Goals Schmoles!

No Problem? No Goal.

     If you can’t define your problem, clearly, in writing, in one sentence, you don’t have a goal. Early on in my career, I had one of those experiences that leave neophytes like I was at that time reeling in anguish and boredom, only to learn eventually that I had been a witness to business management greatness.

     I was working for the world’s number one Madison Avenue advertising agency and I was a “creative management team member” assigned to handle the marketing for a Fortune 500 company, one of the planet’s greatest airlines. The boredom set in after being locked (literally) in a fancy Manhattan hotel suite with the six top executives of the airline and the top creative and management team members of the ad agency for four 12-hour workdays and four 3-4 hour worknights, where we ate, drank and slept the airline business.

     The purpose of the marathon session was “to define the problem” that the airline had that we could wrap a major marketing campaign around. The airline chief required that we sort through reports from every department in every worldwide division and review all the problems, from late baggage delivery to delayed flights to food service complaints to air traffic control issues, and on and on.

     It was so much more than I ever wanted to know, and all I could think about was getting home to my family, and eating something besides subs and pizza. But guess what? The problem got defined. The boss insisted that it be written down as a single sentence and that everyone in the room had to accept the wording exactly. I probably don’t need to tell you I thought he was nuts, and that I was seriously thinking about tuning up my resume.

     The end result was that the problem got flipped over into a goal statement that was specific, flexible, realistic and had a due date. We all left exhausted. We worked with the goal statement. We achieved the goal with what turned out to be one of the most productive advertising and sales campaigns in history. In other words the torture produced.

     I’ve repeated the dynamics hundreds of times since over the years. It always works! Always. Define the problem. Be specific and put it in writing and get all involved to agree at least somewhat with the statement. Then rework the statement into a goal and go for it. Crazy extra nonsense work. Crazy? Maybe. Extra? Positively. Nonsense? I don’t think so anymore. Work? Yes it’s very hard work. But it also DOES work. And that makes it about as close to a sure bet as you’ll ever get in business! 

 Good Night and God Bless You!  halalpiar     

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Biz Cards in the Men’s Room?

     Filling your pipeline has to do with how attentively you are keeping as many sales prospects as possible, alive and kicking, at any given moment on any given day! If you make your living by selling, you know what I’m talking about, and unless you’re in one of those numbing slumps, you need not read further.

     IF YOU RUN YOUR OWN BUSINESS, however, you could stand to examine this post a little more thoughtfully. Why? Because when you’re not selling 100% of the time, filling your pipeline is easy to forget. It’s easy to overlook it, or become pre-occupied.

     It is especially easy to drift away from your pipeline when you’re busy tending to new and existing customers and projects. But therein lies the challenge. How can you prompt yourself to physically, mentally, and emotionally rise to the occasion?

     What can you do to rattle your own cage? How can you be running your business AND continuing to network and cold call while servicing others? Knocking on doors, after all, takes time and energy, not to mention travel preparations and expenses.

     Okay enough questions. Here are some answers. CONTINUE TO LEARN ALL YOU CAN ABOUT YOUR SELF! By doing this with relentless attention, you will do a better job of working with others — customers, staff, vendors, prospects, the community. Because the more you know about what makes YOU tick, the more you’ll understand what makes OTHERS tick and the easier it is to be productive in your dealings with them, and inspire their productivity in return.

     CONTINUE TO APPLY ALL YOU KNOW ABOUT HOW TO MANAGE YOUR OWN STRESS! Do deep breathing as routinely as you can remind yourself. Take a cue from wristwatch beeps, from little signs in your briefcase, on your rearview mirror, in your medicine cabinet and refrigerator…whatever works for you. Click here http://halalpiar.com/?page_id=35 for detailed 4-step approach that takes a full 60 seconds! Do yoga, meditate, exercise (regular fast-paced 20-minute walks will do it!), dance, sing, play with little kids…

     PAY MORE ATTENTION TO TIME MANAGEMENT! Return phone calls at 11:30-noon and 4:30-5pm when people are less likely to waste time because they’re getting ready for lunch or their commutes home. Use to do lists (and add interruptions) and colored markers to cross out accomplished tasks (including those added). ALWAYS PLAN FOR DELAYS (BE READY FOR THEM, NOT PROMPT THEM) as times to be productive with phone calls, text messages, pen and paper writing, reading, laptop activity. BRING READING & WRITING MATERIALS EVERYWHERE! Polish up your delegation skills and learn to let go of nonessentials tasks!

