Are you FOR SALE?  Of course!

You’re looking at this because you couldn’t quite figure from the title why you should be included here because you’re not a sales rep!?!?

Guess what?  You’re a sales rep!

Whether you like it or not, whether you agree or not, whether you think you’re above it all or not because you’re an accountant, doctor, lawyer or Indian chief, the sad-but-true news is that you ARE a SALESPERSON!.

Why such an adamant statement?  Because it’s true.  All of us –even if you’re not officially in a sales role or sales function or earning sales commission– are selling something (Our selves?  Our ideas?  Our work?  Our religious beliefs?  Our political persuasions?  Our experience? ) and we do this selling every day, even most of the day for most people . . . some, actually, all day long!

Many folks out there (particularly those who like to categorize themselves as “professionals”) don’t like to think of themselves as being in sales because they consider sales a low-life business function and think it compromises their integrity!  Right?  I know you know who I’m talking about.  You can probably rattle off a list of some of those clueless, self-aggrandizing-types.  (Maybe print out this post to leave anonymously on a qualified desk?!)

So, without further ado, HERE (TA-TA-TA-TA-TA—TA-TA!): 

 IS REALITY!

REALITY IS that people don’t buy THINGS! 

REALITY IS that people don’t buy SERVICES! 

REALITY IS that people buy P E O P L E !

Granted that –at one time or another– all of us have had to be an unhappy customer or prospect when we’ve found ourselves (by choice of course) in a captive situation that really offers little choice.  Remember having to pay $4.50 for one small bottle of water in the middle of the trade show floor at the fancy hotel?

Why?  Because there’s just two of you manning your booth and you were thirsty enough to start chewing perspiration out of your socks (well, yuch, that’s like a little over-the-top thirsty, isn’t it?).

Anyway, the bottom line is that, unless you have no place else to turn and could lose your job for trying to turn, you really do have an easy choice with every purchase for every product and every service.

And the deciding factor for that choice that you have will inevitably be the person representing what you’re looking to buy.  Because (of course you know what’s coming here): People buy people!

You already know this if you are an officially designated sales rep.  Though you may occasionally forget to practice what you know when you overlook a bit of good grooming or good manners or good listening . . . or when you spend too much energy ticking off product or service features instead of benefits.  Sound familiar?

If you are NOT an official sales rep, you might first of all want to try the job for a few days to see for yourself why it’s just as challenging and stressful and professional as any other career (accountants, doctors, lawyers and Indian chiefs included).  Okay, you don’t want to do that.  Can’t say I blame you.

Being a professional salesperson is very demanding work because it requires you to be alert and on your toes literally every waking minute . . . with, even, laminated business cards folded into your bathing suit pocket while on vacation!

The point is that no matter who you are, no matter what you do for a living (even if you’re a teacher or government employee), no matter where you live (unless you’re a hermit!), YOU ARE A SALESPERSON!

The sooner you realize and accept this, and get to work learning more about sales so you can be better at it, the more effective you’ll be as a human being and the more productive your business and organizational efforts will be.  The best place to start is with a mentor.  Know any good salesperson willing to train you in return for referrals and leads perhaps?  Are you FOR SALE?  Of course you are!

# # #

 Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US        or comment below

“Screw it!  I’m gonna do

what I’ve always wanted

to do, and make it work!”

     You know what?  I am a businessperson first and foremost.  From my first lemonade-and-comic-books-for-sale stand when I was six years-old, through years of Madison Avenue advertising agency creative and management work for Fortune 500 clients, I’ve been a businessperson. 

     Through a dozen years of fulltime and adjunct business marketing, management and psychology professorships on three different campuses, and through three overlap years of hosting a daily feature radio show, I’ve been a businesperson.

     Through conducting 20,000 students’ worth of management training programs, and coaching nearly 500 new business startups, plus consulting with hundreds more, I’ve been a businessperson.

