Archive for the 'Leadership' Category

May 17 2010

You REALLY Outdid Yourself This Time!

Are you rounding

                             

the turn,

                                          

up against the rail,

                                

or (Aaah!)

                                 

headed for the

                                       

home stretch?

                                 

     Have you ever equated owning and managing a business with being in a race? Aren’t most of us in fact so busy galloping over, under, and around the 37 zillion entrepreneurial business obstacles-to-success, that we seldom make the time to assess our own progress? When did we even come to appreciate what market position we’re in, let alone what racetrack we’re on?

     I was reminded yesterday by the simultaneous running of The Preakness (horse race), and The Dover Downs (NASCAR) Race Weekend of how rare the occasions are that we business owners race around and soundly outperform our own and others’ expectations.  How evasive that winner’s circle can be when we just charge forward with our heads down!

     Don’t we ALWAYS outperform ourselves the half-hour before lunch? The hour before closing? The days before vacation? The week before a holiday weekend? The days before a major sales or service event? The days before retirement? The days before the end of the month? The quarter? The year? 

WE EXCEL IN THE HOME STRETCH!

                                                              

     Who doesn’t run fastest between third base and home plate? Between the 20-yard marker and the goal line? Or in the final lap of a race of any kind? And why is this? Okay. Here’s the place to insert all that profound motivational and psychological reasoning we all carry around on the tips of our tongues:__________________________.

     It seems to me, though, that when all is said and done, each of us protects the need to preserve some level of self-proclaimed legacy. Down deep inside, we want to make a difference! We want others to say “WOW!” and “Whew!” and “HOLY #%&*!” and be impressed and astonished with our performances.

     But why oh why do we have to punish ourselves by limiting our exceptional performances to occur only when we’ve reached some mythical last hurrah, when we’re at a point where every thing’s on the line, or the proverbial eleventh hour is upon us?

     What prevents us from thinking and acting at maximum productivity EVERY day, all year long? Why is some artificial prompt necessary to justify and prompt exemplary performance? Can’t we simply CHOOSE to have this winning attitude NOW? Today? Tomorrow? Everyday? Isn’t it a choice? Of course it is. SO . . . HOW to make it happen is the question.

     Try falsifying our calendars. Let’s put some major event that demands extraordinary production results in the third week of May. Why wait ’til two days before Memorial Day weekend to get cranked up? What about pretending our vacation is a month before it’s actually scheduled? Can we trick yourselves into believing that we have only a week (vs. a month) left until departure day?

     Our kids could do this in a flash. Maybe we can learn something from them about how to loosen up and be flexible and do stuff now that we may have thought we were not ready to do . . .?  

Comment below 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!

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May 16 2010

E~X~P~A~N~D YOUR BUSINESS NOW!

“Whaddaya, nuts?

                                 

My business

                               

is shrinking.

                                       

What’s to expand?”

                                      

In the “Flower Power” 60’s with psychedelic drug influences on music, clothes, and lifestyles of people who’d grown up with the Lone Ranger, there emerged what had to be the greatest name for its time for a music group that I ever heard. I haven’t a clue about anything they recorded, but I always thought they earned the gold medal of rock group names: TONTO’S EXPANDING HEAD BAND.

     I thought of this name today for some reason, and was prompted to address the subject of business expansion in a still-rotten-and-getting-rottener economy where most businesses are tucking in their tails, cutting corners, and consolidating at every opportunity. Withdrawal, though, is not always the most advisable action to take when the competition heats up and pickings are slim.

     “Yeah, but our budget is slim too, and the last thing we can afford is to expand what’s already suffering; it’ll just create more suffering!”

     BRRRAAAAAAAAT! (That’s a basketball court sound.) Time Out! As truth will have it, if indeed you really think you need to be bailing out the boat instead of adding a swim platform, you are probably:

  1. working for the government (probably the dead and dying Postal Service; but, then, you wouldn’t be reading this), or 
  2. a major corporate executive (probably a hospital administrator type who’s big on efficiency and outcomes; but, then, you wouldn’t be reading this either!), or 
  3. a small business owner who’s lost sight of how you got started, and you may have gotten so beat up by the A and B guys above, that your entrepreneurial spirit has risen on up into the Ozone, and left you struggling to survive. Sound familiar? No? Good! But if it does . . .

     Guess what? You still have what it takes, and so does your business. Remember the sports training we got as kids? The best defense is an offense . . . stop blocking punches and start swinging!

     To effectively expand your business in an economic choke-hold, you need first to allow your brain to expand, and you’ve probably been pulling in the reins on your innovative thinking in order to pay the bills. Reality is though that there are plenty of ways to expand while others are shrinking, without murdering your finances!

     You need to look harder at what you’re doing. How can you offer more to customers without spending more? Instead of 9-5, can you stagger work hours and stay open instead from 8-6? Or re-think coverage possibilities for Saturdays and/or Sundays?

     Can you hand out free appetizers to customers who have to wait for dinner? (You don’t run a restaurant? This example applies to EVERY type of business. Consider how some version of it might work for yours!)

     How about expanding your marketing efforts with a service like www.BizBrag.com that allows you free website postings of your news releases and promotional flyers, and then sends them out to your target email list besides (also free!)

     Shall I go on or will you just counter with excuses? Are you choosing to seek new pathways or choosing to simply settle for excuses about why new pathways won’t work? Hard times mean survival of the fittest. Hard times also mean that those who choose to step it up, make waves, and expand their horizons by expanding the the ways they do business, will thrive.

     What can you do better or more of tomorrow morning than you did today? Money need not be a growth issue.

Expand your mind to expand your business.    

Comment below 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!

No responses yet

May 11 2010

InsideOut Strategies

Decide what you

                                  

want to do.

                                                                                              

Decide what you

                                  

can do.

                                      

Decide what you

                               

will do.

      

     When you determine what you want to do, what you can do, and will actually do INSIDE . . . then go OUTSIDE.

     Too many small business owners start out thinking too big on the OUTSIDE. They march into major marketing and ad agencies, PR firms, media and branding service and management consulting companies, waving investment or borrowed money to engage services they not only can’t afford, but don’t even need to begin with.

     Here’s where common sense gets lost in the shadows of egos.

     You own, manage, operate a business or professional practice. You don’t need outsiders coming in and telling you what your vision or mission statement should be or how to manage your customers or employees or suppliers, or how to sell or maintain your operations.

     You already know how to do these things and nobody else can do these things like you can.  

     You are the heart of your business.

     What you see and hear and think and feel about it is your unique perspective. You can pay outsiders to pretend they get it and pretend they know essentials that you don’t. But they don’t. Until your business grows to mid-size, the only genuine and justifiable outside assistance you’re likely to need (besides perhaps technical website design and maintenance)  is with creating, developing, and delivering the words you use.

     Crafting your communications messages and approach is best done by a proven wordsmith who can demonstrate ability to capture the essence of your business and your “voice” (the ways you express what you think and feel about your business) and put it into appropriately persuasive language. 

     Your branding theme-line needs, for example, to explain what your business is all about, what you do and what you provide, tell a story with a beginning and a middle and an ending, be memorable and/or clever . . . and use seven words or less!

     That kind of writing takes a special skill. Making applications of that theme-line work positively in news releases, brochures, websites, social media, direct mail and other traditional advertising forms takes a special skill.

     For a small business, thinking OutsideIn —hiring a large marketing or PR or advertising agency or consulting group to attack tasks like these–  is a dangerous practice. It is typically a colossal waste of money, time and energy. To make matters worse, the likelihood is that any such efforts will only succeed at winning industry awards for the “team” you recruit. Rarely if ever do these arrangements produce real sales.

     Make it your first line of defense to always work your business from the InsideOut

Comment below 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! 

No responses yet

May 10 2010

Are you playing basketball on a baseball field?

WHAT SPORT IS

                                                                              

YOUR BUSINESS?

                                                   

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

When was the last time you dribbled across the infield and took a jump shot from 2nd base? Or slam-dunked a hockey puck over the goalpost? You went curling and used a nine-iron instead of a broom?

I once heard a corporate executive describe his company as roller derby because “all we ever do is race around in circles, bashing each other in the teeth, putting on a good show for our public, but nothing ever seems to get done or go anywhere.”    

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

                                                                                                        

     If you own or manage a business, you sell! If you’re in sales, you undoubtedly equate the sales field with the football field, and see youself running around right end, punting, passing, tackling, huddling, and occasionally at the 11th hour and the 50-yard line “Hail Marying” your way to a sale/no sale decision.

     Football legend Vice Lombardi spent years making motivational training films for salespeople because he saw how direct the sales and football analogy was. A full court press may force a basketball turnover, but cost game-losing vulnerability in many other sports. Are you playing the same sport as your customers? Your competitors? Your vendors?

     So, what sport is YOUR business? ASK AROUND. Other’s answers may surprise you.

     Your honest answer gives important clues about your business strengths and weaknesses, as well as about your business image, reputation, and uniqueness. And those clues establish business patterns which point to professional and financial growth and development opportunities.

     Many family businesses fail to row the same boat in the same direction, or are busy ducking one another while playing ping-pong with golf balls. (Ouch!) 

     Is the sport you choose to best represent your business a team sport? Do people act like teammates? Any team spirit? Cheerleaders? Playmaker? Coach? Go-to guy?

    OR is the sport you most identify with a superstar sport? One person makes all the decisions all the time about everything, from trash disposal methods to sales and marketing and financial management and customer service and answering every phone inquiry?

     In the boxing ring there is but one fighter doing battle with another. The rest are support people. Very high competitive risks for very high potential payback, with the possibility of being rich and brain dead. Well, you could always be a politician . . .

Comment below 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!

No responses yet

May 09 2010

The MOTHER OF INVENTION . . . is you!

Happy Mother’s Day,

                       

Mother of

                                                  

Invention!

                                       

That’s YOU, Boss…

                                             

     If you work anywhere in that vast SEA OF (government or corporate giant) INCOMPETENCE, click off here and visit some other website. If you’re running or managing your own business –real parent or not– read on: YOU are the “Mother of Invention.”

     Now, Peter Drucker, who’s referred to as the “Father of Management” may not like that idea, but–I would challenge him–when did “Mother” ever lose to “Father”?

                                                                          

     Today, in other words, is also a day to celebrate being your business’s parent.

     First off, anyone who works for you sees you in a parental light. You are looked up to for guidance and leadership. You are a role model. You may not like providing inspiration or being thought of as something special, but you ARE.

     Face up to it and make the most of it. You’ll be helping your staff, your self and your business to grow.

     Don’t just provide leadership. Provide leadership by example; people want to learn by watching and trying and doing.

     Don’t just provide leadership. Provide leadership that’s transparent. Keep all your business dealings clearly defined and out in the open. Forget you have a Bcc setting on your emails. Stop closing doors. Share information freely.

     If you’ve hired good people to start with, you’re only toying with risk levels that are reasonable. If you’ve got a bad apple or two, your open-and-above-boardness will flush them out.

     In other words:

Give everyone a chance to give you a chance for your business to have a chance to succeed.

                                                                                         

     Now, Mothers and Fathers, let’s look at that “Invention” word that you’re parenting. If you’re not CONSTANTLY creating and inventing and innovating . . . coming up with new ideas, ways, methods, designs, plans, steps, contacts, messages . . . EVERY DAY, then you are investing in the status quo.

     Keeping things the same, not rocking the boat, and “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” are the prevalent notions anchoring most stagnant corporate giants, every government agency, and all unsuccessful small businesses. 

     Business owner Job One is to stay out of that trap. Don’t let anything interfere with your daily birthing of inventive thinking. It’s how you started your business. It’s what’s carried your business. It’s what will will make the difference between your business surviving and your business thriving in the months and years ahead. 

     This doesn’t mean every lightbulb that goes on over your head needs to light up the world, or even that little dark corner of your workspace, but it does mean that you and your business cannot afford to pull the plug on that open socket; keep trying out new bulbs; follow up with some and discard others. [Edison made 10,000 tries before inventing the lightbulb!]

     Innovation, remember, is taking the rarest of those good ideas and seeing them all the way through, every specific step of the way, to their final destination markets — even if only on paper or the computer screen. Together with your business itself, it’s those parented ideas that become the inventions that you mother and nurture into adulthood. Happy Mother’s Day!     

