The farther apart we go,

 the closer we need

to be.

     As time and technology continue to stretch the great divide they’ve created between human beings . . . and personal relationships become less personal . . . the importance of common sense and common courtesy rises to the surface with more pronounced impact than ever before.

     The HR and sales management rule of thumb, “Praise in public and criticize in private” has — for example — no less common sense meaning now, with increased communication reliance on emails and text messages, than it did in the days when every encounter was a personal face-to-face experience. In fact, the integrity of that “Praise and Criticize” guideline is even more important today.

     Why is that? Because today, we rely more on short, concise, written notes, and every communication is traceable. When someone is praised by email for exceptional performance, everyone in the ranks should get a Cc. When someone is criticized, and Bcc’s are flying around, poor judgement is being exercised, and hidden agendas overwhelm integrity.

     If you run your business on a need-to-know basis, and that works for you, then stick to that and don’t entertain exceptions. If you have a broader interpretation of management transparency and practice across-the-boards openness with all your people, and that works for you, don’t drift into occasional closed door sessions or transmissions. Consistency is what builds business success because it’s what fosters customer, employee and supplier loyalty.

     Customers, employees and suppliers all like to know where they stand. They appreciate business policies, procedures, and approaches that are predictable, and that — even if they disagree with them — they can be assured of no surprises!

     Common courtesy of course is most evident with every exchange, in writing and electronic transmission, in person and on the phone. It is so evident because it is so simple, takes so little effort, but works wonders for every recipient: “Please” and “Thank you!” may sound like dumb old customs to some in this day and age, but nothing else has ever risen in all of history that accomplish more than those three words. [And at-home applications are as important as on-the-job.]

     People are hired and fired, sold and unsold, respected and disrespected by the subjective measures of others as to the genuineness with which these three words are expressed, and if, in fact, they are expressed at all. Those who let “Please” and “Thank you!” flow freely (yes, even when the waitress puts your silverware down or pours you a glass of water, even when a delivery person brings you something you don’t want!) are the people who spread positive attitudes and who will achieve the most success.

     No need to take my word for it. Simply observe those words in emails, hear them in person and on the phone and — assuming they’re delivered with some sense of authenticity — judge for yourself what your impressions are of the person using these expressions of courtesy vs. those you observe and hear who don’t. It’s your call. Thank you for your consideration! 

 Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless our troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

“First Things First!”

     I never figured out why my father always shouted this statement, but I guess it was because he was always in a dither when it occurred to him. Most of us don’t think much about prioritizing until we’re feeling overwhelmed with no place to turn. It’s kind of a “force your hand” type of response. OMG, I’ve got 3 hours to do 27 hours worth of tasks and then the world ends. Right. I’d better prioritize. 

     Here’s the deal: Let’s work backwards at this. One of the life-goals most of us share (beyond not having any IRS surprises!) is to avoid last-minute panic situations and 11th hour rush jobs, right? And it doesn’t matter what business you’re in; that’s an unspoken priority for most of us who are not earning a living by participating in extreme sports. So, okay, the target here is to be –and stay– organized. 

     Establishing priorities means, first and foremost, that you have a busy agenda, or that maybe you’re too busy to even have had time to put together an agenda (which makes me suspect of why you’re even stopping to read this, but nice to see you all the same). Either way, implications are that what you really need to address as Step One is to do a Quick Risk Assessment.

     Nothing magical here. Simply list all the burdensome tasks on one piece of paper (or txtmsg2Urself) and then run through each item with a 1,2, or 3 ranking. It’s a 1 if you just stepped in something brown and gooshy on your way into a building for a big meeting. It’s a 2 if your shoelace broke. It’s a 3 if you just realized your socks don’t match. Determine the relative risks.

     What on your list absolutely positively cannot wait until tomorrow (or the end of the day, or next week, etc.)? Each of those items gets a 1 assigned to it. Let the rest fall by the wayside for the moment and focus 100% of your time and attention and energy on getting your number 1 issues resolved before even looking at the rest of the list to decide if the remainders are 2s or 3s (many will migrate up to a 1 ranking by the time you finish the immediate 1s).

