If what’s inside

isn’t shining outside…

your business is in trouble.

You’ve known this since you were a kid and first became interested in business. Your lemonade and comic book stands sold more when you gave that missing tooth smile. Well, you might still be missing a tooth or two, but hopefully you haven’t allowed yourself (chosen) to get lazy about wrapping your bright light around your venture.

I’m not going to lecture you about taking stock and personal inventory and making the most of your charm and all that other stuff that I’ve already printed here at one time or another. You can find it with a couple of the links here and in the search window. I AM going to tell you that there’s no room in entrepreneurship for (choosing) laziness.

If you’re not feeling charged up every day when you jump out of bed, something is not right. 

Have you lost touch with your mission?

With reality?

With those who support you?

With why pursuit of your idea must outweigh your pursuit of money?

Have you become (chosen to be) sidetracked with issues that pull you away from the burning desire you once had to make your ideas work? A family situation? Health problem? Staffing upsets? Investor edginess? Sales failings? Equipment not performing? Well, hey, you got trouble, right here in River City.

Now you can see why “poor management” is the number one reason for business failure? Why, sure: management of personal life, management of employees, management of financial support, management of marketing, management of operations. Trouble is only YOU can fix the ways you deal with any of these issues. And that takes focused energy.

You can never start a fire with a magnifying glass as long as you keep moving the magnifying glass.

Neither is it likely you’ll start a fire by keeping the magnifying glass fixed on a huge fresh-cut tree trunk. Your grip and wrist will give up first. Keep your focus steady. Keep it on paper or kindling and gradually build your fire by adding more and bigger pieces of wood or coal, a little at a time. Keep your energy channeled. Use patience.

Entrepreneurship –contrary to popular belief– is not about leaping wildly from one fire to another. If you could ask Ford and Gates and Oprah and Edison and Jobs and Carnegie, you’d be reminded that they each succeeded by: 1)staying focused, 2) by taking one step at a time, and 3) by believing in themselves!

Can YOU do all three of these things consistently, tenaciously, without giving up on yourself?

If you can–and here’s the simplicity of it all– you will succeed. Period. If you cannot (or are not willing to choose to), don’t whine and cry. There’s plenty of good space for you in government work, and with corporations, where loyalty and CYA behaviors are rewarded over innovation and taking action. Weird, isn’t it?

It’s weird considering America runs (with apologies to Dunkin’ Donuts) on Entrepreneurship, and we have a White House that doesn’t get it. Ah, but less than 19 months left to change “the change.” As for changing what you’re dealing with right now, choose forward motion, then take a step. Now. You can, you know.

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY/ CONTENT/ CONNECTION

Higher impact. Lower costs.

——————-

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

Entrepreneurship & Expansion Coaching    931.854.0474

Go for your goals, thanks for your visit, God Bless You!

OPEN  MINDS  OPEN  DOORS

Make Today A Great Day For Someone!

Before you throw all your

  tech stuff on the BBQ . . .

Recognize, first and foremost, that your greatest assets are your people. If you’re a one-man-band, maybe “your people” are a loving spouse, partner, children or parents who assist you, or a reliable friend or two who consistently refer(s) others to you . . . or a hotbed of talented interns.

If you’re the owner of a small to medium-size business, perhaps “your people” are account or department or office or branch managers.

The point is that I am NOT suggesting you run around torching these folks, or even giving any of them a baseball-dugout-style “hotfoot.”  I AM suggesting that you ask yourself (and answer) the following questions:

Can you readily identify and easily separate your internal and external customers?

What percentage of each day are you actively marketing to each group?

In other words:

• How much and how often are you (externally) marketing your people?

• How much and how often are you (internally) marketing TO your people?

• How much and how often are you (internally AND externally) marketing THROUGH your people?

Do you think the meaning of Customer Service is to have a Customer Service person or department?

• If each and every one of your internal customers know how to relate to and respond to external customers, why would you have to pay someone or a group to perform this function?