     Yet, the blanket under it all, the thread that weaves it all together, the place where my heart is while my mind and hands have been busy being a businessperson, is writing.  If first and foremost, I am a businessperson, then always and forever after, I am a writer.

     Knowing this has made me a better businessperson . . . and a better writer!

     What are YOU really all about?  What do you DO for work every day?  What do you DREAM of doing for work every day?  HOW can you combine those.  [I am now primarily a business writer and writing consultant, for example — traditional advertising, Internet websites and blogs, public relations and feature stories.]  

     Am I kidding?  No.  Am I being unrealistic?  No.  What you do for work every day is your choice!  Whether you do for work every day what you dream of or not, is your choice!  If that doesn’t seem possible because it’s simply too hard for you to do what you want and to make a living at it, THAT is a choice.  Choose for it to be easy!

     Too many of us cruise control through life doing jobs we tolerate, rather than those we know we could have more fun with.  With so many people on the transition bubble right now, it may be the perfect time to simply step back, and make yourself happier and healthier and less stressed.  How?

You walk up to the mirror, throw back your shoulders, smile and say “Screw it!  I’m going to do what I’ve always wanted to do.  And I’m going to make it work because it’s my choice, and because I don’t want to dry up and shrivel up by investing myself and my energy and my heart in maintaining the status quo!  I can enlist my family’s support.  I will at least explore this thinking.” 

     Give yourself the opportunity to be a better businessperson AND a better cowboy or dress designer or sailor or artist or restaurant owner or dog trainer or landscaper or W H A T E V E R by applying your business expertise to what makes for FUN in your life.  Consolidate.  Combine.  You can try it.  You can make it work.  You need only to make the choice.  Explore!  Exhale!  Enjoy!  

# # #

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

“You can’t build a reputation

on what you’re going to do.”

–HENRY FORD

We’ve talked before about the definition of integrity being doing the right thing even when nobody else is looking.  The dictionary says it’s “the quality of having strong moral principles,” and “the state of being whole, unified and sound, without corruption.” 

I mention it here because integrity is the best kind of reputation to have.  Some customers flock to some businesses because they offer the lowest price.  Some seek only to have quality at any price.  But in today’s volitile marketplace, integrity (“HIGH TRUST”) is what sells most consistently and most profoundly.  It’s what anchors that elusive customer characteristic: loyalty! 

Consumers have been duped and led to slaughter for too many years.  Consumers are tired of hearing about businesses that make empty promises, that fallaciously attach themselves to worthy causes but fail to walk the walk when it comes to the moment of truth.  

As proverbially expressed, deeds and action speak louder than words.  

Consumers are demonstrating, across the boards, that they do not any longer want to deal with “low-trust” talk-the-talk businesses. 

     What separates “HIGH” from “LOW” trust?  Integrity. 

     How does a business gain integrity?  By gaining respect. 

     How does a business win respect?  By establishing a reputation. 

     How does one build a reputation? 

• By consistent demonstration of honesty and fairness with both internal and external customers, and appreciation that the two need to be viewed as interchangeable. 

• By recognition that the customer is always right and that there are never any exceptions to that short of legal violations or physical violence. 

• By (back to the proverbs) practicing what you preach! 

Being partly honest in business is like being partly pregnant in life. 

If your assessments of your business and the spin you’ve been putting out to the public (or, more correctly,  to your marketplace) are filled with um’s and er’s and maybe’s and sometimes’ and occasionally’s, you’re not kidding anyone but yourself! 

Are you and your business, for example, making token donations to charities, or are you and your employees getting into the trenches and helping charitable organizations to raise money and move forward?

It may be time to step back and revisit your mission as well as the services you perform and that you provide both inside your doors and out.  Today’s a good day for that.  Think about it. 

# # #

Hi there, I’m “Getting Stale!”

What’s YOUR name?

     Do you think the answer to the old question, “what’s in a name?” is “nothing!”?? 

     Whether your business name is old (Hershey) or new (Smart Car), if you don’t reassess it regularly (at least annually), odds are it needs a tweak, a facelift, a transfusion, or a lobotomy! 

