Cars, Copiers,

Cabbage,

Colonoscopies,  

 Microchips,

or French Fries

     It doesn’t matter WHAT a salesperson sells. It’s HOW he or she makes a sale that counts. 

     If you’re “in sales,” you know what this is about. And if you’re NOT “in sales” (technically speaking), you ARE in sales. Think about that one for a minute. Aren’t all of us engaged in some form of selling every day?

     Not knowing or accepting that you are in sales even though you’re not “in sales” is probably a bigger roadblock to your success than a dysfunctional family (which each of us reportedly has!).

     Savvy sales managers and business owners recruit “sales personalities,” not robots dripping with product/service knowledge. Of course salespeople cannot be effective without substantial product/service knowledge, but they also cannot be effective if they are not social animals. Performance features are easy to teach; performing is not.

     We are human so it’s only natural that we gravitate toward people with personalities that come across as authentic — people with “sales personalities.” Why would this be the case? Here we go with this sentence that sounds exaggerated but is true: All customers make all purchases (even those that seem completely unemotional) based on emotional buying motives, not logical, rational, objective ones.

     You may want to re-read that last sentence and give it some open-minded consideration. Human beings do not buy product or service features. They use product or service features to justify their purchases.

     Those people gifted with “sales personalities” are able to sell virtually anything. If I’m looking to hire someone to sell rocket ship parts to scientists, I’ll take a guy who sells railroad cars full of ketchup packets to university buyers over an interplanetary science major who has major research experience in rocket ship construction.

     The ketchup guy can learn the rocket ship parts business. It’s not likely the scientist is going to all of a sudden learn how to turn on the charm and be a great listener. The scientist will typically be preoccupied with talking about what the scientist is interested in talking about, not about first hearing and processing and then emphasizing the benefits the buyers are seeking.

     The scientist will tend to emphasize features (which could just as easily be presented in writing and diagrams) and probably gloss over if not downright disregard any emotionally-based purchase considerations that may –as just one example– have to do with how the buyers’ decisions may have the impact of helping to protect organizational integrity.

     If you own or manage a business and need strong sales support, put aside industry-specific and technical backgrounds as criteria. Focus your recruitment efforts instead on finding someone who’s proven to be a quick learner, who has enthusiasm, exceptional listening and communication skills, and who has demonstrated ability to sell. Period. You’ll get more for your money.

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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!

Arrogance

and obstinancy

are not solutions to 

sales, job creation,

 or healthcare!

     If you’re searching for role-models to run up some business success, don’t waste your time copying what government and union “leaders” practice. Arrogance and obstinancy don’t work. Running roughshod over the public and small business doesn’t cut it.

     Consistently practicing integrity and authenticity (not just talking about it) is what wins sales. Treating every person you encounter with respect, every day, is what wins support.

     Giving genuine help (meaningful tax incentives) to small businesses to create jobs will produce the jobs needed to turn the economy around. This canNOT be accomplished by government plans to use the $30 billion TARP funds that are intended to offset the national deficit. All that that will accomplish will be to dig the economy even deeper into debt by having the 100% inept SBA provide loans for small businesses to pay off other loans. Seems to me that’s the definition of a vicious circle!  

     Union management is cashing in its presidential election chips and driving federal government puppets (with state governments sadly falling into step) into making decisions and spending money that no one has. These are the dynamics that are driving the American economy into the ground. 

     How far do you think you would get if you were legally insolvent and went on a family spending spree — cars, cruises, expensive restaurants and entertainment, new appliances, a vacation home…? What makes that irresponsible behavior acceptable as a government or union path?

     Has anyone asked small business people what they think the best economy solutions are? (No, not the Small Business Administration, which is comprised of corporate and government administrators who have little if any hard-nosed small business know-how or experience.)

     Yet, in the entire history of the United States, hasn’t it ALWAYS been job creation by small businesses that have bailed out sour economies? 

     It’s all about misplaced and misguided priorities. There is NO way to fix healthcare without first fixing the economy. And there is NO way to fix the economy without small business birthing new jobs. 

     The government, and union management,must learn that the solutions they seek will not come about by banging the door harder. A battering ram doesn’t produce progress or better answers. It really is time to listen to those who know best about how to jumpstart small business to create jobs — small business owners and entrepreneurs.

