Are you FOR SALE?  Of course!

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

Guess what?  You’re a sales rep!

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

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

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

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

 IS REALITY!

REALITY IS that people don’t buy THINGS! 

REALITY IS that people don’t buy SERVICES! 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US        or comment below

“Screw it!  I’m gonna do

what I’ve always wanted

to do, and make it work!”

     You know what?  I am a businessperson first and foremost.  From my first lemonade-and-comic-books-for-sale stand when I was six years-old, through years of Madison Avenue advertising agency creative and management work for Fortune 500 clients, I’ve been a businessperson. 

     Through a dozen years of fulltime and adjunct business marketing, management and psychology professorships on three different campuses, and through three overlap years of hosting a daily feature radio show, I’ve been a businesperson.

     Through conducting 20,000 students’ worth of management training programs, and coaching nearly 500 new business startups, plus consulting with hundreds more, I’ve been a businessperson.

     Yet, the blanket under it all, the thread that weaves it all together, the place where my heart is while my mind and hands have been busy being a businessperson, is writing.  If first and foremost, I am a businessperson, then always and forever after, I am a writer.

     Knowing this has made me a better businessperson . . . and a better writer!

     What are YOU really all about?  What do you DO for work every day?  What do you DREAM of doing for work every day?  HOW can you combine those.  [I am now primarily a business writer and writing consultant, for example — traditional advertising, Internet websites and blogs, public relations and feature stories.]  

     Am I kidding?  No.  Am I being unrealistic?  No.  What you do for work every day is your choice!  Whether you do for work every day what you dream of or not, is your choice!  If that doesn’t seem possible because it’s simply too hard for you to do what you want and to make a living at it, THAT is a choice.  Choose for it to be easy!

     Too many of us cruise control through life doing jobs we tolerate, rather than those we know we could have more fun with.  With so many people on the transition bubble right now, it may be the perfect time to simply step back, and make yourself happier and healthier and less stressed.  How?

You walk up to the mirror, throw back your shoulders, smile and say “Screw it!  I’m going to do what I’ve always wanted to do.  And I’m going to make it work because it’s my choice, and because I don’t want to dry up and shrivel up by investing myself and my energy and my heart in maintaining the status quo!  I can enlist my family’s support.  I will at least explore this thinking.” 

     Give yourself the opportunity to be a better businessperson AND a better cowboy or dress designer or sailor or artist or restaurant owner or dog trainer or landscaper or W H A T E V E R by applying your business expertise to what makes for FUN in your life.  Consolidate.  Combine.  You can try it.  You can make it work.  You need only to make the choice.  Explore!  Exhale!  Enjoy!  

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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 can’t build a reputation

on what you’re going to do.”

–HENRY FORD

We’ve talked before about the definition of integrity being doing the right thing even when nobody else is looking.  The dictionary says it’s “the quality of having strong moral principles,” and “the state of being whole, unified and sound, without corruption.” 

I mention it here because integrity is the best kind of reputation to have.  Some customers flock to some businesses because they offer the lowest price.  Some seek only to have quality at any price.  But in today’s volitile marketplace, integrity (“HIGH TRUST”) is what sells most consistently and most profoundly.  It’s what anchors that elusive customer characteristic: loyalty! 

Consumers have been duped and led to slaughter for too many years.  Consumers are tired of hearing about businesses that make empty promises, that fallaciously attach themselves to worthy causes but fail to walk the walk when it comes to the moment of truth.  

As proverbially expressed, deeds and action speak louder than words.  

Consumers are demonstrating, across the boards, that they do not any longer want to deal with “low-trust” talk-the-talk businesses. 

     What separates “HIGH” from “LOW” trust?  Integrity. 

     How does a business gain integrity?  By gaining respect. 

     How does a business win respect?  By establishing a reputation. 

     How does one build a reputation? 

• By consistent demonstration of honesty and fairness with both internal and external customers, and appreciation that the two need to be viewed as interchangeable. 

• By recognition that the customer is always right and that there are never any exceptions to that short of legal violations or physical violence. 

• By (back to the proverbs) practicing what you preach! 

Being partly honest in business is like being partly pregnant in life. 

If your assessments of your business and the spin you’ve been putting out to the public (or, more correctly,  to your marketplace) are filled with um’s and er’s and maybe’s and sometimes’ and occasionally’s, you’re not kidding anyone but yourself! 

Are you and your business, for example, making token donations to charities, or are you and your employees getting into the trenches and helping charitable organizations to raise money and move forward?

It may be time to step back and revisit your mission as well as the services you perform and that you provide both inside your doors and out.  Today’s a good day for that.  Think about it. 