• Ideally, anyone in your organization whom I might reach by phone or meet in-person should be able to handle my customer service needs.

Your marketing people or your own marketing sense tell(s) you how to motivate external customers. You surely have a strong idea of what sells and what doesn’t sell them on your product(s) and/or service(s). Do you have a sense of confidence about the best ways to motivate internal customers?

Do you apply Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

If you try (or have tried to) apply Maslow’s Hierarchy, are you (or have you) doing (done) it from a position of strength — by first being a detective to understand individual “hot spots”? Has this approach helped you to realize that the best internal customer rewards are not (in spite of all popular beliefs) not always cash, raises, and bonuses?

As a leader who is heavily invested in growing the loyalty, respect, and receptivity of both internal and external customers, are you making a conscious effort to breed entrepreneurial thinking accompanied by reasonable risk-taking behaviors? Or are you breeding investment in the status quo?

Are you fostering and nurturing innovation. Do your people come to you with just ideas, or do they fully exploit the ideas they propose with well thought out paths for implementation that include all possible operational, financial and marketing applications? Do you get a thorough and complete picture instead of just a quick sketch? 

Having great people behind you is great for your ego. Having great people behind you who are inspired and highly motivated, who deliver comprehensive plans of attack, is great for your business.

Which is more important? 

Posts RSS Feed FREE Blog Subscription

# # #

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Not “Wealth” — It’s 

OPPORTUNITY that needs

to be redistributed!

It seems most everyone in the business world agrees that Mr. Obama needs to take an economy lesson from the world’s leading retailer.

Wal-Mart today announced it will be cutting consumer costs across the boards to increase revenues and stimulate some genuine deficit relief. 

Congratulations again, Wal-Mart. It’s no wonder you’re on top. You think and act like a business even when many in government would wish for you to roll over and give up.

Oh, but Mr. Obama, why would you who has dragged America feet first into a socialistic state, and almost necessarily into a companion state of incipient bankruptcy along the way, have any regard for a business solution?

After all, you’ve been doing everything humanly possible to make small business enterprises  (America’s ONLY hope for REAL job creation and economic turnaround) go away.

That is correct, isn’t it? (In fact, if you could just once admit this truth, we could move things forward quicker and much more productively — just get the politics out of it!) 

You offer nice sound bites and token funding through do-nothing federal agencies that duplicate efforts for extra (tax-dollar) pay! — just get the politics out of it!   

Nonetheless, Wal-Mart has got it right. Mr. Obama continues to get it wrong.

We have a man whom many believe falsified his way into the White House (If he didn’t, why has he spent a reported $2 million to cover up his true birth information? Regardless of what’s true, does that make any sense?).

It’s simply further proof of the pudding that questions of propriety have been back-seated to those of political pursuit at all costs. And in the process, business thinking has been relegated to “the kid’s table.”

But that’s what happens when ignorance runs incompetence. 

We have in Mr. Obama, a man who hasn’t a single clue about how business works, and who –adding fuel to the fire– appears utterly incapable of even understanding the need for having a business sense of urgency.

For the sake of all businesspeople everywhere in the U.S. and on the rest of the planet, and for all Americans, let us hope we have learned enough about talking the talk (instead of walking it) that we exercise some damage control and nip his political pursuits in the bud.

The notion that redistributing the wealth is a worthy goal is a mark of total naivety. Redistributing opportunities to those who create the wealth of our nation is where the federal government focus needs to be.

Only by supporting America’s small business growth can America support itself because coming from a position of strength is the only meaningful way to be able to afford to help others to grow.

Posts RSS Feed FREE blog subscription

# # #

 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

There are 30 million of us,

and we know better!

Through your manipulated mainstream media mouthpieces –specifically all the TV networks (except Fox), public radio, and most major newspapers– you and your union-thug cronies can talk until you’re blue in the face trying to convince us all that the economy has turned.

We know better.

We are the 30 million catalysts of America’s society and economy who own and run small businesses.

