Yeast, the Sun,

and Leadership.

I get (and agree with) what Paul Ryan’s advice to Mr. Obama was all about when he visited the White House yesterday and reminded the man that “leadership starts at the top,” but I take some exception to the semantics of what that advice might suggest as it is applied to the rest of the world. 

———————————————-

Leadership, like yeast, like the sun on the horizon, rises from low places. It starts, often below the surface, and grows to recognition, then to love and respect or –sadly, in many cases– to fear and loathing, with little room left in-between those two extremes for tolerance and apathy. The problem is that yeast and the sun are fairly predictable.

Some aspects of leadership are also predictable.

Qualities like being able to inspire and motivate others, for example, are part of almost every description of leadership since the beginning of time.

Truth and reality, however, measure all leadership by one word alone.

What’s your best guess?

What single word sums up “leadership” most definitively?

Surely you know the word if you think about it enough. It’s authenticity. Authenticity of character, of personality, of purpose, of attitude, of responsiveness, of courage, of self-image, of the nature of the people involved, of the nature of the tasks to be done. It cannot be manufactured, pretended, stolen, replaced, avoided, dismissed, disregarded, or disarmed.  

Almost never to be found near government or political enterprises or management: authenticity. And rarely does it appear in corporate life when it isn’t guarded — easy to understand when UN-authentic people hovering at the top feel threatened. Yet, say many, true authenticity must also be free, so how could it be guarded?

Okay, so cross off corporate authenticity. And what are we left with? Family life and small business. Why? Because there is less need to lie, make excuses, and cover one’s butt, and because entrepreneurial attitudes are not so affected and convoluted by status-ladder-climbing and artificial allegiances.

–————————————-

TEN EXAMPLES of authenticity:

1. Giving credit where credit is due.

2. Speaking up for what you believe in and supporting others who share your purpose.

3. Accepting responsibility without excuses.

4. Acknowledging screw-ups and owning up to your mistakes, also without excuses.

5. Taking immediate corrective action when called for instead of analyzing and seeking blame.

6. Being focused on the present “here and now” moment as much as possible.

7. Always acknowledging the human factor in every decision and action, even when others pass it over. Business transactions are impacted by illness, injury, and family issues.

8. Nurturing (and cultivating) positive and productive behavior and attitudes consistently.

9. Soliciting and respecting the opinions of others . . . praise in public and criticize (constructively) in private.

10. Treat every employee and every customer like the special people they are, the way YOU want to be treated, every day, all of the time, without exception.  

————————————

How do you measure up, stack up, size up, match up? What three steps do you need to take now to give rise to more of that authenticity you have inside you? Can you take that first step right now?

It is, you know, a choice. 

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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!

“We are in an information-

overloaded society.

“Most people receive more information from just their smartphones in a week than their grandparents received in their entire lives.”

        ———– Bestselling Author David Baldacci from his newest novel, THE SIXTH MAN www.DavidBaldacci.com

I’m often asked about having done both, and continuing to do both, and can assure you that owning and operating a small business is not the same as writing a book. The commissioned memoir I recently completed and published privately, entitled “GOOD LUCK!” is summarized in the following 25-word “logline” synopsis:

“Steamshipped away, Hitler to Manhattan, 15-year-old Ernst delivered newspapers, farmed chickens, enlisted…  WON medals, citizenship, Holocaust bride, Delaware leadership, White House prominence, and business fortunes.”

That brief description was distilled from the 230-page book. The 230 pages came from more than sixty jam-packed file cabinet drawers and a dozen storage bins, a stack of videotape interviews, and many thousands of photographs, plus over thirty hours of personal interview notes and another 50 hours, at least, of online research.

I’m now working on another commissioned memoir for a totally different kind of business leader. But it’s the same thing. The cutting away process is like being a sculptor, and not always fun. But there is no other way to do justice to representing a lifetime of accomplishment.

Running a business?

Fly by the seat of your pants!

Leave it to the corporate biggies to drown themselves in research. They’re all busy justifying their existences, preoccupied with their own company culture memoirs, while entrepreneurs trial-and-error-and-adjust themselves into small business success, innovative product and service market approaches, and meaningful new job creations. 

I do both (entrepreneuring and writing books) because straddling the two different worlds is challenging to me and because I enjoy the unique opportunities ignited by having one foot in research-based writing and the other in creating new business directions, revenue streams, marketing programs, and sales channels.

