CUTTING EXPENSES

DOESN’T MAKE SALES!

To paraphrase an old presidential quote, “It’s the government, stupid!” America’s entrepreneurial leaders are grasping for a lifeline to avoid being swept out to sea by the daily onslaught of misdirected government speak and arrogant government attitude — a trickle-down mindset — harbingers of total economic collapse. And it could be just around the corner.

Forget all that stuff your grandparents used to preach about turning out lights and closing doors to save money. You might save electricity and keep out drafts, but in small business, that kind of save money mentality has been the ruin of many startup ventures. In reality this government-style thinking process accomplishes nothing on the road to survival and growth.

NO ONE EVER MADE MONEY FOR

A BUSINESS BY SAVING MONEY!

Biting into economical practices does not make sales. Only sales make money! “Ouch!” you proclaim, “but I’m not a sales type!” Well, then, become one. Or find one. Or give up your business and go to work for the government. Or show some guts and stick it out. You can make your idea work if you stop taking government advice about how to make it work.

This is not suggesting you do an entrepreneurs gone wild act. A mainstay of our current government, though it may be, this post is not about spending. It’s about what you can do now to turn your business around and stand up to the sleazy, ramrod, phony compassion-soaked policies of the current administration that is desperately trying to control small business.

Just because you have an exciting idea and some startup funding doesn’t mean you can let your enthusiasm run rampant. Business success is about extraordinary customer service and relationship-building. It is about channeling energy and making the most of opportunities that present themselves within your realm of pursuit.

Chase one rainbow at a time! And remember that the best leaders are those who make leaders of their followers.

Running recklessly in too many directions at once will simply produce frustration, exhaustion, and distress — especially in this bare-bones economy. But you CAN run a bare-bones business. After all, small business is based on TRUST. Got some?

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Beware GEEKSPEAK!

GEEKSPEAK. It’s another name for Tech Talk. Too many tech people are talking to too many tech people in too much tech-eeze and the real world of small business owners, professional practice principals, and even top corporate management is passing them by. If you are looking to make sales and grow your business, think twice about GEEKSPEAK overload.

In other words, don’t let website designers write words for your content. They haven’t a clue about effective marketing writing. Don’t let IT people decide on what and how to communicate with clients and customers and prospects. They know not where they come from . . . nor, it often seems, where they’re going when it comes to clarifying issues for non-IT people!

Don’t let your business messages get caught up in branding lines, site content, collateral/promotional material copy or news release text that contains language your grandmother wouldn’t understand. Nothing is so complicated that it can’t be simplified. Nothing is too technical to be communicated in easy-to-understand language.

When I ask you what time it is,

don’t tell me how to make a clock!

It simply takes more time and is harder work. But it’s often the difference between an enthusiastic buyer and a puzzled, overwhelmed one. Suffice it to say that all communication — interpersonal, impersonal, and otherwise, takes more time and is more work. Decide on what you want as a result, and if the extra effort is worth it.

Promoting and presenting complicated diagrams and examples only serves to underscore an oblivious, uncaring attitude to the markets you’re trying to reach. What’s the old axiom? Keep it simple, stupid! And don’t make the excuse that the prospects you seek understand tech talk because odds are pretty good that their bosses who need to approve purchase decisions don’t.

Sourcing people ultimately report to financial and/or operations people who hold the purse-strings. If those folks don’t understand a GEEKSPEAK message, they simply shut down their budgets. And why not? Would you buy something for your home or car that you have no sense of value about, can’t relate to, or fail to understand what you’re getting for your money?

Bite the bullet and give your business communications — especially to your customers, clients, and prospects — the extra effort that will make what you have to say clear from the git go. Not sure if what you’re saying comes across? Ask your grandmother.

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Hal@Businessworks.US 

Doctors know where they’ve been

but they don’t know

where they’re going!

Today’s medical professionals are strapped to a rudderless ship at sea that’s being sucked into a raging storm.

Some politicos would have us believe that the scandalous fifteen-thousand-page Obamacare program (and when, by the way, was the last time anyone you know read 15,000 pages of anything?!) need not be such a shocking insult to healthcare consumers because after all, it helps “less fortunate” people to get medical care.