     Surely they will produce more meaningful answers than other politicians or big business union management.

Integrity and authenticity start with genuine respect, listening, and attentiveness. Can we please see some evidence of those behaviors offered to the small business community?

Comment below or direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! Get blog emails FREE via RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Gr8 Gift 4 GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

Life lessons from

an 8 year-old!

     Yeah, I know, I know. Everyone has brilliant kids and grandkids. Just ask; you’ll get an earful, and that’ll probably be accompanied by an accordion photo show from the wallet or purse. The thing is we all talk about how bright kids are, but do we really listen hard to what they say and think hard about what’s behind the words they put out?

     Do you think they’re trying to tell us something?

     Check out the following messages which were bundled together and hand-lettered onto a little wall plaque gift from my 8 year-old granddaughter (who I was astonished to learn, has her own blog!):

Life is a question. No person on earth is your enemy but you. You can’t deside what you were born with but you can deside how you end up.

Being happy is beyond a feeling. Its a way of life. Questions are endless but only one awnser is you.

You can dream without imaganation but you can’t dream without a beleif.

You are who you are and know one can stop you.”

— Gwyn, Age 8 

     Where’s the business message? When times are tough and everyone seems to be struggling to make sales and dig out from under, temptation is great to work harder longer hours and let some family time slip away.

     I cast my vote against that idea. I’ve never known a business growth or sales situation to suffer from working harder, but I’ve seen many lives destroyed by breadwinners working longer hours.

     Of course there are bills to be paid, but there are also children to be raised and family roots to be planted, and nurtured. There’s an age-old excuse that surfaces frequently for the convenience of those who’ve chosen to set themselves up to get sucked into working longer hours.

     They say: “It’s the quality of the time we spend together as a family that counts.” Hard to argue with that, right? It makes sense, right? The trouble is that emotions don’t make sense, and families are all about emotions. Don’t let the sudden lack of financial independence thrust you into a family-distancing role of martyr. The stress alone isn’t worth the commensurate loss of life it cultivates.

     There are always other options.

     One major option is to stop thinking you have to carry the full load on your shoulders. Hold a family meeting. Keep it lighthearted, but discuss financial circumstances openly and honestly. Ask for ideas and input and don’t rush to judgement on thoughts shared that may at first seem empty or naive … like Granddaughter Gwyn’s philosophizing above.

     All well-intended thoughts have a meaningful core or point of origin. Search these out. Give the benefit of doubt. Ask yourself what you can learn from them, what they may cause you to think of. A small business is much more of a living entity than a giant corporation. It’s like a member of the family (and especially if it’s a family business!) so give it the benefit of others’ thoughts as well as your own.

     The more you ask for and listen attentively to input, the more you stand to gain in both respect and sales. The better your odds of achieving by working harder AND smarter without having to work longer.

Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US 

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

It’s A Best-Kept Secret

… Among Men.

     From my early days in Madison Avenue’s “Top 10” ad agencies, where I worked for the industry’s two most famous and successful leading ladies, to active roles in women’s rights marches, to a professorship career which led me to ignite a campus women’s program,  followed by group counseling facilitator days with a female partner, I learned I was barely able to hold a candle to the feminine wiles of business leadership.

     I moved into serial-entrepreneur pursuits with a bevy of talented female business associates (the most important and influential of these being Kathy, whom I married 23 years ago), I have always preferred working with women. I can’t speak for many product industries, but to my way of thinking, women have always been smarter about all the things one needs to be smart about in running a service business and dealing with clients.

     And TODAY, I can finally say to all those smirking owners, investors, and VCs who’ve always equated quarterbacks, fighter pilots, and five-star generals with required business leader traits and qualities: “See. It’s not just me who thinks women are better business leaders!”

     The Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute has just released new findings that predict women entrepreneurs will create close to 6 million new jobs in the U.S. by 2018, more than half the expected new job total. “That’s great,” you say, “but so what? How does that make women better business leaders?”

     Ah, it’s HOW this new job creation tsunami will occur that’s important. Women entrepreneurs are reported in this research study to be “more customer-focused, more likely to incorporate community into their business plans, and more adept at creating opportunities for others,” according to a report of the findings earlier today by Lisa Pateus Viana in the “Small Business” section of FOXBusiness online.

