Since 1981, BusinessWorks.US

has been coaching businesses

of every size and description

to success . . . and beyond. 

We are NOT a collection of big-talk, big-price consultants who tell you what you already know.

We are invested in helping Clients to “Grow Now.” We help you ignite and pursue the best of your dreams, and interests. We open doors.

You get a proven track-record Business Growth Coach who invests hands-on experience, creative  support, energy (and even part of the project fee) into the success of your business.

From services to products, manufacturing to online, retail to professional practices, our Clients get decades of successful business-building experience and creative business development expertise.

Our credits include regional and national awards, and extensive experience with:  the SBA, chambers of commerce, universities and community colleges, private healthcare practices, and public service providers, national healthcare teams and committees . . . and with opening new market opportunities . . . for hundreds of successful Clients.

We have achieved record sales results for every size and type of business and industry — from entrepreneurial “Startups” and “Family Businesses” to “Fortune 500” companies, to public service and nonprofit enterprises.

Clients get sales and impression results from our unique creative content, strategies and applications for branding, marketing, advertising, PR, CRM, sales and management skill applications to virtually every form of broadcast/ online/video/print and promotional media.

When appropriate, we also deliver custom-designed, Client-Staff and Management Team training strategies and support programs

We energize and ignite client businesses and projects. We generate new revenue streams.

At our clients’ beck and call, we work remotely/virtually and on-site as required.

If you would like to know more . . . no fees, no “pushy hard sell,” no strings attached . . . give me a call:

HAL ALPIAR, President/CEO

BusinessWorks.US

1.931.854.0474

(M-S; 9AM-6PM; CST)

DOES YOUR BUSINESS

  GO BEYOND “BUSINESS”?

Is it time to take a breather in your creative business quest? “NEVER!” is what most entrepreneurs would respond. 

In fact, I would go so far as to say that

“MANY TIMES NEVER” is what those who are truly creative entrepreneurs would actually think!

This week brings one of those rare-breed individuals I’m describing: Valerie Connelly. She has come to the point of taking a breather long enough to present 35 years worth of dedicated creative focus on refining and building one single product to the point of readiness — delivering genuine women’s empowerment!

This experience includes: writing/producing/acting in three original stage musicals, creating CD albums and hundreds of original songs, backed by 16 years of publishing/editing/ designing 225 books of every genre for both US and foreign authors (plus six of her own!). . . add 17 years of classical piano training, 2 years in the Peace Corps in West Africa, 25 years of teaching high school French and (often on the same days) entertaining in Chicago nightclubs, being an award-winning painter, acclaimed block-art artist, patented inventor, and a “dog whisperer” . . . all while raising two life-success daughters and inspiring her two grandchildren.

Thursday night, the Watkins Theater at the Watkins College of Art in Nashville, Tennessee, is hosting Valerie and many of her supporters to a long-awaited professional actors’ “Live Readers Theater Performance” of her totally-original, full-length, pre-production musical film: “LOVE IS…” 

Click HERE to see the sizzle reel!

The live narrated script-reading presentation includes big-screen video representations that accompany each of the film’s 16 original songs

The planned movie, with a view toward 2020 production, has been endorsed by world-famous-and-respected  performer, Kelsey Grammer through his production company (Grammnet Productions) crediting LOVE IS… script, music, story, and plans as follows:

“A truly inspirational

 

and touching journey

of life, love and laughter,

with a timeless message.

Delightful!”

NEWLY “ATTACHED” TO LOVE IS…

— As Film Music Composer and Selective Music Arranger, GEOFF KOCH brings 22 years of high profile music composing expertise to LOVE IS… He is President, Nashville Composers Association, and President of SCORE-COM, working in tandem with FILM-COM. Geoff is at the forefront of composing for productions in all genres that take place in planetarium domes worldwide . . .

— As Music Supervisor, ANDY HILL is a 9-time Academy Award-winner in film music. He led the “Disney Renaissance Decade” as VP of Music Production for Walt Disney Studios, including direct music supervision of The Lion King, Beauty and The Beast, and Sister Act, and subsequently for his own firm: Message In A Bottle, Ed Wood, James and the Giant Peach, and Happy Feet… before winning a Grammy Award for Best Musical Album for Children for Elmo in Grouchland.