Steamrollered through an inept Congress, Obamacare appears to have little if anything to do with the realities of healthcare. Instead, Obamacare hints at having everything to do with the crippling economic and personal freedom limitations brought on by the relentless White House pursuit of dictating increased government controls on American lives.

The end result? We will definitely end up with fewer competent physicians.

And those who remain will clearly not be providing adequate care –regardless of competency–  because of the restrictions Obamacare piles on top of the restrictions already imposed on them that limit their ability to deliver meaningful health services.

But computerization is what tightens the noose around healthcare necks, some say. Not so. The mismanagement and misappropriation of administrative computerization advances by interfering and uninformed government misfits and ignorant insurance providers is what is at the root of today’s healthcare delivery shortcomings.

The de-humanizing of humanizing services is the characterization that uninformed and manipulative individuals, agencies, and organizations have wrought as they’ve twisted administrative computerization advances into shortcut invasions of patient and physician privacy. Have we lost even having thoughts of human dignity?

When “DOCTOR’S ORDERS” becomes “DOCTORS ORDERS” (as in orders issued to doctors by the White House) to conduct patient gun ownership surveys to build a bigger “Big-Brother-Watching” database universe designed to gain yet more government control, do you think this might possibly get just a bit in the way of doctors performing healthcare services?

Of course EMR (electronic medical records) and EHR (electronic health records) have succeeded at putting patient care over paper care. But are these important advances enough to be really helping doctors to know where they’re going?

And the Internet has fully armed healthcare consumers to be better prepared to understand and manage their own healthcare issues, to be more informed about diagnostics and treatments, and to work more productively with their doctors. But are these advances enough to be able to really help doctors to know where they’re going?

The whole lean organization, lean management fad (where did Quality Circles go?) may be a solution, but is not THE solution. It is simply a band-aid acknowledgement that things have gotten so bad, we can no longer afford for the physician to spare a minute or two extra with each patient and patient family to help heal, and help ensure and reassure a sense of well-being.

More dollars are saved. Care is more efficient. But –at the ultimate point of care– doctors don’t get to spend more time with their patients, so is this increased efficiency really enough to help doctors know where they’re going?

Being preoccupied with efficiency necessitates lower levels of individual healthcare delivery. And last time I looked, healthcare was a profession dedicated to individual care. Perhaps it’s time to redefine the word “care”? The bottom line is that doctors are literally trapped.

Adherence to rules and regulations designed to increase control over their skills and abilities to earn livings commensurate with their training and societal value is squashing the very lifeblood out of healthcare. And Obamacare will surface as the culprit when it’s too late to matter — unless enough small business owners and practice administrators and doctors start to make waves

. . . NOW.

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Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0911

Healthcare Management Problems

Go Far Beyond Technology Tangles

Thanks to what many doctors regard as excessive and medically-uninformed government intervention, and excessive and medically-uninformed insurance company intrusion, America’s private and hospital-based medical practices are suffering from excessive and medically-unacknowledged stress.

They find themselves having to be caught up in blood-curdling power play control battles instead of with innovating and nurturing methodologies for improved case management and patient care. This is not a condemnation of medical technology advances by any means. It is in fact an endorsement for more tech exploration while simultaneously getting back to basics.

Positive stress enables healthcare managers to answer the wake-up call for effective practice management to realistically occur on two fronts at the same time. EMR and EHR systems and skills represent focal point one. Case management, patient care, and patient family care, focal point two. But negative stress (or “dis-stress”) surfaces when one of these enslaves the other.

Relentless interruptions of non medically-trained government and insurance regulators seeking to satisfy their self-importance at the expense of doctor, staff, and patient stress levels, has the same effect as throwing gas on a fire. Whether rulings require doctors to spend just 12 minutes per patient, or to conduct patient gun ownership surveys, the result is negative stress.

Negative stress feeds medical errors, and takes its toll on the lives of trained professionals and their families. Often, patients and patient families suffer needlessly because of mixed or contradictory signals lost in busy day-to-day clouds of smoke.

Even monster teaching hospitals, including the highest-rated in the country, fail miserably at basic communication skill levels. Doctors don’t talk with one another. They are too pressured to take the time to advocate on behalf of the very patients they serve.  And –worst of all– they fail to communicate with their patients and patient families meaningfully and consistently.

