As a writer, designer, teacher, 

artist, architect, landscaper,

jewelry-maker, stylist or stage

performer, if you’re not

risking . . . you’re not

being honest!

With special thanks to author Mary DeMuth for the three great words: “Risk being unliked” which were featured in her article, “A Smart Approach to MEMOIR” in the June 2011 issue of The WRITER.

Those of us who create for a living, who own, operate, or manage creative businesses understand immediately what the “Risk being unliked” message is all about. And does it apply to professional selling too? Absolutely.

Whether we create with computers or paint brushes; with crafts supplies, hair, or music; with classrooms or pen and paper, or with the ways we communicate our sales messages, we must –as Ms. DeMuth so aptly puts it– “Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer,” she says, “you have a moral obligation to do this.”

I propose that truth-telling applies to all businesses, even the least creative.

When your focus, your branding, your website, your messages, your employees, and most importantly YOU are all about telling the truth as you understand it, you are setting yourself up to cultivate strengthened long-term high-trust relationships. Those who unlike you for it are not those you want to deal with anyway.

Honesty is (still) the best policy!

I’m not suggesting any limitations here. What’s the best way to express this idea to people who earn their keep with their creative talents? Could there be any greater and more meaningful statement than the following six words from Shakespeare?:

To thine own self be true.

When you believe heart and soul that the line, the dimension, the color, the musical note, the arrangement, the word choice, the emphasis is what your gut, your intuitive experience, says it needs to be, go with it and don’t waste time worrying about winning a popularity contest. People will judge your authenticity, not your masks or apologies.

For ALL business pursuits, not fibbing to or misleading customers, employees, associates, partners, referrers, investors, professional advisors,  lenders, and the various communities you serve is just one chapter of your build-a-better-business book. Leadership transparency is another. Honoring commitments is yet a third. 

Delivering exactly what you say you’re going to deliver –and more– exactly when you say you’re going to deliver it is the standard by which others will continuously measure your business performance.

There’s risk involved in all of this, but as with the mark of true entrepreneurship, the risk is always a reasonable one. We’re not talking about harnessing creative spirit here. In fact, if anything, the suggestion is to set it free, and to recognize that the results produced by an honest free spirit outperform those born of smoke and mirrors.

Don’t throw the tending to details, business conduct, and tight-fisted money management out with the baby’s bathwater simply for the sake of being more expressive in the products, services, and ideas you create. But do stop cowering away from being straight-ahead with your work and with all those you come into contact with every day.

Your behavior is of course your choice. Where do you think your reputation comes from?                                            

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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!

Thank God It’s Monday!

“TGIM” is what separates entrepreneurs and leaders from the “TGIF” corporate suits and government flunkies.

If you’re not excited about starting each new workweek, remember that you’re an entrepreneur. God didn’t put you on Earth and help you get your business to the place it’s in, so you could whine and complain and blame and be a doom and gloom person. Well?

You are doing what you’re doing because:  

A) you have a good business idea (or inherited one) that you believe in, and

B) you have proven time and again in your life that you have the guts and gumption and instincts to make it all work.

So stay on top of it and keep making it work.

Easier said than done, says you? But the economy sucks, says you?

Yes, the economy sucks only slightly more than the narrow-minded, misdirected, inexperienced, pathetically incompetent leaders who have run our nation’s government into the economic quagmire that pulls like quicksand at the heels of every American small business.

The central issues are PRIORITIES and POLITICAL AGENDAS:

• Government preoccupation with globalization over —instead of— shoring up American job-creating entrepreneurial ventures.

• Government preoccupation with all things “green” over —instead of— facing the reality of continually growing unemployment lines fueled by skyrockerting gas prices and the resultant crunch on shipping, transportation, and food prices.

• Government preoccupation with “fairness” to everyone who slides into this country –legally or illegally makes no difference– because those people will be forever grateful and pay back government benefactors with their votes –legal or illegal makes no difference– instead of tightening and enforcing immigration laws.

• Government interference, over-regulation and unmerciful taxation of small businesses runs rampant instead of supporting and encouraging American businesses with meaningful tax incentives to create jobs to turn the economy.

Okay, so American Government leadership is clearly among the world’s worst, but you know what?

You can still make it work in your favor.

