Specialists in the men’s room

at the wedding . . .

Sorry to bother you here, like this, Doc, you know, in this men’s room at a wedding reception, but, you know, I’ve got like this terrible pain in my right heel whenever I’ve been running around, and earlier today I . . .”

     “Ah, yes, well you DO know that I’m a doctor of psychology?, so I’m afraid there’s not much I could help you out with about your foot . . .”

     “My heel.”

     “Yes, of course, your heel. The point is you should probably see a podiatrist or orthopedic surgeon or physical therapist or chiropractor or acupuncturist or something. I’m not your man.”

     “But you’re a doctor so you know somethin’ about it, right? I mean you know more than my plumber, right?”

     “Actually? Your plumber probably knows more. I assume you’re talking about Joe, over by the corner of the bar? He offered to give me a discount RotoRooter job, and I heard him recommending duct tape to someone at the champagne toast.”

     “Really! Maybe it was my cousin for her husband’s mouth . . . er, the duct tape, not the champagne, HA, HA!”

     “Say, aren’t you the electrician in the family?”

     “Yeah, Doc, why?”

     “Well, I have this wiring problem with my electromyography unit that maybe you . . .”

     “Whoa, Doc. Wait a minute. I’m an electrician, not some rocket scientist. You need a specialist for working on equipment like that.”

     “Uhuh.”

     Are you using a moonlighting English teacher to write your business blog because she only charges you $25 per posting? Did you put a down and out recycled real estate salesman into a sales manager position because he came cheap and was willing to accept minimal commission splits?

     How many people have you hired during this economic downturn because the main asset they brought to the job was one of minimal impact on your wallet? Guess what? If you’re even thinking about the answer to this question for more than 1/100 of a second, you are in big trouble!

     Bad economic times, says motivational guru Zig Ziglar, take place not out there, but between your own ears!

YOU CANNOT MAKE MONEY BY CUTTING CORNERS! 

THE ONLY THING THAT MAKES MONEY IS SALES.

     Cut all the expenses you can and you won’t have earned a single dollar. In fact, you will have lost even more money because your mindset will have turned negative by focusing on saving instead of selling.

     When you’re worried about turning off the store lights at night, you are missing the opportunities to make sales impressions on those who pass, even though you may not be open.

     Stop thinking the solution to poor sales is to hire inadequate or incompetent people just because they’re cheap. They will cost you more in the end. What is it your granddaddy used to say about work smarter, not harder?  halalpiar  

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What are you waiting for?

“Annnnny-daaay, noow . . .”

The once famous bank commercial mocking out competitors for their loan waiting times seemed appropriate. How much time did you spend waiting today? How much of that time was a total waste? 

WE WAIT AT, AND IN: lines, offices, reception rooms, hallways, cars, trucks, construction sites, showrooms, restaurants, parks, parking lots, airports, taxi stands, bars, elevators, boardrooms, alcoves, bathrooms, meetings, conference rooms, the water cooler, fax and copy machines, roach coach, training centers, message centers, traffic, bridges, trains, busses, hospitals, airplanes, taxi’s, garages, food lines, courtrooms, examination rooms, visitation rooms, toll booths, ticket counters, lobbies, check-out counters, subway stations, ferries, zoos, concerts, planetariums, sporting events, banks, drive-in pharmacies and fastfood windows, doorways, road construction lanes, and 487,000 others.

AND WE WAIT FOR: bosses, clients, doctors, lawyers, co-workers, underlings, salespeople, associates, lunch dates, online connections, conference calls, on-hold, dinner dates, traffic, bridges, trains, busses, airplanes, taxi’s, breakfast dates, coffee breaks, lunch whistles, clocks, scheduled events, calendar pages, waiters and waitresses, deliveries, contractors, news, alarms, prisoners, bankers, seminars, meetings, accountants, patients, families, friends, people who beat us to the bathroom, and 269,000 others.