     Viana says these characteristics are “helping women excel in 1) running a business 2) keeping employees driven and productive and 3) building a loyal customer base.” She goes on to say that the research shows “the only things more important to women entrepreneurs than their customers are family and religion,” and proceeds to make a strong case for the values of something few male counterparts strive for: a sense of balance.

     It seems to me that the only ones who disregard the validity of these kinds of study findings are those who have never learned to accept themselves or be able to respect others anyway. So, good riddance to all those stimulus/bailout-dependent corporate and government muckity-mucks who think entrepreneurship is an irritating business nonevent without promise.

     And let’s hear it for the emerging new stronger-sex business leaders! In fact, if we cut them some slack, they may actually create us some millions of new jobs sooner than later! 

~~~~~~~~~~~Visit Hal’s Recent Guest Blog Posts~~~~~~~~~~~

•  
  • “The SALES Snow Job” @ http://bit.ly/bYHmXx
  • “Got A Sick Website?” @ http://bit.ly/6iYe6g    
  • “Leadership Puzzles” @ http://tinyurl.com/yfsczbk 
  • “What’s Your T-Shirt Say?” @ http://bit.ly/7K0s4a   

Comment below or direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! Get blog emails FREE via RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Gr8 Gift 4 GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

JUST DON’T DARE

TO COME UP

FOR AIR!

     Right when we were starting to think we might be coming close to turning an economic corner, we get slammed with a Healthcare Summit instead of a Jobs Summit!?!

     In addition to extolling the new healthcare plan “affordability,” today’s White House declaration reads: “The President’s proposal puts American families and small business owners in control of their own healthcare.” 

     It does nothing of the kind. 

     First off, if you don’t have a job to pay for healthcare, what makes affordability important? And if you can’t afford it, who cares about control? Adding insult to injury, even if you are employed and can afford it, you are not in control; the federal government is in control.

     We’ve said it here before, healthcare reform can only succeed if it is free-market-enterprise price-competitive, and is run on a state-by-state basis. Citizens of Rangeley, Maine, have totally different healthcare needs than those of San Diego . . . or Dallas, Wisconsin, Kansas, or New Jersey.  

     The federal government, in its continuing resistance to acknowledge and foster the fact that small business is America’s only genuine economic survival lifeline, continues to backstab entrepreneurial leaders while smiling at them and shaking their hands.

     Anyway, whatever you do, don’t come up for air just yet because the minute you open your mouth to gasp, the socialist zealots (who decry its use in terrorist interrogation) are standing ready to waterboard small business owners with yet another obstinate attempt to shove a one-size-fits-all healthcare plan down our throats.

     This latest healthcare runaround does nothing except drain small businesses even more and further prevent them from the essential (and only) economic survival solution of creating new jobs. 

     The White House doesn’t get it. Americans simply do not want what is being sold no matter how it’s packaged and promoted, anymore than they’re rushing off to storm local jewelers to cash in on 2 for 1 diamond deals. When you’re sweating this month’s bills and this week’s meals, the healthcare system reforms someone else thinks is needed hardly matter.

     Jobs are what’s important.

     Bailouts and stimulus money are creating jobs? That’s a myth. Do the research if you doubt it. And funneling $30 billion into community banks will not jumpstart small business job creation either.  Oh, if I dare ask, by the way, where on Earth is that $30 billion coming from in the first place? How will it be used? Loans to pay off loans doesn’t seem like a promising solution. What will be the guidelines?

    Is there even a shred of Executive and Congressional awareness about the realities of small business ownership and management?

     Why have unions and big business locked arms with government to prevent small business entrepreneurs from saving all of our butts? It’s called creeping socialism, political greed and outright stupidity.

     It’s past time to stop buying what the President and Congress are trying to sell to further their own agendas under the pretense that they know what’s best, and to instead get them focused on what the American people really need: genuine and simple job creation incentives to small business.      

Comment below or direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! Get blog emails FREE via RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Gr8 Gift 4 GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

Leave “Back To

The Future”

in the dust and

the old movies!

Leadership’s a funny thing, especially when running a small business. The more we try to figure out what went wrong, the less we move forward. Big unionized companies and government agencies can afford the luxury of assigning task teams to look back and determine who did what to whom and why and wherefore.

Small businesses can go broke while their heads are turned.

