Don’t let your website be 

a junkyard or a playground!

     “It’s Not Good Enough!” is what you may need to say. Don’t “settle” for content (text plus illustrations and photos) that your website guru proposes or offers to prepare for you. That person is not a writer and odds are she or he does not have a sense of commercial art either.

     In fact, don’t settle for anything that goes on or into your website development or upgrading. Your website is your window to the world. It is your first impression. It is YOU! Be demanding about it!

     Why should you not be afraid to say what you want? Because it’s YOUR money, YOUR image, and YOUR business. If your website designer is going to be offended by your refusal to accept what’s been offered or prepared, you need to shop around more. Take your time. Be careful. 

     Don’t let your website (or the creation of one) be a toy, or a playground for some techie who doesn’t understand your business or your message. Don’t let it become a cluttered junkyard. Your site is a serious and critically important marketing tool.

     Many start-up business owners are too timid to say what they think and feel for fear it will cost them too much additional money or because the techie they’ve chosen is a friend or relative who’s helping them get the job done cheaply in order to save money.

     STOP right there! Unless a mediocre representation of your business and a convoluted representation of your message are acceptable to you, website development and re-design services are NOT the place to cut corners or rely on cousins and brothers-in-law.

     Off the top of my head, I can count a hundred websites that I know were created and produced by incompetent designers who had not a single clue about the importance of content and content layout.

     This is especially true in relation to the spacing of words and headlines, selection and use of colors and font styles and sizes of words and headlines, and the impact attached to how words and headlines are broken up and arranged, not to mention the inclusion and maintenance of effective blogs.

     And I’m sure I could also identify another hundred sites produced by “in-house” IT people or employee “volunteers” who are self-proclaimed experts. Oh, and the absolute worst: those who anoint themselves as SEO (search engine optimization) or SEM (search engine management) or (sales) conversion specialists.

     Most of these “specialists” know less than a six year-old about how to best represent your business! If you seek and need a professional image or Internet presence or representation, P-U-L-L  E-A-S-E do yourself justice and shop around for a reliable professional.

     Where to start? There are three reliable professionals shown under Blogroll in the right-hand column on this site’s homepage. How do I know? I’ve worked extensively with all three and all three are excellent. They listen before they create. They send you “drafts” to input before they proceed.

     They each have different styles and different time availabilities and different rate structures. They each make sure you’re satisfied. They don’t charge an arm and a leg. They follow-up, and provide various ranges of support services.

     You will get your money’s worth and end up with a site or revamped site you can be proud of and that works to the extent you commit yourself to making it work!     

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

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Mind Your Own Business!

     . . . Not bad advice for consulting professionals. Why? Because the tendency we all have who are working with and helping other businesses and organizations is to get so caught up in our clients’ affairs and activities that we easily overlook many of our own needs. And we forget how to sell!

     If you’re a consultant in the first place, it’s because you thrive on some form of problem-solving and probably have a wealth of experience to share. You’ve no doubt heard the definition of a consultant as  someone with a briefcase from more than 100 miles away.

     And perhaps you’ve heard about the engineering consultant who charged the gas company $20,175. for his one hour of services, explaining the invoice breakout as $175 for the hourly rate, and $20,000 for knowing where to mark the X on the pipe that was leaking.

     Anyway, what matters in the end is that you remember to mind your own business because—like being able to manage stress (http://halalpiar.com/2009/05/4-steps-in-one-minute-zero-stress/) and remain calm in a catastrophe—you can’t be much help to your clients if your own house isn’t in order!

     This means you need to take periodic inventory (perhaps weekly, or even daily or hourly with some critical consulting specialties… surgery, nuclear fusion, e.g.) that spells out clearly where you are and where you’re going with each client and project. Where you’ve been is almost never important to anyone but you!

     So, scheduling is critical because you can’t afford to be meeting with one client when you’re supposed to be getting work done for another. Going from one meeting to another inevitably takes longer than originally anticipated, and needs to be factored into your travel plans. Telephone and email time needs also to be estimated and booked with time padding to prevent overload.

     With 30+ years of consulting under my belt (management, marketing, sales, leadership, communications, personal and professional growth and development, family business, and business start-ups), I have learned (now getting back to the subject of consulting service sales) that the best way to get consulting clients is to DO consulting!

     In other words, instead of talking about how great you’ve been and how much you know and how great you can be, stop with the BS and simply BE a consultant! Companies don’t hire consultants who are tangled up with contracts and invoicing and credentialing and who dwell on past performances.

     If you’re already talking with a prospect in the first place, it’s because there’s an immediate problem. Roll up your sleeves, get into the trench and start giving away your valuable assessments and advice for free!  Show what you can do instead of talk about what you can do.