Practice managers get the short end of the stick. My guess is that most end up absorbing 3/4 of all the stress generated by the mad rush for maintaining Herculean time schedules, by catering to the administrative needs of the doctors they serve, and by managing the daily barrage of staff, task and insurance management issues, plus catering to patient and family requests.

There are solutions, but they are not one-dimensional. Healthcare can never have universal value unless those charged as providers can have the freedom they need to function without constant government interference and insurance company strangleholds.

The first step to fixing a leak is to stop the leak. This means making extraordinary efforts to channel stress productively and to commit to implementing improved personal communications.  CHECK OUT  Medical Practice Managers

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Hal@Businessworks.US    302.933.0911

“Whaddayadonfermelately?”

In today’s instant gratification world, many professional healthcare practices, B to B firms, and customer service business owners hear some version of this question with increasing regularity. Not a bad thing to be asked. Huh? Well. because there’s always room for an answer when you know what the question is.

In fact, NOT hearing some version of “Whaddayadonfermelately?” is far worse than being asked because the unasked question itself portends a “not much” answer.

Savvy proactive service business owners and managers never allow any form of this question to surface in the first place. Their secret? Regular, ongoing “How Goes It?” inventory exchanges. Meetings and discussions (note NOT text messages or emails, which are too superficial) that chunk up and evaluate workflow, deliverables, and performance.

These usually daily or weekly assessments (which generally best occur on Monday mornings to set up the week ahead) are typically followed by a call to action — adjustments in the timing, speed, quality, quantity, agility, relevance, attitude, goals, roles, responsibilities . . . whatever steps will help ensure productive forward motion from point to point.

And when you were a kid (no doubt possessing prototypical entrepreneurial characteristics such as resentment of authority in school and reluctance to follow rules), you might have thought report cards were nonsense — or perhaps unpleasant harbingers of parental lectures?

But “report card” dynamics in service businesses –especially when they’re self-imposed– have saved many client accounts and relationships from collapse. Instead, as  some family elder likely forewarned us as children when we had clearly overstepped or under-achieved, it’s a good thing to “nip it in the bud” when it comes to following a problem direction.

When you, the service provider, take the initiative to nip problems “in the bud,” by requesting regular, ongoing feedback and assessment from your client/customer/patient, you are exercising a form of positive preventive maintenance. And this is not even to mention the other values attached to the client’s impression of your commitment.

Asking for feedback is an admirable posture all by itself but, more importantly, you are opening the communication expressway to allow for more give and take, and a healthier more communicative and more rewarding relationship that operates from a position of strength and confidence, instead of one of cowering and covering your butt.

How do YOU feel about doing business with s0meone who makes assumptions instead of asks? Or someone who disappears when the going gets tough or when you have issues to discuss? Hmmm?

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Hal@Businessworks.US    931.854.0474

AS ZIG AND ZIGGY SAID . . .

“We should enjoy life while we’re here

’cause there’s no here, there!”

(Worldclass cartoon character Ziggy)

“You can have everything in life you want,

if you will just help other people

get what they want”

(Worldclass motivational sales guru Zig Ziglar who left us this past week,

to hopefully join Ziggy for some fun and enjoyment “there”!)

What’s the point? Entrepreneurs have a way of becoming so driven and preoccupied by the race to achieve their ideas, they rarely take enough time out to enjoy what they already have, like family and friends, and life itself. They can also become so readily entrenched in “doing” for themselves and the growth of their ideas, they can often forget about helping others.

If, like many entrepreneurs, you think you have been put on earth to better mankind by pursuing your great ideas to the exclusion of taking time outs for your self and your family and friends, or to the exclusion of taking time to help others in their moments of need, you might want to revisit your sense of reality and the purpose of your life and business leadership.

My recommendation for how to proceed with this thought for the next minute is to simply take one more step and have a little fun by entering “Ziggy” in the search window to the right, then scan the three blog posts that surface, then enter “Zig Ziglar” in the search window and scan the fifteen or so blog posts that mention or quote him.

I promise –that between the two quick searches– you’ll be amused or prompted to action, if not both. Most assuredly, you will be as I have been by re-skimming these posts, enlightened. I stand humbled by the inspiration I draw from each. You?

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Hal@Businessworks.US    931.854.0474

BUSINESS & POLITICS DON’T MIX!

