If you’re not selling

your creations,

stop whining

about being hungry! 

You got music, art, writing, design, sculpting, dance, painting, acting, photography, and/or craft skills and you’re broke?

How is that? Because the world you’re trying to make money in is not a music, art, writing, design, sculpting, dance, painting, acting, photography, craft skills world, that’s why.

It’s a business world. Period.

If all you seek is to win posthumous awards and recognition, good luck and God speed (and I hope –in addition to your talents– that your billionaire grandmother left you a great deal of money). But, if you’re looking to make your creative talents make money, you’re going to have to step it up (or maybe take yourself down a notch!).

It’s a business world. Period. 

Will you have to prostitute your skills? Perhaps. Depends on your definition of “prostitute” (as a verb), but if you do feel like commercialization is a process of selling your soul, you might want to re-think the value structure you’ve saddled yourself with, and accept that payment for services is not always about the giving up of one’s spirit.

It is only within your realm of definition of the word, “prostitution” that you choose to accept for an act or creative product or service of yours to be what it is.

Be reminded, in other words, that

you choose your behavior.

When you can accept that truth, you will be able to stop torturing your self. You will free yourself to give up all the self-destructive attitudes you may harbor about having to trade off your creative talents for some project retainer or ongoing fee that you’ve considered unethical or unappreciative of your instinctive abilities.

Or, someone once told me she didn’t feel the stars were aligned for her to feel okay about getting paid for applying the purity of the innermost resources of her mind to a brand name.

She was not independently wealthy.

Instead of using her God-given talents to earn a living, I presume she’s now contributing to our nation’s misguided, deficit-draining, socialist agenda, collecting welfare and food stamps!  

Do you have to market and sell and publicize yourself and the work you produce? Yes. Or hire someone you trust who has those skills and is sensitive enough to your neurotic state to be your agent or rep and stand in the publicity spotlight for you. Easy to do? No. Not if you are truly gifted and struggling to acknowledge the need.

Keep in mind that successful marketing of creative talents and creative products takes great amounts of tenacity and networking and skill-sets that include public relations (events and news release coverage), branding (both you and your creativity), and business applications to Internet and social media avenues.

Don’t feel that you’re lowering your standards. Choose instead to see you are raising your odds for success.

The more you sell, the more you can command the integrity levels of work you deserve, but right now, it may be time to start affording to bring home more than junkfood, and get some nutrition on the table to feed that creative furnace.       

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 “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!

GOTTA HUNKA SPUNK?                                                                                                                               

NEGATIVE REALITY: “In THIS economy? Nah, now’s not the time to be thinkin’ about starting or expanding a business. You’d have to be nuts! Besides it costs too much for stuff like that, and –if I were gonna do a big new push, I’d want to do it the right way, y’know? Big-time!”          

POSITIVE REALITY: There will never be enough money available to start up or expand a business the way I want to make it happen. Never. So waiting won’t matter. I’ve always believed that CONTRARY to the famous quote: 

NOTHING comes to he who waits!     

That leaves spunk . . .  

1.  Spunk,

2.  determination,

3. tenacious persistence, 

4. belief in yourself and your ideas,

5. commitment,

6. and a burning desire to make your ideas succeed. 

When all six of these ingredients are front and center 24/7, odds are you will succeed by just putting your head down and charging toward the goal of making your product or service ideas come to fruition. 

When you can do that, the money you need to put things over the top will come to you from sources you least expect. Every truly successful entrepreneur will attest to this. If you doubt it, then consider these two points:

• If you have doubt, then you do not have all six criteria (noted above) going for you. Back off and shore up the weak spots before you go charging off. 

• If you are close to having the six criteria above, but still have a smidgen of doubt, talk with someone who has been successful as an entrepreneur, someone who started a successful enterprise on the proverbial shoestring, and you will hear back the exact same kind of chatter.                                           

In other words, people who worry about their ideas making money will not make money; they will, instead, make worry. 

Those who turn their backs on the making money goals and focus their energies instead on getting their ideas to succeed, will make money. 

Weird, huh?  Perhaps, but it’s true.

I have helped over 500 successful businesses and business expansions to get started. I have never seen a single exception to this thinking.  I’m sure there must be some somewhere, but not in my experience. 

You can take advantage of my experience if you’re thinking about launching a business or expanding one. For a modest consulting fee, I will serve as your temporary coach and advisor until you get things off the ground. I work with clients by phone and computer and occasionally, when realistic and appropriate, personal visit. 

You can tap into what I have learned the hard way and spare yourself considerable stress and expense. 