Solve or shed light on an immediate problem

on the spot

and odds are you’ll be hired… on the spot. 

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

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Action In Pursuit Of

Meaningful Goals

Delivers Success

     Much has been made in motivational literature about the wisdom of rewarding those employees who have tried and failed—solving, launching, selling, creating, producing, developing, inventing—cited often as a best practices reverse-psychology hallmark of many of the human resource management approaches used by the same big business catastrophes that have dragged down the entire global economy 

     The point of this thinking is that by mollycoddling people who can’t cut the mustard, these non-performers will inevitably produce more positive results when you continually reward them with an “A” for effort. After all, shouldn’t business be like T-Ball or Cub Scouts where everybody who does a good job of trying gets rewarded? After all, rewarding employees for failed efforts that are born of sincerity may produce failures, but will also produce more sincere efforts, which will presumably and eventually pay off in success. Right? 

     Well, I don’t buy it. It’s non-productive circular reasoning. We’re not talking about sensitivity here. Insensitive bosses don’t survive long term. We’re talking about making businesses work. Period. I believe when you reward people for failing, you are simply prompting them to produce more failure. Don’t you think? I mean, it seems to me it makes more sense to instead reassess the goals attached to the challenges at hand.

     Are goals clearly defined? Specific? Flexible? Realistic? Due-dated? If they’re not ALL of these things, they’re not goals; they’re wishes. Wishes don’t get things done. Action gets things done. Real, meaningful goals that are specific, flexible, realistic and due-dated are the ones that trigger action. Action in pursuit of meaningful goals delivers success. 

     Huh? Well, consider that if perhaps the carrot is closer, the rabbit will actually reach it and then get a commensurate reward (a bite of carrot) vs. having to try getting to a far-away, out-of-reach carrot, the pursuit of which serves only to exhaust and stress out the rabbit, nes pas?

     It is a far more productive practice to reward steady small steps to achieving success with incremental (small, frequent) rewards along the way. It’s easy to say the sky’s the limit, and set off for the sky, but whatever is “easy to say” is rarely productive, and almost never is “reaching the sky” realistic.

     Except for those few wondrous gifts to humankind—like the Wright Brothers, Mother Theresa, Thomas Edison, Helen Keller, Einstein—most of us will not achieve their levels of the impossible dream in our lifetimes.

     We can, though, most assuredly achieve our own levels of the impossible dream by scaling ourselves and our employees back to manageable steps and by chunking up tasks to within the range of reason. And to then appreciate and reward accordingly. “One small step…” proclaimed the first moon-landing Astronaut.

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

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Don’t be waiting for unions,

government, big business,

banks, or Fairy Godmothers! 

     It’s a good idea to step on the scale every once in awhile. It’s easy to let your business get too heavy from feeding it too much fat and not exercising it enough, or making sure it gets the sleep it needs. Whaaat? Well, sure: your business has a life too. The question is–since it’s YOUR business and dependent on YOUR choices–what exactly are you doing to keep it healthy and growing?

     When’s the last time you stepped outside your business and re-entered it, pretending you’ve never been there before? Just as trying to draw conclusions about your own health from just stepping on the scale, weight is merely one indicator. Many other factors need to be inventoried.

     Beyond the obvious business health ingredients, like first-impression appearances (e.g., parking, signage, displays, employees, facilities, waiting areas) and all the components like lighting, colors, cleanliness, etc., there’s a myriad of interrelated factors, issues, concerns and pursuits that warrant your assessment or reassessment.

     When, for example, did you last–or when do you next plan to–launch a new product or service program or initiative? Have you been holding back until the economy is “better”? Considering the growing evidence that that could be a very long time, could a launch delay now drag your company’s energy level down, perhaps to a point below a more aggressive market competitor? In other words, is it worth waiting?

     If you’ve already launched your exciting new Zilch-Zapper product line and support services, are they dying on the vine while you’ve preoccupied yourself with tap-dancing around your bankers and investors? There comes a point–as with humans–when a business becomes so over-burdened, so dis-stressed, that it collapses or has a stroke. Could you possibly be cultivating that kind of trauma?

     The good news is that business trauma is easily reversed. It requires only two things:

1) Recognitionthat the negative places your business health dwells in or is headed toward are the result of your conscious or unconscious choices (It’s as easy to choose to UNdo a bad choice as it is to choose to stay with a bad choice), and

2) Awareness that a burning commitment needs to be made to act on and directly treatthe diagnosis your inventory produces, and to be made by standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the immediate and long-term business healthcare and growth goals you set.

