Yes, you’ll live. Take two aspirin,

and call me in the morning!

     I read a study that said something like 94% of all doctor and hospital visits, even to emergency rooms, are for (drumroll): reassurance! 

     The extent to which we all need to have our backs, shoulders and tops of our hands and heads patted while being told that we will live after all, and that everything will be okay, seems highly improbable in the face of what the exaggerated tv news coverage and drama series portrayals would have us believe.

     I mean who among us hasn’t cringed at the thought of being thumped onto stainless steel and wheeled like so much beef through the butcher’s back door, into the chaos and hysteria of ER, or Grey’s Anatomy, or House, or Chicago Hope (reruns), or General Hospital, thinking we’re at death’s door but still not be a priority case because others (jumpers, stab and gunshot wounds, drug overdose and heart attacks) are dying quicker? Aaargh!

     Anyway, these thoughts surfaced today in a “BURRIS UNIVERSITY” customer service training session I ran for 25 management team members of BURRIS LOGISTICS http://BurrisLogistics.com on the Delaware Technical & Community College www.dtcc.edu campus in Georgetown, DE. 

     Participants who volunteered feedback comments in the training room, and many who approached me during and after were particularly vocal about the reassurance values of the material and methodologies covered (including stress management, behavioral focus and choices, written communications and listening skills, and the pursuit of increased self-awareness as keys to dealing better with others). 

     Based on this writer’s firsthand experience facilitating over 500 management training programs, the participation and energy levels of this particular cross-section-of-management group from 15 different Connecticut-to-Florida BURRIS locations, was exceptional.

     And it was a genuine pleasure to be the designated deliveryman of reassurance. 

     Reassurance increases self-confidence. Increased self-confidence boosts feelings of self-esteem. The combination serves to eliminate or minimize feelings of self-doubt, inadequacy and skepticism that hold us back from making progress . . . even hard-charging entrepreneurs need reassurance. Reassurance triggers sales and builds customer loyalty.

     Don’t you as a parent evoke the same confident behaviors and obvious feelings of self-worth from a small child when you pat him or her on the head for “a job well done”? Doesn’t this patting business work wonders on the family dog? Don’t you like it when a spouse or partner or boss or customer pats YOU on the back, even if it’s just a verbal pat? And don’t you perform better?

     Reassurance works wonders. Try some today. See how many backpats you can give out in one week! A dozen? More? I’m sure you’ve got what it takes to be that generous with your (deserving of course) compliments!    halalpiar  

Special thanks for inspiring tonight’s post to Kirk Hoover, Atlanta, GA, Vice President of Business Development, and Wendy Singer-Lowry, Philadelphia, PA, Director of Purchasing for BURRIS LOGISTICS

# # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 120 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

WHAT MAKES YOU TICK?

     Do you know how, when, where, and why you choose to feel angry?  

     Are you aware of some of the things you choose to do to distance yourself from others when you feel threatened or bored or anxious or intimidated? 

     Do you know the difference between your thoughts and your feelings?  Can you separate fact from opinion?  Are you choosing to not like these questions?  Good!  You’re on your way to being a better salesperson.

     Every day, in every way, we sell ourselves to others: to friends, family, neighbors, classmates, bosses, associates, co-workers, existing and prospective customers/patients/clients, to entire communities. 

     We sell ourselves to make a living, to make love, to make enemies, to make opportunities.  

     Sometimes we’re successful and sometimes not.  We can increase the number and frequency of successful sales simply by choosing to dig into and explore more of our insides. 

     The more we choose to learn about what motivates us, what we choose to feel aggrevated about, what we choose to stimulate us, antagonize us, energize us . . . what makes us tick . . . the more we strengthen our abilities to be effective in dealing with (and selling) others.