     Step back from the name and ask yourself if it’s still as meaningful, insightful, engaging, and competitive as it once was.  Does it play off of or make use of positive established associations (the Prudential Rock and MacIntosh Apple)?  Does it tie itself to positive, known or established concepts (Gorilla Glue)?  Is it born of positive, known or established (even competitive) name parents (Viagra from Niagra, Hondai from Honda)?  Does it offer a double entendre experience (Cluck U Chicken)? 

     Does your business name set up a branding line, themeline, rhyming or alliterative payoff (“You’ll never bite a burger better than a BUBBA!”)?  Is the URL taken (or purchasable)?  Is it easily visualized (Friendly’s)?  Has it some unusual aspect to its meaning or appearance (The Burger King crown, the colored Google lettering)?  Does it fit with where you are and where you’re going (EZPass)?  What would it take to achieve a fit? 

     Does it need total transformation or just a slight nudge (The New York Mets from The New York Metropolitans)?  Might it be presented as a new division or department or subsidiary of the old existing name in order to gain more market relevance (MsNBC)?  Is there too much “goodwill” accumulated with the old existing name to consider a departure or could it be time for introducing “the son or daughter or brother or sister of” the old established name (“From the makers of . . .”)?

     Why are you still reading this if you have no serious doubts?  If you’re a new or small business, the kind of transition suggested is certainly simpler and less-expensive to achieve than with and old or large business.  On the other hand, old large business name transformations (ESSO to EXXON, for example) can be historic and have monumental impact if they’re executed properly. 

     I drove by Charles Brown Glass Company yesterday, and thought, had that been my name and business, I would have bitten the proverbial bullet (and probably upset my grandparents) by simply using my less formal “Charlie” to capitalize on all the icon cartoon character references out there.  Wouldn’t you enjoy telling people you worked for or delivered to or supplied or represented or bought glass from Charlie Brown?  (Maybe even hire a receptionist named Lucy and pack the glass for delivery in “Linus Blankets”?)

     I know, I know, here come the lawyers!  But it’s pretty hard to legalize someone out of using their real name even when it’s an already-famous one.  BJ’s Bar in Ocean City, Maryland, must be thrilled beyond belief that a new BJ’s merchandise buyer’s club has just opened in Southern Delaware, half an hour away, accompanied by massive regional advertising that inadvertantly urges the public to both sets of business doorsteps.  

     What’s in YOUR business name?  Does it work?  Where’s it going?  Will changing it in any way get you where you’re going quicker, more productively, more profitably?  halalpiar

# # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 134 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link

Got a flounder fillet handshake?

     How about the opposite?  I met someone the other day whose handshake practically brought me to my knees.  After we talked awhile, and I asked about it, she said her father always taught her to act tough when she was nervous, and bone-crusher handshakes seemed to satisfy her agitation. 

     Don’t you love being greeted by a salesperson who’s looking over your shoulder?  Or at your feet, the top of your head, your belly button?  Your spouse? 

     And of course there are also the ones we always jump at the chance to buy from, the ones whose faces look like they just stepped in dog poop on their way in the door, or who must surely have run over their grandmas with a reindeer, or who are still pretzeled-up with glaring angry eyes and wrinkled brows a full hour after being cut off by an oozing dump truck on their commute to work.

     And then to put the famous Horse and Dog trainers to shame, there’s the “People Whisperer.”  Or on the flip side, the backslapping loudmouth.  

REMIND YOURSELF:

• When you own or manage a business, every single thing you do every day is a form of selling yourself or your ideas.
• A sale is made or broken in the first ten seconds.
• The first ten seconds of every encounter is consumed by first impressions (which don’t get a second chance) and those first impressions have largely to do with handshakes, eye contact, smiles, and a moderate and engaging tone (and volume level) of voice.       It’s the attitude you project that makes or breaks. 

