Hopefully, your mouse is pointing to (and clicking on) the HIGH TIDE box on the right~~~>

BUT, where is your foot pointed?

YES, I have better things to do. NO, I am not a kinetics (body language) expert nor a walking lie detector. Like most business owners, I muddle through exchanges with others –using a combination of what I know and feel from experience– to decide on another person’s intents, genuineness, and ability to perform up to my belief system.

But I have written and taught considerably on the subject, and am frequently asked about practical business applications. So, remembering that you’re not licensed to practice psychotherapy, here’s enough body barometer stuff to shrink out some of those business head cases you deal with:

Let’s first distinguish between verbal and nonverbal communication, keeping in mind that: A) words themselves do not have meaning; only people have meaning, and that: B) Only 7% of communication is generally believed to be verbal. (38% is believed to be tone of voice, and 55%, nonverbal!)

Nonverbal communication, I recall, is accomplished in 9 different ways (there may be more, but who needs more?):

1. AMBULATION — How someone walks. Big differences in the messages coming from someone who swishes vs, stomps or swaggers, bounces, strides, or drags.

2. TOUCHING — The most powerful form of nonverbal communication. Consider the differences in touch for expressing anger, interest, trust, tenderness, warmth . . . and the differences in willingness to touch or be touched.

3. EYE CONTACT — When do pupils dilate? What’s in your unconscious mind about eye colors? Trust? Sincerity? Forthrightness? Does someone stare, shoot daggers, avoid direct eye contact, glance slyly?

4. POSTURING — Are arms and legs crossed defensively? Stand or sit slouched or erect. Severe threats promote fetal positions.

5. TICS — Uncontrollable nervous twitches may indicate a sensing of possible threats.

6. S UBVOCALS — Um, er, uh, whew! . . . and grunts and groans, whistles, loud swallowing, tongue clicking.

7. DISTANCING — We each have our own Space. Comfort zones vary by person, geographical region, country, and by odors.

8. GESTURING — A wave, thumbs up or down, an OK sign or angry fist, a V can all be acceptable in one place and not in another.

9. VOCALISM — Say: I LOVE my children! vs. I love MY children! vs. I love my CHILDREN! vs. I love my children! Same words, but do you hear different meanings?

STROKING arms, legs, or hair often indicates a lack of affection (perhaps at the moment, perhaps in general). See if talking about how valuable that person is to your business stops that activity.  SMILES are great, but can often be a defense mechanism. THE FACE ALONE CAN PRODUCE 250,000 EXPRESSIONS! (Weird research, huh?)

Sports guys and politicians use THUMBS UP and THUMBS DOWN. Hitchhikers point THUMBS SIDEWAYS.

CONFIDENCE is often expressed by pyramiding fingers, by hands in pockets with thumbs out and by hands held behind a stiff back.

INSECURITY is frequently communicated by pinching, chewing (pens, pencils, pipe, fingernails, gums), by hands stuffed deep into pockets, as well as by smoking, fidgeting, jingling coins, tugging ears or mustache, or underclothing, by someone who frequently covers her or his mouth and /or “ahems” often.

HOW a person lights and holds a cigarette, pipe or cigar, how he or she writes (including pen pressure), how glasses and eating utensils are held and used, how food is picked up and eaten. These are barometers. So are the ways people greet and say goodbye to one another. Handshakes (firm, wimpy, bone-crushing?). Hugs and kisses. Who touches whom?

The boss’s hand on someone’s shoulder shows authority. People in power feel comfortable touching subordinates, but not the other way around! Is it acceptable to touch a pregnant woman? Holding one’s hand to show the palm is regarded as a sexual attraction signal, especially when pupils dilate.

Watch how people move toward and away from one another — Distances? Who moves first? When?  Is someone’s foot pointed toward you when she or he speaks with you, or toward the door? Effective communications requires effort!

# # #

FREE blog subscription: Posts RSS Feed

Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0911

Open Minds Open Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Insensitive Leadership  

Breeds Lethargic Followers

Few behaviors undermine a small business owner’s authority quicker than a corporate micromanage attitude. When you hire people to do a job, explain what needs to be done by when, and what you’ve learned to be the best way to do it, then leave them alone. Visit them and talk with them and respect their input. 

