Talk out busine$$ obligation$.

Creditors chase excuses-filled 

non-communicators hardest!

     Yes, these are hard times.

And maybe you’ve let some payments slide.

Perhaps the warning notices have been turned over to a collection agency, and next will be the lawyers, and then –in spite of all the delay tactics of ignoring mailings and not taking collection calls– you lose!

How do I know? I’ve been on both sides of it a few times in my life. So, from practical, hard-nosed experience: most reputable creditors will generally treat you respectfully if you treat them respectfully.

By NOT hiding, cowering, and making excuses, by facing up to your obligations and taking the initiative to communicate and trying to work things out, you, as a debtor, will ALWAYS get treated better.

You are also more likely than not to be given leniency simply because you picked up the phone to present your situation truthfully. Sooner is always better than later, but It’s never too late to try.

Steer yourself clear of ever discussing other debts and/or other payback arrangements. No one wants to hear that you’ve dealt with some other bill collector before facing her or his company’s music. But be as straightforward as possible in owning up to and acknowledging the obligation in question.

No need to feel awkward, embarrassed, inferior, intimidated, or bloody-knuckled.

In business, everyone owes something to some one.

If it’s been making you crazy, stop yourself in your tracks, take some deep breaths, and take the initiative to establish contact with the creditor.

Call. Ask to speak with the supervisor of the person who you end up with, regardless of whether it’s a “Customer Service” rep or a VP. Get as far up the ladder as you can.

Explain your circumstances the way you would like a problem-paying customer/client/patient of yours to do. Wouldn’t you really rather have a person or business that owes you money take the lead and call you to (briefly) explain the circumstances and offer some kind of payment plan –even if it’s ridiculously low– instead of hide in the shadows and not return your calls?

Well?

Don’t make payment problems bigger for your creditor than you would want debtors to make for you. The consequences of not working hard at communicating with those you owe are not worth it.

You are NOT going to win the lottery. Stop dreaming! You are NOT going to make that gargantuan sale you’ve been hoping for, for two years. You are NOT going to inherit millions from your estranged father-in-law. NOT.

Tell it like it is. Pick up the phone and –if it’s local– ask for a meeting. If it’s long-distance, ask for someone who can help you negotiate a payback arrangement you can afford. And do NOT try to use emails to negotiate.

Be sincere. Be truthful. If you are both of these things, you need not feel like you are approaching the issue “hat in hand” so to speak. There’s a time and place for humility, and a time and place for straightforwardness. This is the latter!

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www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 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!

$200 Fill-ups?

No joke, business owners!

Obama pushes for $8 a gallon.

Do the math. 

Unable to succeed at squashing America’s entrepreneurial spirit and controlling small businesses and professional practices –though certainly not for lack of trying– the Obama Administration is now making the biggest mistake of its (hopefully half-over with) life.

Mr. Obama is quietly seeking to drive the price of gas to

$8 per gallon.

Average gas tank capacity means that

a fill-up will cost $200!

Crushing not only the travel freedom of the general public, $8 per gallon gas rates will put many of America’s 30 million small businesses out of business. Imagine the financial paralysis that will set in when shipping and delivery costs are doubled.

Who could think the skyrocketing fares of air travel, air cargo, taxicabs, buses, and every conceivable type of personal and commercial truck shipment will not drastically impact small business and professional practices.

Do we even want to consider the impact

on emergency services expenses?

Why, you might ask, would anyone (let alone Mr. Obama) be looking to undermine even further the only real opportunity that exists to restore health to America’s economy: small business job creation?

See if you can follow this path of crooked reasoning exposed in last night’s Washington Times Editorial. Here are some excerpts:

A perfect storm of foreign and domestic policy choices by the Obama Administration has paved the way for European-style energy prices to arrive on these shores. Far from being alarmed, President Obama sees the prospect of $8 a gallon gas as an opportunity.

When it comes to energy, the White House has sought to augment government controls to prevent the “long-term threat of climate change, which if left unchecked could result in violent conflict, terrible storms, shrinking coastlines and irreversible catastrophe,” in Mr. Obama’s words. Making energy more expensive is exactly what the administration’s “cap and trade” scheme is meant to do.

The theory is that pricier power will be used more frugally, which in turn will appease Mother Earth into blessing us with cooler weather. Mr. Obama expressed the same outlook in May when – with oil at $61 a barrel – he signed a memorandum dictating to automakers the kinds of cars they will be allowed to sell. At the time, Mr. Obama noted with trepidation, “The impetus for action would fade when gas prices started to go back down.”

It’s not possible for domestic production to relieve the pressure from international uncertainty. Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats have blocked drilling in places like Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in millions of acres of federal lands and in offshore locations. Mr. Obama even took advantage of the BP oil disaster to shut down operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mr. Obama points to the small amount of oil currently produced at home to conclude, “We can’t drill our way out of the problem.” That’s only a true statement as long as the current policies place 67 percent of America’s reserves off-limits.

The events unfolding in Egypt, Libya and throughout the Middle East are beyond American control but not outside our influence. Fear and uncertainty drive oil prices higher, and Mr. Obama has done nothing to restore confidence that the United States will act firmly to promote stability in the region.

Instead of addressing these concerns openly, pledging support for the remaining U.S. allies or deploying military assets to show that this country will not allow an interruption in the flow of goods through the Suez Canal, Mr. Obama has calibrated his tepid response to ensure no Muslim mob is offended.

We’re now paying the price for weak leadership, but it’s about more than just paying a few bucks more at the local Chevron station. Every product and service depends on the price of oil and the price of electricity. The vast majority of goods hit the shelves after being transported by aircraft, ships and trucks powered by fossil fuels.

That’s why, as economists note, there is a direct correlation between the number of miles vehicles travel in a year and the nation’s Gross Domestic Product. Unless there’s an immediate U-turn in the domestic and international agenda, we’re headed for rough economic times.

BOTTOM LINE: Should stampeding gas price increases be a concern of small businesses and professional practices?

If you’re not sure, I respectfully suggest you consider re-reading the nine excerpted paragraphs above.

If you disagree, you are surely a few quarts low on entrepreneurial spirit, or you are so rich that a couple of thousand extra dollars a month to keep your gas tank filled makes no difference.

If you agree, remember there’s strength in numbers, and there are 30 million of us.

Well? 

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www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 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!

If you’re not in the toy business,

 and play games with people  

who act like children

 . . . you lose!

Government in virtually any form is hardly a showcase for business leaders. Time and again, and especially with the current Administration, government has proven itself incompetent of thinking and acting prudently or productively. This latest round of childishness that the White House and the Democratic union-vote sheep in Wisconsin are displaying, is pathetic and irresponsible.

Just imagine employees in your company deciding they don’t agree with your hard-line stance against raises at a time when the very survival of your business is at stake and, instead of sitting down to talk about it with you, they pile onto buses and leave town.

Are you kidding me?

Does that sound like a three-year-old temper tantrum or what?

God Bless you, Governor Walker for having the courage to stand up against this intimidation and lunacy. Wisconsin will rise again, but only after those who choose to play child’s play grow up and face the reality that they are part of the problem and not part of the solution. Those who you represent should be proud of your stance. You are trying to save your State from economic catastrophe.

You are 100% correct that the people of your State come first, and that they will decide, not the greedy unions or Mr. Obama’s thugs. There isn’t an entrepreneurial American business on Earth that wouldn’t agree. 

• We know from almost all forms of psychotherapy that when those you are trying to communicate with as adults will only respond as children, you can get down into their playground mentality, become one of them, and accomplish nothing.

• Or, you can rise above them and act parental, which will create added havoc and ignite either explosions or implosions.