     SET REALISTIC GOAL TARGETS OF HOW MANY NEW BUSINESS SALES CALLS AND PITCHES YOU WILL MAKE EVERY MONTH, BY WEEK and stay flexible enough to shift gears if you get overloaded with other tasks or people issues…or underloaded!

     FOLLOW UP. FOLLOW UP. FOLLOW UP. KEEP ACCURATE RECORDS OF EVERY CALL AND DECISION. SEND A GAZILLION THANK YOU NOTES. 

     COLLECT AND GIVE OUT BUSINESS CARDS EVERYWHERE YOU GO. EVERYWHERE. YES, EVEN THERE!  

 Good Night and God Bless You!  halalpiar     

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Pain Shots: 1-Free-With-11?

At some point in your career, you’ll know when you’ve seen it all. How about discount coupons for a lawyer? (Or, hey, what about one free last will and testament thrown in with every divorce case?)

Every third chiropractic spinal adjustment (whoops, sorry: “subluxation”) gets a $10 rebate? (Maybe they should be packaged with an oil change and lube job?)

How about a one-free-with-eleven deal on hypodermic needle injections from a pain clinic? (Depending, of course on what kinds of toppings you like…pepperoni, extra cheese…)

     P L E A S E, Dear Doctor, Lawyer, Accountant, Dentist, Chiropractor, Physical Therapist, Nurse Practitioner, Acupuncturist, Psychologist, Psychotherapist, Nutritionist, Occupational and Speech Therapist – PLEASE stick to your professional expertise and find someone with professional marketing expertise to represent you and communicate your messages to the outside world.

     Professional training and hands-on experience certainly make no secret of emphasizing and reinforcing the need for professional practitioners to exude self-confidence. And the temptation is great to think that adding “entrepreneur” to your list of credentials is, as baseball old-timers call it, a can of corn! (Or for the less athletic: a piece of cake!)

     But the truth is that all one needs to do is open any phone book to professional listing sections and check out the ridiculous ads . . . 

• Will you race off to the plastic surgeon because his ads show a sexy centerfold “After” patient?

• Do you really need a specialist at Reiki, EFT, EST, Craniosacral Therapy, and Rolfing in order to quit smoking? 

• Do you get all jittery inside merely thinking about the excitement you know you’ll feel when you call that dentist whose ads proclaim he now has mucosal blade inserts?

• Can you just not wait to handshake and backslap all those thousand dollar suits standing around a five thousand dollar desk in the ornate law office ad photo simply because the headline says “Our Attorneys Work For You And We’re There When You Need Us!” (Right, as long as your wallet’s open!)

• Oh, and surely you can’t wait to get to that doctor who’s a specialist in electrodiagnostics. Don’t we all like to get zapped once in a while? 

• Is an IRS enrolled agent tax law specialist CPA necessary to help you get a bank loan?

     Professional marketers with professional marketing skills will present you and your message in the best. most professional environment and be able to emphasize your strengths in simple, straightforward, layman’s language.

     They will get you better prices for printing, and database lists, and media time/space than you can get on your own. They will know the best ways to reach your target market (and better help you define it) on the best dollar-value basis. They understand and market via the Internet! 

     They will know the best sets of words and highest impact graphics to use (including fonts, spacing, colors, layouts and designs, photos and illustrations, sizes, materials). They will have experiences that you will not have and that you will not want to pursue anymore than you’d want them to perform your professional services on your family!          

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

 Open minds open doors.

Thanks for visiting. God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

No, believe it or not,

the doctor is not God!

Having served many years counseling and consulting with doctors, and writing books for and about doctors, I was able to collect a wealth of insight about their personal lives and professional careers.