We see the truth. We are not stupid. We know the economy has not turned.

In spite of all your empty claims and false promises, we know this is only the beginning.

We are watching

. . . the gas pumps guzzle our wallets! While you cheer the rising prices to “urge more prudent energy spending,” we are paying more to ship and transport less. (And forget about pleasure travel!)

Are you truly so naive as to think that preserving obscure wildlife species (like spotted owls?) that barely even inhabit America’s vast oil-rich tundras to start with, could possibly be more important than our nation’s self-sufficiency and long-term human survival?

How much longer do you think you can continue to cultivate our nation’s dependency on Arab oil supplies when there’s more than enough in the U.S. to be able to cut those ties completely?

Let we whose lives your decisions are impacting make those choices for ourselves and our own grandchildren.  

We are watching

. . . food prices soar. We are eating (and feeding our families) less healthy more affordable meals in order to cut costs. Food costs will continue to rise as Arab-imported oil costs rise.

At some point, your defiance will shut down the shipping industry, and the rest of our industrialized nation will get flushed away in its wake. No? Then prove it. At the very least explain it! 

Your creeping socialism power-craze has overtaken the reality of America’s survival. Your misguided actions are succeeding at snuffing out the very spirit of entrepreneurship that has made America great! 

We are watching

. . . your tax dollar handouts go to bungling corporate giants who contribute not one iota to new job creation.

We are watching

. . .  unnecessary useless jobs be “created” in government so you, the bosses, can step back and smile and orate and snap your suspenders and gloat about all the new jobs being created.

Those meaningless jobs accomplish nothing except increase the already-catastrophic deficit that you have had the power to fix by putting an end to your administration’s reckless spending. You have instead opted to usher in a state of chaos and convulsiveness that tears at the very fabric of American life and America’s families.

Exaggeration? Oh, how we wish that were the case.  

Evidently, the news has somehow escaped you that America’s 30 million small businesses account for the vast majority of new jobs (97.7% by some estimates!). 

It must be hard to accept and act upon that fact when you’re deliriously busy spending the tax-dollars extracted from those same small businesses, and using them to bail out the dark corners of corporate incompetency.

Adding insult to injury, you’re using our hard-earned tax-dollars to secure and pay back voter support by urging we cave in to gluttonous union demands. You’re trying to improve education by increasing (already outrageously high) teacher benefits? Do people perform better because they’re paid more? That’s a new one.

Isn’t it bad enough that small business will be paying through the nose for ten years just to cover your inept healthcare plan that simply cannot achieve the ends you think the means are designed for?

Okay, maybe these questions won’t get answered, but the small business owners and managers of America will have to be answered. The political rug you’re trying to sweep us all under won’t hide 30 million self-starters. 

We are watching, and soon

(11/06/12) we will be acting!

# # #

Your FREE subscription: Posts RSS Feed

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!

Those who underscore

their trustworthiness– 

are probably dishonest!

I get tired of having people raise my skeptical right eyebrow with the distracting words they use (and sometimes the distracting ways they deliver them), instead of giving me cause to pay attention.

Am I alone here, or do you ever experience the same thing? What is it, do you think, that they think they are communicating?

I recently heard a top executive start out five (5) sentences with, “To be perfectly honest with you, I . . .” which, of course, gave me cause to pause, and doubt everything that followed. I recall scores of discussions with ineffective sales people who peppered “Trust me . . .” into every few sentences. [Shurrrre I will!] 

Rarely, methinks, doth Shakespeare haveth any consequence of business value, but “The lady doth protest too much, methinks” (from Shakespeare ‘s Hamlet, Act III, scene II), doth come to mind.

Okay, okay, enough doth! C’mon, people, trust me when I tell you that all of us carry little deal-killer phrases around in our pockets. We keep these pet phrases well-oiled and ready to drag out onto the front lines whenever the going gets tough.