Here’s a quick 10-point checklist of ideas that may spark a winning action for you to make your ideas fly:

1. Read Leadership (the book) by Rudy Giuliani.

2. Take a rest day. Do something constructive, but keep your brain and body away from work for 24 hours.

3. Talk with two 70-year-olds and three 7-year-olds about what’s important in life.

4. Take some deep breaths, and build more of them into your daily existence.

5. Pray!

6. Recognize that your every move is a choice.

7. Offer to give a guest lecture or lead a Q & A session on business startup challenges at your local high school or nearby college.

8. Read two dozen assorted one-sentence Twitter posts. Think on them.

9. Take a walk on the beach or in the woods. Pay attention to what surrounds you.

10. Be thankful for all that you have instead of worrying about what you don’t have.

Time’s a wastin’

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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!

Got a killer business?

Get a gumption transplant.

Why do some businesses make it so hard for customers to purchase their products and services? Who knows? Do you know? I don’t know. It’s beyond my ability to even imagine, yet companies that trumpet how “easy” they are –like “NOOK,”  Sirius Radio, Best Buy, cable TV companies– are convolutedly complicated, and user UNfriendly.

• Barnes & Noble makes a big deal of underscoring how “easy” it is to own and operate a NOOK electronic reader, and to be able to order books that are transmitted directly to the device, “easily.” It is not easy. Owning a NOOK requires you to read and agree to more ridiculous overkill statements than it takes to locate a Presidential birth certificate.
• Ordering books (yes, that you are paying for) is like arguing with an umpire. First off, books you do not want and would not order are planted on your new nook whether you want them or not. Secondly, one can only order NOOK books online. And that is a terrorizing experience. After being dragged through waves of selections you don’t want, what you click is what you’ve bought; no shopping cart; just pay! 
• Go into a Barnes & Noble retail store –even with your NOOK and all the legal ownership papers and try to order a NOOK book, you’ll likely get looked at as if you were from Jupiter. Third, I defy you to try spending your money without having to call the 800 number for the privilege of speaking with Customer Service (clueless about serving customers): these are people who can only follow scripts and put you in touch with a supervisor who can only follow scripts.
• And all of this is only IF you’re lucky enough to reach someone who speaks English, who then asks for your zip code, email address, tax records, where you lived when you were six-years-old, and next of kin. Do I sound annoyed? I threatened to throw my NOOK in the brook, so yeah, I guess “annoyed” works. And, yeah, I know I choose to feel annoyed!

Bottom Line: Buy a Kindle.

(And I get no special treatment from Amazon.)

Sirius Radio is equally annoying. Besides aggressive direct mail tactics, Sirius charges obscene rates for a lousy lineup of channels that they keep moving around. A great challenge while driving, trying to find a recently relocated channel.

You might as well be text messaging on the NJ Turnpike in between four 18-wheelers all going 75. Don’t be drinking coffee too!

Best Buy? <~~~ Go here for that story.

Cable TV companies win the “most obnoxious” award. Besides that you can’t even get any kind of supervisor on the phone, don’t try to explain your purchase desire without having to first answer a bombardment of questions about your personal life, your finances, your dog . . .

What’s missing here? Gumption.

Companies are giving up on their customers. They seem to have concluded that it’s more important to nail every customer for database exploitation and to make them jump through hoops to qualify to purchase, and then give them crummy quality for exorbitant prices.

The alternative of course is to simply be a stand-up, straight-ahead business.

What’s the rest of the story? Besides insensitive and unrealistic Customer Service and approaches to CRM, failing and status quo businesses are blaming the economy. If you are among these, here’s a message just for you:

“It’s not the economy , Stupid!”

It’s YOU. Change your attitude. Get a  gumption transplant. It’ll help you to get your glove and get back in the game. Sure, the economy sucks, but getting pulled down and under is your choice!

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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!

Is this new

Alert System for you?

Tonight’s post summarizes some of the highlights of a new Business Terrorist Alert System devised by small business owners for small business owners.

The aim is to keep terroristic employee chatter to a minimum, productivity to a maximum, and provide advance warning of all levels of problem issues to all who work in and with your business.

System design serves to prompt increased awareness levels of suspicious behavior with need-to-know reporting access which includes direct communication transmission to the FBI, the CIA, The United States Secret Service, The Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, and Judge Judy.

[Is your tongue in your cheek yet?]

When your employees approach the entrance to your work site each day –whether a construction location or fancy office building, or your garage– they will see a brightly-colored flag designating the level of terrorist alert you want them to adhere to.