More than any other organizational entity on Earth, small businesses must remain the most flexible and the least concerned with exploring, assessing, and resolving old problems. In other words, if it’s broke (and not impacting the lifeblood of our business), we need to step over or around it and move on. Fixing stuff takes too much time that is better spent with forward motion … innovative leadership by example!

We need to remind ourselves that anything longer than a minute-old is:

1. Fantasy (because it’s not in the here-and-now present reality of time and space) and
2. Over with and impossible to change.

HOW do we keep our minds focused on the reality of what we’re dealing with day to day —  instead of what happened last week, or yesterday, or an hour ago? The fastest and most effective way that tens of thousands of successful business owners and managers use to accomplish this (and, by the way, that’s free, and takes all of 60 seconds!) is to simply take a couple of deep breaths.

     For specific reinforcement on this, take a quick side trip with your mouse and click here to take some deep breaths.

     The bottom line is that no matter what method we use . . . checking our watches, turning up the music volume, pinching ourselves, playing with a puppy or a baby, taking a slug of ice water, rubbing our foreheads briskly or rubbing our hands together briskly, phoning our desk lines with our cell phones and talking to ourselves (well, okay, maybe just let it ring once!) . . . if it works and it joggles our brains into the present moment, it’s a good method. We need to keep using it.

Recalling past incidents, problems and solutions, accomplishments can have a positive effect on our here-and-now decision making as long as we are consciously managing those “Back to the Future” visits from our present existences.

We get ourselves in trouble when we choose to allow ourselves to get lost with past thoughts, reveries, daydreams, nostalgia … whatever we want to call these experiences. Why? Because getting stuck in those mental journeys  is rarely if ever productive and — in a work setting — will almost certainly not help us establish or maintain the forward motion we need to grow our businesses.

   Is it very unlike running down the field carrying the football, and suddenly stopping to think about the circumstances surrounding your last touchdown?

Small business leaders must prompt, promote, and maintain continuous forward movement, be prepared to “turn on a dime” as the expression goes, and stay focused as much of the time each day as possible on the customer, supplier, employee, market opportunity that’s smack dab in front of our faces, not dwelling on history. Save that journey for your accountant.

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY/ CONTENT/ CONNECTION

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——————-

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Don’t Trust

What You Remember!

     Unless you are one of the 27 other people in America who has not a shred of interest in football, or who found yourself snowed in and powered out as I was on Superbowl Sunday, you probably missed the emergency portable radio static-filled broadcast of the audio for “60-Minutes.”

     Even as many were trying to remember the Colts-controlled first half of the game as they watched the Colts being trounced in the second half, the “60-Minutes” broadcast was focused on the shortcomings of memory.

     Actually, besides the realization that no one ever listens to portable radios anymore (who knew?), the broadcast was wrapped around a cluster of gruesome news stories involving “100% absolutely positive” witness identifications of individuals as criminals who were not.

     A couple of examples involved innocent people who were wrongly imprisoned for many years (more than a dozen I believe I recall hearing in one case). It was only after a slim-chance break in reviewing nearly untestable past evidence that innocence was proven with DNA studies.

     The point of all the par-for-the-course mainstream media sensationalism was to offer newsworthy, scientific proof that the human memory plays tricks on us… that, no matter how absolutely positive we think we are about something we remember, odds are that we are wrong! 

     Okay, so that’s not much of an ego-flattering thing to have to admit… and especially if it has to do with your business and the ways you think you solved problems in the past, which carries a bit more consequential impact than recollecting who threw what touchdown in the 1987 world series (er, sorry, Superbowl).

     What it might say to us, this little touch of dementia, is that it’s not just professors who are absent-minded and that we could all stand to rely less on what we are sure happened in the past. Big corporations wallow in the past, thinking no doubt it will lead them soaring into the future.

     But if remembering the past produces so many inconsistencies and untruths, what good can it all be? How will it ever move us into the future? It will not. If you disagree, you’ve been hanging around too many history teachers and accountants.

     It is the spirit of entrepreneurship that all business most ultimately adopt if we are to heft ourselves upward and out of this mud-clogged economy. There is a genuine need for business leaders to put the past aside and pay attention to what’s going on here and now.