When does this happen? When we get paranoid and start thinking a credibility erosion is taking place — especially in dealing with key customers, key suppliers, key investors and lenders, and, generally, anyone up the ladder. . . any ladder, real or perceived.

The nervousness sets in, breathing and heart rate quicken (usually accompanied by thoughts like: I don’t want to lose this opportunity; Let me underscore my honesty.)

So, now, on the brink of losing, the person re-groups and blurts out:

“You can believe me when I tell you that . . .”

BAM! DEAD DEAL!

Worse than that, of course, is when phrases like this become habitual or routine expressions. There are just so many times you can hear, “Now, here’s the truth, I . . .” before you start thinking: “Hmmm, is she lying all the other times she speaks, and is only truthful when she asserts that she is?” 

“Are you kidding me?”

“No. I’m gonna be honest with you . . .”

The alarm: DINGDINGDINGDINGDING!

(So, let’s see, if this statement that he says is an honest one is,in fact, an honest one, what about all the other statements? They were all dishonest?)

Most of this is processed in our unconscious minds, so it’s a bit difficult to catch ourselves without getting some trusted help. If there’s no one you can trust, let me be truthful with you and suggest that a good old-fashioned tape recorder can accomplish the job.

Just talk to someone and record yourself. Besides the shock of hearing how many er’s and um’s tumble out, pick up on the assurances of trust and honesty. Does it work? You’d better believe it! Really. Honestly. No kidding. Serious.

# # #

Your FREE subscription: Posts RSS Feed

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!

IN LEADERSHIP, SALES, AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP . . .

It’s NOT Consciousness

vs. Unconsciousness

It’s how you make them

work together!

I just received an email from Dr. Royston Flude in Switzerland, a long-time friend and past business consulting associate. Our connection dates back to the “Dot Gone Revolution,” to Internet business management and writing interests we shared at that time in New York.

Dr. Flude, I might best categorize as a global futurist. He has one foot planted firmly in the pursuit of scientific discovery and applications to life and business management, and the other planted firmly in the universes of prayer, consciousness, and human behavior. More details available at www.cmdc-spoc.org

Royston tells me he has been working on “the impact of Consciousness and its therapeutic outcomes.” Related to that, he notes he “can confirm the power of a strong self-worth and prayer” and that he is conducting some research in the U.S. on the outcomes associated with the use of therapy dogs . . . these are all issues I have strong evidence of personally.

___________________________ 

Last week, someone sent me a video of a presentation given by one of my most admired and respected writers, Malcolm Gladwell (Blink, Tipping Point, What The Dog Saw, plus a zillion awards for his magazine and newspaper work as an imaginative investigative journalist).

In the video, Gladwell said his latest writing project is about “Taking the Unconscious Seriously” and relates that topic to relying on first impressions and snap judgments (particularly in war, dating, marriage, and police work) . . . quite a mix, but also concepts that I have strong evidence of personally.

___________________________

So, “conscious” and “unconscious” stuff has occupied much of my conscious and unconscious mind today.

Here’s where I’ve ended up:

In business — 

Reliance on the UNconscious mind is what separates most corporate existence from most entrepreneurial ventures. The UNconscious mind is the trigger for creative development and the delivery of innovative thoughts and actions. It is also the trigger for sales inasmuch as it is most closely tied to emotional responses and emotional buying motives.

The UNconscious mind, however, is only as effective as it has the potential to be, when it is launched from a platform of Consciousness, and regularly serviced by an element of conscious control.

In other words, to make the most of most business problem/opportunity dynamics, the Conscious mind must assess, goal-set, and strategize with a thinking approach that’s logical, rational and unemotional before unleashing the UNconscious pursuits of tactics designed to implement the strategies to reach the objectives or goals.

But, ah, it’s not that simple: Booster shots of Consciousness in the Unconscious process, and vice versa, attest to the need to be (as Thoreau once urged) “forever on the alert.” It’s rare –if ever– one would simply use one tool , then drop it to use the next. Ah, consciously, that is.