     Bottom line: If YOU don’t balance the life of your business (as well as your own… in order to grow your business from a position of strength vs. a position of weakness), who is going to balance the life of your business? Certainly not the government, unions, banks, or big business… I guess the answer kinda doesn’t leave much to the imagination. But that’s okay, because imagination is plentiful, and it’s what you need to exercise in order to get the job done. 

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

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“It’s like knowing when to

  walk away from the table”

–A worldclass sales professional on the subject of closing a sale

     “…know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em…” goes the old country Western song about gambling card players. Well, it happened today and served as a good reminder. No, I didn’t lose at cards. I UNclosed a sale I thought was closed by stepping back and politely away.

     I felt like Jimmy Durante stepping back softly through the spotlights at the end of each show, tipping his hat and wishing Mrs. Calabash goodnight, wherever she was? You’re too young for that? Well, I’m sure it’s someplace on YouTube. The point is there are times when it’s best to UNclose a sale. Driving a prospect into commitments she or he really isn’t ready or able or willing to make will surely backfire.

     There are also a lot of wonderfully well-intentioned people out there who can waste your time, energy and money by stringing you along with maybes. half-hearted commitments, and (every lawyer’s favorite word) delays. Sales professionals (and that means you if you run your own business or professional practice!) do not have time, energy and money to waste.

     So how do you know when a convincing, engaging, personable, charming prospect isn’t serious about buying what you have to sell? You ASK! It’s that simple. If a person IS a serious prospect, he or she will not be put off at being asked to affirm that interest. If NOT, that person will say so or be insulted and walk away (which is just a huffy “NOT”). And, in fact, the “Are you serious” question will often kick up the real reasons for hesitating to commit, which puts the evasive target you need to hit smack in your lap! (Ouch!)

     I had what I thought was a hot prospect–after six weeks of three personal visits, three email exchanges, and four telephone calls (all positive and encouraging)–who accepted completely my well-founded assertions that I could double her business sales at no added expense except my easily-affordable fee.

     And today, I asked if she was serious and ready to get started. She started hemming and hawing about needing her husband’s approval and that he thought he could do what I do and they would save the fee. I agreed. I told her that was great, a genius move, thanked her, and did my Jimmy Durante act.

     Another couple of weeks worth of of maybes would snap the old rubberband. It’s all about opportunity loss when you get yourself wrapped up with a foot-dragger who has some other agenda besides buying from you! This unclosed sale beat three closed sales. And I didn’t have to bet the farm!

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Input welcome anytime:

Hal@TheWriterWorks.com or comment below.

Thanks for visiting. 

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

Hey Boss, what’s

your T-shirt say?

     One of the most useful exercises you can do as a business owner or manager is to take a shot at branding yourself and your business… regardless of whether your business is already in the middle of a branding campaign or not.

     This exercise is just between you and yourself! And don’t offer any feeble not-enough-time-type excuses because this whole adventure shouldn’t take you more than 3-4 minutes!

     Put two pieces of paper in front of you. Label one “Me” and the other “Biz.” Put “Biz” aside for a minute. On the “Me” page draw the simple outline of a blank t-shirt… no knit collars or sleeves, no tag sticking out, no concern for size or crooked lines; remember, it’s just for you, and you can toss it when you’re done.

     Now close your eyes and take two deep breaths (go ahead; I’ll wait!). Good.

     Next, put some representation of whatever you think would be the most appropriate visual message [word(s) and/or picture(s)] on that t-shirt to represent you, your thinking, your personality, your approach to things, your attitude, your values, your goals/ambitions— whatever strikes you as something that accurately represents what you’re all about.

     Perhaps it’s something you might want a stranger to know about you, or even something that might surprise those who do know you?

     Good. Fold the paper and stick it in your pocket.

     Now, close your eyes again and take two more deep breaths. Okay, now pick up the “Biz” page and draw another t-shirt (same as the first one), but —on this one—record what it is that you most want others (customers/patients/clients/employees/vendors/referrers) to see in your business.

     In other words, when others hear or read or think about the name of your company or practice, what do you want come to the front of their minds? What quality or uniqueness or value or key characteristic? Write/draw it on this second (“Biz”) t-shirt. 

     Finally take the first one out of your pocket and unfold it. Put the two side by side and make a note on the “Me” page about what the two messages have in common. On the “Biz” page jot down what the difference(s) is/are.

     Ideally, there’s a synergy between the two. Whatever differences there are should be healthy ones. If you think you could never wear both shirts, you might want to start career-hunting again. If the messages run parallel but you think they need to be more closely aligned, what can you do starting at 9am tomorrow morning to get that to happen?