     Yes, of course, clothes and grooming, but I have to assume you know how to bathe and dress yourself, clean your nails and stuff like that.  But you know what?  I once saw a total slob sell a $35 million company in twenty minutes with nothing but charm and some decent financial statements. 

     You wouldn’t have taken the chain off your front door if he appeared on your stoop in the dirty, bedraggled outfit he had on.  Yet he absolutely glowed as he delivered his sales spiel.  He had the magic.  He made things happen. 

     The man had a smile and tone of voice that made you want to hang on and listen and trust him.  His eyes screamed with enthusiasm but engaged others with a sense of acceptance and camaraderie while his voice left listeners hearing only rationality and justification for the purchase decision.  It was reassuring. 

     You would never dream to have looked at your watch.  His day-old whiskers, scuffed shoes and wrinkled wrong-size suit were never noticed by the decision makers.  He listened.  He exuded confidence and pride and energy and the attitude that he had what was needed at a reasonable price.  He did in fact.  The same business is worth billions today!  So is the man who sold it.

     STOP TODAY FOR JUST A MINUTE.  Hitch up your belt and boots.  Look in the mirror and give yourself your best smile.  Shake your own hand firmly (turn your left hand pinkie up and thumb down to create the right effect!).  Tell yourself:

“I am the best there is at what I do and people need what I have to sell and they are willing to pay what I ‘m asking because I have the magic!” 

     (Right!  Now do it again like you mean it!  Without genuineness, attitude takes you nowhere!)  You might rather want to conduct this little rah-rah session for yourself in your own bathroom instead of the hotel lobby.  But do it.  And remember to pass on all the good feelings it raises because it does, and because you can, and because you never know who your next customer might be!    halalpiar

# # #

Aerodynamically, the bumble 

bee shouldn’t be able to fly, but 

the bumble bee doesn’t know it 

so it keeps on flying.

–MARY KAY ASH (Founder, Mary Kay Cosmetics)

     A class exercise I’ve done in many management training programs, including a week ago with a diverse team of BURRIS LOGISTICS company leaders has participants stand arms distance from others and follow three simple 1-minute sets of instructions.  It is worth 3 minutes to be Mary Kay’s bumble bee!

(Not for use while driving or operating heavy equipment or on a rooftop or edge of a cliff, or if drunk or with 2 broken arms, or if you’re standing in the path of a buffalo stampede 😉

     I also suggest you get someone (preferably with a soothing voice) to read these 3 steps to you and that you step back from the computer and simply do as asked.  I promise these next 3 minutes can change your life for the better, immediately!

1)  Stand relaxed, feet apart, hands at your sides. Take a couple of deep breaths. Go ahead. Breathe… good.  Now, slowly let your arm (either one) rise slowly from your side until it’s out in front of you and parallel to the ground.  Next, without lowering your arm, bring your arm slowly to the side, and keep moving it back still parallel to the floor to a point where it starts to feel uncomfortable, then stop. 

Good, now take inventory of where your arm ended up.  Next, bring your arm slowly back until it’s out in front again, then slowly back down to your side.  Good.  Challenging stuff here, huh?

2)  Now imagine that you are going to do the exact same thing again, but this time with your eyes closed . . . and just pretending to do it.  Take a couple of deep breaths and close your eyes.  Eyes closed now, imagine that you slowly let the same arm raise itself from your side until it’s out in front of you and parallel to the ground.  Good. 

Next, imagine that your arm is again moving slowly to the side, still parallel to the floor and imagine you are still slowly moving it back, and back some more and that you go right through that point where you’d stopped before and you just keep going, very easily and with no discomfort — to a new point that’s far past where you stopped the first time, and you keep going until that new spot starts to feel a little bit uncomfortable, and you stop there.  Good. 

Now, eyes still closed, pretend you are taking inventory again of where this new stopping place is and then imagine that you slowly return your arm back to that spot in front of you, and slowly lower it back down to your side.  Okay open your eyes again, now.  Wow!  Good job!  We’re two-thirds done!