To complicate matters even further, consider whether it can be possible for instantaneous “instinctive” decisions (which often seem the best) to come straight out of shoot-from-the-hip, knee-jerk, UNconscious mindsets that directly bypass Consciousness?

The solution: Like the creative wood-design carpenter who keeps a tape measure on her or his belt or in a pocket, keep Consciousness and Unconsciousness both, at the tip of your tongue, and at the edge of your mind. Why? There’s never just one way to look at any business situation.

And then there are those times when you simply need to let go of rational thinking and trust your SELF, your UNconscious judgments, and your prayers. 

# # #

YOUR FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS BLOG, CLICK: Posts RSS Feed

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or 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!

Entrepreneurs?  No!  It’s the

9-5 folks who sell their souls!

I read a Tweet today, oh boy, and all it said was:

“Entrepreneurship is risky!”

Ah, such sweet naivety!

Corporate life is risky, not entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs take only reasonable risks, and –in the process– maintain strong contact with and control of their destinies.

Corporate types are the ones who risk.

They risk losing their souls.

They give up their spirits to security.

Far greater risks indeed than those that entrepreneurs take by investing in themselves! 

Having a nine to five job with guaranteed benefits and a pocketful of perks is like feeding a bagful of sugar cubes to a horse. It will love you and run around in circles until it drops from exhaustion. But never accomplish anything.

• If you believe life is all about who can drink and BBQ the most on any given weekend, be the 5-mile-run talk of the neighborhood and pay the way through college for kids who ought to be earning it themselves, you may want to just stay where you are. That white shirt and tie fits your sterile, fair-weather-friend, control-freak personality.

• You’ve been kissing corporate political butts so long to get to the next rung on that ladder to the stars, that you’ve forgotten there are other ways to achieve (like, for example, creating new jobs or innovating new revenue streams with product and service line extensions that are simply introduced and sold instead of swallowing them up in corporate analysis paralysis.

• You probably should just hang onto that corporate job.

• You’ll never survive with pursuing your own business. It will be too much work, too many hours, not enough pay, no security, and never enough time to do weekend runs and BBQs. You’ll be searching futilely for vacations, weekend time, 401k deposits, dental plans, sick days, bonuses, and a pension.

Entrepreneurs live every minute of every day with a burning desire to make their ideas succeed, and will work 24/7 when necessary to do that.

They are NOT big risk-takers.

In fact, I’m quite sure if you start counting up gamblers, you’ll find the overwhelming majority are corporate moguls.

People who work hard to build and maintain their own business don’t bet the farm because they have no income/benefit guarantees to back up their losses (and they work too hard for their money!).

Entrepreneurship is about passionate determination to step out where others cower. Corporate life is about protecting yourself . . . having a ready-made excuse for every action, every decision, and never working longer or harder than is required or expected.

Getting ahead personally is more important to corporate employees than gaining success with or for the product or service one represents.

The differences are huge.

If you’re on the streets and you think like a big-business employee, get some more education and training and find yourself a safe, secure job.

If you’re in college and think like an entrepreneur, get out! Stop wasting your time and money. College will not teach you how to believe in yourself and your business ideas, and make them work.

Only “doing it” does it!

# # #

931.854.0474 or 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!

The best way to inspire 

your people is to accept

them as your internal

customers . . . and not

your puppies.

Did you ever think of your “inner circle” of employees, your key support staff, as a pack of puppies? Not the same as a litter; those are all the same breed. A pack! A pack of puppies. Some are more aggressive than others. Some are more animated. Some bark louder. Only a few pay serious attention to the tasks at hand. They run and jump in every direction, except at dinnertime — they all like to eat!

And all will, of course, perform as challenged

for the smallest of treats.

They look up to you as their leader. They pay off your expenditures of energy and time (which they sense or understand) and money (which they do not understand) with unsolicited admiration and unquestioning, unchallenging instincts to follow your commands and your examples. They won’t cross you because they don’t want to risk missing dinner and . . . because they know you’re “the boss”! 