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Hi there, I’m “Getting Stale!”

What’s YOUR name?

     Do you think the answer to the old question, “what’s in a name?” is “nothing!”?? 

     Whether your business name is old (Hershey) or new (Smart Car), if you don’t reassess it regularly (at least annually), odds are it needs a tweak, a facelift, a transfusion, or a lobotomy! 

     Step back from the name and ask yourself if it’s still as meaningful, insightful, engaging, and competitive as it once was.  Does it play off of or make use of positive established associations (the Prudential Rock and MacIntosh Apple)?  Does it tie itself to positive, known or established concepts (Gorilla Glue)?  Is it born of positive, known or established (even competitive) name parents (Viagra from Niagra, Hondai from Honda)?  Does it offer a double entendre experience (Cluck U Chicken)? 

     Does your business name set up a branding line, themeline, rhyming or alliterative payoff (“You’ll never bite a burger better than a BUBBA!”)?  Is the URL taken (or purchasable)?  Is it easily visualized (Friendly’s)?  Has it some unusual aspect to its meaning or appearance (The Burger King crown, the colored Google lettering)?  Does it fit with where you are and where you’re going (EZPass)?  What would it take to achieve a fit? 

     Does it need total transformation or just a slight nudge (The New York Mets from The New York Metropolitans)?  Might it be presented as a new division or department or subsidiary of the old existing name in order to gain more market relevance (MsNBC)?  Is there too much “goodwill” accumulated with the old existing name to consider a departure or could it be time for introducing “the son or daughter or brother or sister of” the old established name (“From the makers of . . .”)?

     Why are you still reading this if you have no serious doubts?  If you’re a new or small business, the kind of transition suggested is certainly simpler and less-expensive to achieve than with and old or large business.  On the other hand, old large business name transformations (ESSO to EXXON, for example) can be historic and have monumental impact if they’re executed properly. 

     I drove by Charles Brown Glass Company yesterday, and thought, had that been my name and business, I would have bitten the proverbial bullet (and probably upset my grandparents) by simply using my less formal “Charlie” to capitalize on all the icon cartoon character references out there.  Wouldn’t you enjoy telling people you worked for or delivered to or supplied or represented or bought glass from Charlie Brown?  (Maybe even hire a receptionist named Lucy and pack the glass for delivery in “Linus Blankets”?)

     I know, I know, here come the lawyers!  But it’s pretty hard to legalize someone out of using their real name even when it’s an already-famous one.  BJ’s Bar in Ocean City, Maryland, must be thrilled beyond belief that a new BJ’s merchandise buyer’s club has just opened in Southern Delaware, half an hour away, accompanied by massive regional advertising that inadvertantly urges the public to both sets of business doorsteps.  

     What’s in YOUR business name?  Does it work?  Where’s it going?  Will changing it in any way get you where you’re going quicker, more productively, more profitably?  halalpiar

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 134 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link

If you have no customers

to start with, don’t start! 

Q. What single factor drives most business ventures under? 

A. Poor management. 

     You were thinking finances perhaps, or unproductive employees, or inability to compete effectively?  These negatives can certainly kill off great ideas and intentions quickly, but they all come from poor management.

     A key indicator of poor management (funding, employee and competitive status are not always evident, nor are they always indicative) is the sense of desperation (or ignorance) that accompanies strategic marketing pursuits focused on gaining new customers.

     The best source of business is existing and past business.  Period. 

     When you can present your sales message to those who have already been your customers, the task is always easier and the expense involved is always less because you are dealing with people or entities to whom you (your business) are (is) a known factor.  You have a history with them. 

     At some point, past customers have already paid you for your products or services.  They already know what you’re about and accept you for what they know.  You needn’t start from scratch to get their attention.  You need only to remind them of the positives of their experiences with you, and bring them up to date with your business.  This can be done for minimal expense. 

     The same can be said for existing customers– in spades!  You already have the ears of the people you are currently dealing with.  They wouldn’t be existing customers if they weren’t pleased with your business.  You don’t need to shout or drumroll your message.  You don’t need to underscore the benefits of your products and services. 

     You need only to maintain active communications, introduce new ideas and developments and give them what I call “Stand-On-Your-Head-And-Spit-Wooden-Nickles” service.  This can be done for zero expense!  

     When marketing gets expensive and drives businesses to the wall, is when over-zealous bursts of advertising, promotion, PR and Internet (more the former than the latter) are unleashed in attempts to get new customers. 

