When tug-of-wars threaten 

family business . . .

call TIME OUT!

Not to act is to act… Not to stop the roller coaster long enough to raise the issues (and question yourself), puts you out of control!

Conflict is inevitable in any business. But eliminating conflict can destroy a business overnight because it pulls away the blanket of trust and blocks the path to innovation all in one fell swoop.

The goal needs to be to manage conflict productively, not chase it away. Properly managed conflict can breed creative thinking, mutual respect, and boost business growth.

If you want to get technical, some organizational development experts and behavioral scientists would insist that the inability to manage agreement is a far more critical issue to address than the inability to manage conflict.

Experience with hundreds of family businesses though seems to dictate that where conflict is present, manage that first. It’s hard to agree to much of anything once fists are flying.

__________________________________________________

Start by questioning yourself >>> What do I need to do when a conflict issue is critically important to me but not to others? >>>Am I inflating or accelerating an issue and making it worse than it really is? >>> How important is it for me (and for me to help others) to speak up, and not “hint”? >>> For issues that are critical to others but not me, can I mediate better with active listening and questioning?

_____________________________________________

Here are some quick-fix rules of thumb that can lead you out of the dark tangles and into the sunlight:

1) Be willing to listen more. Ask the presenter(s) to slow down so you can write down a bullet list of items he/she/they want to deal with (When you do this, you slow down the attack potential and reduce the odds of getting overwhelmed with a bombardment of unrelated issues. When it’s agreed that the list is complete, ask for help prioritizing it, then focus on #1 only until it’s resolved, before moving to #2, etc. Divide and conquer the issues.

2) Stay 100% focused on the issues and on behaviors, not on the individuals themselves or their personality defects or character traits.

3) Resist being defensive or attacking back. Rebuttals only stimulate more rebuttals. Even if you’re right and win the battle, you can lose the war.

4) Be pleasantly direct about expressing what you want and feel. Use assertive language that respects others and their rights, that is objective and clear. More use of words like “I” instead of “you.” If things get heated, call TIME OUT! and follow with statements like “I came here to discuss, not argue” and “I want to know your feelings about this” and “I want to hear your position on this.”

5) Practice substituting the word “and” for the word “but” when trying to work through differences [“I agree with your thinking that we need to increase sales, but I think how that happens should be the responsibility of the sales department” is NOT as effective as “I agree with your thinking that we need to increase sales, and I think how that happens should be the responsibility of the sales department.”] Words like “but” (and “though” and “however” which are simply polite “buts”) serve to discredit…whereas “and” suggests a process of building on a mutually agreeable idea.

To deal effectively with another person’s anger, you must –above all– not get hooked by it.

Second, accept it as belonging to the other person.

Third, affirm the other person’s angry feelings as real, and that you hear and understand them.

Fourth, acknowledge that you may or do feel defensive, and state clearly how you feel about having any anger directed at you.

Fifth, ASK for clarification, for examples, for diagrams; diagnose the cause — take it apart piece at a time.

Sixth, renegotiate the relationship.

And remember what grandma used to say: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

(or call or email Hal -see below- for some free pointers)

Resolving conflicts? It’s always worth doing. It’s your business.

302.933.0911 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!

Your business has just been 

beaten up. NOW what?????

The Small Business ER. Paperwork. Name? Date of birth? sole proprietorship, Sub-S or LLC? Address? History of ailments? Next of kin? Organ donor? 

The Business Doctor. A diagnostic work-up. What seems to be the problem? Take a deep breath! http://bit.ly/bo3ZJy Where does it hurt? Let’s see – does this hurt? 

What did you do, get mugged on the way to a sales presentation?

No insurance? Hmmmm. Ah, Helen, let’s see if we can slide this business in under some kind of federal coverage — maybe one of those stimulus plans?

Sooooo, the good news is you’re not gonna die from this. Take your business home, ice it, give it aspirin and lots of rest; keep the bank loans floating, drink prune juice and call me in the morning.

In the meantime, I’m giving you a rehab prescription — you’ll need physical and mental therapy both, but it may only be for six months to a year.

If by then, things haven’t straightened out, we’ll need to do some MRIs and consider a frontal lobotomy, or we may decide it’s just best for you to simply fold your venture and go to work for the government or a large corporation …which would be something like a lobotomy anyway.

Someone here to drive you? Good. You should feel better in a year or two. Have a great day! 

Yuh! Well, things could be worse, said the bloated cow that hadn’t been milked for three days.

The point is that very little compares with the mental anguish, and painful feelings associated with your business taking a beating at the hands of incompetent government agencies, overly-aggressive industry or professional competition, the two-faced-forked-tongue media, the IRS, or your cousin Vinny.

But YOU are an ENTREPRENEUR! Everybody calls you that. You have a reputation to uphold. You’re a free spirit. Nothing gets you down (well, almost nothing).

So the bottom line is that it’s time to get up off the floor (or examination room gurney) and pick up the pieces and set some new goals that are realistic, specific, flexible, and have a due date. http://bit.ly/95XCJN

Yes, it’s true that entrepreneurs typically do not like to plan anything, but the point here is that when your business and/or business ideas have been assaulted, and you’re thinking about chucking it all and heading for the islands, you need to PLAN.

Most recoveries of any type do not generally occur miraculously. They take planning. http://bit.ly/c4puBz Just as you set goals for yourself when you started your business, set them anew for making a recovery.

You CAN do this.

You know why? Because it’s a choice! http://bit.ly/9GydiP 

www.TWWsells.com or 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!

You Become

What You Think About.