As they grow, they become more set in their ways. Regardless 0f temperament, most like to explore –the woods, the beach, the basement, maybe only their own paws, but some thing. They can get discouraged though quickly when explorations are frowned upon.

Have you seen employees become discouraged when management emphasis is having them learn to stay in line, follow orders, and continually focus on past events and future plans at the expense of the present moment.

Puppies and free-wheeling innovative employees are present-moment creatures.

To keep things manageable, you coax them all (puppies and employees alike) into a the security of a routine. As if almost in a trance-like state, routines tend to be non-threatening and predictable. But, wait! Is that what you want for your entrepreneurial mission? Are you in search of  innovators or household pets?

The trouble is that as the relationships grow over time, and the reward treats become bigger and more expensive, there seems to rise from the ground in a great cloud of smoke, an irresistible temptation to mix up that smoke with some mirror tricks, and/or become lackadaisical, dependent, and reliant on the leader for direction.

Consider the ultimate corporate and (excluding military, police, fire, and EMT services) government life routines of: 9 to 5, paychecks, benefit plans, and (for those lucky-but-mostly-come-to-be-unappreciative few), holiday turkeys. These are wonderful reassuring kinds of expectations for cultivating employees to behave like pets.

It keeps them in control, and makes healthy, fun-loving life companions out of them. But (and you know what’s coming):

Entrepreneurs and small business owners and managers can no longer afford compliant, obedient, do-nothing employees.

Despite preachings you may hear from the White House, there is no denying that these are, and continue to be, tough times.

Trying to be profitable in a country that is virtually broke is like trying to play inspired World Cup Soccer in a silent, empty stadium.

Employees must be catered to as much as customers. Innovation needs to be ignited and encouraged daily. Employees are your key internal customers and they will either drive business for you, or they will quickly transform from entrepreneurial puppydom into corporate and government sheep, waiting for you to sheer and feed and shepherd them!

# # #

FREE BLOG SUBSCRIPTION: Posts RSS Feed

302.933.0116   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!

America’s small business

community is 30 million strong.

On one issue —the economy— we

stand shoulder to shoulder

with one voice:

The economy can only be saved by new job creation.

New jobs come —only— from small business.

(Check history!)

It’s time to face the fact that America’s small businesses drive America’s economy. Period.

It’s time to step up to the plate, Mr. Obama, and exercise the kind of domestic leadership you were elected to provide.

Without a strong economy, there is nothing else you can provide. Your social agenda will continue to dissolve. Our nation’s image will continue to deteriorate. Your support will continue to erode. And the kind of legacy you surely pursue will become more elusive each day.

But you can turn the tide.

You need only to choose to stop being driven by fear of losing face and votes, and show the world the leadership you appear to be capable of.

Bottom line, Mr. Obama:

Stop being an under-achiever!

Your “pulling up short” behavior simply doesn’t do justice to the promises you represent. Surely you can do better than that?

Instead of:

• Blockading and berating small businesses at every turn, and catering to big businesses that are over-run with lethargic 9 to 5 attitudes and disreputable union leaders . . . corporate giants entrenched in maintaining the status quo.

• Creating artificial government “jobs” that simply add to the deficit . . . how many people does it take to fill a pothole? (A State issue? And where do the states take their lead?) 

• Making lots of PR sound-bites and photo ops to illustrate your administration’s dedication to business (and setting up token programs through the pathetic SBA and other smoke and mirror entities to try to look good to voters). . . I served the SBA Advisory Council for two, two-year terms; it’s a farce run by corporate giants. 

  . . . how about trying a bold new tact?                                           

What, for example, could happen if you actually threw Federal support behind small business development by providing genuine tax incentives for job creation?

What, for example, could happen by introducing genuine tax incentives for meaningful small business expansion, and for the creation of entrepreneurial and innovative new revenue streams?

Will you please set the stage for entrepreneurial input by taking the high road? In other words:

• Can you start to genuinely demonstrate a more receptive attitude toward small business owners?