We wish Valerie and her team

great success in their pursuit

to “go beyond” and “rise above”

in their quest to prove that

BUSINESS WORKS.

This inspirational film musical is

about 3 intertwined, related love 

stories… with a touch of fantasy. 

Humor, memorable songs and dramatic edginess ala Sound of Music, La La Land and Mama Mia are delivered yet again with new and different captivating characters–struggling to conquer the trials of life in:

FEARLESS! ABOUT LOVE 

The music drives the emotions and dialogue of the characters singing original songs by composer Valerie Connelly in a variety of genres. 

NOW — with more than a dozen years of production testing and development (including a range of live stage performances), YOUR HELP IS NEEDED to open film production doors, recruit top talent and assist with initial development costs.

To visit a complete representation–including music and stage performance trailers–and Valerie Connelly’s lifetime of songwriting, music arrangement and composition, her recordings, live performances, and life path, simply click on the black-outlined logo box/link at the top of this column. 

BusinessWORKS.US

GROWING BUSINESS & PROFESSIONAL PRACTICES NOW

Check Out Co-Hosts Hal Alpiar & Johnny Stites

On Free Weekly BUSINESSWORKS Radio Show 24/7 Podcasts

Creating Record Business Growth Impact with 100 Years of Experience

“Got here safe & sound, Y’all!”

AND STILL UNPACKING AND SETTING UP NEW OFFICES . . .

GUESS WHERE?????  Email your guess: Hal@Businessworks.US  (“New Office” in Subject Line) Winning guesses entered in drawing for a FREE first edition signed copy of HIGH TIDE fictionalized account of America’s biggest drug deal! See www.HighTideNow.com

Thank you for your visit.

If you’re new to this blog, please mark your calendar to return on April 16th for the beginning of Tax Return Recovery, and to help kickoff an exciting new series of posts you won’t find anywhere else!

If you’ve been visiting here regularly since the birth of my blog in April, 2008 (and now closing in on 1500 posts), thank you even extra!

You, especially, will want to return April 16th to see what’s in store for innovative, spirited business and healthcare professionals. You’ll get  proven new ways of thinking to boost your sales and make the most of your leadership skills — for profit and nonprofit businesses and professions alike. You’ll get coaching that works in the office and meeting room, on the phone and on paper, on the smartphone and the computer. You will get specific how-tos for building and enhancing your leadership posture in your industry, your marketplace, and your community.

When you return here April 16th, you will get the beginning of an input stream that no one else dares to share . . . on ways to feel better about your SELF (no product or service sales pitches, no lectures, no gimmicks). You’ll get ways to be encouraged, ways to make a difference with your career and family pursuits, ways to rise above the clutter.

You’ll get solid substance based on more years of experience than you probably are old. Not just passive observations, you’ll get frontline/hands-on experience with over 2,000 business consulting and return engagements AND with more than 20,000 students and management training participants. PLUS –as incredible as it’s always been–it will be free on this blog. Try it. You’ll like it. Send your friends.

In the meantime, to better serve our Entrepreneurial Clients (Including Business Startups, SalesPropreneurs©, Doctorpreneurs© and Corporate Entrepreneurs©), BUSINESSWORKS.US and TheWriterWorks.com, LLC will be in the process of relocating to another State. You’ll get the details as soon as we’re settled. In the meantime, Happy Spring!

See you the day after taxes!!!

 # # #

 WRITE THE BOOK.

SELL THE BOOK.

Your great idea will surely fly if you can just sit still long enough to make it into a book. Maybe it will even be a movie!? Well, if you’re already writing a book, you know that writin’ books ain’t no piece a cake. What you maybe don’t know is that sellin’ ’em is a nightmare . . . even if you happen to be a professional salesperson!

Many entrepreneur types might disagree with that thinking, but it’s hardly ever an entrepreneur that writes a book. So reasonable risk-taking is not even an issue. It’s really all about shifting gears in your work schedule and transitioning your mind to an unfriendly and foreign range of engagement. In other words, get ready to suck it up!

Even long after you’ve Googled your brain into delirium trying to figure out all the pros and cons of self-publishing vs. traditional publishing, and after you’ve investigated and perhaps actually tried some “crowd sourcing” adventures, the bottom line is that WRITING the book is the easy part! SELLING it is the real challenge.