Resist the temptation to physically and mentally hover over those who work with and for you.

Stop asking dumb questions in order to feel reassured that things are going right.

The more you keep checking on the obvious (“Did you brush your teeth today?”), the more insulting your reputation becomes

. . . and the less that people will respond when important issues arise . . . the less motivated and innovative they’ll become.

. . . people who are not challenged to be innovative are not motivated, and will often head for greener pastures. Those who remain are either ambivalent, desperate, or just plain lazy: the makings of a great team, huh? 

If you hired the right people to start with, help out when asked, but otherwise leave them to work on their own. The world won’t end because a new hire doesn’t do the assigned tasks exactly the same way you would do them. In fact, odds are that if you leave them to their own devices, they may come up with an even better way to handle things.

The more people you engage, the more willing you must be to let go. Letting go, in all of its applications, may be life’s hardest task. But it doesn’t have to be hard. You can choose for it to be easy. With a new hire, that means setting the stage carefully before you put the spotlights on and open the curtain.

Employee handbooks that outline expectations, job responsibilities, mission and vision statements help get people properly oriented. Policy manuals that spell out your rules and regulations, benefit programs, etc. help keep people properly oriented.

So that brings us back to the hiring process.

And don’t feel bad about screwing up.

No boss ever gets this right the first time.

All the HR training, resources, and psycho and statistical analysis in the world cannot replace the trial and error process that produces experienced instinct and personal judgement. Sombody “fits” or doesn’t. Ask your grandfather about square pegs in round holes.

When you end up with good people, keep them good by not “riding” them, by not “getting on their cases,” by not “bugging” them with your pet peeves; they are your pet peeves, and who cares? I recently heard a small business owner ask an employee if he remembered to close the safety latch on a tool he’s worked with daily for ten years.

You can bet the boss won’t be getting any great new innovative ideas from that employee, or probably any other.

If you feel the need to assume, assume that you don’t have all the answers, assume that you have competent employees and assume they have better solutions than you — you who are in the forest with the lawyer and accountant and customers and vendors and partners and lenders and investors — you who may not see the trees.

How to make the most of motivational dynamics? Ask. Listen. Take notes. Request feedback. Encourage experimentation. Reward efforts as well as results. Create an open discussion environment and free-flowing exchange of information.

Use small frequent rewards according to need (not yours, theirs. See Maslow’s Hirearchy of Needs). Oh, and remember to brush your teeth.

# # #

  FREE blog subscription: Posts RSS Feed

  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

   Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

 A marriage,

  a partnership  

…your business

on the rocks?

No need to contend for an Academy Award. Don’t get me wrong. acting isn’t always a bad thing if it serves to entertain or educate. Besides, theatre is in my family’s blood going all the way back to early Armenian and early Irish performers. (More on this some other time :<.)

The point is that acting to maintain or

enhance an image rarely serves the purpose.

Keeping up appearances only works for limited periods of time with limited audiences. With crumbling marriages, acting may not be a bad thing with young sensitive children who need to know –no matter the cause– that it’s not their fault. The same can be said for employees and customers when a business partnership goes south.

When a business stands firm in the face of a tsunami, the tsunami will prevail. It’s best to not pretend all’s well to those you do business with when it’s not . . . unless you’re certain a short-term BandAid will not prevent forward motion once the air clears, and you’re mentally prepared for any worst case scenario.

If you’ve been pretending things that are terrible are really great, be alert for reality to take its toll. A little snack for thought: Consider taking periodic mental inventory of where things are and where they’re headed. Step back. Take a break. Go for a walk, a drive, a ride, a swim, a vacation. Breathe. Get your brain unwound.

Accept that the stress these acting roles

produce is simply not worth all the pretenses.

Failing to own up to perceived threats of reality often puts businesses and their owners under. You are, you know, after all is said and done, a human being. And your body may, as some say, be a temple, but it is also (regardless of fitness level) a fragile temple. 

In a business tsunami, you are as susceptible to psychological trauma as you are to physical and emotional assault.

You may not be able to prevent accidents simply by staying out of harms way, anymore than you can avoid business upsets by just dressing things up and acting the part of conquering hero.

Even when you might think you are on track to a best actor or best supporting actress Oscar, when you begin to see that all the affectations, costumes, makeup, props, and mastering of character study you can muster are just not going to bail you out, face the reality head on. Be honest and direct.

Remember that –while you might think the situation at hand is the most humiliating and crushing life experience possible– others who are not as good as you have survived it, and most have become stronger for it. So, don’t shut it down. Put it out on the table.

# # #

  FREE blog subscription: Posts RSS Feed

  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

   Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

How to run a business

while your way of life

is under attack . . .

It’s no secret. Unless you’ve been away visiting friends and family on Jupiter, there’s no way you could not be aware of the increasingly rapid emergence of America’s Socialistic policies.

There is no way you could not be aware of the union-spawned turmoil government has predictably forced upon a scared, angry, disenfranchised, and economically fragile general public.

Doubtful? Just look around you. Go sit in a crowded place and just watch. See the faces filled with looks of worry, dispair, anguish, frustration, wrinkled brows, downturned mouths, sad eyes, slumped shoulders. Listen to the moans and groans and nervous laughter. 

Our way of life is under attack.

Our sense of patriotism and morals, the faith we’ve always had in ourselves and the small businesses and professional practices we own and manage is being undermined daily by our own government and so-called leaders.

We have a White House and Senate tilted so heavily to the left that there is no more balance in American lives. There is no longer room for God? Parental respect? Small business as a way of life?

So how do we get past present union and government attempts to disrupt and destroy small business?

It’s shape-up or ship-out time!

Assess where you are. Be honest with yourself as to how you evaluate and measure your buiness progress and losses. Decide how to make the best use of what you have. (You’ve already been doing this or you wouldn’t be alive right now, so keep at it, and accelerate your efforts.)

THINK IN DIFFERENT BOXES!

Continue to NOT trust the government we’ve been saddled with. It hasn’t proven itself worthy of being trusted.

In other words, even though WE all know that small business creation of new jobs is the only answer to turning the economy — don’t create new jobs! Why? Why create new jobs simply to turn around and be penalized for it?

That government/union olive branch you reach to accept will be followed by a slashing machete.

Promises of immediate help are two-faced. They are laced with quiet admissions that long-term financial punishment is inevitable.

Sure, go ahead. Create new jobs now and get lower taxes and some make-believe incentives for doing that now. Then what? Feel that stab wound in your back? Next year or the year after (the identical dynamics of Obamacare), the great new jobs you created will come back in spades into your wallet with make-up-the-difference tax increases (plus!) and even more intrusive regulations.

What else is there to do? Remember November 6, 2012.  

# # #

  FREE blog subscription: Posts RSS Feed

  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

   Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Empty Promises

May Win Votes,

But Not Sales!

If you can’t deliver the goods or services on time and as expected –price, performance, and warranty-wise– don’t even discuss the possibilities. Send your prospective customer/client instead to your top competitor. In fact, force yourself to even go to the trouble of introducing her or him by phone or email, or in-person whenever possible.

Hand ’em over on a silver platter

(along with a sincere smile and backpat)!

Why? Because down the road a piece (you know how far that is, right?), that person may not remember where or who she/he bought from, but you can bet your bippy that that astonished and pleased customer will never forget you for the personalized introduction to help ensure a sense of purchase satisfaction.

Remember that EVERY purchase is an emotional one, with an emotional trigger clicking into an emotional buying motive. And you will have just pulled that trigger. So the other guy got the sale. So what? In all honesty, you couldn’t have fulfilled the customer’s request anyway.

To top it off, I guarantee you that the story of you going out of your way even though you weren’t making the sale will get told to at least ten other people and each of them will tell it to ten more. For a couple of minutes of your time, you will have created 100 positive impressions!

Imagine how many people will be praising your integrity and building your reputation when you choose to make a consistent practice of focusing completely on the customer’s needs, instead of your own! 

Is this a recommendation to grow your business by sending prospects to the competition? Good heavens, no! The point is that it’s better to help people find what they want when you can’t produce it yourself than to try manipulating prospect intents, altering what you have beyond performance reality, or –worst of all– promise and not deliver.

Performance is the key word. And honesty is still the best policy. Oh, and you’ll never need (like car dealers) to talk about either performance or honesty, because people will simply know about it when your actions match your words.

AAAACK! Too Late!

Okay, if it’s too late for all that good stuff

because you already screwed up, take heart.

All is not lost.

Let’s say you’re in the roofing installation business, and you promised a prospect that you’d deliver a three trillion dollar debt ceiling with insulated, soundproof ceiling tile panels by Wednesday, and it’s Monday with no debt ceiling supplier deal in sight. You now know you should never have promised it and your knees are shaking.

Go back to “GO” and own up. Tell the truth that you over-committed and promised what you shouldn’t have. Apologize. Be sincere and empathetic. Put yourself in the customer’s (or employee’s) shoes. Listen carefully. But stand tall and don’t ooze. Offer to do whatever it takes to make amends (and be sure to follow through with overkill effort!).

If doing this results in you suffering a loss, suck it up! Bite the bullet! Eat the expense! Write it off to stupidity. Lesson learned. Time to move forward. But remember that the WAY you handle the mess and the integrity you demonstrate (even after demonstrating no integrity!) adds up to creating a new opportunity out of an old problem.

It may be true that “nothing succeeds like success,” but it’s equally true that nothing succeeds like telling the truth in failure, and making good on a failed promise. 

# # #

  FREE blog subscription: Posts RSS Feed

  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

   Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

When your business is

born of faith, you march 

to a different drum . . .

That most small business owners maintain any kind of long-term allegiance to the place their businesses were born is doubtful. Yet, as entrepreneurs, they are the most likely group to appreciate and respect the origins and uniquenesses of a business that is born of faith.

Both kinds of small business enterprise owners —those who believe their business calling comes from God, and those who don’t– experience similar dynamics, challenges, problems, and opportunities. The differences are essentially differences in attitude, motivation, and the treatment of internal and external resources.

Small businesses all suffer growing pains. And being on the cusp of economic catastrophe while getting bludgeoned by over-taxation without representation (considering the SBA is a joke) and by over-regulation from a naive, misguided, rampaging  White House that appears intentionally and spitefully clueless, doesn’t help.   

Not many corporate giant, union, or government career types would understand the dynamics, challenges, problems, and opportunities faced daily by small business –any kind of small business– let alone the charitable, servant leadership nature of a business that is faith-based.

Entrepreneurs of every ilk recognize that their own and others’ existences depend on their own initiatives. Unlike corporate and government counterparts, when you own and/or manage a small business, and you’re too hungover to get out of bed in the morning, there’s no option for tossing it off by calling in to take a “sick day”

When you skip work or drag in hours late because you’re feeling depressed or had an upsetting incident at home, or simply didn’t want to face up to a scheduled meeting with a disgruntled partner or financial supporter, or an irate customer, what happens? The business suffers. Do it too often and the business folds.

But when your business is firmly grounded in commitments to serving God by serving all others who come into contact with your enterprise, you have a different perspective on what’s important.

Secular, or non-spiritually-based businesses exist to make money. They are primarily devoted to satisfying their principals and their investors with profits. Faith-based businesses exist to make money to distribute more to their employees, their communities, and to become stronger resources for charitable giving.

Many secular businesses will put income-source customers first and actually disregard their employees, vendors, and “outside” consultants and sales reps. Financial gain and competitive edge become the driving forces. Faith-based businesses typically seek to embrace everyone equally, seeking to distribute trust, respect, and opportunities.

Most secular businesses consider community support efforts non-essential line items to abandon when economic uncertainty drives budgetary belt-tightening. Faith-based businesses facing the same financial stresses may simply switch gears to make their community contributions ones of time and effort, or expertise, or goods and services.

Having had the privledge of working extensively in both secular and faith-based business arenas, I frequently hear questions about what the differences and similarities are. This post is intended to address a few of my observations. They may not all be correct, and certainly they are not all-inclusive.

Can you add some comments

from your experiences? 

# # #

  FREE blog subscription: Posts RSS Feed

  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

   Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Labor Day Leftovers . . .

White House, union thugs

seek to rally violence,

DE-Americanize 

small business.

On –of all days– Labor Day, and in –of all places– Detroit, home of the highest unemployment rate in the US (nearly 16%!), we get bone-chilling reports of attempts to incite violence from two LINOs (Leaders In Name Only).

The spitting of vicious words was barely even acknowledged by mainstream media.  “Union King” Jimmy Hoffa, Jr, and Mr. O combined efforts to threaten violence (and ignore that it was even a threat!).

Over-the-top Junior Hoffa shouted out a rally cry to:

“Take out those (Tea Party)

sons of bitches”

. . . as part of his rant and rave Labor Day speech. This kind of inflammatory rhetoric has no place in a democratic society, and has even less of a place coming from the mouth of a purported “leader.”

Mr. O, in an disgraceful throw-back to Chicago thug days, made no attempt to soften the comments or language, and –in fact, just seconds later– proceeded to praise Hoffa.

Pretty amazing behavior for a man who claims to embrace peace and forgiveness over violence (reference his 2008 campaign speeches), eh? 

If any of us (among 30 million small business owners) were ever to make such inciteful fist-thrusting comments about business competitors, we would be out of business (or in jail) by 9am tomorrow.

How is it even possible that such low-life comments can be made in public? Freedom of speech? HA! How about inciting a riot? How about defamation? How about common courtesy? How about considering the impact on young people? How about having a brain?

But then, perhaps it’s just more reinforcement that politics is a career for the brainless, yes?

What’s the bottom line?

The enemy of small business

is the constant exposure

to hateful politics,

So, do we swear off of politics? Well, first of all, such an intention (like those that pave that famous road) might sound honorable, but it’s really not possible unless you do a guru-on-the-mountaintop thing. Politics invades every inch of our lives, and the worst of it dominates. Well, we could always avoid the media, right?

How is it, for example, that the nation awaits Mr. O’s much-too-long-overdue promise of a job speech and supposed plan (that was needed three years ago!), while we ignore Mitt Romney’s thoughtful, reasonable, and immediate business-positive plan to reverse our dying economy?

How do meaningful and positive suggestions from those who embrace Tea Party thinking get immediately dismissed by the ruling Socialist radicals without giving even the time of day?

Why must the White House expend more time and money and energy seeking re-election votes than tending to the immediate needs of the American people? What about righting our sinking economic ship instead of praising the ignorance of an empty-suit union leader because he controls large blocs of votes?

Icing on the cake:

Mr. Biden today called

Tea Party supporters:

“Barbarians”!

Talk about unbelievable

It really is getting close to that time when the present anti-business (and especially anti-small business) White House must be upended and removed from office. Are you speaking out? Are you taking steps to initiate action — to motivate and inspire others to the importance of choosing America’s direction and the direction of small business.

Are you ready to thrive again? Are you ready to help ensure return to our free enterprise small business system that has always been the backbone and heart of our nation? November 6, 2012. Be there. 

# # #  

302.933.0116   Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

Make Today a GREAT day for someone! 

Marketing, advertising,

PR and sales

industry-specific 

experience?

Worthless.

An Opinion 

SALES

Give me a guy who can sell ketchup, propane, decorative plants, dental insurance, or rubberbands any day over a techie geek to sell your iPads, TVs, Wii programs, or Kindles. Geeks sell geeks. Sales pros sell people. Why think small when your opportunities are big? The geek market is small. Find people who are experts at serving customers, and teach them product/service knowledge.

Looking for an exceptional salesperson for your new snack products? Stop looking in the snack product industry. Find someone who sells railroad cars full of dorm furniture to universities. Surgical supplies? Get your search engine out of the med school dropout arena and find a classy cosmetics presenter with a sparkling, eager-to-learn  personality.

Oh, and remember that great salespeople don’t make great sales managers. Only great managers make great sales managers.

PR

Find a freelance writer who has some psychology background and who can write some slam-bang persuasive headlines and sentences for all kinds of products and services– someone who is tenacious in follow-up efforts. Forget about established, specialist PR firms and groups who tend to be more interested in their names than yours. 

The public relations field is a breeding ground for con artists. I’ve seen top PR firms charge $25,000 a month and produce zero. If they can’t make what you have to sell be exciting, you lose. If they can’t follow up fanatically to get writers, reporters, editors, producers, and publishers pouncing on your story, you lose. You can teach someone with diverse quality PR experience about your industry media. 

ADVERTISING

Skip right over any provider who claims expertise in your field, unless you’re willing to spend lots of money to make no impact. Hospital advertising is a great example. It’s pathetic. Does “Excellent People” and “We Care” float your boat? Hospitals and banks are the perfect examples of advertising waste.

Get a person or small team on board who want to help you make a difference, who know how to ignite and cultivate creative thinking applications that get results. Just because something looks nice and is clever or informative doesn’t mean that it works. It may only mean that the agency is seeking to win a design award.

Don’t settle. Do your homework and due diligence. Then teach her/him/them about your business and industry.

MARKETING

Not “marketing” like healthcare people think: physician office visits with armsful of popcorn, candy, 6-foot subs, sports and concert tickets. That’s called payola, as in bring ’em gifts and they’ll prescribe or recommend or buy your products. It’s also called bribery, and it borders on STARK Law and other ethical violation issues. 

And not marketing like Fortune 500 companies hellbent on analysis paralysis before even considering a potential packaging design, pricing structure, promotional flyer, merchandising gimmick or ad headline. Part of why big companies have too much at stake to be entrepreneurial has to do with the astronomically wasted expenses involved in frivolous product and service development and meaningless market research.

You don’t need an army of “experienced (Fill in any specialty here) marketing pros.” You need a person or small team who have a proven track-record for producing results in a variety of fields. Diversity, flexibility, and common sense abilities to work with an Objective/Strategy/Tactics framework in all types of media are what count more than “industry-specific.”

P.S. Beware “Social Media Marketing Experts” who don’t understand marketing. There are plenty of them. 

THE KEY

It’s easy to teach experienced marketing/advertising/sales/PR people what they need to know about your product or service to most effectively represent it. But it’s nearly impossible to teach industry and professional practice-specific experienced people how to market, advertise, publicize and sell.

Specialization Closes Minds 

# # #

  FREE blog subscription: Posts RSS Feed

  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

   Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

America’s

“Childish” President

is Using America’s

30 Million

Small Business Owners to 

Play Politics Instead of

Fix the Economy 

Okay, so just a couple of hours after this post was written, the man has backed down from his one-upmanship scheduling of his “Jobs Speech” and will instead deliver it the following night. While I’d like to think my post and others had some impact, truth is that Mr. O realized a bigger better political advantage to moving his appointed time out from under the GOP Debate.

The bottom line is nothing else in this post changes: Don’t expect anything new, and don’t expect jobs to come begging for employees. You can be certain more taxes are on the way to fund the man’s extremist plans to spread the wealth . . . and now, of course, to spread the fantasy jobs!

~~~~~~~~

Mr. O has suddenly scheduled what will inevitably be great oratory on our catastrophic quagmire of an economy –that he has compounded at every turn and hasn’t been able to do a single constructive thing about since 2008 — for 8PM, Sept. 7th.

He takes a childish posture in setting his stage at precisely the same time as the long-planned GOP Presidential Candidate’s debate . . . and then he says the responses to his one-upmanship are “childish.”

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black?

~~~~~~~~

Why should we small business owners and entrepreneurs and managers care?

First, because business owners want to hear how other Presidential candidates plan to fix the economy that Mr. Obama has failed to fix.  

Second, because it’s been proven ad nauseam and reinforced by every economist worth her or his salt that the only road to economic recovery is for government to WHOLEHEARTEDLY support and encourage new business job development by entrepreneurs.

~~~~~~~~

The White House knows this and has intentionally ignored thousands of opportunities to initiate tax incentives for new business job creation and tax incentives for new business innovation (leading to job creation). So, why now? November 6, 2012 is right around the corner. Why a Sept. 7th 8pm speech? Because politics beats reality.

No need to be a brain surgeon to understand this. Any small business owner or legitimately unemployed person gets the reality of it. Why doesn’t the White House? This hyped up speech will –I guarantee– be about nothing realistic. The opportunity for that has already come and gone more times than the EverReady Rabbit! 

Mr. O will pay token attention to small business, but never reach out a true helping hand. He will bury nice-sounding words in meaningless rhetoric. And therein lies the problem:

America needs jobs. New small business provides virtually all new jobs. America’s 30 million small business owners do not trust Mr. Obama. Period.

Why should anyone capable ofr creating new jobs create new jobs because of promises from a man who has a long track-record of not keeping promises? I create 50 new jobs because the government assures me of new job salary rebates or some other fantasyland benefit. The promise collapses. I am stuck with 50 people I can’t afford.

~~~~~~~~

The Issue Is TRUST.

This White House has failed to earn the trust of small business over and over and over again.

Without trust, there can be no relationship.

There can be no deal.

There can be no forward movement.

There can be no salvaging The Great Obama Depression.

There can be no economic recovery.

There can, and undoubtedly will be a lot of talk and a lot of smiles and a lot of handshakes and reassuring references and pats on the back. But –mark my words– it will all be for show. This is simply one more campaign op! Surely the Republican Debate will crank out more business-friendly job creation proposals.

# # #

  FREE blog subscription: Posts RSS Feed

  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

   Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

 Your Advisory Board

includes a lawyer, 

an accountant, your

rich uncle, and

your pastor?

Nope.

Well maybe one or two of those types do actually hold court with you once a quarter or twice a year and offer trusted advice and opinions about where your enterprise appears to be headed . . . and maybe you listen, and maybe you don’t. And maybe they’re helpful. And maybe they’re not.

After all, typically, they’re not paid. And you do remember that someone once told you you get what you pay for? Ah, but a good advisory board is usually made up of people who have a physical or emotional investment in seeing you succeed. And that trumps paying a fee for services. 

No compensation? Well, maybe some coffee and donuts — or fruit, cheese, and crackers, depending on your level of health-nuttiness. Wow! So now you’ll read a little further?

Advisory Boards, generally, are a good thing for most small business ventures because –when they include a small group of diverse, talented people who like and care about you– they can shed light on your darkness and provide enough reassurance or guidance to afford you to step back and observe your brainchild firsthand.

Advisory Boards provide a sense of reality you might not otherwise solicit or be exposed to.”

Okay, you’ve got all that. And it either sparks an idea, or it just lays there flat on its back, rolling its eyes at you! Well, here’s a definite sparkler:

Start a Rotating Teenage Advisory Board.

Huh? Why? Why not? When did you last waltz a thirteen-year-old boy or girl through your place of business and ask him or her for observations?

I promise you he/she will see things you never noticed, and maybe never even thought about. Does it matter that your business makes products or delivers services for nursing homes (whoops, how un-PC of me: long-term care facilities)? Or nursing mothers? Or male nurses? Truck drivers? Scuba divers? (It rhymed!) No it doesn’t matter.

What matters is that you regularly host small groups of teens through your office, plant. store, or worksite, and that you non-judgmentally LISTEN to what they have to say, and keep a journal or take dated notes of key comments. Pay careful attention to the questions they ask (and how they ask them) before trying to answer them.

It’s true that teenagers (as when each of us were) are different, weird, and aloof.

They are preoccupied with texting, handheld electronics, and each other.

They may seem the least unlikely to contribute anything of value to a non-teenage market business.

Yet –refreshingly– they lack developed prejudices.

They are naive and breed a rare perspective of business innocence.

You can learn more and spark more ideas from one business visit by a youngster, or two or three than you are likely to from ten top industry or profession muckity-mucks who will surely carry competition chips on their shoulders, and be more inclined to maintaining a political edge.

One business I heard of makes a practice of gathering small groups of teens from the local middle school and high school (pre-arranged of course with the parents, but not with school administrators who would tangle up the process) and rewarding them with praise, snacks, juice, and bookstore gift cards for bright ideas offered.

The owner has translated teen visitor input into new product launches, line extensions, and revenue streams, that produced enough income to allow some scholarship funding in return. What can you get? What can you give?

# # #

  FREE blog subscription: Posts RSS Feed

  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

   Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone!