It’s your business to keep

healthcare a business!

     Successful businesses  run on management that’s charged with taking responsibility to match authority. Yet we continually empower politicians to assume authority without making them accountable for taking responsibility.

     We elect and empower  people who are not business leaders, and they in turn appoint and empower other people who are not business leaders. And then we sit back and expect business leadership? You know what? We’re just not getting it.

     This whole healthcare fiasco  is proof of the pudding. It is impossible to dictate success because success is in fact determined by exercising the ability to rise above dictatorship.

     Federal Government  mandated healthcare cannot succeed because it will break what little is left of our economy’s backbone. And all of us will pay for that failure with our hard-earned tax dollars! 

     If you think $3-$4 per gallon regular  fuel costs are bad (and it was $2.75 today and rising in Eastern Pennsylvania), and you think healthcare insurance is outrageous, and that there’s a real shortage of good, qualified doctors available to choose from, think again!

     You may indeed  want to reconsider rushing to endorse the proposals our UN-businesslike Federal politicians are trying to ramrod into existence by emptying our wallets!

     If healthcare cannot be promoted  and run as a free enterprise competitive system and administered on a state-by-state basis, it doesn’t stand a chance of surviving… and the government’s feeble attempts to throw tax dollars at the auto industry will pale by comparison because the crash of healthcare will be paid for directly out of our own pockets for decades to come.

     While we’re at it,  by the way, education is the next explosion waiting to happen. Getting government hands off of healthcare will go a long way to getting government hands off of education.

     And if you’ve ever had a dream for yourself and your family, it should be for both of those events to occur. Why?

     Because when all is said and done,  NO one knows your and your family’s healthcare and education needs better than you and your family, and those needs are different in Delaware than they are in California, or Maine or Texas!

[Note: For what it’s worth, besides having seen Pennsylvania’s gas prices myself today (!), I have decades of experience as both an educator and as a healthcare management consultant. What’s offered above is NOT a matter of loose, unfounded opinion; but if you doubt, do your own homework!]

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RIP Police Officer Chad Spicer

Tonight’s blog post is dedicated to the family of Georgetown, Delaware, Police Officer Chad Spicer, 29, who was killed by gunfire last night in the line of duty during what was an attempted speeding vehicle stop after an apparent drug deal had gone bad. Officer Spicer leaves a wife and 3 year-old daughter. Another officer was wounded. Two suspects were apprehended; a third is still at large as of this writing. Details and family donation information are available at www.wgmd.com Rehoboth Beach radio.             

     It is a sad day indeed on Delmarva Peninsula.  Once again, we live through the senseless murder of a brave American who gave his life to protect those of his neighbors. One thing’s for sure, he never imagined leaving his family and friends behind like this when he woke up yesterday and reported for duty.

     If the odds for not surviving  another day haven’t crossed your mind lately, let this terrible incident be a reminder. We live lives too short as humans to devote our energy, time and attention to all the business stresses that run through our minds and shudder through our bodies every day.

     We may think that the older we get,  the closer we move to death’s door, but death makes so such exception when the suddenness arrives unannounced. When that moment is here, will we want to have spent our years and months and weeks and minutes being worried about business events that haven’t yet come… and may never?

     Will we want to have spent our time on Earth  dwelling on past business events that are over and done with, and about which we can do nothing to change? Just because we own or manage a business, do we use that responsibility as an excuse for mistreating ourselves and others, or even for wishing ill-thoughts?

     As our businesses go, so go opportunities to grow and help ourselves and others to better appreciate the riches of all that surrounds us every day. It’s easy to bitch and complain, to make excuses and blame. But “easy” is not part of being human. Genuineness is. Love is. Caring is. Hard work is. Service to others is. A sense of humor is.

     Business is our tool.  Let us use it to lead others to cultivate life by thinking and acting positively in all that we do. It may not always be possible, but it’s always possible to try.   

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Travel in circles

of authenticity!

     I used to teach  my entrepreneurship students to carry their business cards everywhere. I even suggested that a couple of laminated cards tucked into a bathing suit pocket or workout or yoga bag wouldn’t be a bad idea. They thought I was nuts!

     I’ll tell you what…  you find me someone who is a self-made business success who doesn’t always have a business card available, and I guarantee you that an inheritance played some role. Proactive business owners and managers know that most explosive business opportunities come from where you least expect them.

     I’ve had people  track me down with a ten year-old business card that no longer had the same address and phone numbers. And of course you can find anyone these days on Google. The point is to not discount the value of every contact you make every day.