     NEW customers are VERY expensive to solicit and sell because you must start with the assumption that they don’t know you and perhaps never heard of you.  This means you have to get their attention, grab their hands, convince them to stay attentive and walk them through the benefits attached to your sales message, then motivate them to open their wallets.  Desired results are seldom produced. 

     Except for one in a billion odds, this is a long, drawn-out process that takes huge amounts of time, energy, and money.  Building a business slowly on the strengths of each past and present customer relationship will create new customers for you without all that draining output.

     The problems for brand new business ventures are even greater!  Where do you get past and present customers when you’ve just opened your doors? 

     If you have no customers to start with, don’t start! 

     If you have a small handful of customers to start with, you need to be prepared to commit your every waking minute to nurturing and cultivating that small handful until it’s an armful, and then a truckful . . . 

     Failure to do exactly that is one reason 9 out of 11 new businesses fail in the first 3 years and that it takes 5 years on average just to break even financially.  This notion goes full circle back to the top of this post: poor management! 

     If you’re an entrepreneur and this hasn’t scared you off, be prepared to pursue your ideas to the exclusion of all other pursuits, and recognize that this level of sacrifice often breaks up personal relationships and entire families.  Still there?  Then stop reading this and get moving!  halalpiar

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 132 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link. 

Aerodynamically, the bumble 

bee shouldn’t be able to fly, but 

the bumble bee doesn’t know it 

so it keeps on flying.

–MARY KAY ASH (Founder, Mary Kay Cosmetics)

     A class exercise I’ve done in many management training programs, including a week ago with a diverse team of BURRIS LOGISTICS company leaders has participants stand arms distance from others and follow three simple 1-minute sets of instructions.  It is worth 3 minutes to be Mary Kay’s bumble bee!

(Not for use while driving or operating heavy equipment or on a rooftop or edge of a cliff, or if drunk or with 2 broken arms, or if you’re standing in the path of a buffalo stampede 😉

     I also suggest you get someone (preferably with a soothing voice) to read these 3 steps to you and that you step back from the computer and simply do as asked.  I promise these next 3 minutes can change your life for the better, immediately!

1)  Stand relaxed, feet apart, hands at your sides. Take a couple of deep breaths. Go ahead. Breathe… good.  Now, slowly let your arm (either one) rise slowly from your side until it’s out in front of you and parallel to the ground.  Next, without lowering your arm, bring your arm slowly to the side, and keep moving it back still parallel to the floor to a point where it starts to feel uncomfortable, then stop. 

Good, now take inventory of where your arm ended up.  Next, bring your arm slowly back until it’s out in front again, then slowly back down to your side.  Good.  Challenging stuff here, huh?

2)  Now imagine that you are going to do the exact same thing again, but this time with your eyes closed . . . and just pretending to do it.  Take a couple of deep breaths and close your eyes.  Eyes closed now, imagine that you slowly let the same arm raise itself from your side until it’s out in front of you and parallel to the ground.  Good. 

Next, imagine that your arm is again moving slowly to the side, still parallel to the floor and imagine you are still slowly moving it back, and back some more and that you go right through that point where you’d stopped before and you just keep going, very easily and with no discomfort — to a new point that’s far past where you stopped the first time, and you keep going until that new spot starts to feel a little bit uncomfortable, and you stop there.  Good. 

Now, eyes still closed, pretend you are taking inventory again of where this new stopping place is and then imagine that you slowly return your arm back to that spot in front of you, and slowly lower it back down to your side.  Okay open your eyes again, now.  Wow!  Good job!  We’re two-thirds done!

3)  Okay, now, here’s the last step.  Just as we’ve already done, take a couple of deep breaths.  Good.  Now, eyes open, slowly let the same arm raise itself from your side until it’s out in front of you and parallel to the ground.  Good. 

Next, let your arm move slowly to the side as you did before, still parallel to the floor and that you are still slowly moving it back, and back some more and then just like you did with your eyes closed, that you go right through that point where you’d stopped before and you just keep going, very easily and with no discomfort — to a new point that’s far past where you stopped the first time, and you keep going until that new spot starts to feel a little bit uncomfortable, and you stop there.  Good.

Now, eyes still open, take inventory again of where this new stopping place is . . . got it? . . . and then slowly return your arm back to that spot in front of you, and slowly lower it back down to your side.

     You did what?  You surpassed yourself!  You exceeded the point you went to the first time by simply imagining that you could in fact perform much better.  You didn’t need me.  I was just your coach.

     The bottom line here is that you can surpass yourself and your own expectations of what you are capable of doing simply by relaxing your mind and your muscles (with deep breathing in this case) by imagining yourself accomplishing what you want, by visualizing yourself as succeeding.