     The past may be interesting and worth much exploration, but not at the expense of what’s in front of our business faces, because present judgements based on past memories will never lead us forward. Before you bet the farm on what you remember that you’re completely certain of, take a deep breath and look instead to the opportunities that are sitting in your lap… appreciate that times and your memory banks have changed. 

Comment below or direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day!  Get blog emails FREE via RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Gr8 Gift 4 GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

If your Valentine list

doesn’t include your

business, get some

marriage counseling, 

or get out!

     Why? Because –first of all– if you own or run a business, you’re married to it. Second– nobody else can love your business for you. And if you’re not head-over-heels with it, your options are slim. You stand to bring it and/or yourself and/or your family tumbling into the kind of abyss that one might expect only to see in a Harry Potter movie. So get up or get out before you get whacked!

     Results of a new 2010 survey by the highly esteemed and credible The Conference Board, as reported in the Corporate Communicator (subscribe free to this great newsletter at www.bonmotcomms.com) show that only 45% of Americans are satisfied with their work…the lowest figure in 22 years!

     In other words, small business owners and managers are now facing big business problems. If The Conference Board findings are correct, and there’s never been any reason I know of to doubt their studies, those of you with 100 employees, have 55 unhappy employees; if you have 20 employees, 11 are unhappy! That’s an awful lot of discontent under one roof (especially if you don’t love your business)! 

     Whether little thumpity-thump hearts fly into the air when you think about your business or not, this 45% figure still spells disaster. It still means the odds are that a majority of people in your company are dragging their butts around, collecting paychecks and benefits from you for doing only the amount of work that’s necessary in order to collect paychecks and benefits from you.

     “Yeah,” says you, “but I can’t pay out any more than I am right now!”

     Ah, but –believe it or not, and EVEN in this economy– money is not always what turns frowns to smiles and negative attitudes to positive ones. Of course paychecks and benefits are important, and even more so where cutbacks have been necessary. But here are some proven solutions you can try, or use to prompt your own versions:

• Do everything you can to help employees be more a part of decision making (particularly as it impacts how they interpret their individual job responsibilities) 
• Empower employees to exchange more job-productive ideas with one another
• Promote greater pride in employee workmanship
• Publicly acknowledge all over-the-top efforts (regardless of whether they succeed or fail) with small frequent rewards

     Selecting something to target from the above list should get you off on a better foothold if your business marriage has been faltering and all you’ve been seeing is stars and corkscrews spinning away from the tops of disgruntled heads.

     And if you still truly love your business and can’t stand the thought of divorce or separation, try cherry-picking off the above list anyway. It can help enhance your Valentine’s Day message to your business and will get you a whole lot further than expensive roses or candy. <3 <3 <3 <3 (uh, right: sideways hearts that the blog won’t let me close the spaces on! Cheers!)    

Comment below or direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day!  Get blog emails FREE via RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Gr8 Gift 4 GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

S T O P

managing problems

and S T A R T

ending them!

     We are unfortunately taught from pre-K through graduate school, and brain-deadened all along the way by government, unions, and giant corporations (plus well-intentioned family, friends and associates), to wring out our dripping old problem washcloths and use them again.

     Some kind of recycling “green” thinking stewardship-leadership idea?

     Well, far be it from me to not be fully supportive of environmental and ecological interests, but “No Thanks!” when it comes to recycling problems. To manage a problem is to recycle the problem until it comes back again and bites you in the butt! Small businesses don’t have the financial staying power to withstand multiple butt-bites.

     This leaves small business leaders to end the dripping-old-problem washcloth cycle before it begins by blowing the thing up, instead of letting it collect bacteria before its next use. How? STOP doing everything we’ve been taught since childhood: STOP STUDYING THINGS SO MUCH!

     “OMG, that’s sacrilegious! We have to be analytical — especially men — that’s our job!” Right. Because every blue-blooded American is crazed about getting and regurgitating the “in-depth analysis” offered by competitive sporting events commentators, by political and news pundits, by medical and diagnostic healthcare professionals … and by the vast majority of teachers in the vast majority of classrooms. 