     If the messages are identical, you may want to think about stepping up your personal life a bit. Eating, sleeping and breathing your business is admirable, but quickly becomes an unhealthy state of existence that magnetizes stress, illness, and family disruptions. 

     If I see you this summer without a t-shirt, I’ll know you’ve been busy working on your message, your business, and your life… or are about to be arrested! All four situations need your undivided attention! 

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

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You still need “Meeting Magic” 

but your budget’s been bashed!

The boss expects you to arrange your next meeting at a 5-star resort with 5-star service in 5-star surroundings at ONE-star prices?? 

     Talk about meeting planners having an impossible job… You’re expected to work miracles without a wand or a prayer… and now, to top it off, your budget’s been bashed. Right? Or am I just imagining things? In the “old days” you could book fancy meetings at fancy locations for fancy prices and get top management compliments left and right. Right? No more.

     In fact, if you’re still on the job, and your organization is still having off-site meetings, you may be what little kids used to call a “lucky duck”! Maybe that’s not a reassuring thought, but what I’m about to tell you can be the most reassuring option you’ve had in years.

     Here it is:I have designed, delivered, and facilitated nearly 2,000 management training sesions, workshops, seminars and meetings nationwide and in Europe and the Caribbean. The sessions I ran took place in some of the world’s finest hotels, conference centers, and campus and cruise facilities.

     I understand the importance of having an experienced, competent, and reliable on-site support team on-call, of not having technical glitches, of having personable engaging staff services from people who know when to provide quiet top level performance behind the scenes and out of the spotlights.

I appreciate the need for knock-out facilities and inspiring surroundings where participants can be both relaxed and challenged.

     I know how good it isto have facility services that are so outstanding that the chef actually visits tables (not while meetings are in session), that someone shows up at your door with a replacement toothbrush five minutes after you call the desk, that nice weather prompts a last-minute request to meet for golf or car-racing or ropes course experiences, or to relocate a session to poolside or lakeside or gardenside and it’s quickly and cheerfully accommodated.

     Yeah, right, you say, at six gazillion dollars per person. Nope. The best-kept-secret location—known for hosting America’s top executive management teams— is available at far less than you paid for your last exotic location booking, and probably far less than you paid for your last boring one-dimensional location booking.

     And odds are, by the way, if the absolute perfect setting and services you seek are likely to be just a couple of hours drive from Manhattan or Boston Commons, transportation expenses will be a whole lot less too!  

     If you’re interestedin knowing more about this no-gimmicks/no-strings-attached opportunity to book the best world-class service facility and location for the least amount of money I’ve ever experienced, return here later this week for the details. If you just can’t wait, email me as noted below.  

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

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Read My Ears!

     Like a lot of communication practices, it seems most of ustend to slack off, get careless, and periodically get to a point of not listening carefully. Y’hear? It’s normal for our minds to drift off every few minutes when we’re listening to someone else… attention peaks and valleys vary with each individual. [The average American’s attention span has been reported as 12 minutes!]

     If I were, for example, reading this aloud to you, and included a sentence that mentioned the word “football,” as in the size of my 100-pound Golden Retriever on the day I brought her home, your mind might zoom away to the touchdown you scored in high school, or the Superbowl game that cost you $87,934.56 per seat, or the neighbor’s kid’s football you just leather-pancaked as you backed out of the driveway.

     Okay, you say. You’re guilty, you say. Now what? you say.

     Maybe it’s a good time to take personal inventory in how you come across to others. Why now? When business is “off” you certainly want to make the most of your potential to succeed, to make additional sales, to make efforts more productive… all of that starts (and often ends) with maximizing communication skills.

     One of the best and most immediately productive tools available to get started with is http://halalpiar.com/2009/05/4-steps-in-one-minute-zero-stress/ because it relaxes your muscles and makes your brain more alert—the perfect combination for receiving and delivering effective communication.     

     Next, it makes sense to do a little survey of those who share the inner business circle of your life. To keep things abstract and impersonal (i.e., not threatening), you can, for example, ask each person privately what musical instrument she or he most identify you with in the ways you come across to others.

     Ask for clarification, but do NOT criticize any one’s response. Say thank you and smile and walk away, then study the list you get back. What does it tell you about yourself?

     You, for instance, may think of yourself as a versatile keyboard able to perform almost any type of musical message, and someone may tell you you remind him or her of cymbals, crashing into discussions with a finalizing punctuation point of percussion, or a flighty little piccolo that dances around issues while brightening everyone’s day, but not addressing real needs or solving problems. If this exercise doesn’t bear fruit, replace musical instrument with animal.