Best Advice: Speak out in private, but hold your tongue in public! Customers and others you do business with may or may not agree with your politics, but the odds appear overwhelming that they do not want to hear your political views as part of any business transaction.

Treat every opportunity to speak out in accusation of your political opponents or in defense of your political favorites as you might instinctively deal with dysfunctional elements of your own family at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

In other words, exercise greater caution, discretion and respect than you would normally be inclined to, for the welfare of the rest of your family, and for the betterment of your own well-being and stress level. Save confrontations for when you become a professional boxer or hockey star.

“But it’s my right, my privilege, and my responsibility to speak up!” Well, okay, you may think you’re entitled, even required, to express your personal political preferences. And you are certainly entitled to your opinions, but if you own or manage a business, there’s simply no room for political opinion!

Every time you open your political mouth, you risk losing a minimum of 100 customers because anyone who disapproves will tell ten others,who will each tell ten others. Can you afford this kind of loss?

How do I know all this? Because I’ve had a big political opinion mouth in one of my past lives and it cost me substantial business. “Who cares?” you might say. Well, it may be costing you too!

The problem is that while you may not care about someone who’s critical of you offering editorials– critical of your criticism, so to speak– you maybe need to care a great deal about someone who’s related to, or controlled by that individual, and there’s just no way to ever know when some big mouth comment will come back to haunt you.

Taking the low road is not always a bad thing. Low road activity is often read in a positive light by others. Non confrontative attitudes typically produce positive reputation assessments of virtue: “humble;” “reserved;” “rational;” “objective;” non judgemental;” and “thoughtful” come to mind. It’s the sign of someone who walks the talk!

So, now, even if I’m only half right, wouldn’t you prefer those kinds of reputation attributes to “opinionated;” and “loudmouthed;” and “narrow-minded;” and “confrontative;” and “pushy”?

Bottom Line:

Work for your favorite candidates,

but don’t bring your favorite candidates to work!  

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HAL ALPIAR Writer/Consultant 302.933.0911 TheWriterWorks.com, LLC

National Award-Winning Author & Brand Marketer – Record Client Sales

Open Minds Open Doors

When is a pat on the back

actually a kick in the butt?

A client tells you your service is great, then complains about it later to others. Assuming nothing changed along the way to erode the value of your praiseworthy performance, your sense of anguish may simply be the result of of a mixed message. Mixed messages find their way into everyday business exchanges with increasing regularity.

“Pretty good job . . . for a woman!” is a typical example. “You’re doing this the right way, but you need to slow down and think it through better!” is another. Have you ever heard something like: “We need to move forward with plans to collaborate, but not at the expense of our own department (division, team, group)?”

Mixed messages are nonproductive. Mixed messages often couch hidden agendas. Unlike much problem solving that requires “two to tango” and cannot be realistically addressed by a single entity alone, mixed message situations can be resolved by one person taking preventive measures. These include paraphrasing, note taking, feedback, diagramming, and offering/ requesting examples. 

1)  PARAPHRASING. Instead of simply taking statements at face value and then squirming with them later, ask: “Do I understand you correctly to mean . . . (and repeat back what you think you heard, using your own words)?”

2)  NOTE TAKING. The biggest problem with note taking is that most people do not take notes. And even when they do, they fail to directly request the speaker to allow for it. “Would you mind please slowing down on (or repeating) that point for me  so I can make note of it because I don’t want to forget what you said.” is not just called for; it’s flattering to the speaker. But write it!!

3)  FEEDBACK. Speakers need to pause periodically and take inventory: “How are we doing here so far? Do you have any questions? Is all of this information clear?” Listeners need to politely interrupt periodically and take inventory: “Excuse me. Can we take a ‘Time Out’ minute here to summarize this last bit of information? I want to make sure I understand what you mean.” Write it!!

4)  DIAGRAMS. When speaker or listener is not 100% sure that communications are clear, ask for a diagram of the information; arranging keywords and ideas visually helps ensure accuracy, and can often illuminate a new perspective.

5)  EXAMPLES. Ask for them. Very few exchanges of information fail to become transparently clear when examples are offered and discussed.