3)  Okay, now, here’s the last step.  Just as we’ve already done, take a couple of deep breaths.  Good.  Now, eyes open, slowly let the same arm raise itself from your side until it’s out in front of you and parallel to the ground.  Good. 

Next, let your arm move slowly to the side as you did before, still parallel to the floor and that you are still slowly moving it back, and back some more and then just like you did with your eyes closed, that you go right through that point where you’d stopped before and you just keep going, very easily and with no discomfort — to a new point that’s far past where you stopped the first time, and you keep going until that new spot starts to feel a little bit uncomfortable, and you stop there.  Good.

Now, eyes still open, take inventory again of where this new stopping place is . . . got it? . . . and then slowly return your arm back to that spot in front of you, and slowly lower it back down to your side.

     You did what?  You surpassed yourself!  You exceeded the point you went to the first time by simply imagining that you could in fact perform much better.  You didn’t need me.  I was just your coach.

     The bottom line here is that you can surpass yourself and your own expectations of what you are capable of doing simply by relaxing your mind and your muscles (with deep breathing in this case) by imagining yourself accomplishing what you want, by visualizing yourself as succeeding.

     Try this with someone who needs a little lift (or an entire class if you’re a teacher or trainer).  If you practice it and take your time with it and sound encouraging, you will be astonished with the kinds of results this exercise produces for others as well as yourself.  Try it.  It works.  Call me if it doesn’t, or if you want more info (931.854.0474) or leave a comment below.  Happy arm exercise!

# # #

Hal@Businessworks.US

Open Minds Open Doors

“My assistant’s love life? 

…more than I wanna know.” 

(And I’m actually afraid of her finding out about mine, so I keep a distance!) 

“And what’s so bad about that?  After all, I’m not running a social service organization here; this here’s a business.  There’s no room for touchy-feely, warm/fuzzy, cuddly-wuddly (“cuddly-wuddly”?) stuff — least of all between me and the people who work for me.  If we don’t keep a respectful distance, the work will never get done, and my granddaddy always said: “Don’t fish off company docks!”

WOW!  Some good arguments there, Mr. Hardass, and I’m sure that strategy has worked well for you because you’re still in business while others around you keep tumbling.  But, you know what?  Odds are for sure that you’re not getting the productivity levels you deserve out of those you employ.  Here’s why:

KEEPING THE BEST PEOPLE means treating them like they are the best, all the time, no exceptions, even when they screw up and you choose to feel angry about it. 

You might try, instead of anger, to choose (yes, anger is your choice!) the path of a constructive guide by:

1) Taking some deep breaths to calm down your neurological system, relax your muscles and stimulate more oxygen to your brain to become more alert.  You may have to quietly walk away or gently close your door to force yourself to concentrate on your breathing for a minute or two, then

2) Chalking it off to a learning experience for the employee (AND for your self for not having forewarned or kept on top of the issues involved) and taking some solice that the employee probably feels badly enough without being chastized.  Try instead asking for (in writing by the end of the day!) three ways to specifically prevent that kind of screw-up in the future, which puts a positive focus on problem prevention (vs. negative nonproductive scolding).

3) Remembering that Maslow’s Heirarchy still rules HR’s motivational universe of successful companies.  Small frequent rewards that specifically address the personal needs of each individual always motivate best, and can usually be more economical.  A recognition seeker will prefer a plaque to cash.  The parent of a crooked-toothed teenager will prefer one-time orthodontist bill payments over a permanent salary raise. 

The point here is that you will never be able to know what makes your people “tick” –and each marches to a different drummer– UNLESS you make more of an effort toward intimacy!  How will you ever know about the teenager’s teeth, for example, unless you’ve had some kind of informal small talk discussion with the parent over lunch or coffee?  Would you even know that person has a teenage child?

And it doesn’t stop with that.  We often change our wants and needs literally overnight.  A local TV interview, for instance, with the regognition-seeker may satisfy that need to the point where a plaque has no meaning. 