AND WHILE WE WAIT, WE SUFFER FROM:

• ANTICIPATION.
• ANXIETY.
• WORRY.
• ANGER.
• EMBARASSMENT.
• EXPECTATIONS.
• DISAPPOINTMENT.
• STRESS.
• INSULT: BEING “STOOD UP” OR FORGOTTEN.

     And what do you DO when you’re thrown into that jungle described above? What did you do today in delay? And don’t try to excuse yourself with some haste makes waste explanation because I know that you know that each of the bullet items above is a CHOICE! The only thing that makes waste is waste. Waiting time is valuable.

     HOW ABOUT CHOOSING FOR THE WAITING TIME TO BE HAPPY AND PRODUCTIVE TIME, AND USE IT TO: Write? Take notes? Take pictures? (I met a guy created a complete photo essay while standing on line at the post office, and actually published it!) Text Message? Make phone calls? Plan? Follow-up? Research? Read? Make contacts? Make contracts? Network? Study?

     Can you, in other words, do something more constructive with your valuable time here on earth than to stare like a zombie at some waiting room TV tuned to some negative news network? Just because you have to wait, doesn’t mean you sacrifice your humanity for sheepdom.

     Always carry pen and paper and/or laptop and/or tape recorder and/or camera and/or a book you’re reading and/or a cell phone and/or some luggage to put all that stuff in . . . and don’t forget the umbrella and parachute . . . hey, ya never know! 

     Some action, remember, is always better than no action . . . unless “action” to you means smoking, drinking booze, eating candy bars, snorting or shooting up drugs, punching/biting/kicking, stabbing, shooting, or bank robbery.  

     And you may think, like the song, that “My time is your time,” but it’s not! Because you only ever have NO time or LOTSA time, or ANYtime, or SOMEtime, or have been having a HIGH time for a LONG time. Oh, right, there’s America’s PASTtime, which is a great way to PASS time in the SUMMERtime or SPRINGtime, but seldom in the WINTERtime.

     If all that’s not enough for you, remember that “Time and tide wait for no man.” (No mention of women in that philosophy so it must be because women have “THAT” time), and then there’s “He who hesitates is lost” (which most men are!). Okay? Okay. Later.  halalpiar     

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“Opportunityville” . . .

every entrepreneur’s weekend! 

     Prowling America’s corporate halls on Fridays still produces an eerie aura of management abandonment and employee lethargy.  Given that weekends in this country now seem to start on Thursdays, the fact is that Fridays have become a sharp thorn in the side (poke in the eye?) to 9-5’ers who can’t sprint from their offices to their weekend festivities fast enough! 

     “HA!” you exclaim, “Good riddence to bad garbage!” you rudely proclaim.  Why?  Because YOU are an entrepreneur! 

     You started, or are in the process of starting (or probably both), your own business and you are TGIFing all over the place because now (FRIDAY!) starts the best time of the week to get some productive work done. 

     For the first time since last Sunday night, you have wrangled your way through 50 or 60 hours of sweat equity without financial disaster or customer base collapse, and have now earned the blessed arrival of 5pm Friday when –like living a dream– you can finally work for two whole days more with no interruptions. 

     It’s time to followup, catchup and plan (sounds like a law firm!).  Weekends, to you, are Opportunityville! 

     At last there’s no one around to bother you.  It’s your chance to think through how you’re going to shoot your business out of the cannon Monday morning . . . or how you’re going to open your 27th business while you keep juggling businesses 21 through 26.  (1-20 are either running on their own or –more likely– folded or sold or squandered or lost, but big-time learned from). 

     That’s okay.  It is, you know, what entrepreneurs do best is learn from their mistakes, get up and dust themselves off, and plunge back into things from a different direction. 

     Imagine what a solid strong economy we’d have today if corporate and government executives who are floundering around in their vast sea of incompetency could do what entrepreneurs do! 

     But asking them to learn is really asking too much.  It would after all fly in the face of their instincts to believe that they need only repeat what failed, again and again, until it eventually succeeds, which of course it doesn’t. 