     There are many steps in the sales process.  Some of these include: 

• Sizing up the prospect (this is a difficult task if you cannot first size up your SELF!)
• Being able to listen (not “hear” – listen) 80% of the time and speak 20% of the time (a challenge for those who like to talk and don’t know enough about themselves to know how to turn off the chatter)
• Understanding and appreciating the customer/prospect’s circumstances (which requires a major dose of empathy – being able to put yourself in another person’s shoes – a quality rarely found in salespeople who haven’t been willing to choose to step or even look outside their own shoes!)
• Overcoming objections (something that only comes naturally to those who have learned enough about themselves to rise above their own feelings of inadequacy and chosen to put aside excuses)
• Closing the sale (the final critical step that makes all others inconsequential if it’s not achieved and which is more likely to be the case when a salesperson is thinking about anything besides trying to help the customer or prospect in front of her or him to make a good buying decision that will truly satisfy a need or want, and that is honest and makes sense for that person. 

     Only salespeople who possess a helping professions mindset and attitude that they’ve learned or instinctively nurtured for themselves will succeed consistently at closing sales because they are not thinking about closing sales as much as thinking about helping someone make a right decision.

     None of the sales process steps above (or any of the dozens of others) can be readily implemented by an individual who has not fully explored the inner recesses of his or her mind, and the emotional triggers to feelings that come from different responses. 

     Consistent success in sales does not come to those who fail to fully appreciate their own unique qualities, strengths and weaknesses.  

     Take advantage of every opportunity to learn more about your SELF and what goes on inside you.  Treat your mind and emotions as uncharted territory and be an explorer.  Remember how much of life you choose for yourself, and that once you’ve learned a road, it’s easier traveling on your next journey.

# # #

When did the plumber

and the weatherman 

get their operations? 

     Am I living on another planet, or what?  When did the plumber become a mechanical contractor?  When did the weatherman become a meteorologist?  (Don’t get me wrong.  Meteors are interesting phenomena, but I only care about temperatures, rain and snow.  For meteors, I have the Science Channel.) 

     Oh, and please, when did an “operation” become softened to a procedure?  (Probably when numerous hospitals became medical centers, chiropractors became sports physicians, and cardiothoracic surgeons became heart specialists).  Ah, yes, and of course 99% of procedures are also routine procedures! 

     Speech therapists, who specialize in helping people speak and swallow better, no longer want to be called speech therapists; now they’re speech pathologists.  (Don’t pathologists specialize in dead people?)  

     Many salesmen and saleswomen who became “salespeople” during the sexual revolution are now (more PC) sales associates.  Like the trouble with mailmen and female mailmen finally settling into a state of  androgenous mush to become universally known as postal workers.  Oh, and have you noticed how few companies have employees anymore?  How about Members as in “going to work at the clubhouse.” 

     When I was in school, we had a janitor to clean the building.  Then the janitor became a custodian which no doubt upset many legal custodians (and, correspondingly, numerous lawyers and attorneys and attorneys at law — all of whom, in my judgement, deserve to experience upsets!).  Ah, but take heart, now the old guy is called a maintenance facilitator, leaving little doubt as to custodianship! 

     I hope we don’t all begin confusing the MVB with the DVM and start getting our cars in for flea and tick treatments, and tail light inspections for our dogs!  By the way, in this age of specialization, a canine ophthalmologist?  This is for those near-sighted pitbulls? 

     So what does all this mean? 

     For small businesses (especially startups) and big business HR departments and others who make these decisions: Don’t parade yourself around on stationery and business cards and websites as “CEO” when you’re a one or two-person firm, or as a large company “Director” of something that no one else is involved with (So how can you be directing?). 

     That kind of inflated title stuff worked in olden times, before every bank in town had 14,000 vice presidents, but not today. 

     “Founder,” by the way, is equally unimportant unless you started Dreamworks or Microsoft or Google.  If it’s that important to your ego, put it on a sticky note on your bathroom mirror to remind yourself of your genius talents.