Here’s what I see: The bigger the business, the more information-overload there is, and the more of a sculptor one needs to be. The problem is that the pace of life and today’s instantaneous global access forces even an information sculptor to work quicker. So the end product may not always be one of quality as much as one of expediency.

Who spans this gap, covers up and rises through this mad rush? Who leads the way to economic revival? Certainly not those lumbering, top-heavy corporations filled with people trying to cover their butts and write their make-believe life stories as if they were nonfiction.

Your small business is what it is. Avoid the temptation to over-burden it with too much information and too much analysis. Keep hold of the reins, but let it –and your people– run free! At least until it gets so big and successful that you need to ask yourself:

Hmmm, how much IS “too much”?

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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!

Just imagine that someone

doesn’t like your business

(I know, I know, but it is possible!) 

So you get criticized. Then what? Right, you do like any normal red-blooded American: you threaten to terminate your critic.

I mean, after all, it’s dog eat dog out there, an eye for an eye thing. “I don’t like what your business has to say!” or “I don’t like the way your clerk looks at me!” POW! BAM! Blow ’em away! Threaten. Great PR. Guaranteed to win you customers. Oh, and what a fabulous example it sets. Reputation suffers? Who cares. You got even.

Anger wins!

It would almost be funny on SNL, but from all I can determine, this knee-jerk reaction is unfortunately coming from that un-leader-like icon of hope and change: The Great American Dream himself, Mr. (ta-ta-ta-ta-tah-tah) Obama. Are you ready? This news is completely off the charts. If you have a website or blog, you might want to be sitting.

 —————————————

Bloggers and websites critical of Mr. Obama are now reported as being targeted by the White House for something akin to “shape up or ship out” ultimatum warnings.

This news, according to a post filed online yesterday by Messrs. Doug and Joseph Hagmann.

(Doug is at Director@HomelandSecurityUS.com and Joseph is at JoeHagmann24@aol,com).

The two reportedly run a private investigative agency specializing in surveillance and counter-surveillance operations focused on terrorism activities. Their article was headlined in the Canada Free Press Daily Mail.   

According to the Hagmann’s, the Obama “online rapid response team,” created as part of the 2012 re-election campaign is “headed by… Jesse C. Lee, 31, of Tacoma Park, Maryland” who has been “tasked specifically with quashing any Internet articles and news critical of Obama.”

Lee, says the article, has initiated his activities by opening an official White House Twitter account featuring an image of “The Terminator” which sends a threatening message to anyone critical of the Obama Administration, and “a signal that unfavorable reports about Obama and his reign will be dealt with much more aggressively.”

Oh, and by the way, while such activity in the past has been the province of and at the expense of the National Democratic Party, this time, report Doug and Joseph Hagmann:  Mr. Obama has elected to keep costs and control “in-house” and under the jurisdiction of the White House Communications Department.

In other words, Lee’s “Terminator” services

are being paid for by the American taxpayers.

That would be like charging your customers/clients/patients an extra percentage tacked on top of whatever they pay for your products or services to pay for a hatchet man to come back and threaten them with extinction if they dare to criticize you or your business. Oh, joy! What a world this is. You can’t make this stuff up.

So now what? What on Earth could top that? I’m sure something will.

It’s bad enough to have a man that so many well-intentioned people were led to believe would be a great leader, only to find out that he is the absence of leadership.”

Besides being a one-man small business wrecking crew, his meddling is managing to screw up the corporate world as well. We the people are over-taxed and over-regulated at every turn. Mr. Obama continues to spend money far beyond America’s means at a terminally reckless rate. Could you do that with your business? Your household?

Make A Difference! TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2012

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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!

FEELING: Angry? Depressed? Embarrassed? Happy? Sad? Disappointed? Frustrated? Anxious? Afraid? Lonely? Poor? Dumb?

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 931.854.0474

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

If you are Entrepreneuring

still –in 2011– you got guts!

Look at it this way, those of us who directly or indirectly choose to pursue paths of small business development –in the face of today’s upsets, intimidations, threats, and tsunami-like attempts to control every breath we take— probably deserve a medal!

The thing is there are 30 million of us and that’s an awful lot of medals. Besides, we didn’t choose entrepreneuring for fame and recognition. We don’t much care about being honored. We care about our ideas working.

We care about building our businesses to the point of creating jobs and reputations for customer service (the real kind, not some put-you-on-hold unintelligible “customer service department“).