     Whether you’re a lawyer, insurance or investment broker, hospital executive, real estate agent, luxury car or boat representative, accountant, website development guru, upscale clothing marketer, hi-tech product marketer, quality restauranteur, travel agent, executive resort manager, pharmaceutical or medical product detail rep, If you market or sell to doctors, you can do a better job of it when you understand some of what I’m about to share with you. 

     Now I’m not talking about whatever you might think you know about doctors by watching ER or House or Gray’s Anatomy or old re-run episodes of Chicago Hope or Dr. Kildare for that matter. Those shows may look and feel authentic and realistic, but they’re not. They’re no more realistic than if you took your job and compressed all the highlights of the year into one maniacally-paced day!

     There’s nothing wrong with jam-packed storylines on TV as long as you don’t start believing that the other half actually lives as they’re portrayed. I mean I was a huge fan of “24” and Jack Bauer was the best, but in case you hadn’t noticed, he never slept or used the bathroom.

     No, I’m talking about down and dirty here. I’ve amassed tons of in-the-trenches input that I alone have had the unique opportunity to observe, listen, question and assimilate. Here’s some of what I learned:  

•      Most of the twelve hundred or so doctors I’ve known well and have worked closely with would rather be, or rather have been something other than a doctor. With stress driving average physician life expectancy closer to 60 than to 80, many doctors struggle with keeping their personal lives in check and their family lives in balance.
•      As definite and commited as most of us tend to think a physician’s career path might be, the truth is that many are not happy with shouldering the stressful burdens of professional medical practice. 
•      This conclusion is not to imply any lack of dedication. It is simply an indication that even those physicians who lack exceptional skills or bedside manners do not deserve to be begrudged for the money they make (and they’re making a whole lot less these days, besides).
•      So, what does this all have to do with selling to doctors? STOP thinking about selling your products and services to doctors. START thinking about how you can help doctors to save time. Time, to a physician, is money because she or he has no warehouse full of products.
•      His or her time is all there is that can be packaged with the skill, experience and training. And, right, a doctor can only sell one package at a time!
•      Having more time gives doctors more freedom to see more patients who need attention. Having more time lays the groundwork for doctors to strike a better balance with their families and gain increased control of their personal lives.
•      In the process, they become happier. Happier doctors practice better more effective healthcare. Your doctor sales assignment: Figure out how to save your doctor prospects and customers more time!  

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Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

PR IS NOT

A SERIES OF STUNTS!

     If your goal is to attract attention to your business or brand, go stand on your head in traffic and eat watermelon, but don’t believe for even one minute that Public Relations is the answer. PR is not a series of stunts.

     Businesses that insist on misusing PR as a tool to take them on a promotional binge from one event to the next will soon lose enough credibility to cost them press release coverage at times when it counts most, and will end up hanging around, hands in pockets watching their blog sites go down the tubes, probably pulling their websites down along with them since search engine rankings are very much a function of blog activity.

     Why do PR-abusive companies create this downward spiral to start with? Because the public (whether it’s industrial trade, clients, patients, other professionals, or John Q. off the street) isn’t stupid. And media writers and editors, even less so…when careers are on the line, there’s a whole lot less tolerance of artificially-inflated newsworthiness tossed to the wind by overzealous organizations that are too preoccupied with day-to-day sales survival tactics to appreciate the need for strategic planning.    

     Effective PR is all about building SOLID relationships with the news media by consistently demonstrating the value of what it is that your product or service does and the value of whom you are in your industry, profession, and community.

     Why does the relationship need to be so emphatically “solid”? PR is a trade-off. For you to get free promotional mentions and news release and photo coverage (that, incidentally, research shows to be ten times more credible than paid advertising messages), you must be willing to perform at the whimsy of the editors and writers who decide on whether or not to accept what you provide them with.

     They will always be much more receptivity to what you provide when what you provide is professionally written and executed and followed-up on. My guess is that 80% of effective PR is follow-up. Ah, but that is what builds relationships, right?  

     And, by the way, effective PR will boost your branding efforts far beyond advertising for usually a fraction of the costs associated with advertising. A recent study finds this is particularly true for businesses connected with engaging and complicated product manufacturing and marketing processes.