     When a couple of someone else’s have both “assigned” tasks that are battling for THE number 1 position, go back to those someone else’s(bosses or customers or lawyers or spouses or whomever) and ask them to talk with each other to sort out what exactly you need to put next on your runway for takeoff because there’s only one of you to go around! Hand the responsibility for deciding back to the sources!

     Restaurants may be in the food-service business, but cleanliness has to always be Priority One or there may not BE a food-servicebusiness if food poisoning prevails. Maybe you’ve been focused on a date for printing materials for a client when the reason for the materials is more important . . . having finished documents ready to travel with for an out-of-county trade show, needs to dictate the prioritizing for print preparation schedules.

     The undercurrent throughout the prioritizing process is that you need to have a grip on time management (and never get into the position of not having enough time to do time management!) and — aha! —  Our old friend: stress management take some deep breaths!

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless our troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

Entrepreneurs are alive

and well (but fading)

in corporations. 

Many of today’s more progressive corporate entities still house an exuberant universe of entrepreneurial movers and shakers (Corporate Entrepreneurs © I call them), but the numbers are fading.

This is not a good signal to the business world because the giant companies that are hunkering down and cutting corners and holding desperately to their belongings are the same ones that were thriving with these freewheeling innovators just a couple of years back.

It’s as if these small-business-minded agents of change have had their rugs pulled out from under them. Our inept federal government has seen fit to replace the entrepreneurial energy they couldn’t harness — and surely could never understand — with government bailout dollars attached to CEO promises to toe the line and tighten the belts.

Like one big ugly Harry Potter fantasy trip, shareholders have responded by retreating into the evil “Do Nothing Abyss” of Status Quo Land. Too bad. A lot of the nation’s more spirited corporate enterprises have been reduced to rubble in the process.

The transition has served to move the center of the business world into the cyberspace pursuits of high technology because that’s proven to be one of the last remaining protective and nurturing bastions of corporate entrepreneurial fallout.

Entrepreneurs and Corporate Entrepreneurs must join together and rise to the occasion of voting out those who think that running a lemonade stand business means giving free lemonade to everyone who passes by, whether they want it or not, and then charging only those who are thirsty and rich enough to afford the unannounced mark-ups to $20 a cup . . . so that those revenues can pay the bills and keep the “free faucet” running.

Then, when the tank runs dry, give ’em more cash and make ’em raise their rates to pay it back.”

What’s next? The torch of innovative thinking and doing is getting passed back to it’s rightful owners: small business. A great deal needs yet to happen for small business owners, operators, and managers  in order to ensure clear passage to economic resurgence. The burden of righting the ship rests squarely on the shoulders of government.

Only government has the wherewithal to clear the path, provide meaningful (meaningful) incentives to small business to create real jobs and attract innovative leadership to their ranks.

No! . . . creating make-believe jobs inside government, and with and for government contractors, is not the answer. It never has been. Those jobs are a long-term drain on taxpayers. They are neither real nor meaningful and simply cannot have a positive influence on the economy.

Entrepreneurial business leaders need to step up. Our existing government leadership needs to step down. The first of these challenges is ready to happen. The second of these will never happen voluntarily because politics runs thicker than blood.

Entrepreneurs and Corporate Entrepreneurs must join together and rise to the occasion of voting out those who think that running a lemonade stand business means giving free lemonade to everyone who passes by, whether they want it or not, and then charging only those who are thirsty and rich enough to afford the unannounced mark-ups to $20 a cup . . . so that those revenues can pay the bills and keep the “free faucet” running.

Then, when the tank runs dry, give ’em more cash and make ’em raise their rates to pay it back. That mentality will not restore our economy. Competitive marketplaces will. Competitive marketplaces turn on innovative entrepreneurial spirit, not handouts. Corporate Entrepreneurs have the car keys. It’s time to get behind the steering wheel!