     Networking isn’t about  a great grip handshake, a business card exchange and a teethy smile. Networking isn’t a flashy passing or a thunderbolt. Networking is all about cultivating the relationships you initiate.  Here are four thoughts, and a bottom line…

One:

Take the time and trouble  to jot down the date, event, and some memorable trait or visual or vocal characteristic or attribute on the back of every business card you collect. “Red hair / wire-rim glasses / unbuttoned collar / infectious laugh” are the kinds of comments that will help bring the individual back into focus after a hundred other cards and a hundred hours pass. 

Two:

Write something personal  on the cards you give out, especially to someone you really want to remember you. Scribble a connecting website or 2nd email address that’s not printed on the card, your cell number, or a book title you recommend.

Three:

Follow up. Follow up. Follow up.  Nobody does it. I’m not talking about being annoying or badgering; don’t waste your time. I mean if someone mentions they have a child with a special interest or need, and you run across information that’s related, send it along: “Saw this and was reminded of our discussion; thought you might be interested.”

Four:

The biggest and/or best business deal  you ever get is likely to come –as they say at the ballpark– from out of left field. It may be a contact you never dreamed of being productive, or one that comes as a second or third person referral from someone else who you never thought even noticed you.

The Bottom line . . .

Don’t write anyone off. 

The world is getting smaller every day.

People who like you and what you have to say

will talk about you and make sales for you . . .

when you least expect.

Oh, and expectations, by the way,

breed disappointment.

Value and appreciate everyone you encounter

regardless of appearances or stature.

What goes around, I’m reminded,

comes around!

Travel in circles of authenticity! 

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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!

Mandated national healthcare

means mandated

national poverty!

There is only one solution  to dealing with U.S. healthcare costs escalating faster than inflation:

Business competition through privatization on a state-by-state basis.

The sooner  the government gets this and takes REAL steps in this direction, the quicker we’re going to see healthcare that’s both meaningful and affordable! 

There’s no longer any doubt  about it. Just listen to the experts. Look into the heart and soul of your own business experience. Small business simply cannot survive the financial crush of a mandated, dictated, universal healthcare plan for all citizens!

If you own or operate a business,  and you are not all-out crusading for healthcare delivery through business competition and privatization on a state-by-state basis, you are living in fantasyland.

Your business will  positively surf into the poorhouse on the next big wave. You and your business have one chance to survive, and only one…

That single chance rests squarely on your shoulders. It may require you to take steps you’ve never taken before.

It requires you to  contact your elected representatives and tell them that you do NOT want dictated, mandated healthcare because it will break what’s left of the economy’s back, bankrupt small businesses everywhere, and lead to exceptionally LOW quality professional care.

After all, do you  really want some know-nothing politician from 2o States away dictating what doctors you can and can’t see for a sick or injured loved one, or for yourself?

Are you ready and willing to put your life decisions  in the hands of someone with no healthcare knowledge, and who doesn’t even understand the business of healthcare, and then –on top of all that– end up with an inferior, low-grade, poorly-trained care provider?

We have decision-makers who lack even basic business knowledge and experience but who are making business decisions about our healthcare that are impacting all of our lives.

We (all of us who own and operate our own businesses) need to barge into this  the same way we would if some unknowledgeable, inexperienced upstart arrived at our doorsteps tomorrow morning and tried to wrest control of our businesses from us.

These are,  after all, the circumstances that are in fact headed for our doorsteps right now.

Will YOU speak up  to protect what you have built and created and what is rightfully yours, or stand aside and let uninformed outsiders rush in to re-set your business stage with fantasy props and the underpinnings of bankruptcy?  Call. Write. Email. Today. 

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Does “Boardwalk Mentality”

Dominate Your Business?

     In a diner, I might expect it,  but I visited a doctor’s office today where a beautiful, large, flatscreen TV was broadcasting full volume coverage of the funeral of a man with a track-record of highly-questionable morals, who almost single-handedly was responsible for influencing  Federal Government leadership to wreck havoc on the entire US healthcare system.

     It seemed a strange backdrop  for a medical doctor… over-the-top accolades for a leading advocate of virtually dispensing with the entire spectrum of quality physician care. Are you so out of touch, doctor, that you think it just doesn’t matter what impressions you foster in your own waiting room?

     You surely never supported  the fanatical radical ideas that man nurtured, or you wouldn’t even be in practice, yet you choose to promote them to your patients? And don’t make the excuses that your receptionist picked the station. It’s your practice.

__________________________

     As a favor to a friend,  I recently gave a retailer a sample product to consider stocking. This product performed twice as effectively, lasted twice as long, and was twice as efficient, environmentally, as the product he presently sold. Oh, and it was half the price! He refused it.