     Bottom line:  Call yourself what you are!  Say what you do!  Stay away from fancy and misleading language.  Make-believe titles, overblown and over-inflated job descriptions do disservice to your organization, regardless of whether you’re a Mom & Pop operation or a Fortune 500 mega-corporation.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

FOR ONE-MAN-BANDS AND MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATIONS AS WELL, ONGOING SALES SUCCESS IN TODAY’S BUSINESS WORLD IS ALL ABOUT BUILDING AND CULTIVATING “HIGH TRUST” LEVELS. 

THIS IS ACCOMPLISHED BY CONSISTENTLY  DEMONSTRATING STRAIGHTFORWARDNESS, A COMMITMENT TO AUTHENTICITY AND SOCIAL CONCIOUSNESS LEADERSHIP . . . AND –REGARDLESS OF INDUSTRY– TO BEING FULLTIME DEDICATED TO THE PROTECTION AND PRESERVATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL WELL-BEING.

 ATTITUDE IS THE CORNERSTONE.

     # # #

When is the customer wrong?

You want the real answer, or the make-believe one?

The make-believe answer is that the customer is wrong when he or she acts, thinks, or behaves wrong — is rude, insulting, crass, mean-spirited, slovenly, repulsive smelling, too-tattooed or overly-pierced, loud, arrogant, drooling, dribbling, fist-waving, table or countertop pounding, or threatening to throw shoes.

And you can run around self-righteously bitching at the elevator operator, maintenance person, or your Mother, pretending that the obnoxious ignoramus is a descendent of some dumb and dumber Neanderthal gene pool.

You can do this until you’re blue in the face or get yourself fired or drunk or sick, or take up smoking again . . . none of which, I can assure you, will help your cause.

On top of all that, it doesn’t even matter that the nasty customer spit on your shoe, called you an illegally-birthed person, smelled of garlic or not bathing, sic’d his or her dog on your ankles, or paid her or his bill with seven thousand rolls of pennies.

Your indignation will come quietly to an end when (if) you next stumble onto a “right” customer.

Aaaah, but Mr. or Ms. Neanderthal will not recover so quickly.

In fact, studies prove that she or he will tell at least ten other people about the bad experience and each of those individuals will tell at least ten others.

At least one person I’ve heard of makes a point of sending out email blasts to 250 contacts offering the condemning details of why she will never again deal with a disrespectful business.  Let’s see, that’s 2,500 bad vibes . . .

So, your one momentary (perhaps only fraction of a second) slip of a snotty comment or a copped attitude or a demeaning or disrespectful action –even as seemingly innocent as a wink or blink at the wrong time, or an inappropriate giggle/gumchew/ noseblow if you’re on the phone!– will snowball into a major bad news broadcast to at least 100 other people, many (maybe all) of whom could have been prospective customers. 

Can you really afford to lose that many opportunities?

     So here’s the REAL answer:  NEVER!

     Let me say this another way:  The customer is ALWAYS right!  And except for physical violence, there are NO exceptions.  Why?  Your job is to provide the product or service being purchased regardless of whether you like the purchaser or not, regardless of what the purchaser says or the way the purchaser says it!

If you don’t like that, choose to change the way you think about it.

  It’s called “take it on the chin!”  The payback is that the reputation you’ll gain by being kinder than necessary will come back to haunt you, with more sales!

     Remember that everyone you meet (customers included) is fighting some kind of battle.  Giving the benefit of doubt breeds sales and customer loyalty!  

# # #

Hal@Businessworks.US    931.854.0474

You’ve only one year to live.

What do you do with yourself?

Your business?

     Far-fetched?  Hopefully, yes.  But possibly, no.  It’s often been said that all of life is simply preparation for death, and that all we ever do from the moment of birth, is begin to die.  That’s admittedly some pretty heady philosophical stuff that many of us shy away from thinking about. 

     But is it worth considering? 