# # #

Hal@Businessworks.US  931.854.0474

Open Minds Open Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Shhhh… it’s Quiet

Authenticity.

     Charging onto the battlefield on horseback with swords swishing and guns blazing is the Hollywoodized image many have when the word “Leadership” is mentioned. Of course many others draw from contemporary examples of visualizing a lecturing orator telling all how great things are and will soon be.

     But truly effective leaders are not bursting into battle, or on front page stages or the 11 o’clock news. Because they’re quiet.

     The greatest business and healthcare and educational leaders I have known, and I’ve had the privilege of knowing many, have been quiet leaders. They universally avoid shouting, bullying, pushing, complaining, intimidating, prodding, game-playing, undermining, and hidden agendas in favor of what I call 3-D Leadership.

3-D Leaders DESIGN, DEVELOP,

AND DELIVER.

     Strong leaders invest themselves in preventive maintenance, in defusing and sidestepping the nonproductive contentiousness of those who would draw lines in the sand at every opportunity. Yet most, it seems to me, as they “walk” Teddy Roosevelt “softly” also follow his philosophy and “carry a big stick”. . . not unlike Thomas Jefferson’s quest for “eternal vigilance” noted at the close of my blog posts, or Henry David Thoreau’s motto to “Be forever on the alert.”

     Leaders who practice 3-D Leadership are women and men (and yes, some special children) who are consistently tuned in to getting the task at hand done while staying alert to what’s behind the door, around the corner and up the road vs. dwelling on issues that have gone by the boards, or on promising to deliver undeliverables.

     3-D Leaders influence, inspire, and motivate others by demonstrating . . . by setting examples and sharing knowledge and experiences. They communicate clearly. They know just the right amount of information to offer and absorb at just the right times vs. too much or too little too soon or too late.

     To be a DESIGN/DEVELOP/DELIVER-focused leader requires a large and rare repertoire of skills, talents, instincts, values, belief systems, and human qualities that all add up to authenticity. Leaders who put authenticity first in their own lives and in their affiliations are those who exude transparency. There is nothing to hide.

     These are people who are true to themselves and instinctively seek the positive and the good in others. They thrive in 3-D opportunity environments. It’s invigorating to be one, though few who are, I believe, tend to realize they are. It’s invigorating to follow one. And this I know because I have been fortunate enough to have followed a few.

     If you seek to achieve the ends I’ve described, I can only applaud your ambitions, wish you great open mindedness, and suggest you start by being true to yourself as much of the time as possible with every passing hour in your life. When you get there, call me and let’s do lunch.

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals!

God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless our troops 

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Are you rounding

the turn,

up against the rail,

or (Aaah!)

headed for the

home stretch?

     Have you ever equated owning and managing a business with being in a race? Aren’t most of us in fact so busy galloping over, under, and around the 37 zillion entrepreneurial business obstacles-to-success, that we seldom make the time to assess our own progress? When did we even come to appreciate what market position we’re in, let alone what racetrack we’re on?

     I was reminded yesterday by the simultaneous running of The Preakness (horse race), and The Dover Downs (NASCAR) Race Weekend of how rare the occasions are that we business owners race around and soundly outperform our own and others’ expectations.  How evasive that winner’s circle can be when we just charge forward with our heads down!

     Don’t we ALWAYS outperform ourselves the half-hour before lunch? The hour before closing? The days before vacation? The week before a holiday weekend? The days before a major sales or service event? The days before retirement? The days before the end of the month? The quarter? The year? 

WE EXCEL IN THE HOME STRETCH!

     Who doesn’t run fastest between third base and home plate? Between the 20-yard marker and the goal line? Or in the final lap of a race of any kind? And why is this? Okay. Here’s the place to insert all that profound motivational and psychological reasoning we all carry around on the tips of our tongues:__________________________.

     It seems to me, though, that when all is said and done, each of us protects the need to preserve some level of self-proclaimed legacy. Down deep inside, we want to make a difference! We want others to say “WOW!” and “Whew!” and “HOLY #%&*!” and be impressed and astonished with our performances.

