Ask Any Writer . . .

“That honorable stop.”

– Shakespeare

“Leaving a few things

unsaid.”

– Elbert Hubbard

     Call it what you like, but having a mature sense of judgment, restraint, prudence, or tact is one of the world’s greatest measures of effective leadership.

     On a day when world news hovers over a General and a President who both apparently lack this quality, we are once again left to our own devices for finding leadership examples in our own businesses and industries and professions.

     We are bombarded today by many “progressive-minded” management gurus, trainers, coaches, consultants and self-proclaimed “evangelists,” with the need to practice “Leadership Transparency.”

     The notion is being hard-sell marketed that business owners and managers must emulate the open-door characteristics of Leadership Transparency in order to make a difference in this world.

     Advocates also suggest that the word, “transparency,” and transparent actions, need to take the high road of fostering full time open-and-above-boardedness.

     Yet it’s no secret that moderation in the form of exercising discretion will almost always cut us out a better, more productive, less hurtful path to take, than one that is completely and 100% clear.

Being able to see through leadership

can often limit its very ability

to produce meaningful results.

     It’s an instinctive behavior unique to human beings (and especially to all of us “Men Are From Mars” types) to indulge in analytical pursuits at literally every turn in the road.

     When management leaders spill their guts (beans? milk?) and put everything out on the table, they leave no room for analyzing alternatives. Analyzing alternatives paves the way to innovative thinking.

     Economic growth comes from watering and fertilizing and casting sunshine onto innovative thinking.

     One need not be a brain surgeon to qualify for having the awareness that businesses that nurture and encourage innovative thinking are those that survive and thrive. Those that don’t, don’t.

     Leadership effectiveness is dependent on the ability to motivate. Motivating others requires the right mix of challenges and opportunities. How challenging is it to provide complete access to clear open-door directions? Is that action dishing up an opportunity or quietly investing in the status quo?

     Exercising discretion amounts to holding back a little . . . giving followers their own openings, providing the chances to innovate and excel.

     Nobody said leadership was easy, but do we really think we’ll have booming success stories on our hands when we encourage everyone we work with both inside and outside our businesses to know everything that’s going on all the time?  

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!

 Here’s my vote 

for the all-time top

branding theme lines.

     I get asked all the time about branding themes and theme lines because they are the single most important set of words a business can have, and because they are the hardest of all words to write if they are to have great impact.

     The only business writing forms that come close in terms of difficulty and potential power are advertising billboards, website banners, and new venture business plans.

     In fact, the simpler they seem, the harder they are to write. Contrary to popular opinion, no one just goes into a closet for a couple of hours and comes out with these brilliant messages.

     In fact, it can often take weeks of fine-tuning to get to the kinds of branding theme lines represented here.

     The following list of 19 (Will yours be #20?) are all perfect examples of the art and science of marketing word craftsmanship, and I submit them here for your enjoyment, consideration (see if you figure out what they all have in common; answer at end), and most assuredly for inspiration:

• You deserve a break today at MacDonald’s.

• Think outside the bun – Taco Bell

• You’re in good hands with Allstate.

• American Express – Don’t leave home without it.

• AT&T – Reach out and touch someone.

• Greyhound: Leave the driving to us.

• Campbell’s Soup is M’m M’m Good!

• Clairol – Does she or doesn’t she?

• Energizer Batteries – It keeps going, and going, and going…

• General Electric – We bring good things to life.

• Kleenex – Don’t put a cold in your pocket!

• Lay’s Potato Chips – Betcha can’t eat just one!

• Maxwell House – Good to the last drop.

• Morton Salt – When it rains, it pours.

• New York Times – All the news that’s fit to print

• Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee

• Schlitz – The beer that made Milwaukee famous.

• Sun Microsystems – We put the . in dot.com

• Armour Hot Dogs – The dog kids love to bite.

      Besides all of these having a certain positive and proactive message to share that directly relates to or ties to the benefits of the products and services offered, they also each possess a definite word delivery rhythm that is easier felt than explained . . . almost a poetic balance with a direct or directly implied promise attached.

     And what else do you notice?

     Because there are no rules in business, and least of all in marketing, there are always exceptions. In this list, however, as will be found in almost every other comparable list of outstanding branding identities, please also note that each uses seven words or less.

     And those that include the company or brand name within those seven words or less are the true diamonds in the forest of glass!

What are some of YOUR suggestions for this list? Click on “Comments” below and include them in the window! The best will be added to a sequel list!

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!

It used to be:

“Do this, Do that!”

But today’s leaders 

teach by example,

  so it’s: “Here’s how!”

     Leaders –true leaders– may or may not embrace the whole transparency theme that’s wormed its way into the management apple over the past couple of years, but one thing’s for sure: they are leading others by teaching and they are teaching by giving and being and using examples. “Here, let me show you how to do that in a way that will save you more time” are words that work wonders.