     If you just clicked on this post and are reading this because you were perhaps thinking about igniting those deep-seated entrepreneurial fuses that you think you have because you had a lemonade stand as a kid, and you were thinking that this whole life pursuit direction seems glamourous, think again.

     Being an entrepreneur means being committed.  It means your business will be your spouse.  It means you may be living for your business more than your family.  Always?  No, but neither does it always rain (unless you’re in Ireland, where you carry your raincoat as often as your wallet!). 

     As an entrepreneur, you must be prepared to think, then act (vs. corporate tendencies to think, then think, and think again) every day . . . and especially on weekends! 

     TGFE = Thank God For Entrepreneurs!  Without them, we’d have zero jobs and no economy whatsoever!  Now, if we could just get government decision makers to make some decisions that assist small business in creating real and meaningful job growth . . .   halalpiar         

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Shop ‘n drive in peace ‘n quiet!

     What a wonderful thing, the Superbowl, for those who don’t care about it.  You can commandeer the extra TV, take it to the attic or basement and watch anything your little heart desires without interruption.  It’s a great day to go shopping or take a drive because everyone else is not doing either.

     You can go to the ocean and walk on the beach or boardwalk and know that every person you see there thinks the same way you do about this brainless, gorilla sport that attracts more heavy drinkers than athletes, and that can’t hold a candle to baseball or tennis or volleyball for genuine athleticism and mental challenge. 

     No, I’m not calling all football players wimps, or all football fans drunkards.  I’m just saying that football is not a sport that’s notorious for producing literary, scientific and artistic genius’s (geni?), and that –to me– it’s more amazing to watch what companies will spend more than  T H R E E   M I L L I O N   D O L L A R S  on (for less than 60 seconds of sponsorship), than to see the event itself. 

     The commercials are, admittedly, always super themselves.  But that makes me think we should just have a Super Commercial Bowl and skip the football stuff all together. 

     We could root for one beer or car company over the other, buy all their promotional gear, put giant promotional junk in our yards, hold tailgate picnics outside of neighborhood bars and car showrooms, make cute little cookies and cupcakes in the shape of the manufacturer we’re rooting for, and call central phone numbers at a $1.99 a pop to vote on our favorite commercial. 

     The winning company would have TV crews in their locker room after the contest and spray champagne on each other.  Kids could go to school the next day and dis the losers. 

     We could all txt msg our teenagerswith something more substantial to discuss for a change (besides, “Hey, how’s it goin’?” and “Fine” or “Whadya do at school today?” and “Nuttin” or “Where are you going?” and “Out.”). 

     Tomorrow, we could gather round America’s watercoolers and coffee shops and talk about which parts of which commercials we liked best and thought were stupidest . . . Whooooooh!  Wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute!  I forgot.  We already do most of that already anyway, right? 

     So what do we need football for? 

     P.S. Just heard the news that the most “chicken wings” consumed in the history of the world are consumed on Superbowl Sunday!!! That makes for an awful lot of chickens out walking the streets . . . so be careful!

     I must be missing something.  [;<} But then, what do I know?

I’m just a baseball fan (as if you hadn’t guessed).

Oh well, have a GREAT SUPERBOWL SUNDAY FAMILY DAY!

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ARE YOU BOARD-BORED?

     The most infamous collection of meeting-makers on Earth has to be “Boards.”  Consider how Board-Bored we must be.  We have Boards of Directors, Boards of Trustees, Boards of Advisors, School Boards, Medical Boards, Law Boards, Admissions Boards, Homeowner and Condo Boards,  Probation Boards, Boards of Overseers, Surf Boards, Snow Boards, Water Boarding (whoops! sorry) Editorial Boards, Boards of . . .  