–————————————-

RED, for example, relates to the most potentially threatening category: market competition. It may indicate an impending price war or that quality control invasions have been incurred overnight, that “bad press” mass media sound bites and photo ops have been unleashed, or that UFOs or crop circles have been sighted in the immediate vicinity of your business.

An ORANGE flag signifies that information overload has occurred sometime between the departure of your last work shift of employees and the present arrival of this (orange-flagged) shift. Generally, when some combination of 63,000 emails and a full tape-machine of voicemails has accumulated overnight, you got trouble! Orange flags are an automatic distress call for your business’s Spam Management Team to kick into high gear.

A GREEN flag at the front door or worksite entrance usually indicates some internal catastrophe regarding faulty operating equipment or systems, or the recording of budget excesses, lunchroom maintenance or menu irregularities –or suddenly discovered unaccountable inventories– have surfaced overnight. It could also represent a database collapse or information overload memos are presently sitting at every workstation.

A PINK flag means pink slips. Serious downsizing is in order, and substantial outsourcing is in progress. It may additionally indicate that HRD recruitment programs are presently being conducted to solicit lower-cost replacement personnel from nearby prisons, psychiatric hospitals, nursing homes, and terrorist training camps from far-away deserts.

Any time one of these flags is displayed together with a BLUE flag, it is done to warn unsuspecting employees and visitors that alarmist situations have risen to a fever pitch and that these events are typically accompanied by the installation of telephone, conference room, and men’s room listening device bugs; a de-bugging equipment room; hallway or worksite ceiling (or tree-mounted) mirrors; a beefed up security department; armed sentry positions; hidden satellite cameras; the installation of quirky receptionists on a rotation schedule; and new back-up tire-puncture plates in each parking space.

————————————–

If NO flag is flown on any particular day, you and your employees can consider yourselves fortunate. You have somehow made it through the last 24 hours without incident or serious threat. Thank your lucky stars. But don’t let down your guard. Who knows what evil lurks in the minds of men? The Shadow knows. Hahahahahahahahahhaha.

It seemed like as good a time as any for you to break from serious business stuff, just for a day! ;<) Have a great weekend ahead. See you back here with “KILLER BUSINESSES” on Saturday night!

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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!

Does your website sweep people

into boredom? Does it wallow in

self-aggrandizement?

Does it need a lobotomy?

I run across them every day. So do you — websites that put people to sleep faster than a week of watching C-Span (Okay, the Weather Channel maybe, for those who live inside “The Capitol Loop.”)

I get the feeling that the reasoning for these Hollywood-style overkill sick website productions –from some of the culprits who pay for them and probably close to all of those who produce them (because they get paid more)– goes something like this:

“Hey, it’s free advertising; we should take full advantage by putting in a tab for each of our 26 different color and style shirt buttons (or accounting services, or surgical procedures, or pizza toppings, or . . .)

“And then, when visitors click on any of those tabs, they’ll be delivered to a complete showroom smorgasbord of 472 applications for each of our 26 buttom colors and styles (or accounting services, or surgical procedures, or pizza toppings, or . . .)

“And then, we’ll give ’em our 183-page limited guarantee and return policy (or insurance reimbursement) requirements –in really small type of course, and in a rolling scroll window that’s just an inch high so it doesn’t take too much space and so it will give an instant ulcer to anyone looking to return to earlier verbiage that they may have passed over too quickly.

“And then, we’ll throw in 47 testimonial pages — mostly from cousins and neighbors, but who cares? We should have a few pages on why we’re “green” and some more on our “sustainability” efforts with recyclable buttons. Let’s put in maps and stuff in case anyone wants to find us, and how about a dozen pages on the history of our company since 1762? We could throw in a blog and a weekly puzzle to . . .”

It may be time to take

your reality temperature.

Websites have become burdensome. Many have lost touch with the very markets they seek to impress and influence. Others simply seem to reflect an inability to focus. No one accountant or surgeon or pizza parlor can be all things to all people. So back off. Rethink your message.

What is the one single main product or service message you want your target customers/clients/patients to see and hear? Can you spare visitors the company history that no doubt has great importance to your great great great grandfather’s uncle’s sister’s brother who founded the company. With apologies for abruptness: Nobody cares.

When a business or professional practice has a website that overwhelms, it actually UN-sells people. Visitors typically shake their heads and delete. They don’t want to know that the site sponsor can do everything under the sun. They want to know they’ve found a resource that specializes in what they need.