     “Why don’t we stop this meeting right here, order lunch in for everybody, and let’s see if we can all tackle this problem that’s surfaced? We can start by each of us writing down three possible solutions in the next three minutes without any discussion. Then we’ll . . .” Almost makes you want to be in that meeting, doesn’t it?

     Leadership is best delivered with quiet assertiveness, back-pat coaching and extreme simplicity. I call the words we use to motivate others most effectively: LEADERSHIPLICITY. I’ve never met anyone who had trouble getting their arms around a challenge or opportunity that was labeled 1-2-3 or A-B-C.

     We humans seem to have an acceptance fixation on groups of three steps, three items, three bullet points, three ways. 1-2-3 and A-B-C are simple. Life is complicated. 1-2-3 and A-B-C make things simple. Anytime we can reduce a seemingly complex problem or how-to directions into three chunks, we produce and get better results.     

     Now, there are probably as many alternative number choices as there are people on the planet, and there are most certainly some very strong-willed advocates out there who are willing to bet the farm on the number 7. Hmmm, 7? Well sure there are Steven Covey’s 7 Habits, 7/11 stores, Mickey Mantle’s shirt, the 7 Dwarfs, and 7 days in a week. 7 works.

     But 7 is an advertising copywriter’s sales tool. People BUY 7. Seven reasons are usually enough to justify any purchase. But 3 is the number that prompts action. Anyone will take three easy steps; most of us will balk if asked to DO seven things. Oh, are you kidding? 7 bullet points? Who wants to read all that? Seven ACTS? As in A-B-C-D-E-F and G? That’s a lot of stuff to do. You’re going to lose me after C or D.

     LEADERSHIPLICITY means making a daily commitment to eliminate the complicated and accentuate the simplicated. If your grandparents wouldn’t understand the word, don’t use it! How hard is that? Why care? Because effective leadership depends exclusively on the leader’s ability to communicate.

     Fancy words get in the way. They don’t impress others; they frustrate others. Nobody wants to be checking their thesaurus every time you have something to say. 

www.TWWsells.com or call 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!

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!

“Like talkin’ to

  a brick wall!”

     Remind you of anyone? No, not your teenager or your grandfather. How about that one unresponsive boss, customer, prospect, investor, referrer, supplier, associate, employee? You know. The one who specializes in unanswered calls, unanswered emails, unanswered questions, unanswered charges, and unansdtxtmsgs. 

     Besides that these inactions ring out unprofessional and unbusinesslike behaviors, they just don’t cut it! They insult, frustrate, and aggravate those on the delivery end of the questions that cry out for answers, and the messages that call for some form of acknowledgement.

     Thank heaven most entrepreneurs maintain a sense of urgency in most of what they do. They may be a little rough around the edges by elementary schoolteacher standards (typically measured with “warm and fuzzy” yardsticks) or too gruff or brusk for many country-clubbers (who expect at all costs to be treated like royalty; “Thank you, dawlink!”), but at least they respect the need to get things done.

     What stands in the way of most entrepreneurial instincts to act (instead of just talk about acting, ala America’s empty suit sea of politicians) is the modus operandi of those who choose to think that no response is the best response, and that avoidance makes things go away. These folks, by the way, absolutely hate when someone doesn’t disappear, and continues to pursue an answer.

     Do those who practice shutting down and standing still for a living think they could possibly be cultivating business or making friends by sitting on their thumbs? Do they harbor some idiotic belief that others will gravitate to their aloofness? Probably, they just don’t care, or they’re just plain ignorant. 

     For the benefit of those who may be thinking about printing out this post and are leaving an unsigned copy conspicuously exposed on some unsuspecting culprit’s desk, or dashboard, or nightstand, you may want to save ink and paper and just use the following bulletpoints:

• Your lethargic, uncaring, ambivalence is a disruption to life and work . . . and so beneath the integrity of those around you . . . If you don’t plan to respond to someone, say so! If you don’t have or know the answer to something, say so! If you need or want more time to reply to a request or question or message, say so!

• Here’s why. In case it hasn’t occurred to you, most of the world operates in some kind of time zone, and most people will at least nod their heads when spoken to. The fact that you receive a message in writing or voice recording doesn’t mean that it is any less important to acknowledge than face-to-face deliveries.

• Oh, and if you are, by some miraculous conception, some type of business executive or representative, you may want to give some thought to the fact that “outsiders” (which cer-tainly includes endless prospective customers, clients, or patients) will instantly identify your business attachment as THE business itself.

• In other words, to the outside world, you ARE your business. Do you really want potential customers, employees, suppliers, investors, referrers to think your business is unresponsive? Of course they will. Don’t even go there. Instead, step up to the plate and start acting like a human being. It’s called respect.