     What’s the point?  If you’re Board-Bored, you are most certainly sick of meetings, right?  Right!  So, what can be done to make meetings better?  Here, following, for your Board-Bored pleasure: 

7 Steps To Making Meetings Work ©

Copyright 2009, Hal Alpiar 

HAL’S “MEETING STEP NUMBER ONE”: Use an agenda!  Circulate a draft of it a week in advance of a monthly meeting, a couple of days ahead of a weekly meeting, and 17 seconds before a daily meeting (If you’re meeting daily and you’re not in the White House, the Pentagon, or a police department, 17 seconds is enough time to pour some coffee and decide to find another job!) 

Ask for agenda input in time to add it and —before the meeting– post a clearly visible newsprint or whiteboard (YOW! another Board!) version of the agenda you can refer to, and check off as you go.  People will know where they are and where they’re going, minus the anxiety of potential surprises.

HAL’S “MEETING STEP NUMBER TWO”: Do NOT invite people to any meeting who are not actively involved in the decision making for the agenda points.  Meetings are not for training or parading egos.  If meetings do not end up producing results, stop having them!  Deal with those who need to attend for certain topics first and let them leave when those discussions end.

HAL’S “MEETING STEP NUMBER THREE”: STICK TO THE AGENDA!  When issues are raised that are not directly related to the agenda, thank the source and ask that she/he include the point on the next agenda for the next meeting, or –if there’s time left after the agenda is completed– to raise it again then, but that “this meeting is for this agenda.”

HAL’S “MEETING STEP NUMBER FOUR”: Always ADHERE TO THE EXACT TIMES SET for start and finish.  No exceptions ever.  If you do this twice in a row, no one will ever be late again, and everyone will stay on schedule for the day.  Also: resist the temptation to load the table up with snacks and beverages! Contrary to popular belief, donuts do not make for better decisions!

HAL’S “MEETING STEP NUMBER FIVE”: Emergencies aside, meetings work best when they are consistently set and conducted.  This means holding sessions at regular times (I recommend Monday mornings for weekly status review meetings as being 100% more productive than mid-week  which is too workflow-disruptive, or Fridays, when everyone’s thinking about their weekends.

HAL’S “MEETING STEP NUMBER SIX”: Include compliments and small rewards (a toy car, a game or puzzle, a banana – preferably something appropriate to the deed) at the end of every meeting!  

HAL’S “MEETING STEP NUMBER SEVEN”: Follow up each meeting PROMPTLY with a simple bullet list report of decisions made and who specifically is responsible for the next step by what date.  

     If all else fails and meetings still drag on into the sunset, have the chairs removed from the room and hold stand-up meetings!  It works wonders for getting things done quickly. 

     Remember too that MBWA (Management By Walking Around) is still the best way to minimize or eliminate meetings, get decisions made and motivate the troops at the same time.  People LIKE seeing the boss outside the conference room and out from behind the desk. 

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302.933.0116 or 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!

Are you FOR SALE?  Of course!

You’re looking at this because you couldn’t quite figure from the title why you should be included here because you’re not a sales rep!?!?

Guess what?  You’re a sales rep!

Whether you like it or not, whether you agree or not, whether you think you’re above it all or not because you’re an accountant, doctor, lawyer or Indian chief, the sad-but-true news is that you ARE a SALESPERSON!.

Why such an adamant statement?  Because it’s true.  All of us –even if you’re not officially in a sales role or sales function or earning sales commission– are selling something (Our selves?  Our ideas?  Our work?  Our religious beliefs?  Our political persuasions?  Our experience? ) and we do this selling every day, even most of the day for most people . . . some, actually, all day long!

Many folks out there (particularly those who like to categorize themselves as “professionals”) don’t like to think of themselves as being in sales because they consider sales a low-life business function and think it compromises their integrity!  Right?  I know you know who I’m talking about.  You can probably rattle off a list of some of those clueless, self-aggrandizing-types.  (Maybe print out this post to leave anonymously on a qualified desk?!)

So, without further ado, HERE (TA-TA-TA-TA-TA—TA-TA!): 

 IS REALITY!