So, what’s the trick to be able to do that? My advice? Hire a professional writer. Forget about “SEO Experts” who will talk the dollars right out of your wallet, and the web designers who will represent your venture the way they think will win them an award, and don’t burden your staff with it. Get great content written. The rest is easy.

Like a resume, your website just needs to get prospective customers, clients and patients to your door on on your phone or in your in box. Fewer than 5% of all websites actually make significant sales.

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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!

Are you a nice guy?

If you are so savagely money-hungry that you’ve stopped functioning like a human, you may indeed finish first financially . . . but you’ll be wasting away your life in the process. People will split into two camps: those with value to offer who cross the street to avoid you, and those who leach onto you, hopeful of getting their hands in your pockets.

“Happiness,” we’re told,

“runs in a circular motion” and 

“life is just a little boat upon the sea”

(With thanks to ’60s songster Donovan).

Well, acquiring and stashing cash may well be what fuels your fire and keeps you running, but little boats upon the sea capsize quickly if they’re anchored off shore in the middle of a storm, economic or otherwise — especially if you’re sitting below deck rolling your dimes and nickles. (And without a snorkel?) Glub, glub!

“Yeah,” you say, “well that sounds good, but reality is my family’s gotta eat and I have a mortgage and car and stuff to pay for, and if I don’t focus on making money, my business goes down the tubes, then what?”

Someone told me today that she quit smoking “cold turkey” after years of convincing herself “it would be too hard to quit. I finally realized,” she said, “that it would be a lot harder to die of cancer.” You don’t need to be addicted to your business just because you fear bankruptcy. A bankrupt body and a bankrupt family are far worse consequences.

No, I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but–as both an ex-smoker and ex-money-chaser–I can only say that I am happier, healthier, and wiser now than I have been since college athlete days (a  l-o-n-g  time). Money struggles are much easier to contend with when you can make the decision to downsize your lifestyle.

That action alone, in fact, enables some fantastically rewarding experiences that would otherwise never have come by fighting to stay living a plastic existence at the top of the financial ladder.

“Like what?” you might ask. “What benefits can there possibly be from giving up a big-bucks high life?”

Start with drastically increased odds for:

• A much-enhanced family life

• More friends and more meaningful friendships

• Increased numbers and types of opportunities to grow as a person,

• Support systems to be physically and emotionally healthier

• Increased awarenesses that facilitate being able to help others along the way

These are just a few of the hidden benefits. There comes a point where each of us must draw lines in the sand for our SELVES, and decide which roads to take. When that time comes –or when you decide to make it happen– choose your self and your loved ones first.

Money can put you there if you’re here,

but it can’t buy a new you or a new them.

You are undoubtedly a nicer person than you probably give yourself credit for. Don’t be afraid of letting the nice you rise to the surface more. And –since life isn’t football or boxing or war– don’t think for one minute that nice guys finish anywhere except first.

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 931.854.0474

 “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!

Going under

and around

business problems

guarantees no solution.

Unless you tackle troublesome issues head-on, answer questions and respond to your messages promptly, you can be sure they’ll still be around on your next visit, and will no doubt have gathered velocity, weight, and momentum while awaiting your return.

Okay, easier said than done, right? Well sure, if you choose to make it hard on yourself. You can be certain that if you consciously or unconsciously choose for something to be hard, it will be. “Yes, but…” you start to reply. Don’t choose to “yes-but”; choose instead to get on with solving the problem.

Then, no matter which way the chips fall, the next step is to choose to get over it! (Because dwelling on what did or didn’t happen is itself a problem –an interruption– and can become worse than the original.)

There is no time in either life or business to dwell on what did or didn’t happen. We all root for teams that lose, but by mentally and emotionally hanging on to a loss, we actively set ourselves up to be losers ourselves. Wishing and hoping are childhood fantasies that accomplish nothing. Only action speaks.

Only by taking action steps can we expect to have the possibility of a favorable outcome.

“Well,” says you, “I can’t always jump on every problem that comes along. It’s too interruptive. And I already have too many interruptions to deal with every day!”

In case you’ve somehow missed what I’m about to say in response, let me be loud and clear about it:

BUSINESS LIFE . . . entrepreneurship, management, ownership, partnership, counseling and consulting, investing and lending, designing, inventing, innovating, creating, being engaged with any form of business . . . IS: One big interruption after another. But it’s why you get the big bucks!

One big interruption after another. People knock on your wall, waltz into your workspace, call you on the phone, slip notes under your door, send you 347,000 emails a day, throw pebbles (bricks?) at your window. They step up to your breakfast table, lunch table, dinner table, meeting table, and call to you under the bathroom stall.

