WHAT SPORT IS

YOUR BUSINESS?

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

When was the last time you dribbled across the infield and took a jump shot from 2nd base? Or slam-dunked a hockey puck over the goalpost? You went curling and used a nine-iron instead of a broom?

I once heard a corporate executive describe his company as roller derby because “all we ever do is race around in circles, bashing each other in the teeth, putting on a good show for our public, but nothing ever seems to get done or go anywhere.”    

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

     If you own or manage a business, you sell! If you’re in sales, you undoubtedly equate the sales field with the football field, and see youself running around right end, punting, passing, tackling, huddling, and occasionally at the 11th hour and the 50-yard line “Hail Marying” your way to a sale/no sale decision.

     Football legend Vice Lombardi spent years making motivational training films for salespeople because he saw how direct the sales and football analogy was. A full court press may force a basketball turnover, but cost game-losing vulnerability in many other sports. Are you playing the same sport as your customers? Your competitors? Your vendors?

     So, what sport is YOUR business? ASK AROUND. Other’s answers may surprise you.

     Your honest answer gives important clues about your business strengths and weaknesses, as well as about your business image, reputation, and uniqueness. And those clues establish business patterns which point to professional and financial growth and development opportunities.

     Many family businesses fail to row the same boat in the same direction, or are busy ducking one another while playing ping-pong with golf balls. (Ouch!) 

     Is the sport you choose to best represent your business a team sport? Do people act like teammates? Any team spirit? Cheerleaders? Playmaker? Coach? Go-to guy?

    OR is the sport you most identify with a superstar sport? One person makes all the decisions all the time about everything, from trash disposal methods to sales and marketing and financial management and customer service and answering every phone inquiry?

     In the boxing ring there is but one fighter doing battle with another. The rest are support people. Very high competitive risks for very high potential payback, with the possibility of being rich and brain dead. Well, you could always be a politician . . .

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops (“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!”- Thomas Jefferson)  Make today a GREAT day for someone!

When you undertake

to organize, manage,

and assume the risks

of owning and running

a business…

. . . you are not just taking a leap of faith.

You are taking the leap with a full plate in hand.

Imagine a waiter balancing a tray full of dinners on one hand and carrying a “table jack” with the other, while deftly jumping across a six-foot moat into a flame-edge-bordered room packed with ravenously hungry people, and no idea of who ordered what.

     Whew!

     Well, if the guy is the owner of the restaurant, odds are the right people will get the right food, others will get some complimentary food with appreciative remarks and everyone will end up coming back.

     If it’s a giant chain restaurant, the wrong people will get the wrong meals, nobody else will be acknowledged and the only ones who return will be coming back for the cheap prices only. 

     It seems appropriate on National Prayer Day (yes, that’s today in case you forgot to say some) to be addressing leaps of faith, even if it is in conjunction with a business focus. Entrepreneurial enterprises are, after all, among some of the world’s greatest benefactors of prayer and leadership faith.

     Most small business owners do most everything that needs to be done by themselves. They sell; they finance; they organize; they manage; they innovate; they manage and serve customers and clients; they market, promote, and publicize. Entrepreneurial “personalities” rarely if ever match corporate counterparts (and most would agree there really are no direct counterparts anyway).

     Entrepreneurs tend to be entrepreneurs because they simply don’t fit the orderly, entrenched, established, procedural, authoritative and controlling mindset that corporate muckity-mucks seem to thrive on. Corporate guys are invested in the status quo. Whoa! Don’t make waves!

     Senior executive vice presidents and directors of anything are up to their you-know-whats in burdensome and tedious reliance on planning and analyzing . . . activities that are viewed by upstart business venture principals as paralyzing behavior.

     By contrast, entrepreneurs thrive on innovation, action, and high enthusiasm. When a small business owner consults with her market research department, she is talking to herself as she cruises through Bing and Google.

     Okay, so right about now, I know there are a smattering of grumbling corporate people (mostly, it seems, brothers-in-law of entrepreneurs!) who are punching their monitors and yelling that times have changed and big business is now leading the way in innovation and brand loyalty and new market development and communications and high-level training. Bull.