     Did I mention that this product  also had no shipping costs because it was produced in the next town and that a percentage of the proceeds was kicked back to a community program that the retailer’s wife was engaged with? “No,” he said, “I don’t want it because it lasts too long, and I need repeat sales here so it’s better that the things people buy break down; then they have to come back for more!”

     Are YOU this out of touch?

__________________________

     When I taught business  at Ocean County College, near the famous boardwalks of Point Pleasant, Belmar, Seaside Heights, Asbury Park and Atlantic City, I used to refer to this out-of-touch kind of thinking as having a “Boardwalk Mentality.”

     Boardwalk stand owners  and operators fostered the attitude for years (and some, unfortunately, still do) that it’s okay to rip people off to get their money because –first of all, they’re on vacation and don’t really care how much they spend and –second, because those people will never be back again anyway, and even if they are, they won’t remember getting bilked.

     Obviously this kind of “screw the customer” thinking  doesn’t cut it anymore… neither does the suggestion of support for the antithesis of quality patient-care standards and your professional career, doctor!

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A Propensity for Cantankerosity

     Not only have hard economic times  wrought hard times for business, they’ve also turned a lot of previously pleasant customers into snot-nosed, demanding, arrogant, cranky brats! In their worrisome preoccupation with getting the most value for their dollar, many customers have become much more demanding and unreasonable.

     The bad, low-trust reputations  of big-business bankers and automakers —underscored by the sea of incompetency that’s home to government administrators and politicians who haven’t a shred of business experience or know-how— have trickled down to a point where beat-up consumers are distrusting even the small, local supermarket and neighborhood newsstand.

     The manager of an upscale hotel,  who is as honest and customer-attentive as anyone who’s ever walked, reports his Guests have been getting increased service and complaining more. Service demands on the hotel’s already high-performance-level staff have no direct bearing on  accommodations, amenities, or services.

• One man created an uproar because he parked under a tree overnight and ended up with sap on his windshield. The staff spent an hour trying to clean off the sap, but their efforts weren’t sufficient or quick enough for the man’s liking. He left in a barrage of complaints and threats.
• A visiting couple made a ruckus over not having enough to do because it rained so much during their stay. Their access to movie selections, spa, fully stocked library and fully-equipped game room, plus endless nearby attractions was apparently not sufficient.

     A local farmer  tells me people are taking thirteen ears of corn and paying for twelve.      

     A retailer  known for offering discounted merchandise, much of it with minimal markup has been besieged lately with customers looking to make price deals below his costs.

     Yes, there are many examples  of the new consumer pushiness, but the bottom line remains unchanged for business owners and managers:

     The Customer Is ALWAYS Right!

     Unless physical harm  is represented, or someone is clearly breaking the law (unfortunately, it’s not worth the phone call to sic the police on someone who’s stolen one ear of corn!), you and your people have to suck it up and cater to the cantankerous.

     Like it or not,  we have to accept that it’s all part of the change of life on this planet that’s surfaced with the bad global economy. There is really only one solution if you expect to stay in business today and tomorrow: “KILL ‘EM WITH KINDNESS!” 

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Are You Juggling Seagulls?

     With the economy  nipping at your hindquarters, if it’s beginning to feel like there simply are not enough hours in the day, you’re probably not on the verge of the nervous breakdown you’re thinking you’re on. You’re probably just juggling seagulls!

     Oh, right,  well that makes everything okay now, doesn’t it? I mean anyone can do that little trick if she just puts her mind to it. Seagulls are, after all, very cooperative creatures and will surely do whatever you might ask of them. “Roll over, Jonathan!”

     Serious,  we already know that time and tide wait for no man. One of our parents said that once. So (the other parent probably said) time marches on. What this means is that since you can’t change time, you CAN change two things that use it up: Tasks and Takers.

     Tasks.  The simple answer here is to delegate. You’re worried that no one else will do the tasks the way you do them? Guess what? You’ve no doubt heard that SOME things never change?

     Well, others not doing stuff the way you do stuff  is one of those things that never changes. Extract your ego! Accept the fact that if others do things differently than you, the world will not end, and that getting the tasks done is what’s important. 

     On the more complicated front,  when you just can’t bite the proverbial bullet (which certainly has to hurt one’s teeth), then accept the fact that EVERYthing you do doesn’t have to be letter perfect (unless you’re an editor!), and make your mind up that getting the task done is what’s important. (Hmmm, did I say that before?)