If you’re interested, call me direct at 302.933.0116, and let’s set a time to talk. No fee. I’ll give you 20-30 minutes to get me interested.

If you can’t afford me or I can’t help you personally, I’ll steer you in the right directions –as a courtesy– because my life’s mission is to help small businesses succeed.                                                                                                        

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 “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!

We humans are “suckers”!

No? Well, here’s

what we buy:

•  Good-looking women

• Good-looking men

• Good-looking children

• Cute babies

• Especially ugly men, women, children, and babies

• Puppies (any kind)

• Red,white, and blue (still the top colors in America!)

• Repetition of messages, including colors, designs, images, and fonts

• Love stories

• The promise of love, suggestive or otherwise

• The promise of sex, suggestive or otherwise

• Music (all kinds – there’s something for everyone)

• The promise of svelteness, muscles, physical strength

• The emotionally-satisfying images associated with brand names

• Taste

• Smell

• Softness

•  Ruggedness

• Good feelings

• Happiness

• The promise of happiness

• Wealth

• The promise of wealth

• Security

• The promise of security

• Relaxation

• Discovery

• Endorsements (especially from celebrities, and “regular” people

• Opportunity

• Time savings, speed, access

• Responsibility

• Praise

• Convenience

• Sports and entertainment

• Food and beverages

• Preservation of resources

• Health and the promise of health (physical, mental, emotional)

Do you see anything here that looks like logic? Rationality? Objectivity? Product and service features? Warranties? Guarantees? Reasoned sensibility?

Of course not! UN-emotional, logical, rational types of appeals are only used by buyers to JUSTIFY their purchases!

All purchase decisions (even those that appear on the surface to be rational ones are emotionally-triggered. Because people buy benefits!

And nothing on Earth has proven ability to trigger emotions as effectively as words. Because good sales words keep it simple! Because words explain benefits!

How much attention does your business pay to the words it uses? How much do the words you use answer the question every consumer has:

“What’s in it for me?”  

Is your branding message as concise, meaningful, and emotionally-triggering as it can be. Does it emphasize benefits instead of features?

Does it attract attention, create interest, stimulate desire, bring about action, provide satisfaction?

And does it do all that in seven words or less?

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 “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!

Thirty years of 

selling services 

proves nothing sells 

like free samples

Take a page from PRODUCT manufacturers, marketers, distributors, and retailers. Food products are a good place to start. 

The restaurant gets free food product samples from manufacturer sales reps, and in turn will often give you an extra pickle, complimentary, and usually with a smile. You get sample slices of cheese or lunch meat handed across the deli counter, complimentary, and usually with a smile. The supermarket often serves up a variety of taste samples, complimentary, usually with a smile.

Doctors give away sample drugs they get from detail reps who want the doctor’s Rx business. Airlines offer free upgrades to frequent flyers. Car salesmen will tear the shirts off their backs to get your signature on the contract. Every one loves free sample products! 

What are you giving away?

Yeah, I know, your smile! (and I’ve heard it’s a great one, so pass it on!)

You’re no doubt throwing your hands to the sky and proclaiming you’re in the  S~E~R~V~I~C~E  business, so you don’t have a warehouse or storeroom full of goodies to non-chalently flip at prospective buyers. (Oh, and sure doctors provide healthcare services, but doctors are doctors and –WOW!– who balks at free drugs?)

It doesn’t matter that you sell consulting services, design services, writing services, accounting services, legal services, tech services, cleaning services, entertainment or travel or hospitality services. It doesn’t matter that you deliver packages or newspapers, or that you broker real estate or insurance or market bank loans or investment services. Nothing sells like free samples!

If you’re soliciting a prospective client to engage your services, start providing the services you offer as part of your solicitation.

“You know, I don’t pretend to have all the answers, and I would need some more time to confirm this, but I can’t help but think that it would be very much to your advantage to consider strengthening your media relations efforts (or building an email list, or developing a training initiative for your drivers, or putting your cash flow analysis on a monthly report basis, etc., etc.).”

                                           

Start BEING the consultant

(lawyer, accountant, bookkeeper, web

designer, SEO specialist, etc.)

that you want the prospect to engage.

Give ’em a taste for nothin’! Show people a sample of how you would work with them. Don’t worry about telling them too much for free; just tell them. Of course, don’t go too overboard with information, and be respectful and certain of your points before you make them.  

Oh, and stop thinking instant gratification. These days, a sale takes 5-6 attempts to close before the sale is made. And the real sale –especially for S~E~R~V~I~C~E~S  begins AFTER the sale is made.