     Trainers, coaches, consultants and creative types can do wonders for businesses by tweaking one thing or another, but tweaking bricks (even for those from Brick, New Jersey) can be a painful process. Let the bulletpoints do the job for you. If you still seek a tweak, however, you may want to explore more of how to . . .

Get TWEAKED at www.TWWsells.com or call 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!

Been Tweaked? 

     If  you haven’t had a professional examine the words you’re using for your business — to communicate, explain, describe, sell, plan, promote, publicize, print, email, broadcast, and blast across the Internet — you’re missing great potential sales, revenues, and profits.

     And you may be adding untold hidden expenses every day, even every hour.

     You could very well be the best at what you do, but if you’re not trained and experienced as a skilled professional business marketing writer, it won’t matter.

      It takes only one slightly wrong word to UNdo all your years of hard work, to UNdo the strength or promise of your customer or investor bases, to UNdo your employee, supplier, and community relations.

     But here’s the best kept secret of successful businesses and practices in your industry and profession:

They’ve all been tweaked! 

     Every highly profitable revenue-charged business and professional practice is measured by its leadership, reputation, productivity, and the words it uses.

Research proves time and again that what your business says (and the ways that your business says what it says) makes the difference between success and failure

. . . on the Internet; in emails, news releases; promotional, ad, branding and marketing campaigns; mission and vision statements; employee and sales training; supplier, investor, and referrer motivational programs

. . . on the front lines and telephone lines with customers, clients, patients, and prospects.

     How does one get her or his business “tweaked”? Where do you start? You start by submitting rough or revised drafts for professional review and input. The finished product is the revised return of a polished document, ad, release, web page, branding theme line, business plan narrative, layman translation from technical material, ebook, training outline, whatever.

It’s a process that raises your ideas up a notch

and puts you ahead of the competition!

     The good news is you need NOTspend a fortune to get tweaked. Many mid and large size companies that use internal Tweakers, also hire outside firms to tweak and prepare their messages (often at outrageous fees of $10,000 to $20,000 a month!). But this is SMALL business. And no one else can represent your business ideas as well as you.

     You don’t need high-priced outside service firms to tell you what to say. You need a budget-conscious, experienced, professional Tweaker who can take what you’ve done and put it in the right language and context for the market you want to target.

     Some, like having preventive maintenance visits, get a “Tweak Cleaning” twice a year. Some are happy with an annual “Tweak Insurance” Review. Still others want “On-Call Tweakability.” Oh, and if you’ve read this far, you must be interested. So yes, I tweak.

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Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

Make today a GREAT Day for someone!

When the going

gets tough,

many Realtors grasp

at straws!

     A post on yesterday’s edition of the vibrant and proactive leading newsletter for Realtor professionals, the ActiveRain Daily Drop was entitled “How To Brand Yourself an Expert and Build a Six-Figure Real Estate Business.” The heading alone represents much of what is  wrong with many Realtors today who seek to quick-fix instead of innovate.

     And the guts of the article drag us deeper into a state of malaise.

     First of all, the posted article was nothing more than a thinly-veiled sales pitch to urge our nation’s poor beaten-upon real estate agents and brokers to rise from the rubble of a collapsed housing market by signing up for and attending a “virtual class” starring a TV “Apprentice show winner.”

    Though favored by Donald Trump himself, this winner may indeed have the “commanding knowledge of investment real estate” that the article proclaims, but my best guess is that this individual doesn’t know any more than anyone else who has ever bought, sold, or brokered real estate.

     Clearly, the enrollment spiel is clueless about branding. Those who understand branding know that you can’t “brand yourself an expert.”

     Branding is all about earning a reputation for authenticity. Self-aggrandizement hardly captures that flavor of genuineness.

     Being viewed and respected as an “expert” is something that comes from others, not from yourself.

     Granted that real estate as a business may host a fair share of egocentric types, but offering self-declarations of expertise is not a practice that most people find to be particularly endearing . . . certainly not property buyers and sellers who I’m quite sure prefer humility and low-profile sales attitudes. Assertiveness does not require aggressiveness. 

     Oh, the fantasy TV show winner also apparently has a book for sale (tell me you’re surprised!) which would seem likely to be implausibly unrealistic if it cornerstones the thinking that what sells best — and makes the most money — is for Realtors to (as my father used to warn against) “toot their own horns.”

     If you’re in real estate sales, and you’ve been fighting to survive this sucky economy, the last thing you need to do is follow some self-serving, self-proclaimed expert into the arena of thinking that you can do the same thing and make untold fortunes. All you’ll make are enemies, and enemies don’t help you make sales.  

     Those who succeed at making a living in real estate sales are those who recognize and appreciate the opportunities they hold in their hands to make a difference in this life by nurturing their matchmaking abilities. They are catalysts of change. Realtors are the entrepreneurial leaders of American small business precisely because they DON’T run around telling everyone how great they are.