     In fields like financial services, automobiles and consumer electronics, almost 30% of brand value is associated with solid PR performances that result in increased brand name mentions in print, broadcast and electronic news media. 

     What this means is that in economic downturns like the one we’re experiencing, it is wise to boost  your PR efforts and reduce your advertising expenditures. But that’s not to imply a straight exchange.

     It is to say that your PR efforts need to be professional, and your advertising needs to be more focused and more contiguous with your media relations efforts. There’s some delicate balancing and juggling acts involved, but you’re already a pro at that or you wouldn’t have your own business to start with, right?  

 Good Night and God Bless You!  halalpiar     

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What’s blocking

your success

right this minute is

INSIDE YOUR HEAD!

     Ellen Degeneres says she wants a million Twitter followers. Good for her! That’s her goal. She believes in and sets and has consistently achieved her goals. That should have absolutely nothing to do with you except to set the stage for inspiring you to set and achieve YOUR own goals.

     Remember to make sure your goals are realistic, specific, flexible and have a due-date. Without all four criteria, you have only a wishlist!

     Pay attention to Ellen. You don’t have to like her (I do) or like her politics (I don’t) but she is teaching us all some important life lessons that we never got in school. When you believe in yourself and in your ability to achieve what you want in life, you will achieve it.

     There are skazillions of great motivational and inspirational sayings out there, and –by the way– you need only watch Twitter updates for about 10 minutes to see hundreds of these being tossed out like grass seed. There is no shortfall of resources or words of wisdom.

     The shortfall that is blocking your success right this minute is INSIDE YOUR HEAD! Either directly or indirectly, you are doing something to prevent yourself from making the things happen that you need to make happen in order to reach the point where you consider yourself to be a success.

     If you REALLY concentrate on this, you should be able to figure it out and step over the roadblock. If you simply can’t come up with what and where that roadblock is, get a professional to help you. What that means is a professional shrink, psychologist, psychotherapist, Gestalt therapist, reality therapist, counselor, tutor, traditional physician, nontraditional healthcare professional, lawyer, accountant, investment specialist, personal and professional growth group facilitator, etc.

     If you can’t get or afford professional help, start up or join a group dedicated to serve as a sounding board for business leaders. I ran one of these for years, meeting regularly on Sunday evenings for awhile, just business owners interested in giving and getting ideas and input to/from other business owners.

     Meet. Find one person who can facilitate discussion and buy her or him coffee. Recruit one other person to be the organizer, to get attendance at the meetings, circulate agendas, and publish master contact lists for everyone. It’s that simple. Try it.

     Make it like Twitter LIVE. Just by trying, you will be moving yourself and your business ambitions forward. Stay open-minded, and see what you can learn from others who are experiencing similar dynamics. If it’s not working, call me 302.933.0116. I’ll help you get on a roll.  

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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!

Twitter Is What It Is. Period.

     Hardly a day passes anymore when I don’t hear some business or professional practice owner or operator or manager, or an entrepreneur talk nervously about “not getting the Twitter thing.”

     Usually, the fearful comments end with some justification for not dipping a toe in the water by cavalierly tossing off a laundry list of non-business-related “Tweets” that they saw or heard about. Twitter won’t have any value to you if you start out seeking for it to BE something.

     Twitter is what it is. While there appear to be some basic Twitter Etiquette guidelines, they seem to me to only be for the benefit of those who want them. And many Twitter users simply don’t care what those folks want. Other than for legal purposes, and in abiding with contractual agreements, there is no right or wrong Twitter use. The medium is free to flow as those who use it choose for it to flow for themselves.

     So, unlike any other media, Twitter has a mind all its own and those who work and play with it find it far exceeds what most people would probably define as a “social” vehicle. It is both one-way and two-way (and actually a multiple-way) form of communication.

     Many believe the whole purpose of Twitter is to acquire and constantly add as many “followers” as humanly possible so that every statement they make will be seen by 88 skillion people that they’ve attracted. Many others could care less about massive followings and are looking instead for people with similar interests. And so it goes on and on, varying according to human nature and whimsy.