     Of course (unless, that is, you have little or no regard for yourself, your business, your family and friends, in which case –assuming you are reading this– you are probably a hermit in a cave with a laptop, and it’s probably time for you to rub some sticks together and begin thinking about what’s for dinner!) 

     Okay, back to serious for a minute, what are the first three things you think of in answer to each of the two headline (in dark red) questions above?  What do you think about your answers?

     What about if those questions followed a revised headline statement that said: You’ve only 6 months to live . . . ? 

     Would your answers change?  How?  How much?  And what if the headline statement only gave you one day? 

     This exercise can be very useful in the thinking process of establishing both life and business priorities (as well as delegating, and decision making) because whatever your responses may be, they serve to push the envelope.  It’s hard to imagine choosing to spend time doing tasks of avoidance, and harder still to imagine assigning lesser values to the tasks that are most important. 

     By forcing your focus on this for a minute or two, you can almost always prompt yourself to assess and evaluate situations and options (especially stressful ones) more realistically.  You will certainly make yourself more productive (the way you are the day before you leave for vacation?) more often. 

     Yes, yes, I know, you might rather join the hermit hunting down some berries and a squirrel to BBQ.  (I’ve heard the furs can actually be quite warm, assuming you’ve managed to save them from a few dozen meals’ worth, and sew them together. Okay, Gorilla Glue.)

     So, give it a chance (not the squirrel fur!).  For a grand total of about 2 minutes of applying your mind to such a “what if” circumstance, you stand to gain a finely-tuned and highly accurate appraisal of what’s important and what’s not, and what should be tackled in what order.  It sure beats dusting file tops, alphabetizing your DVD’s, and counting out-of-state license plates in a parking lot!

     “Bah!  Dis exercise is nuttin’ so revealin’,” you might exclaim. 

     Okay, so take it one more step.  You with me?  Get a piece of paper out (I know, you don’t own any paper; well, borrow a piece!) and write out your own obituary notice.  Ah, now there’s a challenge.  Notice what you mention first and second and third (and last) about your life.  Pay attention to what you have to say about you.  THAT’s what’s important!                halalpiar  

# # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 114 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

The best New Year’s Day 

message I can share

with you comes 

. . . from one of my life’s heroes, Dr. Wayne Dyer.  It’s a 10-Point Pursuit Plan that I’ve dressed up a bit for the occasion, for your business, for your SELF, and to share with your family.  If you succeed at making only HALF of these actually work consistently, I GUARANTEE that this coming year will be as happy, healthy and prosperous for you as humanly possible. 

DO YOUR SELF, YOUR FAMILY, YOUR BUSINESS A FAVOR and read these ten points aloud to yourself.  Write them down.  Carry them in your wallet/pocketbook/briefcase.  Tape a copy to your bathroom mirror, your dashboard, your computer workstation, inside your desk drawer, your workout bag, your refridgerator, the closet bar that holds your hangers. 

READ AND RECITE before you go to bed, when you wake up, and any other time you can squeeze it into your day.  You will positively amaze yourself with the results after just 21 days, and it’s FREE!!  Go for it!

1.   Want more for others than you do for yourself.

2.   See yourself already having what you seek.

3.   Be an appreciator of everything in your life as much as you can throughout each day, every day.

4.   Stay in touch with your own and other positive human energy sources, and laugh as hard and often as you can. 

5.   Understand resistence, and help yourself and others to go with the flow.

6.   Imagine yourself surrounded by the conditions you want to produce.

7.   Understand the path of least resistence.

8.   Practice radical humility.

9.   Be in a constant state of gratitude.

10.  You can never resolve a problem by condemning it. 

If you think you’re going to give up on this, don’t start it.  A little bite will only leave a bad taste.  If you think you have what it takes to get your act together and take it on the road, if you think you have enough self-discipline to follow and practice the behaviors these 10 points suggest, you will positively succeed — even against all odds.  Remember these 10 points are all about behavior.  Behavior is a choice!