• Or, you can stay persistently adult until they finally come full circle, accept their foolish waste of time and energy as an aberration, and join forces, or at least agree to disagree, and move on. And, this is the only avenue that holds promise of productive solutions.

Union mandates are far beyond the point of reasonability and the infantile attitudes of it’s-my-ball-and-I’m-taking-it-and-going-home-Wisconsin-State-Legislators (who have fled from their responsibilities to parts unknown) must both be quashed.

Governor Walker needs to continue to stand firm, and deserves the support of all 30 million of America’s small business owners and operators.

If Wisconsin’s radical leftist and union leader demands succeed, and added State financial support is handed over to e.g., $90,000-a-year-salaried teachers at the cost of collapsing the State, everybody loses.

Can it possibly be that partisan politics is more important than the well-being of Wisconsin families and businesses? Is building a Democratic power base more important than Statehood survival?

Please, those of you who provoke fights and then run from them: Stand up for those who have supported you, not those who give you pretend pledges!

Reality is that your State, like many, is in serious trouble. Meeting union demands is not a solution. Acting like adults and thinking like entrepreneurs will at least get you to the solutions table.

Stop worrying about losing votes and losing union support, and start realizing you hold the key to your childrens’ and grandchildrens’ future. You’ve made your points, now turn it around.

NOW turn it around.

Wull you give the rest of the country reason to applaud you

or cause to spit on an empty trail that you’ve left behind!

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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!

You flaunt it or you bury it.

  It’s a primary differential in determining business success.

Consider for a moment that government and corporate employees have little if any of it. Mothers, entrepreneurs, great athletes, great sales-people, and most detectives –on the other hand– are loaded with it!

Instinct, says Webster, is a natural or inherent aptitude, impulse or capacity . . . a tendency to make a complex and specific response to environmental stimuli without involving reason.

If you own or run a business, you’ve got it!

“Good heavens, man!” most town, county, state, and federal employees, and most low-tech, no-tech, and medium-tech corporate suits would exclaim, when challenged to get to the point without analyzing stuff to death.

You’ve either got it, or you’d better get it!

We are rapidly becoming a global business community that’s triggered and managed by instinct. This proclamation is –particularly for those in white shirts and ties or pantsuits and heels (or perhaps both on alternate days?)– probably a source of indigestion, even irritable bowel syndrome because it threatens their programmed response to every situation, to study it endlessly.

The great oil spill wrought such havoc with both the federal government and the corporate giants involved that they all chose to gasp and cover their faces with their hands, while peeking between fingers, only to settle (after WEEKS passed) to send people to the scene and “to STUDY it!” What was that comment from a couple of paragraphs back? “Good heavens, man!”

Whatever happened to taking action? Oh, right, that’s an entrepreneurial instinct, and entrepreneurs are, after all, a reckless bunch charging from one risk to another. Well, those who are entrepreneurs know this couldn’t be farther from the truth. We also know that today’s economic crisis would never have happened if entrepreneurial instincts had been unleashed to address the issues at hand.

Anyway, the oil spill and economic catastrophy are only symptomatic examples. The point is that you got into business and kept it going through thick and thin because you made decisions based on instinct instead of analytical studies. Well, guess what? The way out of the darkness is to resurrect that quality you’ve hidden away in fear. Take it back out and run with it. Make things happen!

What’s the worst case scenario? How reasonable is the risk? What will it take to jump start your ideas? Your people? Your customers? Your suppliers? Your investors and lenders? Your referrers? 

Why are you wasting time over-thinking when you can be taking step-at-a-time, trial-and-error action the same way you used to a few years back?

It doesn’t have to cost money you

don’t have to test and try ideas.

Cash is short? So what? It’s always short. Do you want to be still sitting there wallowing in worry a year from now just because you don’t have barrels of cash to work with? Seize the day? Seize the moment!

You have your mind. You have your experience. You have your skills and knowledge. And hopefully, you’re smart enough to step up to the plate and pray for a fastball right down the middle. (Praying will help you avoid the curves and spitballs!).