In the meantime, toss the dog a bone! 

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“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!

The Answer IS . . .

ASK QUESTIONS!

Whether you’re looking for better grades, improved cash flow, an investor, a loan, new customers, repeat customers, a new employee (or  job), new revenue streams, the exact right set of words for a branding themeline, or some trace of your ex-mother-in-law who changed her name and left town with the contents of your wall safe . . . your odds of success increase dramatically when you:

ASK QUESTIONS! 

You might think that’s pretty basic advice, but my experience is that it least happens when you most expect it –especially with headstrong entrepreneurs.

It isn’t that business owners strut around with a know-it-all cockiness; it’s that they don’t want to waste time and it can often seem more productive to step out of a meeting, seminar, webinar, conference call, txtmsg exchange, or cocktail party, than to suck it up and stay there and have to ask questions (when time is perceived to be better spent, instead, taking action).

Does that ring a bell or am I just imaging things?

Entrepreneurs (and most men, it seems) have to be on the verge of total mental meltdown before they’ll ever stop to ask anyone for driving directions. It used to be the threat of embarrassment for being so dumb as to have gotten lost. Now. it’s more like cringing at the thought of getting a reply like: “Hey, man, you mean you ain’t got no GPS or MapQuest thing?”

Here’s the bottom line:

If you don’t ask for what you want,

or what you want to know, 

you don’t get it!

(Always? No, sometimes we get things by accident.) 

Oh, and asking questions is completely useless if you forget the answers. Write them down. Stop with all the excuses about how much time it wastes to write things out by hand on paper (assuming you actually still own a pen and can find some paper, and remember how to write ;<)).

When you write things down, you get them out of your head, create more think space, and deal better with the inevitable interruptions that occur within seconds of getting your question answered. Note taking is not only smart insurance that you’ll walk away with an undistorted idea of what you heard, it also communicates that you value and respect the source of the responses you get.

The answers to questions

are at the root of all progress.

If you’ve been focused on secondary research sources (like books, reports, and the Internet) as your primary decision making tools, you may want to get yourself out into the real world and ask real people real questions once in awhile. There’s nothing can compare with asking real customers what they really think, really listening to their answers, and really writing down what they say.

Formal focus groups? Perhaps. But just plain old informal questions (without rebuttals, defensive reasons, excuses, or “yes, but’s”) will serve the purpose just fine. You will walk away feeling gratified, maybe astonished, and definitely enlightened. So???  (That was a question.)

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931.854.0474    Hal@BusinessWorks.US

“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!

Life is complicated enough.

Business owners whose messages add temporary 

 confusion lose permanent customers.

• From misplaced marketing messages to lousy operational instructions
• From squirmy small-type warranties to smoke-and-mirror contracts
• From jargon-filled business plans to sales spiels focused on I/Me/My/We
• And with totally non-communicative website content

. . . America’s businesses are strangling themselves with bad word choices that are costing more business every day than they are intended to create.

Contrary to popular opinion, one

word is worth a thousand pictures!

Pictures set up customers, but WORDS are what sell them!

The words you choose to use to sell and promote your business’s interests –to give your business consistency, backbone, and a customer-centric sense of enlightened self-interest– can produce revenues, new revenue streams, profits, and a positive reputation.

But the wrong (e.g., too complicated) words used in the wrong places at the wrong times, will demolish all you’ve worked to build, in one fell swoop!

Are you selling products or services that are —for example— manufactured or fabricated in China? Are user instructions written by the manufacturer or fabricator?

Odds are pretty good that they might as well be in Chinese!

“Getting lost in the translation” is not an empty phrase. It’s truth is found in those 27-language fold-outs for practically every tool, electronic device, and self-assembly item.

And THAT translates to lost return-visit sales, both online and in-person.

If your business depends on customers coming back to buy more, you cannot afford to lose them to competitors AFTER they struggle with a poorly-explained purchase that you are not likely to ever hear about (until AFTER your accountant tells you about last quarter’s diminishing cash flow).

Unless you’re committed to losing repeat-sale business, STOP buying goods and services from other countries to sell or resell in America that come packaged with unintelligible, non-communicative directions. Demand that instructions be clear or refuse purchase. Customers will not separate sources. Disgruntled, frustrated buyers will blame you for being stupid and insensitive, not China!

You know the “Keep it simple” formula. It works. As the slogans go: “Do It!” and “It’s In You!” and “I’m Lovin’ It!” . . . There’s definitely something to be said for “It” . . . got it?