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops (“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!”- Thomas Jefferson)  Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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May 08 2010

Your Lifestyle Runs Your Business

You just wanted

                                

to work in your

                                    

underwear,

                                

that’s all.  

                                                                               

     Remember the reason you decided to start, and run or manage your own business? Odds are it had more to do with what you wanted for a lifestyle than you probably recall. And I’ll bet your decision was accelerated by the lifestyle conflict you were having with the person you reported to or the organization you served . . . likely it was both!

     Just the fact that you reported to anyone was probably grounds enough for you to want to set sail into uncharted seas. How do I know that? I’ve spent most of my life being an entrepreneur, coaching entrepreneurs, and teaching entrepreneurship. We share common distaste for indulging in organizational details and for respecting authority.

     Sometimes the lifestyle issues involved in choosing to work for yourself are as innocuous as wanting to wake up late and work late, or wear sweatpants and shorts and t-shirts to work (or, wear nothing . . . “WRITE NAKED” urges an old promotional poster I saw from Writer’s Digest magazine). 

     The point is that whatever the reasons you decided to pack in corporate or government America and set out on your own, the flip-side of those reasons is what you used, to cornerstone your startup venture. Is it still a cornerstone? If you’ve let this one get away, you may be missing out on enjoying the very reason you elected to be your enterprising self.

     You may even be sliding (slithering?) back into the hole from whence your business owner career was born. There’s nothing wrong (and probably everything right) with becoming more conservative in your fiscal and political choices as you get older and wise up as to what makes genuine realistic sense in America’s society, but dragging conservative thinking into how you run your business puts you on the road to premature business death . . . not a happy place to be.

     You started with innovative ideas and energetic drive and a pioneering spirit.

     If you’ve been successful, you may well be at a point where those traits, qualities, values, instincts, characteristics –whatever you want to call them — have started to dry up, and you’ve either got itchy feet to again get on with something else, or you’ve slowly absorbed the “corporatitis” investment in status quo.

     If you’ve not been successful, you may be wondering why you chose this path when you could be working 9 to 5 and collecting big benefits and enjoying weekends. Ever feel like that or am I imagining things? Perhaps you’ve just been busting your butt and success is simply not happening, but you’re not willing to give up what you started.

     The truth is that it doesn’t really matter what’s going on with you right now EXCEPT that if you’ve somewhere lost your enthusiasm and business ownership has become a full-time struggle, you must do whatever it takes to get back your startup energy, and that means you need to put more fun in every day.

     ONLY by having fun with your business will you have a more sunny disposition and will your business achieve the results you seek. Fun means something different to everyone. Make a short list of what’s fun to you. And yet another of what’s fun to those around you. Then start to make some of those attitudes and events take place. Have fun! 

# # #

Comment below 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!

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May 06 2010

ENTREPRENEURSHIP Breeds Leaps of Faith

When you undertake

                                        

to organize, manage,

                                                       

and assume the risks

                                  

of owning and running

                               

a business…

                             

. . . you are not just taking a leap of faith.

You are taking the leap with a full plate in hand.

                                                                                          

Imagine a waiter balancing a tray full of dinners on one hand and carrying a “table jack” with the other, while deftly jumping across a six-foot moat into a flame-edge-bordered room packed with ravenously hungry people, and no idea of who ordered what.

     Whew!

     Well, if the guy is the owner of the restaurant, odds are the right people will get the right food, others will get some complimentary food with appreciative remarks and everyone will end up coming back.

     If it’s a giant chain restaurant, the wrong people will get the wrong meals, nobody else will be acknowledged and the only ones who return will be coming back for the cheap prices only. 

     It seems appropriate on National Prayer Day (yes, that’s today in case you forgot to say some) to be addressing leaps of faith, even if it is in conjunction with a business focus. Entrepreneurial enterprises are, after all, among some of the world’s greatest benefactors of prayer and leadership faith.

     Most small business owners do most everything that needs to be done by themselves. They sell; they finance; they organize; they manage; they innovate; they manage and serve customers and clients; they market, promote, and publicize. Entrepreneurial “personalities” rarely if ever match corporate counterparts (and most would agree there really are no direct counterparts anyway).