You have your instinct. Use it more. 

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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! 

Tomorrow

is the 2nd day

 of the rest

   of your life!  

So, “business as usual” is an expression left over from the days of yore. Get rid of it! Click on Delete! There is no such thing anymore. No business that’s managed to survive this long into this dying quail economy has a “usual” anywhere on its plate.

This is especially true given The Great Global Warming reports whose noteriety earned an infamous Nobel Prize on the cusp of all the extreme cold temperature onsets. 

I mean, consider that business climate (as we used to know it) has been under crippling storm interferences from the Nation’s capitol, and from deadly mass media manipulations blowing out of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.

If we look over here, at this gathering high pressure system in the Midwest we can probably trace back its origins to corruption in the Chicago area which was stirred up by former community organizers and regularly energized by “Hollywood’s finest” over on the left coast.

Ah, but you only (and rightfully, I might add) want the bottom line: Will it rain or snow?  

Yes. Depending on where you are, at least one and maybe both!

Whatever you’ve suffered to date in trying to keep arms distance from the incompetent government’s meddling hands and from the pathetic examples set by America’s corporate giants, is bound to get worse before it gets better. But it need not get worse for YOU! That’s your choice. You have the ability to stay in control of your ship and steer it through the coming storms. 

It will take some preparation and a vigilant sense of readiness, but you know what? You’re a pro at that! You’ve proven it by getting this far. Take time this week and next to enjoy your family and rest your business brain. But don’t hang up the phone. This is the most ideal period of the year to think about direction instead of survival.

Map out where you’re headed. Check the long-range weather reports and plan course corrections accordingly. Start to look at the prospects for added revenue streams that do not stray too far from your basic business. Begin piecing together a branding strategy and approach that can take you one step up on the competition.

Look a little harder for the opportunities that are there in the corners, the ones you might have passed over before you restructured or streamlined operations. You may have to “knuckle under”! That’s an expression that does still apply. Here’s another:

Open minds open doors.

Pay attention to proper, productive goal-setting. Pay attention to your SELF and your stress levels and your health (because the best open minds and open doors in business mean nothing if your body locked up and shuts down!) Stress, today, may not be greater than in other generations, but it’s certainly quicker, so you need keep pace –and set the pace– are you ready? Set? Go!

  # # # 

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!

 “I read a blog today,

Oh Boy!”

[With thanks for the unconscious melody, to The Beatles]

Contrary to a blog post I just read, MOTIVATION does NOT come from inside you!

It is DESIRE that lodges itself deep within each human being (and of course most animals).

Motivation is an influence that’s exercised and exerted from the OUTSIDE.

It is what activates or triggers desire.

To say someone is “self-motivated” simply means that person is in touch with her or his desires, and that some external things or events (or other person or people has) have activated, stimulated, or triggered those desires, increased awareness of them, and brought them to the surface.

This little bit of wisdom is as important to marketing strategists, sales professionals, and online content writers and designers seeking to trigger emotional buying motives, as it is to business owners and managers.

• We’ve chatted here often about the practical motivational applications of Maslow’s Theory of Needs Hierarchy.

Decades later, it is still a constant and still the most valuable motivational tool for business and organization leaders.

It requires leaders to pay ongoing attention to what things most make themselves and those around them “tick,” and recognize that needs can change instantly. 

• Herzberg’s research adds yet another dimension of reality that we often assume that we know what other’s needs are, but are frequently wrong . . . and that financial and job enrichment rewards are important, but in motivating for true job satisfaction, gaining some sense of achievement is what really matters most.

Okay, now that we’re past all that textbook stuff, let’s take a closer look at leadership. Motivating and inspiring others to perform optimally is a primary challenge and responsibility.

Whether the prompts to action are directed toward problem solving or innovating (or producing innovative solutions), or selling (which may of course combine all of the above), there is an over-riding need to turn on the reality spotlight!