     Automakers? Banks? Pharmaceutical giants? Oil companies? Mainstream media? Consumer product manufacturers? Need we go further? How many of these do you see taking leaps of faith?

     The monster donut-maker guys may think America runson their junk food, but they’re dreaming (their coffee’s not even good!).

     America runs on small business and entrepreneurial spirit, on Mom and Pop Stores, basement and kitchen table and garage businesses, one-man-band services, farm families, commercial and residential contractors, and techies in bathrobes working out of their bedroom closets. 

     That’s what we’re all about. That’s what will turn this economy around. That’s who we need to be remembering in our prayers today and every day. Small business and entrepreneurial pursuits are the foundation of America’s past and the keys to America’s future.

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless our troops because “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day! 

How to write it and

where to send it!

Last night, some of the “unwritten rules” of news release structure and engagement were addressed http://bit.ly/aDKj4H . . . now here’re some basics on how to write a news release, and what to do with it.

     A good rule of thumb guide for your headline is to summarize the “hot spot” of the release in seven words or less and, whenever possible, include your business name in those seven words. Many professionals recommend starting your release with a brief, provocative question that gets a payoff in the text, or with a short summarizing quote that sets up the text.

     When quotes are used, include the source’s name, title and affiliation. ALWAYS (NO EXCEPTIONS) SPELL EVERY NAME, TITLE AND AFFILIATION EXACTLY CORRECT.

     Your first paragraph needs to deliver the meat of the whole release. It needs to answer the questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? Many times, a rushed editor who’s short on space or air time will just use the first paragraph. And even when the entire release is used, the first paragraph still must serve to “hook in” readers, viewers, listeners, visitors. 

     Give the first paragraph NEWSWORTHY SUBSTANCE and CLOUT.

     Use the balance of your release to support the heading and the first paragraph. Leave details like directions, address, related issues, and secondary points and quotes for the end. Don’t stray from the central message of the release, and don’t try to pack in too much information. Editors and writers discard and delete long rambling quotes and stories. If they want more, they’ll call you.

     Supplementing your release with a captioned photo (especially something unique or candid, which is far better than yearbook profile style) increases your media coverage odds substantially. (When there’s heavy news that day, and not enough room for the release, an editor may throw in a captioned photo. Some news coverage beats no news coverage!)

     Okay, the thing is done. Now what? After getting your media, customer, and supplier contact email and address lists out, my first recommendation (if you haven’t already done it) is to go to www.BizBrag.com and sign up. 24/7, you get a FREE online news release posting, and email distribution to the global, local, or specialized market emails you designate (including any media email addresses you plug in).

     Because BizBrag services are so ideal for do-it-yourselfers, it’s a great place to start and build with. After punching in your “profile,” you just type in your release and even add a photo if you like, then BizBrag dresses it up, puts it into their homepage news rotation and sends it out for you to whatever email addresses you select, giving your business a third party endorsement look. Upgrades are available but not required and I’m told the first 10,000 sign-ups get a super, fixed-for-lifetime discount. 

     Happy News Releasing! 

  Click Here to work with Hal!                       

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! 

Keep Your Delete

Button Handy

While Sorting

Out Prospects!

     I like to wake up every morning feeling thankful to still be here and reassuring myself that I am part of a healthy global society. And every morning without fail, my hopes for the healthy global society part go down the tubes when I boot up.

     There it is in my face: the never-ending daily bombardment of sicko spam messages cluttering up my email system and (until the recent installation of blocking software) my blog site.

     It’s almost inconceivable that there are so many insecure, neurotic, deranged people out there hovering maliciously over their keyboards. Are they zealously rubbing their slimy little hands together? Are they smacking their sinister (and diseased, I’m sure) lips in excitement over having sent out rampaging waves of garbage to millions of annoyed recipients.