REALITY IS that people don’t buy THINGS! 

REALITY IS that people don’t buy SERVICES! 

REALITY IS that people buy P E O P L E !

Granted that –at one time or another– all of us have had to be an unhappy customer or prospect when we’ve found ourselves (by choice of course) in a captive situation that really offers little choice.  Remember having to pay $4.50 for one small bottle of water in the middle of the trade show floor at the fancy hotel?

Why?  Because there’s just two of you manning your booth and you were thirsty enough to start chewing perspiration out of your socks (well, yuch, that’s like a little over-the-top thirsty, isn’t it?).

Anyway, the bottom line is that, unless you have no place else to turn and could lose your job for trying to turn, you really do have an easy choice with every purchase for every product and every service.

And the deciding factor for that choice that you have will inevitably be the person representing what you’re looking to buy.  Because (of course you know what’s coming here): People buy people!

You already know this if you are an officially designated sales rep.  Though you may occasionally forget to practice what you know when you overlook a bit of good grooming or good manners or good listening . . . or when you spend too much energy ticking off product or service features instead of benefits.  Sound familiar?

If you are NOT an official sales rep, you might first of all want to try the job for a few days to see for yourself why it’s just as challenging and stressful and professional as any other career (accountants, doctors, lawyers and Indian chiefs included).  Okay, you don’t want to do that.  Can’t say I blame you.

Being a professional salesperson is very demanding work because it requires you to be alert and on your toes literally every waking minute . . . with, even, laminated business cards folded into your bathing suit pocket while on vacation!

The point is that no matter who you are, no matter what you do for a living (even if you’re a teacher or government employee), no matter where you live (unless you’re a hermit!), YOU ARE A SALESPERSON!

The sooner you realize and accept this, and get to work learning more about sales so you can be better at it, the more effective you’ll be as a human being and the more productive your business and organizational efforts will be.  The best place to start is with a mentor.  Know any good salesperson willing to train you in return for referrals and leads perhaps?  Are you FOR SALE?  Of course you are!

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 Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US        or comment below

Got a flounder fillet handshake?

     How about the opposite?  I met someone the other day whose handshake practically brought me to my knees.  After we talked awhile, and I asked about it, she said her father always taught her to act tough when she was nervous, and bone-crusher handshakes seemed to satisfy her agitation. 

     Don’t you love being greeted by a salesperson who’s looking over your shoulder?  Or at your feet, the top of your head, your belly button?  Your spouse? 

     And of course there are also the ones we always jump at the chance to buy from, the ones whose faces look like they just stepped in dog poop on their way in the door, or who must surely have run over their grandmas with a reindeer, or who are still pretzeled-up with glaring angry eyes and wrinkled brows a full hour after being cut off by an oozing dump truck on their commute to work.

     And then to put the famous Horse and Dog trainers to shame, there’s the “People Whisperer.”  Or on the flip side, the backslapping loudmouth.  

REMIND YOURSELF:

• When you own or manage a business, every single thing you do every day is a form of selling yourself or your ideas.
• A sale is made or broken in the first ten seconds.
• The first ten seconds of every encounter is consumed by first impressions (which don’t get a second chance) and those first impressions have largely to do with handshakes, eye contact, smiles, and a moderate and engaging tone (and volume level) of voice.       It’s the attitude you project that makes or breaks. 

     Yes, of course, clothes and grooming, but I have to assume you know how to bathe and dress yourself, clean your nails and stuff like that.  But you know what?  I once saw a total slob sell a $35 million company in twenty minutes with nothing but charm and some decent financial statements. 

     You wouldn’t have taken the chain off your front door if he appeared on your stoop in the dirty, bedraggled outfit he had on.  Yet he absolutely glowed as he delivered his sales spiel.  He had the magic.  He made things happen. 