Sometimes it seems that all of these things are happening at once. It’s your job to separate, sort out, prioritize and respond. And even as you perform these functions, yet more interruptions are bound to occur. This is also why we all need some time away once in awhile.

Small business owners notoriously deal best with turning interruptive problems into productive opportunities. Corporate types expend all their energy analyzing every interruption that comes along. They use all forms of committees and groups and teams to do this, but analysis paralysis is the byproduct.

Got Government? Government sleeps and sweeps stuff under rugs hoping it will just go away, or that someone else can solve the problem at hand so that government can step into the spotlight and take the credit. When everything’s under the rug, nothing is really “interruptive.”  The rug just gets hilly in spots. And productive, it ain’t!  

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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!

BEING TOO GRATEFUL?

Is there such a thing!

The only person who finds it annoying to hear you say “Thank You” over and over is someone who is too self-absorbed to routinely express appreciation, or just too ignorant to consider it, or who is insecure about speaking up. Many people fear being too “overkill” thankful. There is no such thing.

It’s a well known fact that human beings value and respond positively to “Thank You!” especially when it’s delivered sincerely. Don’t you? Think about it. How much can you say it? It’s never too much. Point to one single instance in the world in all of history where someone has died from being too grateful.

So how can you best cultivate all these positive responses in your personal, professional and business lives?

By letting more people know more often how much you appreciate their efforts on your behalf, no matter how insignificant they may seem.

Besides making them feel good, you’ll get more smiles and better service.

Is there anyone reading this who would not enjoy getting more smiles and better service? Really.

So start practicing when you wake up in the morning. In the bathroom mirror. To your spouse and kids. With neighbors. With fellow commuters, associates and employees, partners, advisors, investors, lenders, referrers, suppliers, vendors, visiting sales reps, OF COURSE CUSTOMERS. (Being continually grateful is the highest form of branding!) Thank the guy who fills your water glass at lunch.

You get it, right? Thank you.

Make it as much of a habit as brushing your teeth and fastening your seatbelt. It really is not hard. Simply prove to yourself how smart your brain is, and just choose it! (Thank you!)

Okay, says you, you’re just looking for work. Guess what’s the fastest way to make a positive impression to give yourself the competitive edge boost in your job search? A prospective employer (or client) takes you to lunch to size you up –to make sure you know where the napkin goes, and that you don’t order whiskey shots with your eggsalad sandwich.

You thank the maitre de or hostess, the waiter or waitress with every table visit, the bus boy who cleans off the table, anyone and everyone. If it doesn’t help you get a job offer, the prospect isn’t worthy of your talents and upbeat personality (Go back to the first sentence at the top of this post to see what you’ve got; be glad for not working there).

Oh, and while thank you’s will certainly not replace raises, bonuses, 401ks, healthcare plans and insurance coverage any time soon, you’ll be surprised how your increased use of them with employees will have the effect of minimizing these kinds of concerns as contentious issues, and there’s no better way to motivate your troops!

Try just 10 more thank you’s a day for one week, and see what happens.

You’ll thank yourself.

Then what?

What’s next?

Hmmm, well maybe think about trying “Please” more often?

. . . Hey, thank you! 

                           

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 931.854.0474

 “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!

Pretending to enjoy the

Royal Wedding Kiss when you

haven’t even had a hug

since mid-March                                                                                      

Trying to “think green” when there’s none in your wallet. Rooting for the San Diego Padres and Minnesota Twins to finally break into double digit season wins when your own favorite team is tumbling into last place. Thinking that yet another White House-prompted stomp on small business is crushing . . . until you see the tornado devastation.

Laughing with a new puppy and new baby until it’s scoop-up and diaper-change time, or waking up to wailing cries and incessant barking. Thinking that Mid-East violent turmoils are too far away to be concerned with. (Are they?) Struggling to reconcile government reports of climbing unemployment with government reports of growing job creation.

Network media news ends every broadcast with sports, weather and some new medical discovery of traumatizing side effects (including the possibility of, of course, death or extended misery, or both) from breathing air, drinking water, sleeping too long or too short, eating health food, getting check-ups, singing . . . you know the rest.

Gas prices are headed to $8 a gallon, but not to worry; it’s okay, we’re told because gas prices in Europe are even higher and have always been higher.

We’re just starting to catch up with other countries.