The teenager’s grandmother may have just come up with the cash for the braces, prompting the parent to be more interested in ressurecting pursuit of new tires for the family car.  (Again, a much cheaper and more appreciated one-time-expense reward for good work motivates more than a permanent ongoing salary raise!)  The trade-off to taking the time and trouble to know your employees better is that it will –in the end– cost you less and increase your business productivity levels.  

So, bedroom habits?  No.  Getting a fix and keeping tabs on each individual employee’s changing wants and needs?  Yes.  Listening carefully?  Yes.  Caring enough to provide the kinds of support –within reason of course– that those who work for you really need?  Yes.  Take the time; it pays!   

halalpiar

# # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 129 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

You will get what you want

if you help enough other

people to get what they want!

     Scenerio: You’re supposed to be an entrepreneur.  You got yourself into a business startup situation that’s cash short and you’ve got to make it work but can’t afford the tools you need, or even the workspace.

     Scenerio: You own or run an established business that has been steadily shrinking with the economy and the future is looking glum because you can’t seem to drive the customer base you need to buy your products or services.

Aw, those are two totally different situations, Hal. You can’t address them both in one blog and solve them with one solution.

Yup!  You’re probably right.  I also don’t pretend to have all the answers.  But I am pretty good at igniting sparks.  I mean, all ya gotta do is rub two businesses together to start a fire!  How about the two examples?

The entrepreneur thinks she needs cash to furnish an office and pay for workspace to start her computer seo consulting enterprise.  The old guy runs a 5o year-old lumber yard and his historically reliable contractor customers are at a construction standstill.

With the lumber yard so quiet, surely there’s a spare corner’s worth of office space somewhere that’s easily furnished with makeshift benches, shelves and tabletops.  There shouldn’t be any shortage of electric lines and even soundproofing should be readily available.

With all the belt-tightening going on, homeowners are turning inward to add onto and improve existing living space on their own, armed with do-it-yourself books, neighborhood teens looking to make a few bucks to support their text message and ipod habits, and a trial and error attitude.

The entrepreneur sees the opportunity and moves in for the kill — but it’s a mutual benefit kill.  With win-win as an objective, the strategy unfolds.  She barters for the space and makeshift furniture in exchange for email blasts to his homeowner database announcing free seminars run by local (out-of-work) contractor experts teaching attendees how to add a room onto their homes, how to convert an attic or basement into living space, etc.

Homeowners learn for free.  Homeowners purchase materials at the lumber yard and hire contractor/teachers for parttime on-site consulting.  The entrepreneur gets commissions on the referrals, makes numerous business contacts from among the homeowner classes, and helps pump up the lumber yard website by tying in a contractor blog site for helping unemployed roofers, framers, etc. find work.

Disneyland?  Not if you decide to make it work and are willing to try out new ways of doing business that help you achieve your goals without spending money.  It starts by opening your mind to possibilities, and by figuring out that you will always get what you want if you help enough other people to get what they want.  There are millions of scenerios out there.  Be one.       halalpiar

# # #

“You see things; and you say

 ‘Why?’  But I dream things that

never were; and I say ‘Why not?’

— GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

     Sounds great, doesn’t it?  Inspirational as can be, right? Terrific motivational stuff, yes?  Easy thinking for any entrepreneur to buy into, isn’t it? 

     Therein lies the problem. 

     From the foundations of innovation springs disaster masquerading as the allures of conquest. 

     Unless you, Mr. and Ms. Entrepreneur, are engaged in the birth of a business, or a new way to do something more effectively and more efficiently, your innovative spirit may be courting notions of self-destruct.  In other words, if you are trying to build a better looking mousetrap when you’ve already got one that works, you may be taking your business enterprise over the falls without a lifejacket or even a barrel. 