Does an eight-year-old (or eighty-year-old) have trouble tracking down information on your website? Is the sales message obscured with meaningless verbiage? Does your branding message or theme beat your business chest, or focus on the customer? Is what you are trying to communicate too lost in the clutter of features to ever get around to selling benefits?

Are you communicating too much, too little, or just the right amount of information? Do your news releases start to sound like a back-seat driver? Do they get published? Are you making the most of them with direct mail and email followup? Does your social media program emphasize Twitter, LinkedIn, PRWeb and BizBrag? Why not?

Facebook may be great for socializing, but doesn’t cut it for business simplicity: You direct people to Facebook so you can then direct them from Facebook to your website? Send visitors direct to your website!. Life is complicated enough.

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931.854.0474 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

“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!

Why is it so hard to just

  shut up and do what’s right? 

An awful lot of nonsense gets carried over into the business world from society and the media. But I guess that’s to be expected. After all, business is simply a mirror reflection of society’s needs and wants. And the media makes a living by attracting attention with lies and sensationalism that “play off of” society’s needs and wants.

Lies and sensationalism attract attention and create interest. That, in turn, sells newspapers and magazines and draws TV and radio audiences. Media lies and sensationalism boost Internet website visits.

The higher the numbers get, the bigger the demand created for businesses (especially big businesses with multi-million-dollar advertising and marketing budgets) to purchase message time and space. The more message time and space purchased, the more media is incited to lie and sensationalize. A vicious circle.

Bottom line?

There’s a lot of noise out there!

What I find particularly disconcerting is what appears to me to be a growing pervasiveness of leadership reliance on chatter instead of on listening.

The American public has (hopefully) had a two-year-long lesson in the societal strangulation that occurs when you make a great orator –with less than minor league leadership skills and experience– into a national leader who clearly does not know how to listen.

Not listening is by itself an unforgivable offense for any leader. Openly espousing a socialist (Marxist, some even say) agenda that literally flies in the face of America’s Constitution adds fuel to the leadership fire.

One compounds the other by pulling the rug out from under small business’s ability to reverse direction of our ever-plunging economy. It is small business, and only  small business, that can create new jobs. Small business doesn’t fit a socialist agenda. Connect the dots. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And so, we are now also seeing a long trail of energetic young entrepreneurs moving into business leadership posts. But they have nothing much to guide them except the seats of their pants and the role model they naively swept into the White House.

The ugly thought alone of a nation of outspoken, brash young business “leaders” preoccupied with presenting instead of listening is frightening to say the least. Pep rally speeches can get people excited, but they don’t get the job done. 

And as disheartening as it is for me to even use this blog as a place to address concerns like this, I can’t help but think that America has brought herself to her knees . . . and that now is the time for every leader of every business entity to 1) get up, 2) stand tall, and 3) listen carefully to what others are saying:

customers, partners, employees, investors, referrers, lenders, suppliers, vendors, service providers, advisors, geographic and industrial and professional communities served.

We cannot just “hear” them.

We must actively “listen” to them.

We might even learn something

about not only doing what

works…but about doing

w h a t ‘ s    r i g h t !   

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“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!

Trying to run a small business

amid today’s world turmoils is 

like trying to do your tax return

 at a Chucky Cheese

birthday party!

CIA people will tell you that you really don’t want to know what’s going on in the world 24/7. Global terrorist threats and attacks are literally nonstop across the entire planet, all day and night, every day and night.

We hear from off-the-deep-end-tree-huggers (so described as to separate them from genuine environmentalists) that Al Gore’s “global warming” warnings were not so “warm” and were actually intended to focus more broadly on “climate change.”

Whew!

We should all be relieved to know that the man didn’t have the warming warning thing any more wrong than his claims to have “invented the Internet,” and that he really meant to say “climate change” from the outset.

Oh! Okay.

And we all know about gas prices, and the federal government’s bungling of the economy. [See my 87 gazillion posts about how to turn the economy around with tax incentives for job creation to new entrepreneurs — instead of tax-dollar handouts to incompetent corporate giants, thieving unions, and socialistic reform programs that simply add to the crushing deficit burden.]

Now I know this next statement will send 14,000 PETA members picketing me and no doubt some threats from civil liberties lawyers, but by way of meaningful advice to small business and professional practice owners, operators, partners and managers:

When a horse throws you,

get up, brush yourself off,

punch the horse in the nose

and climb back on!

(Ask any horse trainer)

Right, says you, but how do you concentrate on your own business when all the walls around you come tumbling down? First, all the walls around you are not tumbling down.