     Hey, I’m all for freedom of speech, but what about freedom of listening? Where are the rights of those among us who are simply not interested and haven’t the time to waste listening to or reading (or even deleting) the cursed mental case nonsense that spews forth to our monitors as we sleep and work?

     All of us, I guess, could go on into infinity with this evil, insulting, intrusive subject matter, but I’m not sure there will ever be an answer without regulation, and I’d rather have spam. So I’ll stop this diatribe and instead mention that the whole distasteful issue reminds me that we have to spend much of our business lives fending off spammy prospective customers too.

     It doesn’t matter if you’re in retail, wholesale, manufacturing, or professional practice . . . whether you run a multi-million dollar operation out of a huge complex or you work at your kitchen table . . . practically every day, most business owners and managers and entrepreneurs and sales professionals are forced to spend inordinate amounts of time having to qualify, or sort through, questionable prospects to determine if they are or could be legitimate customers.

     Here’s the point: You can’t be afraid of losing business by being (pleasantly please) direct with prospects. If someone is that unstable, uninformed or uncaring that she or he can’t give you a straight answer as to what his or her needs are, odds are you won’t win a purchase commitment no matter what you say or do anyway. 

     If a prospect is unable to share her or his impressions of your product or service ability to meet or exceed those needs, that person is not ready for you and what you sell. You may be dealing with someone who is on a fishing or tire-kicking expedition, or simply can’t afford the price-tag or the emotional attachment.

     When you’re not ready to write off a resistant or noncommittal prospect, you need to be thinking about how much more resourceful you can be with the time you’re spending trying to turn the QE2 in a narrow river, when a small boat will get you across right away.

     Develop a personal system for sorting out prospects that includes great respect and genuine appreciation (return visits are always possible!), and that injects some reasonable haste. Then stick to it. Second thoughts don’t work in sports or business. Rely on your own judgement, and trust yourself more.  

Click Here to work with Hal!       

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! 

“Show me an authentic boss

. . . I’ll show you a winning leader!”

Real. Actual. Genuine. Bona Fide. Not False or Imitation. “Honest-to-Goodness.” Being Exactly What is Claimed. Good Faith. Sincerity of Intention. Legitimate. “The Real Deal.”

How many of these qualities do you carry in your pocket and empty onto the table when you’re talking, meeting, and dealing with others? How often? How influenced are you by good or bad moods? By past experiences or self-doubts?

  Does it matter whether the “others” are customers, prospects, employees, associates, investors, or suppliers? Does it matter whether you’re on the phone, in person, texting or emailing?

   How much do incidents, environments, and issues beyond your control play a part?

What is it that you are most afraid of having others you work with, or sell to, learn about the real you? What’s in the back of your closet that you’re choosing to put in the front of your mind that’s holding you back from being the up-front person you’ve always wanted to be?

Have you made yourself be a victim of circumstances? Is this an identity you cling to?

This is not some ridiculous Hollywood exposé, or some empty suit government or political probe. This is about you, your business, your daily performance, and the way you “come across” to others.

  Here’s why it matters. When you own a business, the business is an extension of your ego. It is the career stage on which you have chosen to perform.

Depending on how true to character you allow yourself to be, and how persuasively you present yourself and ideas, your business will rise and fall with the curtain calls and appreciative audience applause.

If you elect to play a hard-nosed character, and you’re convincing in that role, you will attract hard-nosed critics and audiences who may not hang around until intermission . . . or who are harder-nosed than you!

  I’m not suggesting you or I or any of us has the ability to simply turn the authenticity faucet on and become Mother Teresa. But I am saying that we all have certain qualities of genuineness as human beings.

Exercising these strengths of character (in spite of closed closets) will serve to free up unnecessarily-guarded business behaviors and–in the process–open opportunities we may never have thought possible.

     It’s a choice that that I can encourage, but only you can make. I urge you to take the risk to rise above your own doubts and show more customers, employees, and suppliers more of what the real you is all about. Let them see that they can trust your judgement and earn your confidence.