     Try this with someone who needs a little lift (or an entire class if you’re a teacher or trainer).  If you practice it and take your time with it and sound encouraging, you will be astonished with the kinds of results this exercise produces for others as well as yourself.  Try it.  It works.  Call me if it doesn’t, or if you want more info (931.854.0474) or leave a comment below.  Happy arm exercise!

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Hal@Businessworks.US

Open Minds Open Doors

“My assistant’s love life? 

…more than I wanna know.” 

(And I’m actually afraid of her finding out about mine, so I keep a distance!) 

“And what’s so bad about that?  After all, I’m not running a social service organization here; this here’s a business.  There’s no room for touchy-feely, warm/fuzzy, cuddly-wuddly (“cuddly-wuddly”?) stuff — least of all between me and the people who work for me.  If we don’t keep a respectful distance, the work will never get done, and my granddaddy always said: “Don’t fish off company docks!”

WOW!  Some good arguments there, Mr. Hardass, and I’m sure that strategy has worked well for you because you’re still in business while others around you keep tumbling.  But, you know what?  Odds are for sure that you’re not getting the productivity levels you deserve out of those you employ.  Here’s why:

KEEPING THE BEST PEOPLE means treating them like they are the best, all the time, no exceptions, even when they screw up and you choose to feel angry about it. 

You might try, instead of anger, to choose (yes, anger is your choice!) the path of a constructive guide by:

1) Taking some deep breaths to calm down your neurological system, relax your muscles and stimulate more oxygen to your brain to become more alert.  You may have to quietly walk away or gently close your door to force yourself to concentrate on your breathing for a minute or two, then

2) Chalking it off to a learning experience for the employee (AND for your self for not having forewarned or kept on top of the issues involved) and taking some solice that the employee probably feels badly enough without being chastized.  Try instead asking for (in writing by the end of the day!) three ways to specifically prevent that kind of screw-up in the future, which puts a positive focus on problem prevention (vs. negative nonproductive scolding).

3) Remembering that Maslow’s Heirarchy still rules HR’s motivational universe of successful companies.  Small frequent rewards that specifically address the personal needs of each individual always motivate best, and can usually be more economical.  A recognition seeker will prefer a plaque to cash.  The parent of a crooked-toothed teenager will prefer one-time orthodontist bill payments over a permanent salary raise. 

The point here is that you will never be able to know what makes your people “tick” –and each marches to a different drummer– UNLESS you make more of an effort toward intimacy!  How will you ever know about the teenager’s teeth, for example, unless you’ve had some kind of informal small talk discussion with the parent over lunch or coffee?  Would you even know that person has a teenage child?

And it doesn’t stop with that.  We often change our wants and needs literally overnight.  A local TV interview, for instance, with the regognition-seeker may satisfy that need to the point where a plaque has no meaning. 

The teenager’s grandmother may have just come up with the cash for the braces, prompting the parent to be more interested in ressurecting pursuit of new tires for the family car.  (Again, a much cheaper and more appreciated one-time-expense reward for good work motivates more than a permanent ongoing salary raise!)  The trade-off to taking the time and trouble to know your employees better is that it will –in the end– cost you less and increase your business productivity levels.  

So, bedroom habits?  No.  Getting a fix and keeping tabs on each individual employee’s changing wants and needs?  Yes.  Listening carefully?  Yes.  Caring enough to provide the kinds of support –within reason of course– that those who work for you really need?  Yes.  Take the time; it pays!   

halalpiar

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 129 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

“Panic At The Disco” ROCKS!

(ROFLMBO)

Well, I can tell you from two days of firsthand, frontline experience, that there’s very little in the world that can compare with what’s left of your brain after it’s been overhauled by a thirteen year-old girl.

You know those anti-drug commercials showing fried eggs with some line like, “This is your brain on drugs!”?  Well, a thirteen year-old girl (my spectacularly brilliant and charming granddaughter, to be specific) has the ability to fry your eggs and make you think you’re eating watermelon!

Grandma Kathy and I got indoctrinated to Fallout Boy, Panic at the Disco, and All Time Low among other top new recording sensations. 

(And yes, we do understand that Lady Gaga has “a message”!)

Of course we had our cell phone ringtones programmed to remind us of our our own, out-of-touch, oldtime favorites. 

And, no, it didn’t stop there.  Our granddaughter also connected my ipod to a new docking station Christmas present from her parents.  and promised to help me set up a podcast.  (“A piece of cake, Grandpa!”)  Double-cool! 

It might be awhile before I run out to buy any Panic at the Disco tunes to play, but I certainly enjoyed hearing The Eagles; Joni Mitchell; and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young sounding –if such a thing is possible– better than the original recordings!