     There’s nothing wrong with promulgating the policy of “if it ain’t broke, fit it anyway!”  BUT there’s a lot wrong with innovating just for the sake of innovating.  And knowing how and when and where to draw that thin line is a talent best left to those with genuine frontline experience and a sense of fiscal balance . . . those who understand the difference between self-centered “low trust” and consumer-driven “high trust” performances.  

     Perhaps you don’t agree, but manufacturer presentations by Samsung and Panasonic at this past week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas took on the role of “profitability unconsciousness” one-upmanship in their relentless (and brainless) pursuit of thinner and thinnest TV screens (now measured at cardboard thickness of 6.5 millimeters!). 

     “YYSSW” as many of our kids might text message in response (“Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, whatever”).

     I call this misguided, unrealistic, over-the-top entrepreneurial ambition run amuck.  How can big successful companies possibly think that inspiring and nurturing the kinds of entrepreneurial brainstorms that produce the world’s thinnest TV screens has any relevance in an economy-squeezed marketplace that really doesn’t give a damn?

     It’s hard to call successful businesses like these mismanaged, but the truth is they are fostering fantasy at a point in history where only realism and “high trust” corporate developments count for anything. 

     Oh, I’m wrong?  You can’t wait to run out and buy the latest thin screen TV?  And then there’s the new top of the line Apple laptop for $2,800.  Give me a break, people!  Are you planning to fall in behind the automakers in search of government bailouts for 2009?

     You, dear electronics industry executives, may think that because the general public has now come to view your products more as necessities than luxuries, that it’s okay to commit consumer rape and armed robbery.  If you’re not working on your resumes right now, you’re dumber than any of us non-techies ever imagined. 

     The public is not stupid.  And when you ignite entrepreneurial explosives with the goal of taking advantage of the public, that’s when entrepreneurial spirit kills, and that’s when you’d better doubletime it out of town!  halalpiar   

# # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 125 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

What better way to boost your

business than to learn how to

write killer copy and content?

     Okay, a slight departure tonight to fit in a couple of news items . . .

     The Delaware Technical & Community College Spring “Business & Professional Development” promotional booklet and the College’s “Personal Development” promotional booklet both arrived today, announcing upcoming course offerings, including two I’m scheduled to teach that a number of you have asked about.  Here are the two course offering descriptions:

     Business & Professional Development

1)  BETTER BUSINESS WORDS WORK!  Learn how to boost your business and professional practice revenues with better writing!  Focus will be on writing business plan narratives, strategic marketing plans, business correspondence, reports, creative marketing and advertising for all traditional and non-traditional media applications (Website, email, print ads, news releases, broadcast commercials, brochures, billboards, direct mail, “elevator speeches”).  For owners, managers, entrepreneurs (15 hours, 1.5 CEUs); 2/4-3/11; Wednesdays; 5:30-8pm; 6 sessions. Georgetown, Delaware Campus.  $195 EYC212 231-2  Registration Info: 302.854.6966  www.dtcc.edu/owens/ccp

     Personal Development

2)  IMAGERY WITH WORDS.  Explore ways to paint fiction and nonfiction pictures with words.  Proven methods for strengthening your creative writing skills will be shared.  Sessions include stress and time management how-to’s for writers.  Tap your inner resources and sharpen your writing wits.  All levels of writing skills are welcome.  Participants will present one-minute weekly reports and bring a work-in-progress for personalized coaching  (10 hours); Wednesdays; 5:30-8pm; 4 sessions. Creative Writing Center of Delaware in Lewes, Delaware.  $119. ENO 289 271-2  Registration Info: 302.854.6966  www.dtcc.edu/owens/ccp

     Please share this information with anyone you think might be interested who lives in Delaware or the Eastern Shore of Maryland, or (especially in the case of the IMAGERY WITH WORDS sessions, anyone who lives in the Cape May, NJ area who might commute via the Cape May-Lewes Ferry.  Thank you for your ongoing support.  Tomorrow night is back to business as usual.  Have a GREAT Tuesday!  halalpiar 

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 124 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.