     Twitter participants can be categorized (some steady and ongoing, and others changing with the wind) as sometimes or all the time or alternatingly or multiplicitingly fitting what we might characterize, in no particular order, as:

Parent~~Adult~~Child~~Crusader~~Politico~~Professor~~

Preacher~~Motivator~~Problem-Maker~~Problem-Presenter

~~Problem-Solver~~Popularity Contestant~~ Control Freak

~~Bitch~~Networker~~Tree-Hugger~~Active Adventurer~~

Business Promoter~~Teeny Bopper~~Flake~~Peacenik-Hippie (yeah, still a few of these around)

~~Animal Lover~~Mystic~~Goofball~~Irate Egotist~~Joker

~~Gay Pride Activist~~Black Rights Activist~~Womens

Rights Activist~~News Reporter~~Rhymer~~Dear Abby

~~Counselor~~Advisor~~Consultant~~Game Player~~

Headline Writer~~Cartoonist~~Recruiter~~ Solicitor~~

Salesperson~~Shrink~~Sports Fanatic~~Political Fanatic

~~Religious Fanatic~~ADD YOUR OWN 80 OR 90 MORE

TO THIS LIST!

     The point is that if you have a business or professional practice and the above cluster of characters have scared you away from making good solid business use of this social media phenomenon, you are not thinking like a true entrepreneur.

     You need to try it before deciding it’s not for you. Isn’t that what you would do with anything else? Don’t choose to feel intimidated by Twitter just because you don’t get it. It’s really quite simple. And, in fact, as I noted many months ago, it forces you to strengthen two major communication tools: Conciseness and Persuasion, plus it requires high level focus on the “here-and-now” present moment, which is also a critically strong business building block.

     There is no rule about having to get addicted to Twitter, though many apparently are (and even brag about it)! You can plug and promote business and professional practice ideas, products and services in a way that gets response– in just 10-15 minutes a day! (Yes, I’ll tell you how for free if you call me: 302.933.0116)

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  Open Minds Open Doors 

   Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Buyers “A Sea of Skepticism”

     TRUST is what reversing this economy is all about. And we can’t wing it with lip service. Consumers are a sea of skepticism. In fact, by just telling customers and prospects to “Trust Us” we are setting a failure tablecloth out for the picnic!

     We’ve got to earn and demonstrate trust to make it move from low to high by investing time, energy, and dedication to proving the value of the products and services we represent. We need to do this with consistent performance. We need to do this instead of pushing unit and commodity sales.

     One of my all-time great sales motivational heroes, Zig Ziglar, teaches adherence to the acronym T.R.U.S.T:

T~~THINK

R~~RELATE

U~~UNCOVER NEEDS

S~~SELL SOLUTIONS

T~~TAKE ACTION

     You’ll find this and more, by the way, in past SUCCESS magazine stories and Zig Ziglar’s sales-inspiring newsletters as well as new and time-tested thinking from Zig’s son Tom on Twitter, even in recent posts here like: FEARLESS SELLING

     Anyway, one SUCCESS article’s lead-in quote is from Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible and The Little Red Book of Sales.

     Gitomer says, “Today’s salespeople better be question-based, value-driven, customer-focused, and be able to prove their product rather than try to sell it. Proof,” he says, “comes from testimonials, not sales presentations.” 

Or, if I could put a little phrase-twist to work:

The proof is in the pudding,

not in the words on the package.  

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Hal@Businessworks.US

Open Minds Open Doors

Thanks for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!

COMPUTER UNDERWARE

I was prompted into a business consciousness stream today by a reference I saw to socio-economic, attitude, and taste divisions between generations having symbolic significance in changes over the years represented by underwear.

I noticed the analogy in Angelique Rewer’s brilliant online publication, The Corporate Communicator www.bonmotcomms.com , and remembered a Time/Newsweek/Sports Illustrated ad I did (over 25 years ago!) for a fledgling computer service company. 