You don’t have to “become one of the guys” to let others know that you possess compassion and humor alongside your insightful and visionary leadership. Hey, give it a try. You may even like your self better. Have fun!

# # #

Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals!

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

“Break out the

tambourines,

Boss. It’s time

 to collaborate!”

Okay, ready? Take some deep breaths Here comes a long question:

Are you and your business standing quietly on the sidelines, like celery stalks in search of a Bloody Mary…while others in your building, block, town, county, state, region, profession, industry are taking action to improve community well-being?”

     Maybe your answer has to do with how you define community? So here’s a short question: How DO you define “community”?

     And while you’re beating your brains in trying to answer that, you may want also to consider how you and your business typically interact with other businesses and business owners within the community you ultimately define. I know this is getting mind-boggling, so here’s a little historic help from your friends:   

     First we had affiliates, then we had partnerships, next came alliances, and then –so no one would construe these deliberate arrangements as involving money transfers during economic times of question-ability– we gave rise to strategic alliances. Now, however, living in the age of social media (which we have slathered on top of a deeply troubling economy), we have all become collaborators.

DID YOU HUG YOUR COLLABORATOR TODAY?

    Actually, collaboration as you know is nothing new, but its prepon-derance in today’s txt msg literature brings to the surface a more cooperative spirit. Like it used to be “What have you done for me lately?” and then “What has your business done for me lately?” and now it’s “What has your business done for the community lately?” 

     Well, that kind of all comes full circle back to how you define “community.”

     Wherever your business is located — basement, garage, ware-house, office building, construction site, the cab of your truck, your hall closet — it comes packaged with a geographic community.

     Whatever type of business or profession you practice, it comes packaged with a business, industrial, trade or professional community.

     That means that you and your business have a responsibility to others around you besides your customers, employees and suppliers. Ah, but acceptance of that notion that doesn’t have to be burdensome if you pick and choose your community involvements carefully.

You and your business have a responsibility to others around you besides your customers, employees and suppliers.”

     Being a good business citizen doesn’t always have to mean undertaking charitable crusades, though that’s a wonderful thing when it’s possible. Actively standing up on behalf of those around you who can’t or won’t is itself an act of charity. And regardless of what it achieves, it inspires.

     When you can collaborate with other businesses, you can, for example, share marketing expenses and perhaps use the savings to afford to offer better customer discounts or higher employee bonuses, or both. When you can collaborate by sharing employee talents, it serves to broaden every one’s horizons and presents opportunities for enhanced customer service.

     Best of all, it need not cost a penny. And you thought you had no cause to celebrate? Break out the tambourines, Boss!

 Click Here to work with Hal             

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! 

Grab Your Hat

and Get Your Coat

  . . . Then Take

These 5 Steps!

     Think you’ve heard it all? You have. You’ve read the management books, trade magazines and professional journals. You’ve watched every TV special that’s related to your business. You’ve sat through endless repetitive lectures, webinars, seminars, workshops, blogcasts and stage presentations by big-name motivational speakers.

     You’ve checked hundreds of related websites and thousands of related online stories and emails. You’ve even listened to and interpreted the deep-down meanings of favorite songs and the advice of favorite uncles.

     You’ve listened to the warnings, scoldings, and tidbits of genius dished out over your lifetime by your mother, your father, your teachers, business and marriage partners, and even — in your weaker moments — politicians.

     You’ve heard it all!

     Now it’s time to do something productive with what you know, to put all that input to work. Make it make money for yourself and your family, steer it in the direction of building/strengthening  the reputation you want for yourself and your business, enlist your knowledge in directions that will help others to improve their self-worth. How?