If you need reinforcement or reassurance, be in contact: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (“BLOG 10” in subject line)             halalpiar 

# # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 113 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

What are you

waiting for?

I know.  You’re waiting for a parade.  The doctor?  Next Christmas?  Someone else to go first?  Your parent’s approval?  Your boss’s approval?  A work order?  5PM?  Lunchtime?  Vacation?  Your birthday?  A full moon?  High tide?  Rock bottom?  Another way out?  The Mets to win the World Series?  The car in front of you to get out of the passing lane?  Your child to become President?  Your Father to strike oil?  A winning lottery ticket?   

If you answered “YES” to any of the above, or anything even remotely resembling any of the above, you are too filled with excuses to make a success of yourself.  I can’t help you.  You need a shrink.  Happy New Year and come again sometime.

Now.  Who’s left out there?  Anybody?  Good.  Well, then there’s still hope after all.  If you’re truly not waiting for some event or some person in order to move forward with your life –and especially your business pursuits– then odds are you’ve just been procrastinating. 

Putting stuff off is okay sometimes.  It happens to all of us.  But if you don’t want to end up like those I dismissed in the second paragraph, you might need to give yourself a smack alongside your head or (if you can figure out how to do it) kick yourself in the butt, and get yourself in gear!

How much more productive can you bewith your waiting time (you know. . . bank lines, traffic lights, bridges, RR crossings, commuter trains, subways, boats and buses, the dentist, MVB)? 

Next question: what’s in your pocket or briefcase or pocketbook right now? 

If your answerdoesn’t include a pen, paper, or laptop, or a cassette recorder (remember those?) or cellphone (no, not to call that hot date for after dinner suggestions, but perhaps handle a few business calls that don’t require extensive note taking) or blackberry (no, not to text message –er, sorry, txmsg– cousin Bertha to see what time she’s headed for the local gin mill, but perhaps to send yourself some notes of ideas you get so you needn’t carry them in your head?) or digital camera or pocket pad or sticky notes, or a book to read . . . the answer to the first question is that you can be a LOT more productive.  [Hint: These are all tools or avenues of productivity except as noted!]

I know peoplewho’ve put together complete photo essays standing in line at the post office.  I know highly acclaimed writers who write as many street and business names down as they can see while stopped at red lights (that they can cherry-pick from later when they’re seeking character and location names for their works of fiction).  I know an engineer who says he stimulates his brain by sketching vehicles and machinery while waiting for trains and bridges.

The point is, like the old Schlitz Beer commercials used to proclaim, “You only go round once in life!” (Well some maybe do a few trips, but most of us . . .) and we all only conveniently remember how short lifetimes can be when someone close to us passes away. 

SO . . .

• Stop with the delays, excuses, nonproductive and unproductive waits. 

• Stop staring into space wishing you were somewhere else. 

• Stop bemoaning the lousy delay experiences and start DOING the stuff you’ve been saying, “Well, someday, I …” TODAY is “SOMEDAY”! 

Some action is always better than no action.

And, by the way, remember that it’s ALL YOUR CHOICE because all of behavior is a choice.  So choose to march shoulder-to-shoulder with time. 

Make the most of it. 

Make your mark. 

Make a difference.  

# # #

SKIM, MEMORIZE, CHEW,

DIGEST, OR JUST DELETE ~~~ 

Here’s a short list of what I think were some of my best blog blurts for 2008.  If something strikes you and you want the whole story, just go to Archives in far right column and click on the month, scroll (and if the dates not showing, just click on next at bottom of the page)!