     Entrepreneurs tend to be entrepreneurs because they simply don’t fit the orderly, entrenched, established, procedural, authoritative and controlling mindset that corporate muckity-mucks seem to thrive on. Corporate guys are invested in the status quo. Whoa! Don’t make waves!

     Senior executive vice presidents and directors of anything are up to their you-know-whats in burdensome and tedious reliance on planning and analyzing . . . activities that are viewed by upstart business venture principals as paralyzing behavior.

     By contrast, entrepreneurs thrive on innovation, action, and high enthusiasm. When a small business owner consults with her market research department, she is talking to herself as she cruises through Bing and Google.

     Okay, so right about now, I know there are a smattering of grumbling corporate people (mostly, it seems, brothers-in-law of entrepreneurs!) who are punching their monitors and yelling that times have changed and big business is now leading the way in innovation and brand loyalty and new market development and communications and high-level training. Bull.

     Automakers? Banks? Pharmaceutical giants? Oil companies? Mainstream media? Consumer product manufacturers? Need we go further? How many of these do you see taking leaps of faith?

     The monster donut-maker guys may think America runson their junk food, but they’re dreaming (their coffee’s not even good!).

     America runs on small business and entrepreneurial spirit, on Mom and Pop Stores, basement and kitchen table and garage businesses, one-man-band services, farm families, commercial and residential contractors, and techies in bathrobes working out of their bedroom closets. 

     That’s what we’re all about. That’s what will turn this economy around. That’s who we need to be remembering in our prayers today and every day. Small business and entrepreneurial pursuits are the foundation of America’s past and the keys to America’s future.

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

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

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May 05 2010

MANAGING TIME AND CIRCUMSTANCES

“Is what I’m doing right

                      

this minute, leading me 

                                                

 to where I want to go?”

 

I kept this sign above my desk for many years. It helped keep me focused. It prompted staff and visitors to think twice about how we were using time. It’s hard to justify much water cooler chit-chat while appointments, online research and paperwork pace around your workspace awaiting your return.

Running a business is a balancing act to begin with. The mercilessly ticking clock demands even more. Business owners and managers are only as effective as their ability to manage and productively use time.

Mail carriers sort, doctors triage, retailers catalog, military personnel classify, librarians alphabetize, and the rest of us stumble through –organizing, arranging and categorizing– as a preamble to prioritizing.

The process of taking what you have and organizing it, combining appropriate interests along the way, then ultimately determining the rank order of importance is a lifeline to action! It sets leaders up to attack the first most important task first, and the second most important task second, and so forth. All good, logical, rational thinking here.

Unfortunately, unless you’re an accountant, life is not logical and rational. Stuff inevitably happens that pushes all the logic out the tenth floor window. If you’re not prepared for such uproars, you’ll get dragged out with it. And ten floors is not enough time to open your chute, but enough free-fall to play smash-face.

If your past solution approach has traditionally been to start listening to your LED watch and –as if it was a doomed rabbit– giving it violent hound dog shakes with a startled look on your face, you may want to consider some alternative that involves a booster shot of proactive planning.

Motivational guru Brian Tracy tells us that for “every minute spent in planning saves ten minutes in execution.”

Planning is only a waste of time if you choose for it to be and fail to follow the path you cut out, or fail to adjust it to best fit the circumstances.

One major key to planning and time management success is to always have a contingency arrangement thought out. Why? Because you can almost bet there will be interruptions, and often unexpected emergencies. Just as fire drills have often been credited with saving lives, contingency plans often save businesses.

  In other words, stay tuned in to what’s happening in real time, but always be prepared to be sidetracked. Thoreau once talked about being “forever on the alert.” Not bad advice all these many years later.

# # #

931.854.0474    Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals!

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

No responses yet

May 04 2010

Complacence. Ambivalence. Indifference.

Complacence.

                            

Ambivalence.

                                    

Indifference.

                               

And the worst

                                                          

of these in

                            

management is . . .?

                                                                                                                        

  • Complacence: Self-satisfaction, especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies.
  • Ambivalence: Uncertainty as to which approach to follow.
  • Indifference: Of no importance or difference one way or the other. Unconcerned. Not caring.
                                                            

     So which gets your vote for worst? If you think about it for more than two shakes of a lamb’s tail, you’d have to go with (Ta-Ta-Ta-Tah-Tah!): Indifference. After all, isn’t indifference the worst of all human traits on the emotional spectrum, management or otherwise?