1. By recognizing first and foremost that what you do or don’t do with what you know is your choice.
2. By priming your pump.  Take some deep breaths; get regular 3- times-a- week exercise; sleep and eat better. The more the merrier, but any and/or all of this will make you feel better and perform better.
3. By sorting out your ideas and the information that works best for you in your situation right now. [These are different for everyone] Prioritize them, then start on making Number One happen and keep at it to the exclusion of all the others; then, move on to Number Two, etc.. The most important first step is to take the first step. Some action is always better than no action.
4. By remembering Winston Churchill’s famous battle cry: “Never give up. Never, ever give up!” Be tenacious. Be persistent. Be persevering. Stick-to-it-tive-ness sells! And when you do what you do with grace and respect and confidence, you will engage others, not chase them away.
5. By recognizing that EVERY customer and prospect has an ego that’s as least as big as yours, but has not perhaps promoted it in the same ways. Back off your own self-indulgence and become a fan of the person/company/organization you seek to sell.

     Bottomline: You HAVE heard it all. You KNOW what to do and how to make it work for you. You know this in your heart and you know it better than anyone else could possibly know. You’ve just spent too much time questioning and delaying and doubting yourself. If the risks involved are reasonable ones, put your peddle to the metal. There’s no such thing as a second first chance.

Click Here to work with Hal!                                        

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! 

Only 16%

of Thirty Million

US Small Businesses 

Use Social Media!

     We have already recently heard that fewer than half of America’s 29.7 million small businesses actually have their own websites, and were astonished. When you’re clicking back and forth to your own and other sites all day, it’s incredulous to believe that everyone else is not. Well, now we have more fuel for the opportunity fires.

     Results of a poll http://bit.ly/bWvym3 commissioned by EMPLOYERS, a small business insurance company, was reported today in Angelique Rewers’ final edition of  The Corporate Communicator (rolling over next week into her new online publication, “BRILLIANCE … Rich, Smart and Happy” — Watch for it. Angelique is a sensational writer and online publisher!).

     The poll is a reality slap! 

     Bottom line: You thought the whole world was TWITTER and Facebook crazy and that any business worth their salt had to be heavily engaged in this explosive new media form with knock-’em-dead marketing messages and links galore. Not according to the 500 small business owners and managers surveyed:  the total number of small businesses using social media for marketing is hovering somewhere around a very unimpressive 16%.

     But what does this mean? First of all, consider the vast untapped market potential this information suggests. What a fantastic opportunity this awareness serves for those who focus their businesses on Internet marketing development, and on small business development and related services.

     Just consider the prospect pool. There are more businesses out there who need what you have than there are those who already have it, and clearly everyone will at some point down the road indeed have both feet in the websites and social media arenas.

     Now add to that mix those who already have websites and social media savvy. They either do or will soon need overhauls, updates, upgrades, revitalizations, and expanded, pizazzed-up, better-functioning services. Nowhere does this ratchet up service needs more profoundly than with content development (copywriting) because word content is king in the visual world of the Internet. [If you need help with this and you’ll pardon my brashness, you can find my rates and services at www.TWWsells.com]

     To top off the survey findings, the majority of small businesses leveraging social media are finding it effective, more than half those interviewed believe that having a social media presence is important, and nearly 60 % who do use it say it has provided value to their businesses. So, how much farther does the gauntlet need to be thrown down to you, for you to consider crossing the moat?

     What are you waiting for?

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! 

“Start savin’ your

toenails, kid!”

     Growing up, my father always told me things were too expensive by saying “they cost an arm and a leg.”

     Heaven forbid, I used to think, that we should ever willfully exchange body parts for materialistic possessions! Unless of course hair, and toe and fingernails suddenly blast the roof off the commodities market, and can be traded in collector jars or Ziploc bags for cars, flat screen TVs, Wii programs, iTunes, and sushi hand-rolls.

     But remembering the exaggerated childhood lesson in economics, I am prompted to raise the question: Am I really worth what I charge? I look around me and see a zillion other businesspeople, who haven’t a fraction of my hard-earned experience, charging outrageous fees for services they clearly haven’t a clue about, like strategic marketing and leadership development (or HRD, or CRM, or SEO, whatever those are).

     I see even more zillions of people who are self-proclaimed writers (minus of course the ability to communicate) or “social media experts” (can you believe even: “Twitter Coaches”?), yet when I weigh my worth, I rationalize that I write as well if not better than many of those over-the-top-paid authors out there. And only God knows about the rah-rah Twitter Coaches? (And the crowd roared: “FF, RT, Give ’em a Tweet and break their feet!”).

     It gets tiring to be so overloaded with pinkie finger talent and only be getting 35-cents an hour. So what’s the answer? Wayne Dyer? Zig Ziglar? How many dollars have you spent buying quick-fix books, tapes, pyramid marketing schemes, CDs, instant cash programs, seminars, webinars . . . huh? And who’s making money on whom? 

     Oh, and a great interview the other night on Delaware TV with a man (who looked like he was wearing Salvation Army clothes) captioned “Avid Gambling Fan.” The slot machine puller noted how wonderful more casinos would be because “it’s a great way to be able to donate to charity and not pay taxes.” 

     The point is that you’re worth to others whatever you think you’re worth to yourself, and if your life is all about thinking you’re worth 35-cents an hour, you are! If you are so blind as to see slot machines and casinos as your savior, you are surely headed back to the Salvation Army for a full wardrobe. Wayne and Zig? They have plenty of right answers, but your brain has to be open and receptive enough to gain their value.

     Twitter Coaches? Pfffffft! Good luck! The answer about what you’re really worth is in your spirit. It’s in your attitude. It’s what you believe about you. And all of that is a choice. So stop sitting around choosing to drag yourself down when you can just as easily choose to pull yourself up? Hmmmmm? That’s maybe a better question. 

               Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! 

“We’ve been

without power

for days, and

all we hear is

‘Yeah, soon!'”

     Been there and done that just a few weeks ago. Let me tell you it’s no fun, especially with an in-home office at 40-degrees, prohibited road travel and no computer access for a computer-based business. Thank God that’s passed (88-degrees today), but recalling the no-heat/no-hot-water/no-power-anything experience, I am prompted to propose that a periodic “Leadership Power Assessment” might prove to be a valuable checkpoint for business owners and managers.

Do your business power shortages promote internal power struggles? Do circuits get overloaded? Do you bring in power washers or introduce power plays with a power lineup capable of delivering a power punch during peak power hours?  . . . Or just rely on flower-power? 

     We all have it. Many wield it. Many use it ineffectively, at the “wrong” times, with the “wrong” people, and in the “wrong” settings. True leaders (military, spiritual, business, educational, sports, home and family, and maybe a handful of government/political types in a few states and lots of small towns) recognize that leadership has more to do with HOW power is exercised than with the amount available. But it must be available. Appliances only work when they’re plugged in.

     Unfortunately, mainstream media continues to believe that the only way to sell advertising time and space is to accentuate the negative, and to focus on making incompetent government leaders appear skillful, well-intentioned, and visionary when they are none of the above. Just imagine one of these national “leaders” running your business for even a week . . . talk about power failure nightmares!

     For effective leadership to happen, power must be exercised transparently with appropriate disclosure of the rationale for a request. Power must be exercised respectfully and diplomatically (except perhaps in military and quasi-military type stress conditions, where captains in storms must order crew compliances without regard for niceties).

     Effective leadership needs also to be anchored in the the reality of best available intelligence resources and findings (turning, for example, to real small business owners for input on legislation impacting small business, or holding customer focus group studies to find out what your customers really think).

     In your own business— as with our national best interests — there cannot be successful exercising of power without the fulltime vigilance it takes to ensure freedom, without carrying Theodore Roosevelt’s big stick while speaking softly. The tools of power must be in place to start with, and fully oiled and maintained if the gentle, warm and fuzzy motivating approach is to ever produce meaningful results. Those who think otherwise are naive in their judgement of terrorist limitations because there are none.

     There is a thin line between flaunting power and quietly having others know it’s available. But removing power from the equation will greatly weaken your business clout and ability to get things done. On a national level, it’s an unforgivable and highly threatening decision . . . all the more reason to shore up what you’ve got invested in your business now, and begin to work at it with a stronger sales focus. Sales are, after all, the only business activity capable of driving economic turnaround. 

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