Anyway, here’s a compilation of hot headings . . . stuff that makes you think about where you are and where you’re going which, on the cusp of a brand new year, is probably a good thing for all of us.  A few more tomorrow.  But for now: 

1) Think and

2) Laugh and

3) Have a great (and safe!) New Year’s Eve!   halalpiar

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter — ’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”  Mark Twain  5/1/08

“The solution to any group or organization problem lies within the group or organization that has the problem…No one knows you better than you…Knowledge is strength”  5/2/08

“Write a billboard–7 words or less with a beginning, middle and end, and be persuasive–that encapsulates what you want to express before you express it in a letter, business plan, print or broadcast advertisement, sales pitch, speech, short story, editorial, script, sermon, novel, poem, email, chapter…”  5/6/08

“If everyone in your company knew how to deal effectively with customers, you wouldn’t need any customer service reps!”  5/18.08

“A sale is made or broken in the first 10 seconds, and there is no such thing as a second first impression.”  6/1/08

“OPEN MINDS OPEN DOORS!”  6/4/08

“If you think your head is worth $24.95, buy a $24.95 helmet!”  7/8/08

“Life is more like baseball than any other sport!”  7/11/08

“Do you have all your marbles but can’t find the playground?”  8/6/08

“You ARE your attitude!”  8/15/08

“Your every action, your every thought, is your CHOICE!”  8/19/08

“We do best what we most enjoy!”  9/7/08

“Besides that they suck, meetings waste time; hold your next meeting STANDING!” 9/16/08

“Hustle your muscle — SOME action beats no action!”  9/24/08

“People need to be rewarded and motivated at the level of what’s important to them at the time.”  10/5/08

“The sooner you accept the ugly fact that you have to be a salesperson, doctor, the healthier your practice will be!”  10/10/08

“You have a stableful of race horses that act like they came from wagon-train school?”  10/13/08

“I’m tellin’ you, ball, next pitch . . . you gotta be a strike!”  10/20/08

“Just go to the basement and make more money!”  10/24/08

“Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.”  Dr. Wayne Dyer 10/29/08

“Take two talkwalks, get a good sleep, and call me in the morning!”  11/8/08

“Where laughter fails to heal, it never fails to ease the pain.”  11/13/08

“Sleeping With The Boss?”  (Family Business Ups & Downs)  11/22/08

“What one thing could you be doing better?”  12/1/08

“I coont efen spel untreeprenewer, an’ now I are one!”  12/6/08

“EVERY purchase decision is emotionally-triggered!”  12/12/08

“Is what you’re doing right this very minute taking you to where you want to go?”  12/27/08 

… and thank you, worldclass #1 novelist Dean Koontz for being such an authentic, inspiring, and upstanding human being! 

# # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 111 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

CRM=?

CRM=Customer Relationship Management, on the one hand, and CRM=Customer Retention Management, on the other.  Which is it?  Why does it matter?  Who cares?  Aren’t they both the same anyway?

Whoa!  First of all, there’s a remarkably big difference.  I heard a major sales muckity-muck from a humongous corporate entity–who really should know better–give a presentation today to one of my clients, and he tossed out the terms interchangeably before finally parking himself in the retention garage.

A careless miscue methinks.  Something about that ambivalence represented his whole attitude, which was essentially to laugh and smile his way through misleading and oh-one-more-thing half-truth price quotes that seemed to change with each clock tick closer to New Year’s.

Managing relationships with customers and attracting new ones by virtue of positive-oriented, proactive processes that involve some give and take, some sharing, the development of “high trust,” and mutual respect based on consistent demonstrations of integrity is where best-practice, leadership companies continue to move.

On the flip side, managing to retain or keep customers is a negative-oriented, knee-jerk reactive, desperation-based process that amounts to clinging-on-to-customer behaviors and seeking to appease at all costs . . . even giving away the store (or farm, or horse, or youngest son or whatever)because customer RETENTION programs are driven by insecurities and fears.

Ah, yes, well there is that little economic suffocation pit we’re thinking we need to be crawling out of.  Bull!  If you think that, you show that, and you won’t sell stilts to pygmies.  Get off your knees and out of the hole and stand up tall and sell value and sell your confident self!  Focus on the relationship!