     They let their people talents, and their communication and organizational skills speak for themselves. Satisfied clients who brand these real estate pros as experts will advance their reputations light years beyond the kinds of competitors who beat their chests, shout their names from the rooftops, and sign up for quick-fix seminars run by questionably-qualified people seeking to sell books!

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!

     The best business consultants, advisors, coaches, trainers, and counselors base their fees on what they’re able to accomplish, not on how great they tell you it’s going to be.

 YOU’RE PAYING TOO MUCH IF:  

1)  You’re paying ongoing fees and can’t see any ongoing results.

2)  You’re paying any kind of “retainer” fee, and you’re not sure of what it is that you’re “retaining.” 

3)  You’re paying for dead-end training, coaching, or counseling support that assures you of new and improved leadership/team-work . . . or communications, or customer relations, or sales . . . but that doesn’t produce noticeable change in 21 days, and that doesn’t then keep it going with meaningful, targeted, personal follow-up long after scheduled sessions are completed.

4)  You’re paying for outside services that continuously blame your inside services for stalling/blocking/obstructing/interfering or foot-dragging and/or lack of commitment.

5)  You’re paying for professional expertise exclusively because of long-term relationships and because that individual or group has maintained all your records for a long time. Would you not go to a medical or legal or financial expert you know has the ability to heal you just because your present advisor was hired by your father (or grandfather) and has your complete history in his files?  

6)  You get billed for every breath taken on your behalf. Outside experts unwilling to invest a little extra time and effort on your behalf as an expression of their customer / client relationship management are not worth the invoice postage or email review time. They are easily (and happily) replaced.

     There are a gazillion qualified groups and individuals out there who will deliver ongoing attention and ongoing results. In case you think you haven’t enough time to go shopping for the kinds of outside experts who breed authenticity, consider how much money you’ve been (or are presently) wasting  by not finding more honorable replacements.

     Even hiring someone else to shop for you – with your criteria of course – will probably still end up being a financially-smarter and more performance-rewarding move than avoiding the issue.

     The hardest thing any of us have to do in life – and consequently the hardest thing any business owner or manager has also to do – is to let go.

     Letting go of anything that we own, command, raise, invent, enhance, fix, inherit, create, design, develop, build, or even just think about, is like giving up a piece of our existence. How big of a piece determines the amount of anguish and reluctance and hesitation and whining and complaining that is sure to surface.

     And you’ve already been around long enough to realize that the total of all the upset added together multiplies according to how much time, money, and effort has been invested. So, the time to act is now. Clean house. Find experts who are willing to roll up their sleeves and work with you, who will act like partners, not leeches.   

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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!

People today only buy

what makes sense.

 Don’t believe it!

Excerpted from comments by Hal Alpiar published in today’s issue of  COMMUNICATION EXPRESSWAY ISSN: 1544-8312 Better Business Communication Judy Vorfeld – www.ossweb.com March-April-May 2010 – Issue # 74

     Assessments surfacing about today’s consumers being more savvy, more rational-minded, more interested in authenticity, and less susceptible to some of the more trite expressions that have long passed their days of influence is – in most entrepreneurial minds — 100% correct.

     Where business owners and managers need to depart though from what is being said is that these kinds of comments tend to lead owners and managers down the path of focusing their business marketing messages on rational, logical, unemotional, product and service features alone (i.e., ingredients, warranties, greenness, discounts, etc.) when — in fact — every consumer purchase has been repeatedly proven to be emotionally-triggered.

     That is not to say that price is not important or that features and rational chunks of sales pitches and marketing pieces should be abandoned or sidetracked. This kind of information is required by consumers as justification for their purchases — and more so today than ever before because of speed-of-light information access, and an economy that demands closer dollar-value scrutiny.

      Case in point (which, in concept, applies equally to every conceivable product or service purchase) . . .

      You probably tell everyone all the reasons that you buy a particular vehicle: it gets great mileage; it is ranked among the top in safety tests; the manufacturer is reliable; the warranties are among the best available; parts are easily and inexpensively replaced and service is readily available. And monthly payments? They’re at an all-time low. Sounds great, right? Kind of makes rational, unemotional, authentic mouths water? (Or at least drool a little?)

     The truth is (which you would never own up to in public) that the real deep-down reasons you bought the vehicle are that you think you look good driving it, and that the salesperson wasn’t pushy.

     These dynamics, by the way, are the same for seemingly rational purchases like insurance policies, accounting services, a can of beans, or the daily newspaper.

     So, the bottom line is that while rational, logical information needs to be presented as a marketing cornerstone, it’s always going to be an emotional trigger that makes the sale. But we shouldn’t abandon one approach for the other. They need to work in tandem. It’s what makes great marketing so challenging, and why so few really understand how to do it effectively.

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Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0116

Open Minds Open Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!