It’s cold in lots of places where it was always warm. People riot in the streets and get killed every day of the week in some town or city in some country. That doesn’t make it right, or even alright, but it should be enough to convince you that you need to stay alert while keeping your shoulder to the wheel. Stick-to-it-tive-ness is one of the great entrepreneurial traits.

The economy? The only thing that will turn that around — realistically speaking — is new national leadership that values and understands the contributions of small business, that responds to small business, and that rises to the occasion to nurture entrepreneurship with more than tokenism, empty promises, and babble.

So the bottom line is that you need to send your star rising on your own. There’s no place left to lean. Challenge yourself and your people to innovate, build high trust, exceed customer service expectations, and market the truth.

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“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! 

Too Much Spice In

Your Business

Can Cause It

To Drown.

Those who use lots of salt get thirsty. The solution of course is water. A glass or two is fine, but a tsunami inside your body or your business can be even worse that one that ravages the outside.

At least crashing waves and a flood outside your body or business allows the remote possibility of escape by swimming or clinging to a floatation device. Other than the limits of an Intensive Care Unit, there is no controlling an implosion! 

Every day, small businesses and entrepreneurial business leaders across America struggle to keep afloat — victims of government indifference, government interference, corporate giant market dominance, and aggressive competition– external tsunamis.

Internal storms are marked by under-capitalization, poor management, unproductive marketing, and over-stress. As insurmountable as these may seem to some, reality is that these at least offer the consolation that they can be controlled by choice.

Business failures

are often the result

of poor decisions

to add too much salt

Spicing up a product or service message or method of presentation instead of adding genuine value spawns ineffective, low-trust levels of reception.

The addition of meaningless razzmatazz threatens existing employee, customer, supplier, referrer and investor relations at a point where increased levels of high-trust transparency are what the marketplace is calling for.

Successful businesses and entrepreneurial leaders never sacrifice integrity for a spice rack full of new flavors and meaningless window dressing.

“Instant” hair care products that are simply water-added (and incrementally-more-expensive) versions of the original basic product, don’t even deserve retail store shelf facings. They are packaged lies aimed at prompting naive young women to spend money!

Oh, and how many fewer screaming automotive dealerships can we do without? Surely, you have many examples of your own you can add. Hopefully, your business is not one of them. 

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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! 

On my honor, I will

do my best to do my duty

to God and my country

… Honor Guard… Honor

thy Father and Mother…

Military Honors...Honor

the memory…Yes,Your

Honor…No, Your Honor

…Honors Student …Oh,

yes, and:

“Honor among thieves.”

Barbara Ann Kipfer’s FLIP DICTIONARY (a wonderful Writer’s Digest resource book) shows the following under “HONOR”:  

“Accolade, adore, award, celebrate, character, commendation, courage, credit, decoration, deference, dignify, dignity, distinction, ennoble, esteem. exalt, fame, fete, glorify, glory, homage, honesty, integrity, kudos, laud, laurels, obeisance, praise, recognition, regard, reputation, respect, revere, reverence, tribute, trust, worship.”

WHAT DOES “HONOR” MEAN TO YOU?

Business and personal reputations are made or broken by the treatment of and attention to honoring commitments, delivering what’s promised.

When your leadership can inspire others –employees and suppliers– to go the extra mile, to deliver more than what’s expected, you can count yourself among the truly great captains of industry. 

Surely you will never be at a loss for customers, unless you think you’ve inherited and deserve a badge of honor because you’re part of some aristocratic family birthright (in which case, you’re not reading this anyway), honor is in reality something that’s both learned and earned. And it’s never to late for either.

As with all other behaviors that lead to various forms of good and bad and positive and negative recognition, the pathway to receiving honor is to choose to deliver it consistently first.

Those who rise to the occasion to make certain that what they promise others is in fact the minimum of what they deliver, and that they in fact deliver when they say they will deliver, and who follow through on commitments win honorable reputations. Honorable reputations sell. But only when they are continuously evidenced.

In other words, one good deed does not a respectable character make. Put another way, one business owner I know tells employees:

I don’t care that the rest of the world always wants to know the answer to the question: ‘what have you done for me lately?’

I care about what you do consistently –day after day– to demonstrate commitment to yourself, your fellow employees, our customers, and company outsiders.

Because that’s the kind of honorability that makes businesses thrive.”

How prevalent is this thinking and behavior in your organization? What will it take to punch it up?(By the way, if you’re into the “Honor Among Thieves” mindset, consider that the punishment payoff will catch up with you somewhere; do you really always want to be looking back over your shoulder?) 

Thank you, dear visitors; it’s been, well, an honor to have you visit. Please return soon.

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302.933.0116   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!