The point is if you are out there on the front lines of sales and/or management–and aim to be successful–you’re not likely to have the time or patience to mollycoddle (cool word, huh?) a bunch of theoretical approaches about how to do your job.

Theory talks. Reality walks.

Now, here’s the killer: if you don’t do the reality booster-shots hourly or daily, your leadership effectiveness stands to suffer big-time.

Remember those on-the-job moments when a boss expected you to be internally-motivated and told you to do something “by the book” that turned out to be dumb, wasteful, irrelevant, insensitive, or ineffective (maybe all?)? Just a small example.

What about the boss who got you excited about doing something that you always wanted to try or to learn, but thought you’d never get the chance? THAT is external motivation of your internal desire! Also just a small example.   

How can you reach inside those you are responsible for leading, to locate and push those magic buttons that ignite their rocket launchers?

One good answer: 

Igniting people’s individual rocket launchers requires full understanding that the strength of your role performance as a leader is determined by how well you can get to know your SELF and others’ individual selves.

Your ability to make great things happen depends on how effectively you size up other people’s qualifications, energy drives, interests, instincts, capabilities . . . and desires!

The more you can know yourself, the more easily you can know others. When you know what others want and need, you’ll know how, when and where to reward and challenge them most productively.

But keep it on your back burner that a personal crisis or even minor oversight on your part or on the part of any of those you lead, can change the dynamics of the relationship and the tasks at hand overnight or within the hour, even within the minute! And that can change what you need to do to help others make a difference. 

# # # 

www.TheWriterWorks.com

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!

You own or run a business

or professional practice,

so you’re filled with stories

 . . . and people have been telling you for years that you should write a book, right? And, HA!, you laugh it off, right?

But somewhere deep inside, you think you really DO have a story worth telling and that you, well, who knows, you could maybe even be the next John Grisham or Annie Proulx. After all, with 37 trillion boring text books already out there, this would have to be a novel. So, fiction it is.

Maybe at some point in your life, you even got up the nerve to get started?

Somewhere, buried in the back of a drawer, or deeply embedded in some tech thing-a-ma-jig (let’s hope something more recent than a, er, showing my age here, a floppy disk?) you have knowingly and hopefully saved your original scribble, no doubt based on some dialogue with one of your prior six or seven spouses, or long-(almost)forgotten soul mate…or a much hated boss!

And now that you think about it, if you can dig the whole mess out, it probably wouldn’t take much to finish it off, true? Even if you were starting from scratch, you could probably zoom through the first bunch of chapters before your spit even hits the ground!

Oh, just imagine–your name in lights, TV interviews with Charlie Rose and Oprah, book signings where you toss each signature pen over your shoulder.

Have I got news for you, Brothers and Sisters!

First, if you can pull an engaging story together in less than 40-80-hours a week for a year or two, and whip it into presentable format for soliciting agents and publishing house editors, your first name must be Miraculous.

Second, as hard as the plot, character development, storytelling, dialogue, writing, editing and proofreading is…expressing the right words in the right ways…finding a good agent who will find you a publisher is harder still.

You should know that whatever you write will never be good enough for 95% of those you seek to cornerstone your career. EVERY time you send out a query letter or first five or ten pages, you will find errors and weak stuff in your work that sucks AFTER you send it out. GUARANTEED!

“Well, just bypass all that garbage,” you say. “Just self-publish it. Then who needs agents and publishing house editors?” Uh, YOU DO, unless you’re also a marketing whiz with deep pockets, and prepared to be your own full time publicist and promoter as well.

Writing a “hot” news release is a skill all by itself.

Then after it’s written, you need to know when, where and how–and have, yes, the tenacity–to get the right person receptive enough to give it coverage. 

Ahh, and then there’s the next release or two or three or four, plus a media kit.

But could be you just want 26 copies printed (to perhaps impress the former spouses and all those stray children…and of course your mother!)   

So back to the agents and publishing house editors (assuming you have a day job and would have a hard time adding another full time one to your schedule). These are categories of people who tend to exude creepy-crawly and sometimes pompous attitudes.

They must spend most of their lives locked in closets from the best I’ve been able to determine.

Most avoid having any online presence. Most are so swamped with so much drivel submitted by so many drivelers, that they start to think of themselves as saintly and will only consider work that is 110% (that extra 10% always a brain-tickler) letter perfect in both content and presentation. Exaggerating? I wish! 

They use one of about four variations on the same theme for rejection explanations, almost always accompanied by a set of pat-you-on-the-back-of-the-hand encouragement and oh, such humility, that they of course can’t possibly know what other agents might “really relate” to your work so, pat-pat, send your review requests elsewhere (and keep the drivel clutter going!).

Here’s the bottom line:

You want to write a book? Write! Then rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. OR just call me and I’ll rewrite what you’ve written to make it better OR I’ll write your story for you – your novel, or your memoir, or your company’s story, or your marketing or branding program, or your news release (which I will get coverage for!).

Click here for some of my latest work.

# # #

www.TheWriterWorks.com

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Stop Dreaming!  

Hope for economic 

change will not come 

from Washington.

It can only come

from YOU! . . . 

Roll up your sleeves!

CALLING ALL ENTREPRENEURS . . .

It’s time to step up to the plate, and accept the fact that we are not just the movers and shakers of the business world, we are quite literally the catalysts of society. Washington is not about to solve the economy or hand over the job creation tax incentives we need in order to get the job done.

We have to make things happen on our own.

Lest you have any doubt (or in case you’ve bought into token SBA talk), here’s some food for thought:

• America’s small businesses have been painted into a corner. Billions have been doled out to corporate giants (to appease union voter support instead of solve the problem). Recipients are using tax dollars to dig themselves deeper into the holes they created.

When entrepreneurs dig into a hole, they get up and out, and try digging someplace else. 

• Like a fancy dinner out with one’s spouse while the baby starves, a long trail of reckless spending has been carved out for creeping socialism programs that have no ability to do anything for the economy except increase the deficit.

Entrepreneurs consider worst-case scenarios and then take only reasonable risks!

• Next, we face the national healthcare plan that can bankrupt more small businesses than any other single act in history.

Forcing entrepreneurs to pay for healthcare coverage (including for illegal immigrants!) and deleting the free-market competition that has made America’s healthcare program the world’s best, is pure blindness.

• Now, we can choose our own healthcare professionals, institutions and methods — choices that will be eliminated. Many top  doctors are already seeking early retirement and new careers.

The tax-cut game is back to stage center (a diversionary tactic?) — all while unemployment continues to worsen. So, timing-wise, it’s back to the “He who hesitates is lost!” entrepreneurial spirit.

A prosperity direction?

Let’s remind ourselves please that just a handful of entrepreneurs is more likely to save our economy than all of politics combined. 

Why?  Because only entrepreneurs understand how to make things happen, and then make them happen. The antithesis of government and big business thinking, entrepreneurs believe and practice the philosophy that some action is always better than no action, and that “if it ain’t broke, fix it anyway!” 

Throughout U.S. history– from Henry Ford to Dale Carnegie to Thomas Edison to Bill Gates to Mary Kay Ash and Oprah Winfrey–  it’s been entrepreneurs that have achieved their burning desires, and created jobs, who have overcome crushing economic defeat, government incompetence, and corporate greed.

It will happen, this straightening of the crooked path, but only when the innovative pursuits of entrepreneurs are able to create new jobs. It is that innovative spirit that throbs deep within our existence as the guiding light and stronghold of leadership in the free world.

Sure, we can choose to wallow in misery–as many terrorist forces would no doubt relish–or just as easily choose to make an active and conscious choice to give America genuine hope and genuine change.  

How will this happen?

We who are blessed by America’s freedom, will help it to happen by what we do with every day, and with the gift of life each of us carries from dawn to dusk.

What we DO with that, how we use it to grant others freedom from oppression and depression, each in our own unique ways, giving others our own unique kinds of pats on the back… is how it will happen! 

We shall rise up as supporters and igniters, lending and offering the incentives to make forward motion possible. By putting our shoulders to the wheel, and marching alongside others, moving in the same directions of enlightenment, we will make the difference.

The investments we make of ourselves in ourselves, and in clearing the way for those who have the gift of making lemonade from lemons, will make the difference.

Think about someone you know who glows with that “git ‘er done” energy and drive…reach out with belief and encouragement…it will work as surely as even the tides rise and fall, and the moon fills with light. 

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302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

A Wandering Mind

Gathers Much Loss

Every minute of every hour of every day, conscious and unconscious negative influences are fighting for your attention.

You own, run, manage, just bought, started, are planning to buy or start, or inherited a business. The last thing on your mind is your mind. You cast away all those inspirational quotes on Twitter and in church, and those gems of wisdom from your six-year-old.

You have no time for the “You become what you think about” writings and teachings of Napoleon Hill, Brian Tracy, Wayne Dyer, Zig Ziglar, Deepak Chopra, or the hundreds of other thought leaders. Yeah, you’ve heard the “As you sow, so shall you reap” line from the Bible. In fact, you have your own been-there-done-that style version: “What goes around comes around.”

But without being consistently grounded in this thinking, you run the risk each day of your thought-stream leading you down an unhealthy path. In fact, you can be obsessed with negative thoughts that create business loss and not even be aware of it.

Taking inventory might be a good suggestion. How can you find out if your mind has slipped over the top without you knowing about it? Try this illuminating exercise:

Ask some friends, associates and family members whose opinions you value to tell you what animal, what musical instrument and what song they most closely identify you with, and why.

They’ll probably laugh. Simply say you are doing a study and explain no further.

• Be clear that you’re looking for their straight-out opinions.

• Do not interrupt except to ask for clarification.

• Do not refute, rebuttal or defend. Just listen, and take notes.

• If you’re not sure you understand, ask for examples.

• Whatever you get back, take it on the chin.

When you have the input of five or six people, decide if there’s any pattern or overlap. For example, do four of them think you most remind them of a snake (or wild boar?), and a kazoo, and a song like “Angry Eyes”? Well. Organize the input you get to see if it makes any sense. Prioritize. Evaluate. Decide how to get more positive stuff and less negative stuff.

Feeding on daily TV show lineups can produce a steady stream of negative-related people and situations which can take a toll on  behavior and prompt offerings of defensive reasons and excuses for every action. Dr. Andrew Weil has been known to prescribe “No News” for a week to some distressed patients.

If all your mind does is think about cancer, or your weight, or your age, or your bank account or bills, you are going to (like rolling a snowball) generate more of that kind of thinking.

When some one’s thoughts are preoccupied with having an affair, it will be hard to pay attention to their spouse. A new baby or puppy in the house can drain your ability to stay focused.

Behaviors. Behavior is a choice. A negative mindset is something we bring on ourselves. Directly or indirectly (and often obscurely), we make lousy behavior choices. Regardless of the who, how, why, when, and where, if you’re feeling misery, failure, or frustration, accept that you are choosing it.

Take some deep breaths and choose instead to change the channel in your brain. Self-control leads to leadership control. The world’s greatest leaders are masters of self-control. Self-control means exercising compassion as well as passion, and being focused on the journey –not the destination– as the source of achievement.

When your mind is healthy and you’re concentrating on something, it –like a spotlight illuminating the outer edges– will be fully aware of what’s going on around you as well as what you’re targeting in front of you. You can do it. Choose it. Practice it. Keep choosing it! (Yes, you can call me for a little coaching!)

If you work at it sincerely and haven’t experienced remarkable change in three weeks, I’ll be astounded. Yes, after thousands of success stories with zero failures, I will be astounded!

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931.854.0474   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!