     Once you have a better sense of what others perceive as less than optimal, focus on ways you can change that/those assessment(s) for the better. Take a quick visit to http://halalpiar.com/2009/05/hearing-is-not-listening/ and then initiate a plan of action for yourself with daily and weekly goals geared to disciplining yourself to come across better by listening more attentively, more actively, more responsively. Remember when you can respond instead of react, you can never over-react! 

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

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“The journey to discovery

is not

in having new landscapes,

but in having new eyes.”

—PROUST

     SO…creating a positive attitude climate for your employees doesn’t mean you have to relocate operations to the islands. It’s all a matter of how people choose to look at things, not the vantage point they commandeer. Here is a six-point approach you can start to use tomorrow morning to create a more positive climate for your business:

     1. GROW YOUR PEOPLE. Know the capabilities and weaknesses of each employee. Determine the fundamental goals of your business, and match those goals against the talents available. Encourage employees to be (as Thoreau once urged) forever on the alert…alert to new opportunities to acquire useful knowledge about the business, about your customers, and about their own individual areas of responsibility.

     2. SHARE THE VISIONS you have of your business goals. Encourage employees to participate in reaching those goals. Share the problems…tell your people what’s going on, but in positive terms and by presenting problems as opportunities…then, listen to their ideas!

     3. DETERMINE WHAT “POSITIVE CLIMATE” CHANGES NEED TO BE MADE. Should changes be made in job descriptions or physical layout to improve working conditions? Be very specific. And take the time and trouble to write it all down on paper with a pen in your hand instead of a keyboard (Yes, it makes a difference!).

     4. SET AN EXAMPLE. If you want to see others act more positively, YOU must act more positively…in bad times as well as good! You will not be fostering teamwork if you rule by threats and intimidation. Praise in public and criticize in private. Be consistent with the goals you’ve established.

     5. REASSESS WHAT IT IS THAT YOU DO EACH DAY, and the ways that you do what you do. Make adjustments to be more consistent with the changes you are making. For example, if you want to encourage better communications, you’ll need to establish a more “open door” policy…and do more listening! 

     6. DEVISE NEW METHODS AND SYSTEMS for developing a more positive climate–such as short weekly meetings to evaluate progress, and a reward system for improved performance.

IN AN OPTIMUM POSITIVE WORK CLIMATE, people know exactly what is expected of them, and where they fit in. Everyone shares the same goals. Employees know how they can be effective, and what kinds of behavior will be rewarded.

What kinds of behavior are you rewarding? Remember that what you reward, is what you get more of! 

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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! 

The Business of Healthcare

Reality is that doctors are no longer” just” examiners, diagnosticians, and healers. In fact, the way things have been going, odds are that something about the healthcare profession will be vastly different by the time we wake up tomorrow morning.

And today, doctors are routinely expected to be insurance experts; banking, investment and financial wizards; administrative hot-shots; marketing, patient relations and community relations gurus; human resource management directors; professional buyers; government compliance champions; shrinks (even if they’re not psychiatrists or psychologists); oh, yes, and family icons.

Does this all add up to patients not getting as much quality care and attention? Of course. How can ANY human being whose existence is devoted to providing professional healthcare be expected to give patients full attention with so many other commitments and expectations tugging at her or his stethoscope? There is a way. Read on.

Thankfully, doctors share many of the same hallmark characteristics as entrepreneurs — from managing diverse cases, juggling breakneck schedules, being able and willing to work long hours and turn on the proverbial dime (if FDR ever knew!), to being self-empowering, quick decision makers with fairly strong delegation skills…and commanding (commandeering?) egos.

     Both–doctors and entrepreneurs–are motivated by the desire for personal achievement and financial gain, as well as a deep sense of things spiritual. Both take reasonable risks. Hence the name I created many years ago: “Doctorpreneurs.”

The differences of course are equally important. Human (and animal) healing, relief, care, wellness, and hope are certainly not software, electronics, transportation…or beer, hot dogs, tobacco, and french fries!

Two telling characteristics common to savvy doctors and true-blooded entrepreneurs is that both will only take reasonable risks, and both are smart enough to recognize that:

A) They don’t know and don’t want to know everything outside their realm of expertise, nor do they want to sacrifice the time it takes to learn because it detracts from their specialized skills and interests, and

B) They need to find and surround themselves with people who are experts in their own fields because in the long run it’s easier and less expensive to pay professional fees than to waste time and energy learning by trial and error.

     These are not traits of government or corporate leaders.

In the end, they are the traits that will hold our embattled healthcare programs and services together in much the same fashion that entrepreneurs (ala Jobs and Gates) will be the true agents of change as captains of small business that will turn the economy’s tide to productivity, prosperity, and growth.

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

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