     But this is about your small business and my small business, not the AFL-CIO,  AARP, Chevrolet, Bank of America, VERIZON, GOOGLE, main-stream media or the American Federation of Teachers. This is not about the futility of trying to end the vicious cycle of problems of the deep-pocketed. This is about learning what no one (except perhaps for some wise old grandparents!) has ever taught us: HOW TO THINK!

     Leadership means many different things to many people and organizations and governments, but to small business owners, operators, managers, and entrepreneurs, it can only mean one thing: HOW TO THINK!

     Even college which is supposed to teach us how to think, teaches us instead simply more of how to analyze. Analysis skills will not ingratiate a customer, pay a bill, respond to an immediate market opportunity or patch up piece of bad press.

     Long-term strategic planning is the lifeblood of big business and often accounts for giant corporate leaders’ collective inability to see their hands in front of their faces. Action plans are the regimen of small business; they are about what’s happening now and what can be done now to start ending problems now.

     Successful small businesspeople don’t waste time re-assessing, re-evaluating, re-comparing, re-contrasting, re-thinking, revising, re-visiting, re-structuring, or dwelling on re-reads of studies, surveys, and reports.

     Successful small businesspeople try solutions, and when the solutions don’t work, they try other solutions; they don’t waste valuable time, money, and effort running around in circles trying to manage the fire and put the same flame out over and over again. They get rid of the fire.

What can you do today to start ending

            the problems you’ve been managing?          

Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US 

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Whether you sell

for yourself or

someone else, you

sell for your SELF!

    Top (big) business world muckity-mucks often disregard and underestimate the value of their salespeople. Small business world owners typically think they can handle sales themselves. Both are wrong and neither understand that selling is its own business!  

     If you sell for a living, and haven’t considered yourself a small business owner, you are just as mistaken.

     Regardless of what others may think, when you get up in the morning and head off to your pipeline appointments, you are viewed and thought of by customers and prospects as the flesh and blood representation of the business you represent. You ARE the company in their eyes. And that applies equally to selling a one-man-band or the services of a mega-multi-national corporation.

     It’s easy to lose track of your SELF in the process of representing others, and you must fight this “mind-drift” if you are to survive and thrive in today’s marketplace. Begin to do that by pinching yourself before every encounter, by taking a deep breath http://bit.ly/cMoqHf and by reminding yourself that you are in business for your SELF.

     Of course if you’re a true professional, or aspire to be, you already know you can only sell your SELF by listening hard, by putting your SELF in the prospect’s shoes, by focusing on benefits, and by being 100% honest 100% of the time — “To your own SELF be true” if you’re a slogan/ motto heeder.

     You need to keep records. Do the paperwork and data entry with vigor because every piece of paper or computer entry related to every sales call is a piece of bridge that will bring the business you run for your SELF a little closer to the financial success and goal achievement waiting for you across the river.

     You need to constantly innovate. Rebuild, revise, redirect, re-examine, re-explore, re-visit, re-think. Start with the attitude that everything you do every day can be done better, more efficiently, more effectively, more productively. CHUNK IT UP! Don’t overwhelm your SELF with too much at once. Start by establishing priorities of what can be the most immediately beneficial, second most, etc.

     You need to constantly add value to the products and services you represent. Think about this. It doesn’t mean you have to go begging administrative types or trying to re-invent your wares. And it doesn’t have to be expensive.

     Good small business owners are also good at managing their finances, especially cashflow. I know one industrial sales rep who passes out free online flower arrangement and iTune credits to customers for their families. Another makes charitable donations in the customer’s name.

     And you need to promote your small business. Really top sales pros I know have their own websites and/or blogs, and participate heavily in social networking. None of that has to be expensive either. But, you know what? It pays. It pays back many times over to do it, to keep it active, to include it on your business card, and to include it in your spiel. An educational site related to what you’re doing becomes a value-added situation in and of itself.

Whatever you sell, make it a daily habit

to inventory and adjust your SELF

because YOU are your own small business!  

Comment below or reply direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US  Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day!  Blog FREE via list-protected RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Great VALENTINE for GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF