Archive for the 'Family' Category

Jul 20 2010

HIRING YOUR FACE

The face of your business

                                       
 

is second only to the guts!

 

The first person(s) to encounter your business visitors, customers, clients, patients, prospects, sales reps, suppliers and vendors, delivery people, and solicitors in person and on the phone is(are) “the face of your business.”

Exercise caution in not underestimating the value of this position. It comes second only to your own and the operational guts of your business. However genuine each individual projects him or herself in that role directly equates with what outsiders will think of you and your business. Gum-chewing, short-skirted bimbettes may not always be in your best-image interests. ;<)

You get only one chance at a first impression and one chance with each encounter after that to maintain it, so why nickle and dime your selection, placement, and nurturing process for anyone who will serve as your business face?

If yours is a start-up or home-based business, that individual could be you, or your spouse or other relative.

Most of what follows still applies.

Many business owners and managers find it hard to avoid the temptation to tangle up business face job responsibilities with cost-cutting leftovers from someone else’s task pile. Multi-tasking is useful, but be careful about keeping the workload balanced. Being the face of the business is a primary responsibility that requires an authentic and engaging personality as criteria one.

For some of the same kinds of match-up reasons that –for example– MacDonald’s prefers farmers for franchisees (because of their regimented approach to seasonality and discipline in maintaining consistency) — or that many popular restaurants prefer actors and actors for food-service people because they have a stage presence which typically renders them less inhibited, more outgoing and more entertaining (which can make the difference in upgrade meal and beverage orders, and customer add-ons as well).

Recruiting  process questions to keep

on your front burner and to be able to

answer affirmatively and assertively:

  • Does this person have an inherent interest in other people?
  • Does this person appear to withhold judgment of others?
  • Is this person engaging without being overbearing?
  • Is his or her tone of voice consistently calm, pleasant, and respectful?
  • Any evidence of this person being patronizing or condescending?
  • Has this person a natural instinct to be helpful? (Subtly dropping something near him or her gives you a scenario to assess)
  • Does this person’s host or hostess skills transcend turmoil situations? (Creating one during an interview will provide some clue)
  • Can this person stay on track with time schedules? (Ask candidates to sort out some typical priorities)
  • Does the person you’re considering evidence a good memory for names, faces, and voices? (Are visit #1 intros remembered on visit #2?)
  • Does he/she offer to find help that can’t be immediately provided?
  • Is the candidate gracious and polite under fire? (This may be hard to determine without considerable contrivance)
  • Do you think the person you’re considering will readily acknowledge those waiting in line or on the phone and report delays?

Selecting candidates who excel at these personal skills is almost always a “best bet” situation because business-related skills can be taught, and human interaction skills usually cannot. In other words, changing some one’s knowledge base is easier than changing some one’s personality. For the face of your business, be less caught up in the resume and more focused on the person. Others will be.

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

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

God Bless America and America’s Troops.

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Jul 19 2010

BUSINESS HEALTH

Are you paying for your

                                           

business with your health?

                                                           

“Hey, How’s it goin’?”

“Great! Second quarter sales have picked up and it looks like we’ll be steady through September. I’ve had to cut staffing, but the people who are still here are working double-time with me and keeping things on a roll.”

“Good to hear, but you look, um, tired?”

“Yeah, well I haven’t been sleeping much and I was up all night with a toothache, and my stomach –aw, must of been something I ate– anyway, keeping the business alive takes it’s toll, y’know? Like that speeding ticket I just got cause I was thinking about this guy I was talking with on my cell phone instead of the gas pedal.”

     Indeed. Every one who owns and/or operates or manages a business knows this nasty little secret: Business stress is consuming. It spreads like wildfire and leaves little in its path besides smoldering ashes. Yeah, yeah, I know you know, but what you probably forgot is that you bring it on yourself. Sometimes disguised as unconscious, it’s usually the result of a conscious choice.

  • “If I grab this quick cheeseburger, I can keep working on my projects and not have to take a whole big long break to sit down in some restaurant while nothing gets done.”
  • “I get enough exercise. I pace around the worksite all day. Who needs to swim laps or workout in a gym with muscleheads?”
  • “I know I’ve been snapping at my family lately, but if I wasn’t bringing home enough to feed and clothe them and keep a roof over their heads, where would we be?”
  • “Relax? Sure, I get my couple or three drinks in every night . . . and even sneak in a cigar or two on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.”

     Nobody likes to admit that they made bad choices. So one bad choice often has a way of lumping itself right onto another one. Bad choices have a way of steamrollering. If you choose for them to do that. Ah, there’s that insulting “choice” word again. “Hey, I had three cheeseburgers yesterday; how about choosing a bucket of fried chicken today instead?”

     If any of this sounds at all familiar, you are not likely to respond well to a lecture and will delete this in a flash, so we won’t go there.

     If you’re at a point where you’ve made an honest decision to do better with yourself because you’ve concluded there’s only one self to go around in life, and now you’re looking for quick-fix answers, stop!

     Whatever answers you get that could possibly make a difference will have to come from inside you anyway, not from healthcare experts, not from healthcare pretenders, not from those all-natural treatments, pills, liquids, injections, organic this and thats or limiting everything you eat to stuff that has no eyes, or from ingesting magic books and tapes and CDs and DVDs and website videos.

     Those are all very nice things but they won’t make anything happen that you don’t want to happen.

     The only answers to your business health and personal health problems that can possibly work are those that come from inside you, from knowing that no one else can reach into your brain and control you, and that all of your thoughts and behaviors are chosen by you, or exist because of some other choices you made in the recent or distant past.

                                                                                 

It’s never too late to choose to

recognize that you ARE your body.

Without reasonable good health, you

cannot have a reasonably good business.

Decide what’s important, and what

    needs to come first . . . then do it!    

                                                                   

 www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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Jul 14 2010

WHISTLING ON THE JOB

Be Happy…

                                   

 Don’t “Work”

                                                                    

     Whatever kind of work makes you feel happy is the kind of work you need to be constantly moving toward and doing more of.  Because when you do what makes you happy, you’ll perform with greater confidence and competence. You’ll also never tire of it, and guess what? You not likely to ever think of it as “work.”

On top of all that, doing work that makes you happy has long been proven to lower your blood pressure, reduce stress, and lead to a happier, healthier existence . . . mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, and spiritually. What’s not to like about that?

     Okay, so how to get started?  First, don’t pile all kinds of excuses in your face. You think because you own or manage a business, that you’re hooked into a slot you need to stay in to keep things moving? Nonsense. You’re no different than anyone else if you’re doing daily tasks that make you miserable. You need a target. Maybe, if you’re the boss, your target is moving. So what? You’re a mover to start with or you wouldn’t be the boss!.

     So take a deep breath http://bit.ly/bo3ZJy and begin by clearly defining as exactly and specifically as possible what kinds of work make you feel most upbeat and positive and rewarded. Write this little bullet list down on paper. Try to avoid generalizations and generalities. You might want to carry your list with you for a day or so and edit it as new ideas come and go.

     You can’t tell where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been. So next, take a little inventory of where you are and how you got to where you are. This doesn’t need to be a memoir or autobiography. A couple of concise sentences should do the job. Be sure to include a one-liner that describes what kind of work you’re currently doing. If you’re the boss, itemize the parts of the job you hate.

Now you need to step back and become Judge Judy.

                                                               

     Look critically and suspiciously at where you are, where you’ve been, where you want to go, and –BANG!– what’re the roadblocks you’re choosing to hold yourself back. Don’t give yourself excuses for why you haven’t done something sooner or why you think you can’t . . . deal with the roadblocks. What are they? How many? Priority rank?

     Hey, you’re doing great! You read this far so it proves you care enough about you to get the genuine you on track with where you need to be, doing what you most enjoy, instead of continuing to choose self-destruct no-outlet paths for yourself. Pat yourself on the back. Now take a good long hard look at how far you are from where you want to be and then decide the most workable route. Plan for detours.

     Pulling up stakes and moving to a hammock in the Costa Rican jungles may not be the best answer. But the bottom line is that you are the only one on Earth who knows what the answer is. and the only one who can decide how and when to proceed.

                                                                

You control you.

                                                                 

     Short of perhaps physical threat, no one else can reach into your mind and force you to behave in certain ways. And no one under any circumstances can control the way you think, besides you. So what are you waiting for? If you’re not happy with your job or tasks you’re doing, start choosing to do something about it. If you’re happy at work, it’s not “work.”

www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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Jul 12 2010

Living on the edge . . .

You’re the boss, but 

                                                      

are you a happy camper?

                                                      

     If you’re not a professional athlete and you need energy drinks to keep afloat, or nine or ten cups of coffee every day just to stay alert, on track, and in control, you are definitely not a happy camper.

     You are fighting with yourself and not sleeping much.

     But you’re not alone. You definitely don’t want to hear the latest findings about unhappy work situations, depression, anxiety, stress, illnesses, accident-proneness, and insomnia.

     Just know that the numbers are staggering enough to underscore that you’re in good company, or perhaps bad company as it may be (?).

     Just an awareness of how common these issues are should prompt you to pursue your options.

     But odds are —like a student I remember telling me didn’t think he had enough time to take my time management course — that you continue to manage to sidestep alternative ways of thinking. What’s that “Got Milk?” thing? Uh, got excuses? 

     Sidestepping is an art form all by itself. Sometimes it’s in your own or others’ best interests. Sometimes it’s not.

     Sidestepping is not in your own and others’ best interests when it puts your life or the lives of others on the edge . . . hanging precipitously on the cusp of the kinds of physical, emotional and psychological ailments itemized in the third paragraph above.

Suffice it to say that being overworked, unhappy in relationships, constantly worried about money, jacked up on caffeine, and never sleeping enough is a description that probably fits — at least in part — the majority of Americans in today’s workforce.” 

     Sidestepping is not in your own or others’ best interests when you foster or nurture worklife environments that breed these kinds of symptoms.   Are you breathing?     

     Does this mean you need to be the Sheriff of Civility, and fire offenders, or put them behind bars? Silly, huh? Well how silly is it that you consistently choose to set yourself up to get whacked out by stress, and become the poster-boy or poster-girl for serving up on-the-job heart attack appetizers by setting a lousy example?

     What if you came in to work tomorrow morning and drank juice or water instead of Red Bull or whatever it is that presently floats your boat? (Careful to wean off the caffeine unless you enjoy headaches.) Would people notice? Of course. Would they tease and whisper? Of course. Would it prompt them to think twice about their own caffeine-loading habits?  Of course.

     And would choosing to change that simple behavior be a good thing overall for productivity, customer service, sales,  operations, and your own well-being? Of course. Will it happen overnight? Now, come on, how long did it take to work up to nine or ten daily cups of coffee, or get everybody hooked on energy drinks? 

     This isn’t about three or four cups of coffee a day, or getting into occasional bad moods, or interfering in people’s personal lives. It’s about closing the floodgates.

     This is about recognizing you have a chance to help others to live more enjoyable and rewarding lives by making the conscious choice to help yourself to do that, and setting an example . . . it’s about making that choice over and over every day.

                                                                                                         

    www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

3 responses so far

Jul 08 2010

BUSINESS LIFE

Your business may

                                         

be your life, but your

                                        

life is not a business!

                                                                                                        

     Entrepreneur, right? So what does it take to jolt your brain out of that innovative thinking tunnel long enough to appreciate and enjoy some of the real-life reasons you exist on this planet to begin with? (Clue: This is not a Red Bull chug-a-lug contest idea!)

     Will a family birth deliver enough power surge to give you a wake-up call? Not enough? How about a couple of funerals? Maybe a fender bender or stepping in your neighbor’s Saint Bernard’s leavings when you’re running late and rushing to an important meeting? A nasty bill collector pounding on your door?

     Stop for a minute. You’ve read this far looking for some kind of answer or provocation or support or or assessment tool, but maybe you need to consider asking yourself more questions before you start looking for answers?

     When, for example, did you last stop to smell the roses? Literally. Be honest here; no one else is looking. When did you last interrupt your compulsive workday habits to sniff?

     When did you last push the paperwork aside to give your complete attention to a troubled associate, employee, supplier, or customer? Did it make you crazy to have to shift gears out of your head space and into someone else’s?

     After all, life is just a bowl of worries, you might think, so why get caught up in other people’s bowls

     When you make yourself too busy to socialize or too busy to deal with priorities, inventory your actions to make sure you’re not just doing tasks of avoidance. Do you find the expression, “Yes, but . . .” (or the sentiments it represents) creeping into more and more of your answers. Are your responses to questions starting to sound more like reactions, or excuses?

     If you can respond instead of react, you can never over-react!

     Are you breathing? Click here for the free 60-second exercise

     Your business may occupy most of your waking hours (and probably some dream time too!), but neglecting your health — eating, drinking, sleeping, and exercise habits — and neglecting your family and friends and neighbors and community, is not a good trade-off (unless of course you’re bucking to be the object of one of those funerals mentioned earlier)!

     The better you are at business, the more focused you are on your business, the more rewarding your business efforts, the greater the odds that you are setting a trap for yourself to start to think your life is also a business, or is part of your business pursuits. You will start making excuses to yourself about why you need to stay on the job, to the point of being a crispy, well-done burn-out.

     You may start to look on life, and manage and operate it as if it were a business. This is clearly not a healthy place for anyone to be. Breaks are more than pulling yourself away from the desk or workspace. Breaks are rests for your brain that are like investments, and that will pay back with ever increased energy, productivity, and innovativeness when you return to your career pursuits.

     You need ’em. Take ’em! If you can’t do it, get some professional help . . . no excuses.

                                                  

# # #

                                                   

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

No responses yet

Jul 01 2010

HAPPY 4th OF JULY WEEKEND!

All best wishes

                                                                

. . . from Hal & Kathy and our 13 year-old Golden Retriever, “Barnegat Girl,” who asked to wear a patriotic scarf for the occasion.

Please enjoy scanning the archives for helpful entrepreneurial leadership and creative sales hints and ideas.

Hal will retrun Saturday night with some hot new, light-up-the-skies topics and experienced consulting help aimed at helping small business owners and professional practice principals achieve greater success with less stress in less time at minimal expense. 

www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

 

No responses yet

Jun 28 2010

Does Your Business Stack Up?

Tonight’s blog post is dedicated to my friend Ernst Dannemann who died yesterday as he approached his 89th birthday.

I have been fully absorbed in writing Ernst’s memoir for the past year, and finished the text just a couple of weeks ago. A truly remarkable man I admire and respect, Ernst arrived –out from under Hitler– in NY Harbor at age 15 (with minimal English), graduated high school and signed into the Army in response to Pearl Harbor, became a decorated soldier and a U.S. Citizen, courted a Holocaust survivor for 60 days and ended up married to her for 60 years, started as a chicken farmer and built a highly successful 6-state retail fabric chain.

Ernst worked his way up to be trusted advisor to 6 governors, close friend to a U.S. President and contenders, and a U.S. Vice President and contenders, as well as many nationally prominent senators and congressional leaders.

For his volunteer work and his Brotherhood Award from The National Conference of Christians and Jews, Ernst won the highest honor given to a civilian in the State of Delaware. Many will miss him dearly. He was a true gentleman as well as a great father, grandfather and great grandfather in every sense of these words and titles. . . and, I believe, Ernst, though never a Scout, could have easily been the poster boy for the 12 principles embodied in the “Boy Scout Law”:

                                                                                 

A Scout is trustworthy, 

                                          

loyal, helpful,

                                

friendly, courteous, 

                                 

kind, obedient, 

                                                                                   

cheerful, thrifty,

                                 

brave, clean, and

                             

reverent. 

                                    

     Okay, so put aside everything you know for a minute and evaluate your business performance as it measures up against what we should have learned as Boy Scouts (or, sorry, Girl Scouts, but I don’t know their “Law”). Can you 1-10-rate yourself and your business performance against each of these twelve points and come away with a hundred points?

     Can you figure out your strengths and weaknesses in matching or not matching each of these qualities. Does your customer service mission sound anything like this? Do you have employee policies, written or simply understood, that come anywhere close to the elevated level of these twelve behavioral traits?

     Where are you short? How can you bolster that up? What steps can you take tomorrow morning to boost even one of these and make it a shining star for your business? What’s preventing that? Is it attitude? Is it what others think? Is it too hard or time-consuming? Is it just something you feel you’re stuck with? Are you remembering that behavior is a choice?

     Are you remembering that you can choose to make these values ring throughout your business everyday and that all you have to do is decide to do it and keep deciding to do it, over and over? Hmmm? Imagine. Imagine what else we can learn from our youth that can work for our business growth now? Maybe it’s worth visiting a local troop meeting to learn some leadership skills long forgotten? 

www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Ha@BusinessWorks.US  
Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God bless you. God bless America and our troops. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

2 responses so far

Jun 22 2010

BLINDSIDED

                                 

R.I.P. PAUL HARP

November 2, 1950 – June 22, 2010

     I lost a good friend today, my friends.

     He was a man I cared about and joked with and shared some serious times with as well. We played year-round softball together, sometimes as friendly foes, and would often rib each other with post-game phone messages.

“Were those your regular glasses you were wearing when you dropped that ball today?”; “Did you know you missed touching first base on that double?”; “I heard you were using an illegal bat on that game-winning hit?”

     To be clear, lest you think we were both great sluggers and agile fielders, Paul’s on-field talents ranked him far beyond my humble skill set.

     The being-on-the-same-playing-field thing may not seem very significant to those who don’t indulge in team sports, and especially senior team sports where camaraderie is special, but it means simply that we clicked, Paul and I. For some odd reason, we took comfort in one another’s smiles, shared stories, cheer-leading, and back pats. 

     “Odd reason” because Paul was a retired Baltimore County Police Officer, and all we had in common in that regard was that I once taught a few years of college law enforcement classes in crisis intervention. Other than that, I’ve always believed in living a law-abiding life and in generally keeping a respectful distance from the worlds of lawyers, cops, and retired cops.

     I didn’t know “Paul the lawman,” but I know others who did . . . and a couple who worked with him. A man of principle and determination are traits most agree he evidenced with every task he tackled. Paul took his contributions to and from life with intensity. He worked hard and played hard. 

     He was a truly exceptional athlete, but Paul was never healthy. In all of our friendship, and by all accounts from those who knew him better and longer –and most certainly from his loving and devoted wife Linda, his sister Rose, brother-in-law Joe, his children and step-children, and his lifelong best friend Fred– Paul was clearly in a permanent day-to-day state of  physical pain.

     It sometimes got hard to watch him living with ice packs and heat pads, forever trooping from one doctor to another.

     At least that suffering has ended, but it doesn’t make his loss any easier. I guess I should have seen it coming. Probably many of his friends and family feel that way. Blindsided.

     We get blindsided with sudden losses all through life and then, with time to heal and God’s help, we somehow raise ourselves and spirits back up from the ground we’ve been knocked to, and reconnect with all the hidden joys of living — the babies and puppies and flowers and trees and hugs and smiles and sunshine and great meals with great company and the sense of accomplishment that elevates our efforts to reap rewards.

     Paul knew all this. He’d been through it with others — good and bad, easy and hard. He rarely let it show. He kept most of it so much inside and some small bits for all to see worn on every sleeve.

     One important exchange of quiet resolve that all who cared about him may want to know as fact: Paul believed deeply in God. He told me so. He told me in a time and place that made me know he meant it.    

     We are blindsided by Paul’s loss, but comforted by his belief, and by knowing that once and for all, he is finally pain-free and at peace.

     I’ll miss you, good buddy, as I know others will. But Kathy and I have gained by your passage through our lives. You made a difference to us, and I thank you for being the kind of friend who was always there when a friend was needed.

     God Bless you, Paul. God Bless Linda and Rose and the rest of your family. You will not be forgotten.                                                                      _____________________________________________

www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  
Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless:  You, America, and Our Troops. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

5 responses so far

Jun 20 2010

Happy Father’s Day!

Business Wisdom Stuff

                                           

My Father (“Harry”)

                                       

Told Me 

                                                 

Whether or not these “words of wisdom” actually made a difference is anybody’s guess, but I believe some of it did. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a gem, you’ll have to sort through it all yourself. Just because something did or didn’t work for me doesn’t mean it will or won’t for you. So — take it with a grain of salt? Perhaps, but know for sure that some of this old world advice from an arguably savvy father amounts to the kind of input that can make a difference for almost any entrepreneur and/or business owner.

 HE WHO HESITATES IS LOST!

(This message was delivered repeatedly to my right ear while Dad was teaching me how to “merge” into traffic, then again years later as a new app, when I vacillated between two job offers. “Lost” wasn’t something I wanted to be, so I found this prompt to action useful a few times over.)

                                                                                                               

You always want things to be copacetic,

and the best way to get there is to have

a sense of urgency about all that you do.

(Dad often supplemented this advice with reminders to “be quick like a bunny” and to do what you need to do “in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” I recall as well Harry’s contradictory “Haste Makes Waste” warnings, but eventually figured out a compromise behavior which was something like: think stuff out slowly and carefully then act like lightning to get the job done. Hey, it worked for me. And as it turns out, part of it wasn’t far from the motto for carpenters and heart surgeons: “Measure twice. Cut once.”)

                                                                                                  

NEVER CUT CORNERS

WITH FOOD OR SHOES!

(You need, he would lecture, to take priority care of your appetite and your feet because you only get one of one and two of the other!)

                                                                                           

When meeting others for the first time,

always dress a notch higher

than you think they will.

(Because “clothes make the man” and

“you only get one first impression.”)

                                                                     

To be the best you can be, you have to

practice, practice, practice, practice,

practice . . . and practice some more.

                                         

KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN

(Physically and financially!)

                                             

When all else fails to cheer you up, sing and whistle!

                                                                   

Go with the wind, but

                                           

always be ready

                                      

to turn into it!

                                                  

If you can’t say something nice

about someone, say nothing.

                                                               

ALWAYS give people more effort

and more attention than you think

they ever imagined getting from you!

                                                                                                         

CHARITY STARTS AT HOME . . .

Don’t give up to others what you don’t have for yourself, no matter how needy they are because you can do more to help others when you do it from a position of strength . . . and be more generous than you think you should be when you get to the point where you can afford it!

                                                

And, arriving home as a kid, with a bloody nose, Harry said:

If you didn’t give the other guy a black eye,

I’m gonna give you a sore butt!  

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY! 

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

No responses yet

Jun 16 2010

Married to your business?

And now . . .

                                                     

DANCING TOGETHER

                                                

for the first time as

                                              

Mr. and Mrs. Business

                               

. . .

                           

     Okay, the honeymoon is over (thanks to our business-deficient federal government leadership that is relentlessly trying to drive small business into the ground). The envelopes of cash have been spent. The champagne has fizzled away and been replaced by more economical tastes:  a “cupala brewskies” we tell the bartender.

     As we settle into the kind of more serious and more revealing relationship that matrimonial vows give way to, we discover reality!

     BONG! I’m married to my business! OMG, what’s next? Please don’t tell me we’re expecting a new baby business. I’ve hardly figured out how to get my arms around the big one. Sound familiar? 

     The real problem is that marrying your business has a tendency to overwhelm and upset, and some-times replace, a real husband and wife marriage.

     The business “family” (customers. employees, suppliers and vendors, investors, referrers, business associations and organizations, trade and professional groups and pursuits, and the business neighborhood and community) can readily –by stampede or by creeping isolation– become more demanding, and ultimately more demanding than your real family.

     Hopefully, you saw or will see this coming in time to reinvent yourself and patch things up, or seek professional help. Many do. Some don’t.

     You’re an entrepreneur? It comes with the territory that your life has to suffer at the hands of your business spirit. Or does it?

     Plenty of successful business owners have found marriage partners and family situations that allow them to strike a balance with and harmonize their lives. Seeking and winning this balance should be the first thing students learn in entrepreneur school.

     Unfortunately, very few actually go to school to learn what has historically been a predominantly inherent skill set. Entrepreneurship thrives among those with predictable personalities and character traits.

     Almost universally, entrepreneurs dislike and rebel against authority, discipline, and organizational detail. They are innovators and dreamers with burning desires to see their ideas succeed. They are not –as popularly believed– in it for the money. They do not–as popularly believed– take unreasonable risks.

     And if you are one, you well know that personal life is a challenge that often gets in the way while trying to build a business life.

     Having worked with many hundreds of entrepreneurs over the years, I would suggest that business quests will be easier and quicker to achieve and much more productive when you can first build and strengthen the authenticity of the personal relationships and family that will support your lamebrain ideas and schemes during the tough times that will surely come. And you will be healthier and happier for their love.

     Don’t take my word for it. Take your own. Look in the mirror and remind yourself that your behavior is your choice. Choose first to be a person with a mission to make a difference in life, before running off to chase your vision to make a difference in business.  

                                                                                          

302.933.0116 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!

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