unfortunately, still do) that it’s okay to rip people off to get their money because –first of all, they’re on vacation and don’t really care how much they spend and –second, because those people will never be back again anyway, and even if they are, they won’t remember getting bilked.

     Obviously this kind of “screw the customer” thinking  doesn’t cut it anymore… neither does the suggestion of support for the antithesis of quality patient-care standards and your professional career, doctor!

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“Uh, let’s see, Beer Fest?

Chunkin’ Punkin?

Or 5-Mile Run?”

     You can’t even dream up  an event that some business isn’t sponsoring these days! And aren’t we all suckers for the fundraising solicitations of candy-bar-bearing cherubic-smiling Brownie troops, aluminum can-collecting T-ball teams and car-washing high school cheerleaders?

     And of course there’re  the church bake sales, fire department carnivals, VFW clambakes, and all the other terrific events that are the very fabric of small town America.

     How great is the temptation  to get behind everything that comes along? How special it feels to be the stuff that a community-minded business leader is made of? But you know what? Today more than ever, you need to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with your business and face (ta-ta-ta-ta, ta-ta!): reality!

     Sponsoring charities and community events  is a truly wonderful and charitable behavior and experience BUT… do not hesitate to focus whatever time, effort, money, products and services, and attention you contribute on situations that will have some return on your investment! 

     If you’re going to give money away,  make it count for yourself as well as the recipient. You worked hard to earn it. There’s nothing wrong with your business getting some recognition in the process.

     Ack! That’s a terrible thing to suggest,  you may say. But, no. It’s a realistic thing to say, and here’s why:

     If you want to quietly  and anonymously plunk a thousand bucks into a deserving cause that has nothing whatsoever to do with your business or your customers or your employees or your suppliers, or your community you might as well be throwing it out the window!

     If you want to do that  for a cause that does have some business-related value, you might as well be throwing it out the window! And if you throw enough out the window, you put your business in jeopardy.

GIVE FROM YOUR HEART BUT USE YOUR BRAIN TO PICK THE CIRCUMSTANCES.

     The more you contribute  to situations that help enhance your business name and posture, the more loyalty and sales you’ll build so the more you can be in a position to donate more! It’s called “Enlightened Self-Interest”! If you find that each year, more and more groups and organizations seem to be chasing after your support and it’s getting too draining:

     Establish an annual budget  (with a sidecar emergency fund) and stick to it; direct latecomer solicitors to put their dibs in earlier next year because your budget is all appropriated. This doesn’t mean you’re a scrooge.

     It means you’re being smart  about what you choose to support and the amounts that won’t cripple your business so that you can make your contributions be more productive for your business so you can increase your budget next year.

     The other step  that many business owners take is to establish a private non-profit foundation specifically for the purpose of screening and awarding and managing charitable and community contributions. Many of these entities even conduct their own fundraising programs to support needy organization causes and events.              

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Whaddayou, a head case?

You think business is 

in cruise control?

     Are you on some other planet?  I heard someone say today that he thought business was holding steady and that this economic slump would be over soon. Those of you who know me know I am the eternal optimist. I always believe that –no matter what the odds–  things will work out for the best, and soon!

     But, this economy is out of control.  It’s one thing to think and act confidently and to believe in yourself and in what you’re capable of accomplishing. But it’s quite another to think that everything’s going to move out of your way as you stride forward. That’s like saying you’re a great swimmer so the tsunami that’s coming is no big deal.

     Sorry to have to be the messenger  (please don’t shoot!), but REALITY is that things are NOT going to move out of your way just because you have self-confidence. In today’s economy, you need a whole lot more than that. You need innovation, perseverance, and integrity.

• INNOVATION. If you are not coming up with a clear, new idea (SOME idea; it doesn’t have to be Earth-shattering), and seeing that idea all the way through to implementation EVERY WEEK, your business is not likely to survive another year!

• PERSEVERANCE. If you are not determinedly and tenaciously driving your business forward on a DAY-TO-DAY basis, your business is not likely to survive another month! 

• INTEGRITY. If you are not demonstrating HIGH TRUST evidence of integrity (doing the right thing even when nobody is looking) in EVERY business dealing you have every single hour of every single day, your business is not likely to survive another week!   

     Well,  here’s the good news:

     ALL OF IT–Innovation, Perseverance, Integrity– is a CHOICE!  You can choose to practice all three of these important qualities every day… every day! You simply need to make your mind up that self-confidence alone, without direction, accomplishes nothing. 

     But you can make  the conscious choice to make self-confidence work FOR you, right now by exercising innovation, perseverance and integrity in your very next encounter with an employee, customer, vendor, referrer, delivery or maintenance person, and the next human being you meet…and every one thereafter!  

     Right now!

     How hard is that?  As hard as you choose to make it!

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Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

Open Minds Open Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

 Turn up the heat, Mr. Biden!

I’ve been ranting and raving here for over a year that small business has proven time and again that it represents the one and only solution to our continually sinking economy. And just because the temperature hit 94 here today doesn’t mean it’s time to turn down the heat.

     Mr. Biden, you told us this week to “Just look around” and check out the great economic recovery in full swing. Uh, and you’re looking where?

     Mr. Biden, America is emphatically NOT on the rebound track that you have the chutzpah to be delivering sound bites on. You’re flat out wrong about the picture you’re trying to paint of booming job creation scenarios and an economic turn-around that’s rushing us back into high-roller high times.

     It’s simply not true, Mr. Biden, and you know that it’s not. Period.

     In fact, if you’ll pardon my brashness, Sir, perhaps you could better be using the influence of your position to develop some MEANINGFUL small business job creation incentives that go beyond the empty, token proclamations of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

     The SBA is so out-of-touch with reality that it hasn’t had a clue about the trials, tribulations, challenges, and opportunities of small business since the day it was founded. Their latest “incentive” plans prove it!

     I served two consecutive 2-year federal appointment terms on what’s been called the country’s most important SBA regional advisory council (NY/NJ/CT and the USVI. I resigned because the two dozen membership seats were filled with major corporate executives. I and one other member were the only ones who owned and operated small businesses. The job of representing and cultivating small business interests was not getting done.

     It is not getting done now. You are not getting it done. Why have you not surrounded yourself with small business owners, and immersed yourself in the process of their day-to-day existences?

     Do you think that walking through a diner and glad-handing the employees is giving you some great small business insight, or that it’s endearing you to or helping small business?

     Do you think there is some other answer to our economic catastrophes outside the province of small business? I’d love to hear that answer.

     It is waaaaay past time to get involved with the only hope that remains: small business! Do it now. Roll up those white sleeves and get yourself in the trenches.

     Visit the farmers in your own State! Listen to the retailers who are suffering through low tourism. Meet with struggling automotive dealerships who have been thrown under the bus by the same automakers your boss is rewarding for their screw-ups by passing out truckloads of tax dollars in a feeble, misguided attempt at business management.

     When you’re put in charge of running what is arguably the world’s biggest business and you have no business or management experience, and you can easily see that small business  job creation is what turns around economies, why do you bury your head in the sand?

     Why do you choose paths of arrogance and abstinence instead of humility and outreach to bring in the experts. No one knows business like  small business owners. Listen to them. Act on their behalf. Help them create REAL new jobs.     

# # #

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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!

“You’ve got to stand

for something, or

you’ll fall for anything”

— Aaron Tippin, Country Western Performer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Hja0XND8Ms 

     The business world seems to have a mission to have a Mission Statement for everything these days…Sales Mission Statements, Customer Service Mission Statements, Corporate Mission Statements, Financial Mission Statements…

     And many of these, I believe, are merely token lip service public relations-type tongue-twisters with no teeth that hang framed on walls and plastered onto every ad and document and website in bordered shadow boxes, flaunted as if they were flags of honor and integrity!

     First of all, any company that has to be boasting about a Mission Statement (no matter how goody-goody it might sound) is simply indulging itself in mental masturbation.

     If your business is as great as the pursuit of its Mission, the people you want to know it, will know it without you having to strut it across every stage. Your behavior and the behavior of your business is what constitutes your “brand” and people will know you by your brand, your conduct.

     That having been said, there is a need in every organization (even sole proprietorships) for an internal “Leadership Mission Statement” that owners, operators, and managers can rally around and bring into daily practice. “You need to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”

     It needs to address HOW your business leadership will function and communicate with others inside AND outside your organization. Why? Because –no matter what business you’re in, no matter what quality or value of goods and services you offer, no matter how industrious and honorable you may be– 80% of your business is communication!

     If you don’t have a Leadership Mission that focuses attention on the processes and ways you will strive daily to communicate clearly (including, importantly, active listening practices) with associates, staff, customers, prospects, vendors, community, industry and the rest of the world, you are setting your company up for failure.

     I’m not talking about a PR or media or customer service policy  manual, or some empty suit theory. I’m referring to a genuine statement of leadership conduct that calls on human communication best practices at every level… in letters, emails, on the phone, in-person, in presentations, and in all marketing related materials, publishings and broadcasts all of the time. “You need to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”

What’s the guideline to use? Trust and Authenticity.

With special thanks for inspiring tonight’s blog post to a strategic alliance partner of mine, Andrew Jackson, who sent me the link to the music video source of the headline quote above. 

# # #  

Input welcome anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

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The World’s Greatest Expert

on Death and Dying–

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, MD

–Points to Five Stages:

• Denial and Isolation
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

     She said we –all of us–  must experience each of these five stages to one degree or another in the order they are shown above with every loss experience. The only exceptions being instances where people get stuck in a given stage and never get beyond it.

     So as business owners, managers, and entrepreneurs, some of us experience bits and pieces of these five stages everyday with daily losses.

     Kübler-Ross said that losses are not limited to human death, and can  include the loss of a limb or faculty, or ability… loss of a valuable possession (a home, a car, a business), loss of companionship (including divorce and separation), loss of freedom (including jail), loss of a job, loss of a client, loss of a prospect or opportunity, loss of self-esteem, loss of authority, etc., etc.

     And to a lesser degree, we even experience these stages when we lose a dollar, a photograph, a letter, an address, a contest, and so on.

     So what’s the point? Healthy successful people do everything humanly possible to channel all their energies and mental focus on reaching the level (or “Stage”) of ACCEPTANCE as quickly as possible, and on maintaining themselves at that level as permanently as possible.

     Everything else is non-productive. Everything else leaves us feeling deflated and defeated and negative. Some people stay in these places their entire lives. Some are institutionalized. Some do themselves in.

     Stages 1-4 are pure torment. We must go through them, but the goal needs to be to move through them as rapidly as our minds and bodies allow us to. Getting through the maze may take friends and rescuers to stand by shoulder to shoulder. We have all performed that function for someone else, but perhaps have forgotten?  

     Keep always in the front of your mind that no matter how out of control it may feel to be stuck somewhere in denial and isolation, or in anger, or in a bargaining position, or a state of depression, it IS a matter of choice!

     The minute we choose to accept loss, the quicker we can get on with a happy and productive existence and make the most of the short time we each have here on Earth…make the most of the relationships we’ve been blessed with: with other people and places and purposes.

     We need not choose to lock ourselves into suffering and misery. Life and business life are way too short to have wasted time and energy with anything besides being happy and healthy and in active pursuit of our dreams.  

# # #  

Input welcome anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

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What does “business

as usual” mean to you?

Guess what you are? You get to your desk or worksite by 8:30 to beat the 9am employee rush. You make the rounds  with staff, do emails and phone calls. 12 to 1:30 is a fat lunch with an associate, customer, prospect, or relative who’s in town for the day. You return to a lineup of boring, energy-draining meetings where every attendee feels compelled to advance her or his personal agenda. You leave between 5:15 and 5:30 after most everyone else has cleared out.”

    Answer: Odds are you’re a corporate employee. So don’t waste time here; go to FaceBook, CNN, C-SPAN, MSNBC, the local commuter bar, or whatever floats your boat…and leave the business of straightening out the economy to the only people around who know how.

     I speak of course of those who frequent this blog: small business owners, operators, managers, entrepreneurs, and professional salespeople… those who aren’t conscious of time, who rarely spend more than 20-30 minutes eating anything, and who have no tolerance for time-wasting meetings.

     Their disciplined nature, by the way, doesn’t make these folks numb or humorless; they’re simply dedicated to their pursuits and tend, I believe, to be far more fun to be around than their “Fortune 1000” counterparts.

     None of them live like the “business as usual” guy described above. All of them are busy making their business innovations work because they don’t get corporate bailouts or economic stimulus packages.

     “Business as usual” has been made a thousand times more difficult by the shortsightedness and naivete of our government.

     When history points to small business as overwhelmingly responsible for American job creation, and job creation has been proven to be overwhelmingly responsible for building and strengthening our economy, history needs to be heeded, not re-invented as socialism.

     Sharing wealth and funding corporate and government incompetency doesn’t do it. Channeling staggering amounts of (not yet even available) tax dollars into major corporate entities whose insolent greed put us here to start with makes no sense. 

     The very same small businesses that stand the best chance of being positive economic impact catalysts are the ones being the most harshly drained. This is how to create job creation incentives?  

     “Business as usual” has a prayer attached. We need to pray that small business spirit and entrepreneurial innovativeness can rise up against all odds and once again rescue America’s economy.

     We need to nurture small business and business startups and pray that our nation’s small business owners and managers can make their dreams work in spite of government interference and corporate anchors.

     We need to support small business now more than ever before.    

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Input welcome anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

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