Who does care about getting a medal? Why the very same types of self-serving, reckless spending, low life that work hard at creating all those roadblocks we and our small businesses are forced to contend with:

• From our arrogant, get-the-votes-at-any-cost-campaign-obsessed, leaderless White House with zero business know-how and the global mindset of a two-year-old

• And corporate giants (the antithesis of innovation, wallowing in incompetence and self-pity) with their deep pockets and greedy unions standing forever at the ready  

• To artificial-do-gooder-preoccupied-with-“green” academia-land, which pollutes the world of small business with theory and complexity over reality and common sense

Loose accusations? No, deeply-documented fact-based assessments.

______________________

Small (and in-home) businesses, professional practices, small business owners, operators, and managers all. We are in the fights of our lives to overcome all the disproportionate tax burdens, all the government over-regulation and controls being shoved down our throats as we try to create jobs and make our ideas successfull!

Unions and academia? Not even a step up from Hollywood and mass media sensationalists: they just get in the way. Let them pester government and the Fortune 500 companies, or –perhaps even better– each other!

UNEMPLOYMENT is the worst it has been in the United States since the 1930s. Terrorism threats are at an all-time high. Natural weather disasters are running roughshod across America, destroying homes and businesses, killing and uprooting families. And America’s allies are being insulted instead of thanked.

GAS PRICES are still through the roof, and igniting skyrocketing costs for shipping, transportation, and now food–costs unmercifully and unavoidably being passed along to consumers who are made more dependent on government controls every passing day. And America’s enemies are being cajoled instead of chased.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS are pouring across our borders every night with drugs and weapons . . . and welcomed (!) in our schools, hospitals, and welfare rolls? America is on the brink of bankruptcy compounded by dollar devaluation, loss of global respect, and the compromising of our Constitution.

MR.. OBAMA is in Ireland toasting a pint of ale.The last catastrophe just weeks ago found him absorbed in worries about the Final Four basketball competition. And how long ago did he disrupt his golf trip to “dispatch” advisors to “review” the disastrous Gulf oil spill 30 DAYS AFTER IT HAPPENED?

THIS is leadership? Could your business survive this behavior from it’s leader? Like I said, if you’ve made it this far, you got guts! America needs you.

Keep it up!  Oh, and while you’re at it:

Mark your election day calendar

now for November 6, 2012.

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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!

The front page lead story on “Unemployment Worst Since 1930s” for your 5/21/11-5/22/11  weekend edition starts out with a qualifying statement about the recession having ended over two years ago . . .

Surely You Jest!

Your paper has a reputation among many businesspeople of  being a highly opinionated medium (vs. a showcase for responsible reporting that probes beneath the surface of what’s printed, that carries an air of integrity instead of marching to the innuendo drums of alarmist and manipulative journalism).

Like the empty stories produced by low-grade tabloid papers and sensationalist TV news programs, yours are clearly the fodder of simpletons. For your paper to survive the long haul, it will need to step up to the complexities of providing information realistically, particularly as it relates to small business.

To be effective enough to grow externally, you must grow first internally, by exercising sufficient integrity to cut the White House puppet strings . . . to actually report the news objectively and honestly.

It’s true that you’re not known for such bold moves, but consider the following:

There are 30 million small business owners in America. (And pardon me for not giving you back one of your little pie charts showing that at least 90% of all new jobs are created by small business, especially NEW small business.)

And we 30 million are not stupid!

Your thinly-veiled suggestive lead-in (one of endless numbers) is trying to say that there is no longer any recession, that the recession is well on its way out of quagmireville.

Not only is that simply not true, it is a misleading and deceptive cover-up for what you well know to be fact:

. . . that Mr. Obama and his free-wheeling taxes and reckless spending have rapidly exacerbated a difficult economy into a catastrophe.

And the truth? The truth is there is no end in sight until Mr. Obama has been replaced. No, I am not some radical conservative on the warpath, or some uninformed run-at-the-mouth businessperson, nor am I interested or capable of running for anything, except in my daily exercise program.

Surely you disagree (I assume you well know where your bread is buttered), so don’t take my word for it.

Instead, take one of your famous surveys. Poll a statistically representative number of the 30 million small business owners and ask them:

• Has the recession been over for more than two years?

• Is the recession over now?

• When will the recession end? (for those who think it’s still here).

• Why is the recession still around? (for those who think it is still around).

The truth is that the recession has not gone away, not even in even the slightest, that it will unlikely go away for another two years after the 2012 election, even if the nation is fortunate enough to unseat the power-mongers that rule the White House . . . Messrs. Obama and Biden have proven themselves incapable of appropriate, responsive leadership and decision-making.

Not only do they fail to understand what small business is really all about, Messrs. Obama and Biden have been doing their best to undermine and squash every attempt by small business to straighten out what the two of them and their union-vote cronies have made crooked.  

History proves that small business is solely responsible for job creation, and has proven itself as the only entity capable of turning the economy around. Government job creation is meaningless and a waste of tax dollars.

Perhaps your writers who opinionate on business-related subjects should be talking with real business people (vs. corporate executives and government flunkies who lack complete understanding of entrepreneurial reality. Perhaps they should do a little research on why entrepreneurial ventures represent the only real chance we have for regaining economic and employment balance, in addition to global dollar value and reputation.  

If I can be so bold as to suggest it, a good starting point is to not react to what’s said here, but to instead respond by taking a meaningful scroll through daily posts made on this blog over the past nearly four years. There’s nothing new here, except the stating of my opinion that your paper’s “news coverage” has far exceeded the bounds of responsible reporting. Maybe that can still be fixed?

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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!

 Every business has two

Organization Charts.

One is invisible!

Whether you’re looking for a job, struggling to keep one, or you’re running the whole dog and pony show, you need to be aware that every business has two power charts. The official organization chart (even if there’s only a small handful of employees) is one. The other is the real one. The real one is invisible, and hard to figure out.

It can be understood even though it’s invisible, but it takes persistent and careful observation of what’s not written down or computer-diagrammed. What? Sounds like a Harry Potter “Invisibility Cloak.”

Why bother? Because it affects who gets hired and fired, who gets promotions and raises, and who gets elbowed out of the action.

And probably needless to say, every professional salesperson and business owner needs to be able to size up and use the power charts of customer/client organizations and prospective customer/clients . . . or be prepared to waste a lot of time, money, and energy chasing after the wrong people.

Decision makers are seldom the check writers.

5 THINGS TO WATCH FOR:

1. Who supplies the reliable information?

A decision maker or someone having close access to the real decision maker is the source.

2. Who has social contacts with the owner or top management people?

Social connections may have been achieved through long-standing friendships, or a spouse with good connections, or through activities in some political, community, athletic or religious organization. Or they could be more shallow and more short-lived, as with SM.

3. Which long-time employees have quietly cornered power?

Look for someone who has assumed (or been assigned) authority to approve memos, reports, plans, diagrams. Even if their initials on the project mean nothing, by making themselves a part of the approval chain, these (usually) senior employees can delay or kill a project by leaving it quietly on their desks, or in their email hold or inboxes. Negative power, yes, but it’s power nonetheless.

4. Which co-workers have relatives or former bosses in the ownership or top management hierarchy?

They may have realistic expectations of promotions that will turn them into powerful people eventually.

5. Who is currently involved in a co-worker romance?

Of course “fishing off company docks” is never okay or smart, but it happens with greater frequency than most think (including in the White House and California Governor’s mansion). Keep in mind that while some day, the relationship may end, at the moment, you might be faced with a duo commanding power from two different directions in the same business or organization. Once you understand the power structure, you’ll know how to get results and who is really important to your future with the company. . . or with running the company.

Just so you know there’s nothing new about organizational politics and manipulation: The above, with some updating added –believe it or not– appeared in the November 28, 1976 FAMILY WEEKLY as a “JOBMANSHIP” feature by S. R. Redford. Thank you, S.R., wherever you are!     

AND HAPPY SWEET 16TH TO MY FANTASMAGORICAL GRANDDAUGHTER, TALLEY! I LOVE YOU!

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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!

Considering his long-term-do-nothing-decide-nothing-accomplish-nothing track record in both the State of Delaware and now in Congress, Rep. John Carney finally said something of substance about saving the economy:

“It’s up to government 

   to create favorable

conditions for

  business.”

At least it sounds good, though clearly his statement is the work of a professional writer, and I’m quite certain Mr. Carney’s vision of “creating favorable conditions” varies considerably from what America’s 30 million small business owners would suggest. But, taken face value, it’s a reasonably good start. Where it goes is what matters. 

Using taxpayer money to shore up bungling corporate giants as Mr. Obama did, for example, continues to be an unpardonable act of violating the public trust. So is the government’s financing of no-brainer token job creation in order to pump up fake employment numbers just as fraudulent a practice.