Like having a bee in your bonnet, this child (and I do use that term advisedly) keeps a schedule that would embarrass the workplace pace of any CEO.  Oh, right, and the economy is not, like, worth worrying about anymore than whether the awesome sparrows will, like, indeed return this year to Capistrano.

Here’s the point, Dear Bosses of Businesses: It’s an extraordinarily healthy experience for your enterprise –stodgy corporate or edgy entrepreneurial makes no difference– to shake up your awareness levels and get your tired boring self off the treadmill for a day.  Take the chance you can get your mind fast-forward catapulted into reality.

When you gain a fresh perspective,

your business gains fresh customers!

When you can look at things differently, you are prompting others to do the same.  Internal AND external customers will evaluate and re-evaluate your offerings with increased receptivity.

Now I know you can get some of the same values by getting down on the floor and playing with a baby or a puppy, but you’ll never learn about the hot new music groups or how “txt msgs” literally dominate the communication existences of those between the ages of 10 and 25! 

     Have you any idea, for example what some of these texting acronyms mean?  (Ask any 13 year-old!):

KWIM~~~~SHID~~~~YYSSW~~~~ROFLMBO~~~~?

Ah, just one other point of significant consequence, BTW: neither the baby nor the puppy can get you dynamically ring-toned! 

But don’t get me wrong.  Babies and puppies are good.  And they are better than nothing.  Playing with either and/or both will definitely divert your brain from your daily routines enough to force you to step up to your phone, desk, computer, meeting. or work site with some degree of renewed vigor –at least until the diaper needs changing or the puppy needs to be out the door.

So ANYthing you experience that’ s different 

can produce some ripples,

maybe even a tide change!

But if you’re going for some big-time rattle-your-business-cage kind of stuff, put aside (not literally of course) the baby and puppy in favor of a thirteen year-old girl, an experience that can help you create new ideas for exciting change.  The resultant energy can help you realign your attitude and reconstitute your commitment to move your business forward.

If you’re not already getting a daily dosage, spend a day with your kids or grandkids or a baby or puppy, and open your mind enough to allow them to step (or crawl, or jump!) inside! 

Then see how that experience changes the ways you think about what you’re doing every day to create and build sales, to attract and keep customers, to cultivate best employees and top suppliers.  If your life is all about getting ongoing adrenalin shots from kids already, look deep inside your business with their eyes! 

Go ahead.  What have you got to lose?  A stuck-in-the-mud reputation?  Another stress-filled day?  Opportunities to do more of the same thing you’ve been doing for weeks?  Months?  Years?  Go enjoy yourself!  Give yourself permission to play for a day!  (Or to see what you’ve been overlooking!)  

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www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone

BEAT THE BUSHES (NAW,

NOT GEORGE AND JEB)!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 121 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

Have we boxed ourselves

into an Internet corner?

News stories posted yesterday and today recount the equivalent of a meteorologist “Storm Watch” from an FBI Assistant Director who has issued warning statements that there is strong reason to believe the United States may be moving closer to the next 9/11, in the form of a massive terrorist attack on government, business and personal computer systems.  

     Alarmist tendancies aside (and doubtless, we all cringe at the thought), it is probably needless to say that the impact of such an event could be total devastation, and horribly crippling at the least, to life as we know it.  Or would it? 

     Would a “Cybergeddon” destroy our nation?  Hardly.  If anything, such an event would instead steel our commitment to root out and punish these evil impersonators of human beings.

     Surely, Americans are–and have always been–first and foremost, fighters and survivors.  It is in our blood to serve as defenders of freedom, and protectors of the free world. 

     This will not change no matter how sick and ruthless our nation’s enemies become.  This will not change no matter what President and Congress are captaining our ship.  This will not change no matter what loss of power nor amount of suffering borne.

     We need look no further than the freedom we enjoy from the vigilence of our brave young men and women of our armed forces to know the spirit of our country and all of what’s right about our citizens. 

     If indeed an attempt at Cybergeddon is imminent, so is the resistence of Americans everywhere, so is the spunk and gumption and resilience and resolve that runs through our veins, so is our faith in God and country and in friends and neighbors, faith that will –in the end as in the past– win out.

     We are a people of determination as fierce as our compassion. 

     Our ingenuity is as pervasive as our vast entrepreneurial resources.  

     Let those who would seek to undermine and murder and be mindless, also be served the same fair warning that was once before unfurled as the rally cry for The American Revolution:

Don’t Tread On Me!            

halalpiar

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 119 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.