And customers, by the way, get this.  It’s easy to spot people selling their wares from a position of perceived weakness, compared to those who register in the strong zone as they present themselves.

Think about it.  Would you rather have someone level with you and work to cultivate a relationship with you, or speak to you with crooked mouth and work to retain you?  There’s a much bigger difference in the RE words (RElationship and REtention) than most probably stop to think about.

The differences though account for the both the personality and the character of a given company.  Because the difference is a matter of attitude.

Attitude, we might want to remind ourselves is what accounts for the difference between success and failure, on the athletic field, on the stage, on the factory floor, in the farmland, the office cubicle, the great outdoors (to make sure we cover all you forest rangers, lumberjacks, truck drivers, lifeguards and ski patrol people out there), the boardroom, or the computer workstation.

It’s all about attitude.  All. 

What’s YOUR business ALL about?                  

# # #

 931.854.0474    Hal@BusinessWorks.US

“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!

STOP business deaths

and staff infections NOW!

     By now, all of us know, or have heard (or we believe instinctively) that the majority of hospital deaths, complications compounded or initiated by staph infections can be traced back to caregiver professionals and support staff not properly and frequently enough washing their hands. 

     Who woulda thunk it?  Such a simple thing.

     Well, not only is it true, but I believe it’s even truer (though never researched) in business.  It’s no secret that the majority of business failures, corrupted products and innefective misguided staffs and services come from poor management. 

     Management (even when it’s more task than people oriented) is all about interfacing, interacting, and encountering.  It’s about keeping a clear and receptive mindset.  Open doors open minds!   

     Now I’m not talking about hot water, soap, scrubbing and towel drying.  I’m talking about:

1. Closing your eyes for just 10 seconds (perhaps 5 if you’re telemarketing, and not at all if you’re driving!) before and after every customer/employee/vendor/investor encounter,
2. Taking a deep breath (to focus and maintain blood pressure) and
3. Mentally (imagining yourself) washing your hands, like a doctor between examinations. 

     For many who try or maintain this practice, it helps to go through a 2-3 second physical action of simply rubbing your hands together.  The action sends a reinforcing mental message to your brain.

     EVERY meeting, conference, phone call, email, letter, overnight delivery, and text message exchange, you are after all being a doctor, aren’t you? 

     You ARE examining, aren’t you? 

     You ARE listening, exploring, considering, assessing, recommending, deciding, weighing, evaluating, checking and re-checking, sizing up, assuring and reassuring, projecting, planning, strategizing, and predicting, aren’t you?

     And what happens to your brain when you’re on the fly and go straight from one encounter to another without –it sometimes seems– even breathing?  Go on, answer this last question.  I’ll wait.  Okay, and how does that stress translate to your body? 

     Headaches, backaches, toothaches, stiff neck, upset stomach, constipation, diarrhea, short temper, edginess, leg cramps, burning eyes, skin rash, urinary infection, or worse — cancer, heart problems?  Bottom line: is it worth it? 

     TRY THE 10-SECOND APPROACH for just one week –the first week of 2009 is a perfect test period.  Try it and see what happens. 

     Here’s what you’ll get:  IF you’re honest with yourself and IF you actually follow the presecription, you will be more tuned in to each person you communicate with; you will be noticeably more productive; you will GUARANTEED feel better – mentally, physically, and emotionally; you will more positively affect others around you. 

     Put reminder notes around you, or a sign over your desk, or stuck to your phone and computer screen.  Ask a co-worker, friend or associate to ask you: “Did you wash your hands?” before and after you turn a doorknob, before and after you lift and replace your phone, start or end your meeting . . . improvise here; just keep making the effort. 

     You will, I promise, astound yourself!     halalpiar

Okay, we’ve got one last Christmas-Business-Politics thing to say, and it’s best summed up by this high level laugh (and maybe cry too!) “C-SPAN Coverage” of Santa in Washington . . . definitely worth the check-it-out!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxBl9BXLom4

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 109 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.