 (How many cone-placement people are really needed for DOT projects?) 

——————————————–

OPEN MEMO TO SBA CHIEF KAREN MILLS: 

At the very least, Mr. Carney’s comment above would seem to suggest that he (of all people!) is actually a step ahead of you. Your public statements remain as incongruously pathetic as those of the White House.

See for yourself, blog visitors:

Read SBA Chief Karen Mills’ declarations about

“How the SBA evolved through the economic crisis”

 CLICK THIS LINK TO Ms. Mills’ feature headline article 

Sorry Chief Mills, but your comments are far out of step with reality. It’s just too bad, because the SBA really could make a difference if it would only (and ironically) pay more attention to small business owners, by talking with them straight-on, instead of down to them.

Real entrepreneurs are much smarter

than the SBA acknowledges.

On the flip side, I also know for a fact that many SBA people have heartfelt intentions and that a good many SBA Loan Officers are excellent at what they do. That having been said . . .

As for your attempts to defend what we all know is a case of SBA lethargy at best, to say that the SBA “evolved” hardly represents a dynamic business passage worthy of bragging about.

Also, though your article tries very hard to pretend that the “economic crisis” is past, I respectfully suggest that perhaps some actual “down in the trenches” two-way communication visits on-site with real small-town, small business owners might provide appropriate enlightenment.

Here’s some business truth: The SBA, like the US Postal Service, is rapidly becoming irrelevant and –without major shake-ups– is headed for extinction. If you don’t think so, you’re living in fantasyland, and small business owners everywhere will agree. Go ahead and test this opinion. Ask!   

By taking up a politically risky crusade to launch a meaningful program of NEW business tax incentives for job creation and innovative development, you have the ability to open the doors to economic recovery by actually doing as Mr. Carney suggests: “Create favorable conditions” for small business.

The economy will never recover

until NEW small businesses  

get help creating new jobs!

You should know that I served two two-year terms on the SBA Region II Advisory Council (with 34 others, 33 of whom were all major corporate employees!), plus six years as an SBA SCORE Counselor. I’ve been running my own small business for 35 years, and have directly helped to launch over 500 successful ventures.

. . . And, that I am using this blog as a forum to address these points because I tried four times to submit similar comments on the SBA website yesterday, and none were ever posted.

Defending and reacting and explaining will not move us forward. In the Spirit of Entrepreneurship, I ask for you to respond with new small business job creation tax incentive action.

Thank you  – Hal Alpiar

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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!

Short, provocative,

word-crafted questions

with double meanings

that make you smile

 are what sell best! BUT

they’re not waiting

to jump out

of your closet!

At the risk of looking like one of those idiotic email FWDs written by “anonymous,” here are some inspiring examples of great double-entendre marketing theme line questions. . .

• GETTING ENOUGH? (Delaware Sleep Disorder Centers)

• GOT MILK? (Who doesn’t remember the white moustaches?) 

• WHERE’S THE BEEF? (Years later, we still laugh at that one!) 

• ARE YOU BREATHING? (Stress management exercise for businesspeople and healthcare professionals)

• CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? (Verizon has us still saying this with every static crackle)

• IS IT IN YOU? (Yup, Gatorade) 

• MOUSE GOT YOUR WRIST? (Safe-Zone Stop-wrist-pain brace for computer operators)

Add your own favorites: ____________________________________

Yes, fun stuff, and hopefully inspiring. That’s the good news. The bad news is that these short sweet nothings, these provocative, punchy few words of flair do not fall from the sky.

Neither do they get dreamed up by in-house staff people who write coherent emails, business reports and plans, even news releases, church bulletins, or local fundraising flyers (or well-intentioned poetry-writing relatives with Fine Arts degrees who want to save you money).

Great headlines that slam out great short questions are the product of many years of studying and understanding consumer psychology, consumer behavior, emotional buying triggers, and professional advertising and marketing writing. That kind of expertise costs money.

It’s your call! Not every business owner or entrepreneur wants to sell products or services by identifying them and/or the brand name with a custom-created household expression. But if you do, you can’t cut corners. Top-notch sales messages sell. The exceptional ones can literally bury the competition.

Each of the examples cited above took at least a month (and probably longer) of intensive focus and concentration.

Contrary to auto dealership mentality, words that sell are not seat-of-the-pants, knee-jerk, last-minute compositions. Even with a professional marketing writer, substantial time is required to experience a process of what I call “total immersion.”