     But why oh why do we have to punish ourselves by limiting our exceptional performances to occur only when we’ve reached some mythical last hurrah, when we’re at a point where every thing’s on the line, or the proverbial eleventh hour is upon us?

     What prevents us from thinking and acting at maximum productivity EVERY day, all year long? Why is some artificial prompt necessary to justify and prompt exemplary performance? Can’t we simply CHOOSE to have this winning attitude NOW? Today? Tomorrow? Everyday? Isn’t it a choice? Of course it is. SO . . . HOW to make it happen is the question.

     Try falsifying our calendars. Let’s put some major event that demands extraordinary production results in the third week of May. Why wait ’til two days before Memorial Day weekend to get cranked up? What about pretending our vacation is a month before it’s actually scheduled? Can we trick yourselves into believing that we have only a week (vs. a month) left until departure day?

     Our kids could do this in a flash. Maybe we can learn something from them about how to loosen up and be flexible and do stuff now that we may have thought we were not ready to do . . .?  

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless our troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

“Hot Diggity,

dog-diggity,

BOOM, what you

do to me . . .”

–PERRY COMO [Yeah, I know; he was before your time.]

     If you’re not celebrating your customers (clients/patients) regularly, it may be time to question priorities. In case you missed one of my past blog post references, it costs five (5) times as much money to get a new customer as it does to keep an existing one!

     And in case you haven’t noticed, or it’s escaped your awareness, existing customers send you new customers. Prospects don’t send prospects.

     Many small businesses and professional practices get to grow up and be big businesses and professional practices by catering to the customers they have. The best source of business is existing and past business.

     Cold-calling is essential to any meaningful sales strategy, but it needs –ALWAYS– to take a back seat to nurturing your existing and past customer base because that’s your bread and butter, and because your customer base will drive many more prospects to your door than you’re going to be able to ferret out for yourself with cold-calls.

     HOW to kick some customer catering and appreciation into gear? Have a party. Host a customer-families-only midnight sale. Email out 72-hour discount special certificates. Send “Thank You” cards out at Thanksgiving and birthday cards on birthdays. Call together a focus group discussion (with appropriate rewards) to review your service pros and cons!

     Offer discounts or credits for referrals. Send in that charitable donation you make every year in the names of your customers. Feature your customers in your newsletter and/or in a series of news releases. Post the releases free on www.BizBrag.com and have BizBrag email them out for you to whatever list you provide — also free!

     Make “How goes it?” followup calls. Imagine actually getting a phone call from a restaurant, accounting firm, or construction contractor just to ask if your last visit was a good one, and what could you suggest to make the next visit even better? (How would YOU feel? Who would YOU tell?) And do this REGULARLY with existing clients.

     Parties and all that stuff too expensive right now? Make it a bagels and coffee breakfast stop-by reception for customers only. Combine forces and split up costs with neighboring businesses; you’ll even gain customers from one another in the process.

     No time? Hand the idea or the event off (with $25 cash or credit, or sports or concert  tickets, or dinner for two, or a limo trip?) to a relative or student intern or employee to organize and promote.

Whatever you do, do something. Try AAA:

Customers like being Appreciated, Acknowledged and Asked!  

# # #    

Call me at 302.933.0911 or comment below

or email Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

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

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

“I see your true colors

 shining through . . .”

                                                                                                                                                          — CYNDI LAUPER

      Is your workspace the drab morning dove gray of a typical stock brokerage or mortuary? (This two-pronged question is, of course, not to suggest any business commonalities.)

     Perhaps, on the other hand, your business screams the vibrant emotional red of casinos and fast food restaurants, or the deep green (“GO” and “MONEY” subconscious associations) of endless bank office and lobby carpets?

     Then there’s always the Caribbean blue that many travel agencies splash around as wall coverings or carpeting or (Awk!) both. How about that maroon and gray at your doctor’s office (presumably because someone thought doctors who are always gray and dealing in blood couldn’t be more appropriately coordinated)?