• Can you show a little entrepreneurial spirit yourself by taking the reasonable risk of rolling up your sleeves and setting to work with non-politicized teams of America’s great entrepreneurs? (This includes looking past just those who have worked with and on your various campaigns.)

• Can you put political ambition aside long enough to recruit some active “straighten-out-the-economy” participation by small business? (This means doing far more than just dispatching small armies of researchers and interviewers and surveyors into consumer, industrial and professional marketplaces to “report back.”)   

So far, it seems to ALL of the hundreds of small business owners I informally communicate with regularly, that your administration has done everything humanly possible to alienate entrepreneurs and small business owners and operators and managers, instead of tap into their experience and knowledge, and embrace their spirit.

Small business owners and operators and managers and entrepreneurs know how to be productive.

They know how to turn on a dime.

They know how to create and manage marketplace opportunities.

They know how to do whatever it takes with a passionate sense of urgency.

They know how to make things happen.

It’s hard to know the source of numbers that have crossed your desk, but reality is that there are indeed 30 million of us who are tired of being stepped on, over, under, and around. And many of us care more about turning things around than we do about making political points.

We truly want the opportunity to work with government to turn things around, but there must be an ongoing and mutual sense of purpose and respect coming from the White House. There has not been so far. 

Just say you’re willing to try, Mr. Obama, and let’s get started! Yes, it’s that simple.    

# # #

YOUR FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS BLOG, CLICK: Posts RSS Feed

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or 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!

Why is it so hard to just

  shut up and do what’s right? 

An awful lot of nonsense gets carried over into the business world from society and the media. But I guess that’s to be expected. After all, business is simply a mirror reflection of society’s needs and wants. And the media makes a living by attracting attention with lies and sensationalism that “play off of” society’s needs and wants.

Lies and sensationalism attract attention and create interest. That, in turn, sells newspapers and magazines and draws TV and radio audiences. Media lies and sensationalism boost Internet website visits.

The higher the numbers get, the bigger the demand created for businesses (especially big businesses with multi-million-dollar advertising and marketing budgets) to purchase message time and space. The more message time and space purchased, the more media is incited to lie and sensationalize. A vicious circle.

Bottom line?

There’s a lot of noise out there!

What I find particularly disconcerting is what appears to me to be a growing pervasiveness of leadership reliance on chatter instead of on listening.

The American public has (hopefully) had a two-year-long lesson in the societal strangulation that occurs when you make a great orator –with less than minor league leadership skills and experience– into a national leader who clearly does not know how to listen.

Not listening is by itself an unforgivable offense for any leader. Openly espousing a socialist (Marxist, some even say) agenda that literally flies in the face of America’s Constitution adds fuel to the leadership fire.

One compounds the other by pulling the rug out from under small business’s ability to reverse direction of our ever-plunging economy. It is small business, and only  small business, that can create new jobs. Small business doesn’t fit a socialist agenda. Connect the dots. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And so, we are now also seeing a long trail of energetic young entrepreneurs moving into business leadership posts. But they have nothing much to guide them except the seats of their pants and the role model they naively swept into the White House.

The ugly thought alone of a nation of outspoken, brash young business “leaders” preoccupied with presenting instead of listening is frightening to say the least. Pep rally speeches can get people excited, but they don’t get the job done. 

And as disheartening as it is for me to even use this blog as a place to address concerns like this, I can’t help but think that America has brought herself to her knees . . . and that now is the time for every leader of every business entity to 1) get up, 2) stand tall, and 3) listen carefully to what others are saying:

customers, partners, employees, investors, referrers, lenders, suppliers, vendors, service providers, advisors, geographic and industrial and professional communities served.

We cannot just “hear” them.

We must actively “listen” to them.

We might even learn something

about not only doing what

works…but about doing

w h a t ‘ s    r i g h t !   

YOUR FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS BLOG, CLICK: Posts RSS Feed

# # #

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or 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!