A record-sales campaign I once produced for Great Western Wine and Champagne came only after a three-month process of picking grapes, working in the winery, giving tourists tours, cleaning the vats (a time-limit situation to avoid passing out from the fumes!), and learning about processing equipment and the aging process..

I met with the glass bottle manufacturers, the cork people, the wire and foil wrapper makers, the label makers, the glue makers; I worked on the loading dock, in the front office, and out in the field with the sales reps; learning the history of wine and how the master winemakers grafted vines together to create varietals.

Don’t believe anyone who tells you she or he can write you sales-winning words without becoming thoroughly engaged with every level of your business. It doesn’t happen, even for a 2, 3, 4, or 5-word theme question or 7-word branding line.

Award-winning author/journalist Malcolm Gladwell is the epitome of this thinking. To write about John Kennedy, Jr’s piloting death plunge into the ocean at Nantucket, he hired a pilot to fly him to the same spot and dive. When you’re seeking big-time copy, find someone with big-time experience who’s willing and anxious to dive!

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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!

An open letter to the President . . .

CONGRATULATIONS, Mr. Obama,

for a job well done.

Now let’s get down to business!

Ah, at last. For what appears to many to be the first time since assuming the Presidency, you have actually acted in what most of the world’s eyes and ears would surely agree to be a “Presidential manner.” You have risen to the task of delivering a non-political Presidential attitude. Thank you. It’s a burst of fresh air.

Your “watch” has brought a piece of justice to America. Thank you!

It is time now for you, personally (and Presidentially), to bring justice to America’s entrepreneurs . . . to recognize and accept that it is SMALL business that ultimately holds the key to turning around this miserable economy, which many small business owners feel your political agenda has been insensitively fueling.

You stated today:

“Today we have been reminded as a

   nation, there is nothing we can’t do.”

Your statement no doubt includes being able to rise above political campaign agendas that have fostered one unrealistic attempt after another to turn the economy around. And I don’t think anyone faults you for trying.

But, clearly, you have not respected entrepreneurial small business and professional practice owners and operators and managers. Your economic recovery pretenses have done nothing except increase taxpayer burdens -especially for small business– and have only served to mushroom the federal deficit.

Your statement would also seem to include being able to follow the footprints of history in stimulating —instead of bumbling corporate giants and incompetent government agencies— small entrepreneurial business startups.

Surely you have the proof of this wisdom. You need look no further than the genuine job-creation pathways carved out by new small business enterprises. It is there that you will find true economic growth.

Americans are universally proud today of the military intelligence and guts it took to destroy the evil leader of the terrorist world.

But we continue to remain hopelessly (and needlessly, many believe) bogged down in this economic quagmire.

We are paying more than we should have to pay at the gas pump. This means that we are having to charge customers, clients, and patients more than we want to for shipping and transportation. And higher shipping costs mean higher food prices. Of course you know this. But you’ve been trying to put out the fire with gasoline!

These are not whining complaints. But the solution –contrary to your recent suggestion– is NOT to get a more fuel-efficient car. It is also NOT to stop using FedEx and UPS in favor of the less expensive (and totally incompetent) US Postal Service. Neither is the solution to eat more junk food because it’s cheaper. 

Many of us who own and run small businesses, Mr. Obama, are overtaxed and over-regulated to the point of bankruptcy. Instead of being free to innovate and lead the way (as in all economic turnarounds), we are forced to follow those who have no business sense, understanding, or experience . . . and who are unwilling to seek it!

Can we now finally sit down and talk about politically-UNencumbered, real and genuine tax incentives that encourage new small businesses to create new jobs and reward them for succeeding?

Can we do this with real small business leaders — NOT the corporate executive-laden SBA, or government Economic Development groups, or professorial think-tanks?

Can we do it now? Are you willing to take a reasonable entrepreneurial risk and sit down with some real small business people? Will you listen instead of defend? Will you process instead of preach? Will you give America’s 30 million small businesses genuine incentives and a free hand to go to work to solve the economy puzzle? 

America loves that the first step behind the promise of rooting out terrorism has at long last been honored. Now it’s time to return the economy–the issue that undermines all others— to the point that allows people to regain their dignity and self-respect without reliance on government handouts and token pats on the head.    

We have earned more than lip service, Mr. Obama.

Can we do it? Can we do it now? 

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

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

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