     Oh, and right . . . we won’t even bother to address the hidden meanings in black and brown law offices.

     Is there some kind of color scheme logic to your workspace or is everything just random?

     How about your product and service “packaging”? The baby stuff? Right, we got that with oinky pink for baby girls and powder blue for baby boys and yellow for unknown and neuter babies!

     You do know of course that even after all that’s happened in recent years, and in spite of political overthrow attempts: red, white, and blue are still the best selling colors in America?

     Did you think there was no method to the madness of TV scene backgrounds, website pop-up colors, ad and brochure uses of color? Has it occurred to you that wardrobe and make-up people on film and video broadcast sets choose certain colors and fabrics and shading and backdrops and patterns and designs for a reason?

     Do you choose what you wear and what you put on your skin everyday according to your schedule? “Dress down Fridays” have become “Dress Down Everydays” in many businesses. What colors do you “Dress Down” to? Why? Are you arware that pinstripes are supposed to communicate sincerity, that Navy blue is seen as authority, tan as neutral.

     You may dismiss all this as nonsense, but if you’re trying to make a major sale or sail through a job interview, wouldn’t it be foolish to not taske advantage of every possible tool at your disposal?

     Why would you want to dress or present your products and services in overpowering colors when you’re trying to schmooze powerful prospects? An over-the-top flashy power dresser is not likely to sell many premium luxury cars because prospect profiles are of well-to-do, powerful people who want to control their shopping excursions. [They’re looking for tan pinstripes.]

     Get employees and customers and suppliers to tell you what color they most associate with your business, and why. No rebuttals or defensiveness; just take it in, write it down, and summarize what you learn.

     Then do some online and/or library research on the one or two colors that you hear most. Are you on the right color path for the image you seek for your business? What can you improve? How? What minute can you start?

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless our troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day! 

“When Push

Comes To Shove,”

Keep Customers

Out Of The Way!

     Protecting your customer base at all costs needs to be Priority One. When people have purchased your products or services in good faith, they are putting their confidence in you and the business you own , manage, or represent. If you screw up that relationship and lose their trust, you have lost a great deal more than a customer or two.

     Long-time idol of mine, Roy H. Williams, Chief Guru of Roy H. Williams Marketing, Inc., and author of what may arguably be the best two essay collections ever written on the spirit of advertising in the universe of American business. The two book set. The Wizard of Ads and Secret Formulas of The Wizard of Ads were published in 1998 and 1999 respectively by Bard Press, Austin, Texas. 

     In his Secret Formulas collection, Williams quotes study findings from Technical Assistance Research Programs of Washington, DC, that you should know about. Chew on these highlights for a couple of minutes:

• For every customer who complains, 26 more will not.
• Each of these 27 unhappy customers will tell 16 others about their bad experience.
• Do the math: Every negative complaint you hear represents 432 negative impressions.
• By the time you hear a particular complaint 3 times, the problem has been mentioned to 1,296 people.
• It costs five times as much to attract a new customer as it costs to keep an old one.
• 91% of your unhappy customers will never buy from you again.
• But a focused effort to remedy complaints will get 82% to stay with you.

     Williams concludes this 2-page revelation with the three questions  to ask unhappy customers (calmly, genuinely, and without a defensive attitude) that he says (and I agree) “will bail you out every time”:

1. WHAT HAS HAPPENED?
2. WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED?
3. WHAT CAN I DO TO MAKE IT RIGHT?

     I might add that the best customer service businesses are those businesses without customer service departments and personnel. When all (every single) employees are trained to put themselves in the customer’s shoes, there should never be a need for the expense and excess baggage that a customer service group tends to burden a business with.

     Bottom line: When you accelerate arguments and draw customers onto a battlefield, you lose. Even if you win, you lose. Can your business afford all the negativity attached to your or your staff members’ short fuses? A little stress management works wonders and keeps customers coming back.

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless our troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day! 

Decide what you

want to do.