     The man had a smile and tone of voice that made you want to hang on and listen and trust him.  His eyes screamed with enthusiasm but engaged others with a sense of acceptance and camaraderie while his voice left listeners hearing only rationality and justification for the purchase decision.  It was reassuring. 

     You would never dream to have looked at your watch.  His day-old whiskers, scuffed shoes and wrinkled wrong-size suit were never noticed by the decision makers.  He listened.  He exuded confidence and pride and energy and the attitude that he had what was needed at a reasonable price.  He did in fact.  The same business is worth billions today!  So is the man who sold it.

     STOP TODAY FOR JUST A MINUTE.  Hitch up your belt and boots.  Look in the mirror and give yourself your best smile.  Shake your own hand firmly (turn your left hand pinkie up and thumb down to create the right effect!).  Tell yourself:

“I am the best there is at what I do and people need what I have to sell and they are willing to pay what I ‘m asking because I have the magic!” 

     (Right!  Now do it again like you mean it!  Without genuineness, attitude takes you nowhere!)  You might rather want to conduct this little rah-rah session for yourself in your own bathroom instead of the hotel lobby.  But do it.  And remember to pass on all the good feelings it raises because it does, and because you can, and because you never know who your next customer might be!    halalpiar

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BEAT THE BUSHES (NAW,

NOT GEORGE AND JEB)!

     If this economy is strangling your wallet, step back and take an honest look at what you’re doing to make a living.  A major dinnerware store closed this week.  Duh!  The most expensive special events photography business in the poorest town around just folded.  You gotta be kidding; there must not be many special events!  The local tuxedo store is on its last legs.  REEEAlly?  (When was your last tuxedo?)    

Well, there’s always the cliche path: If the bullet you’re biting is starting to hurt your teeth, it may be time for you to climb down off your high horse (yeah, the one on drugs!), beat the bushes (Naw, not George and Jeb!), and think about pounding the pavement (Ouch! The vibrations!))))) for some new way (with apologies to Porky Pig) to bring home the bacon!

     Serious that the time may have come when it would be smart to take a hard look at whether what you’re doing right now can survive tough (or tougher) times. 

     If you’ve just, for example, finished years of writing your first book that you expect should bring you millions (or even thousands!) and you’re thinking about giving up the day job to find a literary agent to help you sell it to a big-time publishing house (Shazam!  That sounds so easy, doesn’t it?), I hate to be the one to tell you to stay with the crummy day job, but the agent/publisher pursuit could take years also… stay with the crummy day job!     

     If you’re selling the latest in fashionable men’s dress clothes, pay attention to the dwindling supply of fashionably-dressed men.  You might as well be selling CB radios and 8-track cassette players (whatever those are). 

     Consider moving your career path (or business direction if you run your own business), toward a market or industry that is more recession-proof. 

     Now I realize that not all of you will want to leap into the air shouting, “Aha! That’s the suggestion I’ve needed.  Now I can go apply for a job with the funeral home; THEY’LL never run out of customers!”

     No-sir-ee-bob!  This is definitely true.

     But, aaah, I DO know that there are a few folks out there clinging to their liferafts and the seas are getting more turbulent.  It may mean having to adjust your marketing messages to fit a better, more productive, more stabilized niche.  Or it may mean having to scramble and take a second crummy job as a quick-fix solution.  

     Sometimes, it may be simply a matter of switching gears, like the old lemon/lemonade advice.  Or maybe somebody else in the household needs to start tossing a few bucks in the kitty!  Whatever you need to do, do it!  Don’t stand around thinking and talking about it for weeks on end.  Those few weeks of opportunity losses could be enough to sink the liferaft. 

     Oh, and just in case you are that writer I alluded to, you might have to give up your great American novel dreams for now and do some other kind of work, but guess what?  You’ll be gathering experience for your next book!  

     It may not, when all is said and done, actually be the exact right time to find a need and fill it as the headline suggests, but it certainly is time to consider the alternatives.          halalpiar

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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.  

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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.

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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!  

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Hal@Businessworks.US    931.854.0474