For one thing, disenchanted authors often find themselves swimming upstream against well-intentioned reminders embedded in their friends’ and family’s declarations of “it takes money to make money!” And these comments are no doubt accompanied by tsk-tsk head-shakes, knowing nods, and pitter-pat changes in discussion topics.

Oh, and then there’s those football coach-like claps on the shoulders. “It’s gonna be okay, boy!” OR “You go, girl!”—- “Y’all just need to put that writin’ stuff in a drawer and git on with life! Maybe someday, it’ll work, y’know?” Well, maybe someday it will. BUT if “them there is fightin’ words” to you, getting on with life means that someday is today, is now.

(It means you aren’t buying into depression-ridden chatter.)

Ta-ta-ta-dah  ta-dah! You’re brave. You’re courageous. And maybe stupid, but so what? If you’re ready to dig in, dig in! Start working an extra hour at night instead of watching TV news. carry a notebook or smart phone “pad” and jot down ideas as they pop into your head all day, every day, and keep it bedside for insomniac nights.

Here’s where it all comes together. Writing the book. Selling the book. Write and REwrite your brains out. Then devise two marketing plans, two sales plans, and two PR/publicity plans. The first of each of these is a CREATIVE plan (what to say and how to say it). The second of each is an IMPLEMENTATION plan (where, when, and how to distribute the creative plan results).

So, for example, plan what you say for a meaningful drum-up-sales interview, and how you will say it, then go out and drum up the interview. A book signing requires a table, chair, signage, pens, single dollar bills and rolls of coins, a pleasant appearance, beverages and snack foods. A news release had better be newsworthy! Your Tweets better be provocative!

Remember people DO judge a book by its cover! (And you, your in-person and online appearance, and behavior are all part of your cover.) Lest you think this is “all talk,” please visit my new book-for-sale site HERE!  Thank you!

# # #

WRITING   YOUR   BOOK 

It’s just not the same as editing, designing

 formatting and publishing, distributing,

branding, promoting, legalizing, and

marketing your book… or selling it!

READ BEFORE YOU LEAP, YOU 81%!

Why am I telling you this? What makes this relevant to small business? HA! 81% of all Americans think they “have a book in them” according to a New York Times survey report . . . uh, that’s like over 200 million people in the U.S. who want to write a book — more than total viewers of the most-watched-in-history 2012 London Olympic games!

WOW! That sounds like a sizable market right? And an awful lot of new books on the horizon, right? Wrong! How could that be? Well, first off– like the old days when TV first came out, and everyone watched it with the same passion we now relegate to smart phones, all humans thought they could write TV commercials because they watched them!

In other words, if you don’t read, you can’t write. According to industry findings reported at www.SelfPublishingResources.com, the average book buyer reportedly never reads more than the first 18 pages of a book she or he has purchased!!! If you don’t read complete books, you can’t write books worth reading. And if your first 18 pages don’t shake the walls loose . . .

Second: WRITING your book is the easy part!

And even if you DO write a book worth reading, you’d better have a lot of money and/or considerable professional expertise with editing, designing, formatting, publishing, distributing, branding, promoting, marketing, contract law, and sales. Even IF you can manage getting a big-time agent, publishing house, and publicist, the buck still stops with you! Even if.

Discouraging? Absolutely. My best guess is that 80 of the 81% will fall by the wayside trying to effectively manage the tasks noted in the paragraph above. That’s a big pile of dead book efforts! Ah, but now there’s CROWD SOURCING to the rescue!

Go to this site now for an example of how to make your book work once it’s written. Oh, yes, and it’s only a couple of hundred dollars to create! IT’S THE NEW WAY TO SELL BOOKS. IT”S THE WAY ALL FUTURE BOOKS WILL BE SOLD!

# # #

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Hal@Businessworks.US   

Are you taking your music to the grave?!

 STOP HIDING

 YOUR ACORNS!

You are not a squirrel. Stop saving up your best-effort production, creation, plan or idea for “the right moment!” With a deader-than-doornail economy getting deader every day, there’s no time like the present to get that great creative genius product of yours out of the closet or back of the drawer, dust it off, and make it work!

To make it work, first means freeing it from the imaginary chains you’ve wrapped around it and the hiding place in your home, office, truck, notebook, recording, harddrive, or your mind. It will never achieve what you hoped for it if it’s locked away. Put it into your daily work schedule. Treat it as if it was a key client or customer project.

TRUST YOURSELF. Give yourself a chance. What’s the worst thing could happen? It gets rejected? You think maybe there’s only one person or audience for your special creation? The odds for fame and appreciation will be better after you’re dead? Regardless of your skills and calling, that’s not likely. And it’s a choice.  

Try to look at it this way: Posthumous success is failure to achieve what’s been rightfully earned in life during that lifetime. Most of us agree that of course the dead are to be honored in some fashion. Military courage and sacrifice certainly count the most. I’m not attempting to strip that love, respect, gratitude and reverence away.

The point is that posthumous recognition doesn’t accomplish anything. It fails to provide you the incentive and opportunity to do even greater work because it affords you a springboard for awakening other talents of yours and for inspiring others who will enjoy and benefit by and emulate your efforts.

Oh, and perhaps it’s blatantly obvious, but I believe it’s still worth mentioning just to raise consciousness: we only go around once in this life. We get only one “here and now” every passing minute. Do you truly want to take your music to your grave? It’s a choice to never make a choice.

An action step you take today can pay you back tomorrow. Action you never take hasn’t even a chance of being worthy of your talents and authenticity. And action you keep making excuses not to take is actually a step backwards. If you’re not a squirrel, stop hiding your treasures. If you have “yes, buts” — contact me. If you think you’re losing your mind, try this! And you still have doubts, here’s one of my favorite quotes to pin on your wall:

Remember time waits for no one.

Yesterday is history.

Tomorrow is mystery.

Today is a gift.

That’s why it’s called the present.”

— B. Olatunji     

# # #

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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!

1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th Generation? . . . 

There’s no business

like family business!

~~~~~~~~~

Nothing can compare. Quarrels, in-fighting, misunderstandings and manipulating. Pulling rank and playing of the grandparent or favorite son card. And, oh yes, the hidden card trick, where one never knows which in-law is behind which cousin’s back. Someone almost always does all the work, and someone else does almost none. Teamwork is often  just a facade. And no one dares to “jump ship” even when the engines seize up, the bilge pumps fail, and the deck is ankle-deep in water.

~~~~~

There are 30 million small businesses in America. My best guess is that at least half and probably two-thirds are some form of family business. Please correct me if you think this is way off base.

A husband or wife gets fed up with his or her job and quits (or is downsized out) and recruits full or parttime help from a spouse to venture out into some entrepreneurial venture. They work out of their kitchen or garage, secretly aiming to be the next Bill Gates. (But there’s always a little anger present.)

I’ve seen hundreds of kitchen/garage businesses. Here’s just a handful:

• “Clear Windshield Wiper Blades” that prevent accidents in the rain (Uhhuh!)

• Interlocking Plastic Bottles that allow twice the shipping space (But collapse the truck!)

• A revolutionary new accounting system that questions you daily (Daily?)

• The world’s greatest non-literary cultural magazine (Quite a feat!)

• A never-before, unheard-of approach to leadership training (Maybe “proven” would be more desireable?)

• A no-fail-no-lawyer-needed-do-it-yourself last will and testament (Who cares after they die?)

• An online course: “How to Make a Million Dollars in 24 Hours!” (Right. Rob a bank?)

Or, with some good fortune, there’s an inheritance involved — staring you straight in the face. A business someone in your family launched (or carried over from a prior launcher), and now –voila!– it’s yours. Except you didn’t want it, know nothing about it, and have little choice except to step in and keep it going, at least until you can plan an escape!

Or, you’re simply buried under excess relative tonnage doing a job you don’t care about but that puts food on your table, and with the current lunatics in the White House, you just never know when some real job that actually suits and challenges you might ever surface (probably not until long after November 6, 2012).

Here’s the deal, spiel: If you are in a family business and everything is copacetic and chugging along to your satisfaction, God has been good to you. You are a rarity. Click off this site and go watch TV. Thank you for visiting. If you are struggling with a struggling family in a struggling family business, know, first of all, that you are not alone!