Decide what you

can do.

Decide what you

will do.

     When you determine what you want to do, what you can do, and will actually do INSIDE . . . then go OUTSIDE.

     Too many small business owners start out thinking too big on the OUTSIDE. They march into major marketing and ad agencies, PR firms, media and branding service and management consulting companies, waving investment or borrowed money to engage services they not only can’t afford, but don’t even need to begin with.

     Here’s where common sense gets lost in the shadows of egos.

     You own, manage, operate a business or professional practice. You don’t need outsiders coming in and telling you what your vision or mission statement should be or how to manage your customers or employees or suppliers, or how to sell or maintain your operations.

     You already know how to do these things and nobody else can do these things like you can.  

     You are the heart of your business.

     What you see and hear and think and feel about it is your unique perspective. You can pay outsiders to pretend they get it and pretend they know essentials that you don’t. But they don’t. Until your business grows to mid-size, the only genuine and justifiable outside assistance you’re likely to need (besides perhaps technical website design and maintenance)  is with creating, developing, and delivering the words you use.

     Crafting your communications messages and approach is best done by a proven wordsmith who can demonstrate ability to capture the essence of your business and your “voice” (the ways you express what you think and feel about your business) and put it into appropriately persuasive language. 

     Your branding theme-line needs, for example, to explain what your business is all about, what you do and what you provide, tell a story with a beginning and a middle and an ending, be memorable and/or clever . . . and use seven words or less!

     That kind of writing takes a special skill. Making applications of that theme-line work positively in news releases, brochures, websites, social media, direct mail and other traditional advertising forms takes a special skill.

     For a small business, thinking OutsideIn —hiring a large marketing or PR or advertising agency or consulting group to attack tasks like these–  is a dangerous practice. It is typically a colossal waste of money, time and energy. To make matters worse, the likelihood is that any such efforts will only succeed at winning industry awards for the “team” you recruit. Rarely if ever do these arrangements produce real sales.

     Make it your first line of defense to always work your business from the InsideOut

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless our troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day! 

WHAT SPORT IS

YOUR BUSINESS?

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

When was the last time you dribbled across the infield and took a jump shot from 2nd base? Or slam-dunked a hockey puck over the goalpost? You went curling and used a nine-iron instead of a broom?

I once heard a corporate executive describe his company as roller derby because “all we ever do is race around in circles, bashing each other in the teeth, putting on a good show for our public, but nothing ever seems to get done or go anywhere.”    

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

     If you own or manage a business, you sell! If you’re in sales, you undoubtedly equate the sales field with the football field, and see youself running around right end, punting, passing, tackling, huddling, and occasionally at the 11th hour and the 50-yard line “Hail Marying” your way to a sale/no sale decision.

     Football legend Vice Lombardi spent years making motivational training films for salespeople because he saw how direct the sales and football analogy was. A full court press may force a basketball turnover, but cost game-losing vulnerability in many other sports. Are you playing the same sport as your customers? Your competitors? Your vendors?

     So, what sport is YOUR business? ASK AROUND. Other’s answers may surprise you.

     Your honest answer gives important clues about your business strengths and weaknesses, as well as about your business image, reputation, and uniqueness. And those clues establish business patterns which point to professional and financial growth and development opportunities.

     Many family businesses fail to row the same boat in the same direction, or are busy ducking one another while playing ping-pong with golf balls. (Ouch!) 

     Is the sport you choose to best represent your business a team sport? Do people act like teammates? Any team spirit? Cheerleaders? Playmaker? Coach? Go-to guy?

    OR is the sport you most identify with a superstar sport? One person makes all the decisions all the time about everything, from trash disposal methods to sales and marketing and financial management and customer service and answering every phone inquiry?

     In the boxing ring there is but one fighter doing battle with another. The rest are support people. Very high competitive risks for very high potential payback, with the possibility of being rich and brain dead. Well, you could always be a politician . . .

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops (“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!”- Thomas Jefferson)  Make today a GREAT day for someone!