Over an illustrated ghosted assemblage of computer hardware and floppy disks (You DO remember those? They came after carbon paper), the headline said simply:

COMPUTER UNDERWARE

The copy that followed reasoned that “HARDWARE & SOFTWARE CAN GET YOU NOWHERE without COMPUTER UNDERWARE, the ongoing professional training and reliable service support you’ll require to go under your hardware and software . . . “

You’re stunned, huh?  Hey, it was Toms River, NJ, in the early 1980’s.  What did you expect, “I’m Lovin’ it!” or “It’s In You!”?  I could count the personal computer owners I knew on one hand then.  It was strictly an elite IBM and knock-off business market then that was focused on word processors in law offices. 

Take my word for it, for it’s time, my ad was ahead of it’s time.  

Much of what an entrepreneur does in life is ahead of its time. 

I’ve seen (and still have 30 year-old samples of) interlocking plastic bottles that would have revolutionized the shipping and warehousing markets because two cartons worth of bottles could be packed in one carton and cartons could be stacked 2-3 times higher.  Too much, too soon.  Too undercapitalized.   

How about “Clear” windshield wipers?  Spectacular prototypes made everyone oooh-aaah, but not enough funding to break through market monopolies.  3-D motion analysis for physical therapy . . .

On the surface, lack of money to make ahead-of-their-times products and services go, but underneath –the UNDERWEAR—is always lousy, self-centered, self-absorbed, fantasyland day-dreaming management that has great ideas, great intentions, great persistence, and no realistic sense of what it takes to bring their babies into the world and nurture them to maturity. 

Bottom line: Entrepreneurial inventing, innovating, and selling rarely come equipped with savvy management skills – money management, people management, task management. 

If you are an entrepreneur, study management or find management you can trust to work with you.  But don’t keep wasting your time and money and energy banging your head against the wall trying to move forward.  The wall won’t move.          halalpiar 

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No, this isn’t about donuts!

Here are a dozen leadership arenas:

• Corporate
• Military
• Political
• Industry
• Community
• Organizational
• Family
• Neighborhood
• Religious
• Sports
• Classroom
• Worksite

Where do entrepreneurial leaders fit?  Everywhere!  What about other leaders –those who are not entrepreneurs– are they locked into the individual arenas where they perform?  Not to suggest this is a bad thing; it’s just limiting. 

It’s part of the great appeal of entrepreneurial life that there are no limits.  Yes, there are laws, but no: there are no rules. 

Neither are there any theories to dictate performance because there are no theories of any value because (beyond some common character traits like poor school performances, engagement in childhood enterprises, rejection of authority, and childhood exposure to family business) entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial behaviors cannot be quantified or categorized. 

Yes, entrepreneurs take reasonable risks, but –no– there’s no traditional action plan approach to follow.     

Entrepreneurial leaders pop up in each of the arenas noted above (and many more as well) because in every arena on Earth there is always room for improvement.  Entrepreneurs are the agents of change who step up to the plate, who bring improvements to the table, who have the foresight and resilience to attack a problem over and over to produce the answers they believe in.

Alexander the Great was an historic entrepreneurial leader who proved that innovative strategies and tactics can defeat even the most overwhelming of military odds. 

“America’s Mayor” Rudy Giuliani was a great entrepreneurial political leader for his time and place, and the circumstances that changed our world. 

Cal Ripkin, Jr. was a dedicated entrepreneurial leader with his never-say-die attitude that re-invented value systems in the world of baseball – and all of sports. 

Mother Teresa, Frank Lloyd Wright, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Ghandi, and so many more you could surely name . . . people whose entrepreneurial spirits have in some way made a difference to us all.  Though each of the kinds of leaders we’re talking about here made their mark in one arena, none ever limited themselves in the lives they live or did live.  Who would be on YOUR list?

What do those noted above (plus those you can think of) share?  What qualities would you list?  Here are a few for starters: Persuasiveness, Assertiveness, Communication, Self-Reliance, Self-Confidence, Insight, Recognition that behavior is a choice, a strong focus on the present, the ability to cultivate (cross-pollinate?) leadership in others.  What would YOU add to this list?   halalpiar

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