     Okay, you’ve got the time deal  and the tasking functions covered, so there’s just one more nasty little seagull to catch up with and confront: Takers! These are people who have no regard for your time or sense of urgency and will–consciously or unconsciously– take every conceivable minute of your time up, if you let them.

     Aha,  therein lies the complete juggling trick! Yeah. Don’t let them. Period. But that’s hard, you say, especially when one of them’s your mother-in-law. Yeah, well, spit happens you know. The bottom line is that people will not take advantage of your time if you make an active choice to not allow it.

     “Excuse me,  but I need to be on my phone (in my office, at a meeting, working on a speech, visiting the bathroom) right this minute. Perhaps you can catch me a week from Thursday when I’m on the road; just call my cell phone (which will certainly be on it’s last charge bar by then).”

     If you are getting stressed  from juggling seagulls, either give up juggling, or move farther inland.   

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Input aways welcome: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in    subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  

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This blog free via list-protected email: click RSS Feed above…$1.99/mo on  AMAZON Kindle. Creative? Add your own 7 words to the 315-day 7-Word Story (under RSS) We’re making it up as we go!  GET Hal Alpiar short story in Sept. release book from Nightengale Press: THE ART OF GRANDPARENTING Amazon, B&N, OR order special (signed by Hal) pre-publication $22.45 total check only (includes s&h), payable & mail to: TheWriterWorks.com, LLC @PO Box 1236, Millsboro, DE 19966. Include continental US ship-to address. 9/13 is Grandparent’s Day!

So you had bad toilet training

as a child. So what?

     Imagine what this world would be like  without hidden agendas. Okay, maybe you can’t change the world. Imagine what your business would be like without hidden agendas? Your life?

“Man is not totally at the mercy of either his heredity or his environment, He can modify both.” It starts with increasing “a person’s awareness of the real power he has to direct his own life, to make decisions, to develop his own ethical system, to enhance the lives of others, and to understand that he was born to win.” 

Excerpts from the Preface of BORN TO WIN by Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward

     Here’s the deal:  Psychological “game-playing” (often unconsciously provoked) has been defined by psychology icons Dr. Eric Berne and Dr. Frederick Perls as a series of transactions or communication exchanges (often repetitive) with a hidden motive or agenda.

     These “game” exchanges,  which may seem innocent and perfectly rational on the surface, can have extremely destructive mental and emotional consequences. “They prevent honest, intimate and open relationships” at home and on the job, say author/therapists James and Jongeward.

     They go on  to point out that we “wear many masks and have many forms of armor” that keep our true selves confined and unknown, even to ourselves. The possibility of encountering our own reality–learning about ourselves– can be “frightening and frustrating.”

     Many of us,  say James and Jongeward, “expect to discover the worst” when we set out on a path of self-exploration, “and a hidden fear lies in the fact that we may also discover the best.”

     To discover the worst  means we must “face the decision of whether or not to continue in the same patterns” of behavior, they say, and “To learn the best is to face the decision of whether or not to live up to it.”

     Because either discovery  may involve change, it is anxiety-provoking, which can be good or bad, depending on how we use the information and exercise the change.

     It all comes down to  making a conscious choice to learn more about what makes you tick so you can minimize game-playing, recognize it in others and not play, be better able to generally run a healthier more productive business… and experience a healthier and happier personal life in the process.

     What have you got to lose?  Finding out you had bad toilet training when you were three years-old? So what? Choose to make the reality of your present moment your focus, and watch the joy that comes to the surface, and stays! 

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Input aways welcome: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in    subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  

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This blog free via list-protected email: Posts RSS Feed (center col.)…$1.99/ month on AMAZON Kindle. Creative? Add your own 7 words to the 313-day 7-Word Story (under RSS) We’re making it up as we go!  GET Hal Alpiar short story in Sept. release book from Nightengale Press: THE ART OF GRANDPARENTING Amazon, B&N, OR order special (signed by Hal) pre-publication $22.45 total check only (includes s&h), payable & mail to: TheWriterWorks.com, LLC @PO Box 1236, Millsboro, DE 19966. Include continental US ship-to address. 9/13 is Grandparent’s Day!

When you find one, let him go!

     Hatching a business that hatches a business may seem like a lot of hatching, but is it? Isn’t that what entrepreneurs thrive on? I’ve always thought one of the most endearing (and maddening) traits of an entrepreneur is that she reinvents herself about as often as the sun rises.

     Why do you think that is?

     Because she can, some would answer, or–in other words– entrepreneurs have more freedom to swing so they do. But a truer assessment would probably revolve around the innovative thought patterns that jump from one thing to another.