You must decide if you are going to stay with it and take advantage of the guaranteed job opportunity that very few people ever get, and make it work. Or pack it in. If you choose to leave , you owe it to those you leave to make it as easy for all of them as you possibly can. They have tolerated you just as you have them. And they’re family!

If you’re going to stay and make the effort it takes to get things moving, you’ve got to get things moving. You can’t screw around with a family business —any family business– in this economy. Make it go. Or go! Staying the course means reassessing where you are and how realistic your goals are. It means becoming a sensitive leader.

You are not captaining an atomic submarine. There’s no need to push. Relatives move more productively when they’re pulled gently in directions that best suit each individual’s strengths. Charm and personality belong in the customers’ faces. Organization and discipline in operations. Creativity in marketing. Financial skills . . .

You get the picture. Be careful as you start any new exercise to go slowly at first and to listen carefully to other’s suggestions and ideas. Bring in outside experts when necessary and shop carefully for consultants and suppliers who show you that they think like you do and that they understand the sensitivity and trappings of family dynamics.   

# # #

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  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

 Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Stop worrying, creative-types…

You’re not going

the wrong way

. . . you simply have a unique perspective! 

You’re an artist, writer, sculptor, musician, photographer, performer, designer, craftsperson, stylist, architect, landscaper, sign-maker, entrepreneur . . . and people call you “Weirdo”

__________________________

You laugh it off . . . but, somewhere deep inside, you worry that maybe you are weird. (I’ve been there; I know.)

After all, you hardly fit those corporate suit meetings or the trappings of that threatening vast jungle of government incompetency. And you do indeed march to a different drum. You’re really not anti-social or inherently contentious. You simply are what you are. Period.

So much of what you do requires isolation, keeping “strange” hours, eating only when you’re starving from whatever the closest container may hold, not watching TV, forgetting birthdays and anniversaries, periodically forgetting to wash or brush your teeth or fasten your seat belt, or even to use the bathroom until it’s almost too late. 

Many creative businesspeople fill in the blanks with Twitter. It’s a good social outlet, and a decent sales tool for those who work at it.

There’s little point in trying to explain to others what makes you “counterclockwise”

— that you’re really not going the opposite direction of society, and clocks.

You are just standing behind the clock, reflecting what’s in front of it. You’re simply thinking and functioning from a different perspective.

HA! Sort of like a dyslexic visionary? ;<) But hey, whatever works, works.

                                                            

If you can see the same thing differently from the ways others see it, you have a special God-given talent worthy of nurturing and training and developing. In other words, make the most of what you have and stop thinking (worrying about) what others who lack those skills might say or think about you. Rise above it!

Accept that you are extraordinary.

Easier said than done, you may say? Then reach into one of those deep dark corners of self-expression and remind yourself that it’s a choice. Everything you do and say and create is a conscious or unconscious choice. HOW you create and innovate (following a creative idea all the way through to completion) is a spiritual process.

That HOW part –your ability to capture, control, and exercise your spiritual process– is the difference between you and your white shirt and tie brother-in-law or athletic “jock” sister or your federal/ county/ town agency employee neighbor. The HOW process is what comes from your heart and soul. It is what primes the process pump.

You need always to be focused in the present, here-and-now moment as you perform for it only takes one slip of the knife, the brush, the camera, the tongue, to deliver catastrophe to your heart and soul. Here’s the best way to do that: Deep Breathing. (It keeps you in touch with your self, and each passing moment as it passes!)

When you DO come out of your artsy little closet to rub a few elbows, practice asking questions and listening carefully to the answers. Every question you ask and every answer you get holds out the promise of spectacular creative thought because it’s coming from outside of you but is something you ignite.

Rely forever on yourself and your instincts.

You are more often right about a creative decision than you give yourself credit for. When it comes to business, if that’s a problem, study up on it. It’s not as complicated as you may think. Like finding a doctor who’s skills and experience match the ailment, find professional services with creative management experience.

Or, when you get to the point of possibility, hire or commission someone with good business sense and/or good organizational skills and a sense of finances — someone you trust who can take it all away from you. But be careful to not use the occasion of such new found freedom to slack off or get careless. It’s an opportunity to grow!

# # #

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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!