Oh, sorry, I should have known there was a good reason to not be upset with having to second-mortgage my house to pay for gas for my car.

Gee, I guess I’ll just take it on the chin that skyrocketing food costs result from higher shipping costs which result from higher gas prices which –advises Mr. Obama– we should just suck it up about, or just trade in our cars to get more energy-efficient vehicles so that rising gas prices don’t become an issue.

Well, of course. Why didn’t I think of that? 

Every human on Earth has a different comfort zone. Physical, emotional and intellectual comfort parameters vary as dramatically as individual personalities. Think about that before you approve the next marketing creation (and accompanying expense) that’s thrown your way. . . especially for misguided online productions: the majority.

Your comfort zone, were you to draw a circle around your body, can vary considerably depending on location, environment, circumstance, and others around you — also where you were born and raised. Human space needed to function comfortably in Hong Kong is far less than that required in rural Texas, or Manhattan vs. Waterloo, Iowa.   

Get outta my face! Get outta my space!

Just how far do you “go with the flow”? How does physical proximity impact personal selling? Presentations and demonstrations? Business meetings and lunches? Golf? Giving visitors tours of your facility? What about the use of space in your ads, banners, direct mail, packaging and labeling, client reports, promotional materials, forms?

Then there’s the past, present, and future comfort zones. We can gain great comfort from reminiscing so it’s easy to get ourselves hooked on thinking about past events, ideas, and people. The future is at least equally compelling to many. And drifting periodically for short visits into both arenas can enhance the present here-and-now moment.

Staying in touch as much as possible with the present moment is what allows us to function best and most productively day to day. It also gives us the internal emotional support necessary to make adjustments that allow us flexibility in our subjective (and generally conditioned) physical proximity comfort zones.

When you sense your comfort zone moving into the “Twilight Zone,” take some deep breaths and recognize the choice to go there or stay where you are, or cut out some new paths, is completely your own.

Your “zone” is your OWN!

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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!

You really have 20 seconds!

A back alley. The front seat of your truck. A corner of your garage. Your kitchen counter, A fancy reception room or hotel lobby. A sunroom, chicken farm, TV room, airplane hanger, cornfield, Grand Central Station, a website, or the excavated mud puddle of a construction project

. . . How it looks and how it feels must be appropriate to your business or profession and represent the image you seek to project. You already know that, right? But do you remember to stay on top of it? And did you know that whatever your waiting area may be, it gets “scoped out” in 10 seconds!

YOU get scoped out in the next 10.

There you are: 20 seconds to make it or break it.

Much is said about the first ten seconds of a sales encounter with someone, or group, but little is made note of about the surroundings, environment, and setting of the place where those first interpersonal seconds actually come across, or have the stage be set.

The set and setting of the place people wait is critical to creating a mood of receptivity in the minds of those who wait for you –even if it[‘s for less than one minute. If the place is a mess, so are you, and so are the products and services and ideas you have to offer (in the mind and eyes of the beholder).

If everything is neat and clean and organized, so will what you have to offer be pre-judged to be that way.

It can’t be emphasized enough that regular ongoing (preferably daily, even hourly in some high-traffic areas) taking of inventory will make a big difference in how people assess you and your business . . . to the extent it can give you a positive and competitive edge in that first ten seconds of personal interaction.

Consider the last 5-6 business locations you visited (including doctors’ offices), and what do you come up with?

What, in your waiting area, needs tending to —ongoing maintenance? Start with torn and ragged old magazines and newspapers (trash them!), and dead bugs in overhead lighting units (especially bad if you’re a dentist, massage therapist, chiropractor, OB/GYN, or shrink!).

Dead leaves on plants? (Plastic plants are just as unacceptable; no matter how great they look, they communicate phoniness and lack of reality.) Dirty carpets? (How hard is that? It’s called a vacuum.) Dusty countertops, outdated calendar pages, inaccurate clock time?

Here’s the biggy: KILL YOUR TV and radio if:

A) They are staticky

B) They are tuned to mainstream media networks (it’s not about what you or your receptionist think people want to watch; it’s about the mood you want to create)

C) They are tuned to news channels or channels that offer regular news updates (blood and gore and tragedy are not particularly great graphics or content to be filling people’s heads with while they wait for you, or eat a meal, or are medically stressed)

Put the radios on elevator music. The more relaxed visitors are while they wait for you, the more receptive and less-stressed they’ll be when you step into the spotlight 

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

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

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