     Entrepreneurs are not typically great planners. Planning is for corporate muckity-mucks who need to justify their existences. And don’t those poor souls live to justify themselves? Entrepreneurs live for the next venture. Often these occur within the very depths of the existing venture, and VOILA! New business is born!

     But don’t get the wrong idea here. Entrepreneurs are not the wild, out-of-control risk takers Hollywood would have us believe (but then, nothing on Earth is probably farther from reality than those out-of-touch “stars”  the media sells us). Entrepreneurs, as chance would have it, take only reasonable risks.

     What this means is that we might be keeping a jaundiced eye (yucht!) on a venturesome friend or relative and thinking he had gone off the deep end, and is on the precipice of colossal failure, and quickly grab him by the shirtsleeve and try to pull him back from the edge.

     But, no! Not only does this reckless friend or relative disregard our grasping and shouting, he actually gets resentful, like we were blocking sidewalk passage or something.

     Entrepreneurs, true entrepreneurs thrive on precipice balancing. It’s part of what will lead them to the next big opportunity. And here’s the catch: It just LOOKS reckless to us because most of us don’t parachute out of planes or surf Hawaii’s giant waves.

     But TRUE entrepreneurs are in control of their fates, have a firm idea of direction; they don’t worry about finish lines; they look for every option and opportunity; they risk only what appears likely to succeed, and never as recklessly as most of us probably imagine.

     When you find one, let him go!  

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Input aways welcome: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in    subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  

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This blog free via list-protected email: click “Posts RSS Feed” (center col.) or $1.99/month on AMAZON Kindle. Creative? Add your own 7 words to the 311 day “7-Word Story” (under RSS) We’re making it up as we go! Hal Alpiar short story in Sept. release book from Nightengale Press: THE ART OF GRANDPARENTING Amazon, Barnes & Noble, OR order special (signed by Hal) pre-publication $22.45 total check only (includes s&h), payable & mail to: TheWriterWorks.com, LLC @PO Box 1236, Millsboro, DE 19966. Include continental US ship-to address. 9/13 is Grandparent’s Day! [See Blogroll]

NO business is worth

your family!

     With the odds for success practically in the minus zone, it’s a wonder that family businesses–including, of course, formal partnerships–ever survive at all, never mind continue to be born on a daily basis.

     I mean I’ve always thought human beings were gluttons for punishment, especially in business and especially in family life. And here we have a non-stop wave of people actually putting the two lunatic fringes together, and calling them “family businesses.” 

     Maybe instead of LLC (for Limited Liability Corporation), these undertakings (pardon the expression) should be designated LMD (for Limited Maniacal Dysfunctionality).

     What kind of a nut case do you have to be to go into business with your brother-in-law? You never liked each other to start with. He’s a lazy good-for-nothing snail brain who prefers sitting in the back room watching TV and drinking beer to waiting on customers and stocking shelves.

     Oh, you’re a law firm? Sorry. Actually, that makes it all a whole lot worse; arguing over a TV and can of beer is nothing compared to suits and counter suits… and bad suits. Husband and wife team? HA! For how long?

     It takes a VERY special relationship for a couple, or any family members, to make things work in a business setting. There are natural authority and responsibility levels attached to family membership that almost necessarily spill over into the business.

     Family business partners need to work harder at not taking business too far into home life. It’s a good idea for couples to paint a red line across the bedroom doorway (one couple I know uses yellow “CAUTION” tape) to serve as a conscious reminder to separate business from personal life.

     Talking through business-related issues before heading home should be a goal if you want your personal relationship to stay healthy. When something needs to come home for discussion, do it in a home office, or porch or basement or backyard, but keep it away from the kitchen, the bedroom, the family room, and the dinner table.

     It takes two to tango goes the old expression; it takes two to drag business into personal home space. CHOOSE to detach yourself from potential confrontations. Home office? Keep it there when you leave the workspace. You need to work at this together. It doesn’t happen by itself.

     Father & Son, Mother & Daughter, Husband & Wife, Brothers & Sisters, In-Laws, Cousins, Aunts & Uncles: Talk to each other about it. More importantly, LISTEN to each other about it. RESPECT each other’s privacy and need for quiet time.

     When you push the limits, you push the relationships, and if one collapses, it all collapses. If you’re going to do this insane family business thing, do it in a spirit of cooperation and trust and mutual respect. Maybe then, you have a chance of making it work!     

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Hal@Businessworks.US  or comment below.

Thanks for visiting. 

Go for your goals, good night and God bless you!