Getting tangled up in miscommunication can be frustrating and annoying, and stressful. One person who is determined to “get it right” the first time, and who is willing to accept that it may take longer and be more work, will ultimately experience greater accuracy in dealing with others, and accuracy spells success.                               

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HAL ALPIAR Writer/Consultant  302.933.0911 TheWriterWorks.com, LLC

 National Award-Winning Author & Brand Marketer – Record Client Sales

When to personalize

your message?

Please. If you’re still asking this question, I hope someone else is doing your marketing for you. The answer of course, is “Always!” When do you NOT personalize a message? When you want no results!

Can any message that you ever receive (except maybe a threat or a summons ;<) be too personalized? Well how do you think your prospects feel when they get your emails and Tweets and direct mail addressed to: Dear Occupant, or Dear Computer User (Duh!), or Dear Follower, or Dear Homeowner, or Dear Friend, or Dear Voter?

You might ask instead:

Why would a business or professional practice

owner throw money out the window?

What’s in a name? It’s the most important thing you have! When a business or professional practice refuses to take the trouble or go to the expense to find out what it is, or refuses to use it in communicating, or won’t take the time and make the effort to spell it or say it correctly, that entity is not worth dealing with. Period. No exceptions.

“Dear Valued Customer”? Finger down throat! Pffffft! That’s BS and you know it! If you can’t be more personalized than that, you’re not serious about being in business. Get a government job! (Not much of anything needs to be personalized there.) If the customer is so “valuable,” prove the point; get it right!

Your prospects and customers are no different than you in how they perceive the integrity and authenticity of a business or professional practice based on the accuracy and diligence of how a communication is addressed. If your name is Smith and a message comes to you addressed to Smythe, are you about to open it or read any further? Of course not.

And if it’s pronounced “Smitt” on the phone

 . . .”CLICK! Buzzzzzz:

If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and . . .”

Making doubly sure of the exact accuracy of the name that you personalize (and address your communications to), no doubt takes longer and probably costs more, but–in the end–odds are it will get through and be noticed instead of being trashed without even being opened. Oh, and the more complicated the name is, the more likely you gain a friend by spelling it right!

This goes for email addresses and phone calls as well. You don”t know how to pronounce a name? Ask! There are enough tools available via Internet search engines today that there’s no longer any excuse for misrepresenting, mispronouncing, misdirecting, or misspelling a prospect or customer name, or title, or company affiliation. Personalizing your message sells!

If you, in other words, are reduced to having to say “Dear Friend,” be assured you are not. Stop wasting your time and money.

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HAL ALPIAR Writer/Consultant 302.933.0911 TheWriterWorks.com, LLC

National Award-Winning Author & Brand Marketer – Record Client Sales

Open Minds Open Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

When to draw the line_______

You’ve already done all that you were contracted to do, but the client keeps making changes, causing delays in the agreed-to timeline. The result is you are unable to move forward (or even sideways) with the next phase, and unable to send an additional invoice. Okay, so maybe a “client-changes” policy should have been put in place or made clearer from the outset.

But what’s done is done, and here you are, getting stressed.

What to do? When do you draw the line?

“I know, I know,” you say,

“it’s just a matter of being more assertive.”

Right! That always sounds like the right answer, but you run the risk of losing the client, future business and referrals if you are perceived as too pushy or demanding, or if some request you make for added fees gets interpreted as sounding unreasonable.

What to do? When do you draw the line?

Renegotiate.

Okay, that makes sense, but every professional salesperson will tell you that the starting point for virtually every successful negotiation or re-negotiation is to ask questions!

So maybe the answer to: “What to do? When do you draw the line?” is:

As soon as you have a strong, meaninful,

and productive list of questions to ask!

When you start with questions, you can use questions to make your point without risking your relationship.

Y’think?

Well consider how you’d respond to being told that you look like a nervous wreck and should get better control of yourself vs. simply being asked: “Are You Breathing?”

Think about your present circumstances. What are the three most important questions you can ask to win your client’s relationship security, project support . . .  and open the door for your next invoice? Making things change is, after all, your choice. Yup! YOUR choice!

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P L E A S E   N O T E   N E W  D I R E C T   P H O N E   N U M B E R

HAL ALPIAR Writer/Consultant 302.933.0911 TheWriterWorks.com, LLC

National Award-Winning Author & Brand Marketer – Record Client Sales