     Granted, nobody likes a complacent boss. Is smug another way of saying this? And certainly an ambivalent boss is what my father would have called “a weak sister.” Not having confidence in the pursuit of a solution or innovative approach is generally the mark of a losing leader in any arena.

     We seem to grow up thinking that LOVE and HATE are opposites and we tend to pack our collective feelings up and move them to one side of the continuum line or the other: LOVE at one extreme end and HATE at the other extreme end. And all kinds of empty space in between. And, BTW, isn’t this also what politicians and governments and nations do as well?

     Incorrect weird interpretations we experience –even at a universal level– become so ingrained that they become the rule rather than the exception. We (The People) go about loving and hating and thinking that we are light years apart by every measure when — in reality– we are really VERY close indeed.

     How is that possible?

The true opposite of LOVE is not HATE. It is INDIFFERENCE. LOVE and HATE are actually quite close emotions.

The true opposite of HATE is not LOVE. It is INDIFFERENCE. HATE and LOVE are actually quite close emotions.

INDIFFERENCE is at the extreme far end of the emotional spectrum from both LOVE and HATE.

                                                                

     So what? Who cares? What’s it matter in running a business? At an employee confrontation level, keep focused on the fact that what’s expressed as extreme opposite viewpoints are — all things considered — probably very close.

     Sometimes the boss needs only to point this out. A line drawn on paper with “always/in every case/extreme” positions marked at opposite ends of the line and two warring staffers asked to put an x on the line where they see themselves in relation to the two extremes. The distance between the two X’s is the area of disagreement, not the entire line. 

     Almost always, when disagreeing employees can physically see (on a line) that the differences they thought were astronomical, are truly only moderately significant, they are much more likely to work things out, to the betterment of themselves and the business.

     You don’t need to be a counselor, shrink or hand-holder to make this work. I’ve seen construction team foremen and deep-sea fishermen pull it off in less than one minute, and never lose a beat with the work at hand. Next time someone draws a line in the sand, have her or him show you the extremes and where exactly he or she stands. 

Comment below 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! 

One response so far

May 03 2010

Visions and Missions and Thrusts, Oh Boy! . . .

DREAMERS DREAM

                                      

AND TRYERS TRY,

                                            

BUT DOERS

                                  

GET IT DONE! 

    

     A “Vision Statement” addresses the ultimate objectives or finish line of your business pursuits, and can serve to point your business in a meaningful direction.

     A “Mission Statement” underscores commitment to move toward that finish line, and usually suggests or outlines the pieces of strategy your business needs to follow to get where you want to go.

Great, right? Business owners need all that stuff to pump up the troops and prompt droves of prospects –like Clark Kent peeling off the suit and glasses to burst on the scene as Superman– to run to the cash register and become instant paying customers, right?

Here’s how I size up my own training/coaching/consulting prospects: those who gush forth their vision and mission statements at every turn need my help; they are like kids with new toys, caught up in the moment and oblivious to the fact that what’s important in business is getting things done, not talking about getting things done.

These wannabe visionaries who can readily run amuck with their pocketsful of guiding light statements, often seem to get themselves preoccupied with communicating their aspirations to the rest of the world (in their emails, ads, blog and social media posts, websites, promotional literature, phone messages, and news releases).

They need instead to simply redirect that energy into taking realistic steps for achieving the dreams they’ve verbalized. Somewhere along the way, some company got the idea that the public really cares about the details of their goal pursuits and future plans. Reality check: They don’t.

Generally speaking, small business owners and managers will do best to keep their vision and mission statements to themselves and their employees (and perhaps investors). Hopeful and strategic business thinking are usually best shared with the world-at-large when the world-at-large recognizes the brand as a household name.

To spew private small business goal-focused messages out to the public with the hopes of surreptitiously soliciting, exploiting, and rallying business is like using a shovel for a hammer; sometimes it might work, but it’s not what shovels are intended for.

Anyway, these are the kinds of clients I can easily impact; they are already doing something and simply need to channel their energies more productively. It takes only a few forward thrusts of action to start to make things that really count begin to happen.

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals!

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

One response so far

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