You’ve heard this from Napoleon Hill, Brian Tracy, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Earl Nightingale, Buddha, Stephen Knapp, Sanskrit, The Secret . . . and the list goes on. But what have you DONE about it?

“Thoughts Are Things” is also the title of a book written by Prentice Mulford in 1889. This great bit of wisdom in just three words (!) from Mulford came long before contemporary authors ever began writing about the power of thought.

“Okay, okay, so it’s been around a long time. So what? This is 2010, the economy sucks, and in my business, there’s no time for touchy-feely mumbo-jumbo stuff that doesn’t bring sales in my door!”

Aha! But it can. And it does. You, though, must first respect it enough as a way of life to follow, as an approach to adapt to yourself and your own business and personal pursuits, and make it be your own.

To work, you must remain committed to it (and to yourself and your purposes) night after day, and day after night!

Mulford explains that we each have two minds:

1) The mind of the body (Need a quick example you can believe? Talk with any cancer survivor.)

2) The mind of the spirit (Go back to the first sentence for a resource round-up to learn more, and as you Bing and Google it, tuck the pieces you get under your business hat. It won’t take much to give yourself a wake-up call, if that’s what you seek.)

Stephen Knapp in chapter 3 of his work “Your Thoughts Create Your Future” http://bit.ly/9PaXsp is an interesting source for more of where this concept direction can lead you on a personal basis, and is a great place to start . . . even for a 30-second zoom read of just a few sentences that pop up on your screen.

“In the course of our lives we may be bombarded with negative thoughts, energies or scenarios that may come not only from within us but also from outside ourselves or from others,” says Knapp.

“All around us is a network of people, businesses, governments, publications, movies and music, all telling us what has been going on, or what they think is best for us, what we should buy and do, or what we should think about something. As soon as we tune into the radio, television, or open a magazine, it all jumps out at us,” Knapp continues.

“Our minds,” he says, “can be receptacles of these thoughts and desires, or even criticisms, which then become a part of our own consciousness if we are not careful. These thoughts are like electrical currents which, although unseen, can be felt and produce internal effects.” More at www.stephen-knapp.com

Knapp theorizes that the more prominent people become in society, which certainly includes within your company, within your trade or industry or profession and the communities your business serves, the more that others “will focus their thoughts and energies on you. Some may simply be envious of you… blame you for their problems.”

Translated for business owners, solid evidence exists that the everyday misunderstandings that lead to business downfall can be prevented.

Knapp’s suggestion is to practice raising the consciousness of those who try to attack you. “First,” he so wisely points out,“there is no attack unless you accept it,” and he labels attack efforts as “calls for help” that we can best deal with by responding with help, instead of reacting.

Happiness is a state of mind. It is, in other words, a choice that each of us can control. We can choose to be happy and not be negatively affected by what goes on around us every day. Is it hard? Sure, if we choose for it to be hard. But we can choose for happiness to be easy.

That doesn’t mean it will be easy every day, or every minute, but happiness certainly will happen more often. The happier we are, the better leaders we become, and the more rapidly and solidly our businesses grow. Can’t we just do this for awhile ’til things get back on track? Can you stop dieting and exercising and sleeping right as soon as you start to improve and feel better?

# # #

931.854.0474 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 Time To Yield To Experts.

There’s light at the end of the half-full glass, and no end in sight at the half-empty one! And you thought you were in a tunnel? Maybe you are. Maybe the glass is sitting empty on the shelf, or maybe it’s so full, it’s spilling over the top. Maybe that tunnel is one-way.

Confused yet?

How sure are you that your branding and marketing messages are not equally confusing to your customers and prospects? If what you are saying to your target market about your business is not transparently clear, you lose. Period.

Many entrepreneurs mistakenly believe they’re great marketers because they have a great idea. They think they can write great slogans because they’ve spent years getting back pats from warm, fuzzy, encouraging friends and family.

The problem with this is that support like that unwittingly lends credibility to the incredulous, and the entrepreneurs involved take the tacit approvals as further encouragement to pursue their hair-brained schemes and lunatic ventures. It fuels their ego fires.

And, yes, some of those ideas truly are gems–diamonds in the rough–and family and friend nurturing can lead to ill-founded yet awe-inspiring optimism that ultimately anchors many successful new businesses. 

BUT, if you’re confused about how to best express your business thoughts in a captivating manner, imagine how confused those you seek to captivate might be?

The vast majority of small business marketing messages are misdirected, convoluted, not memorable and overly braggadocio.You know the ones who thump their chests . . . 

“We’re the best, the greatest, the finest and most quality-conscious, the most economical, the most customer service conscious, the oldest, the largest, the most traditional, the most modern, the most forward-thinking. We’re the good ole boys. Our family business tradition goes back to the Ice Age (Stone Age?). We’ve been on the Internet since 1999. We support our community. We back up our promises. We guarantee our work. Count on us. We do it all!”  

WHOOP-EE for you, but sooo what? Nobody cares!! 

Being a positive, optimistic, and exceptional  business leader means recognizing that the customer IS always right WITHOUT– short of physical threats or violence--EXCEPTION. Successful businesses literally REVOLVE AROUND the customer.

Successful entrepreneurs are those who fully grasp and understand the need to nurture everyone (customers AND employees AND suppliers) around them in addition to their product and service ideas.

SUCCESSFUL Entrepreneuring…

• The successful business entrepreneur functions from a position of strength, but recognizes her or his limitations and takes steps to shore up those areas with other’s strengths. 

• The successful business entrepreneur sees people (as well as his or her idea) as the business’s most important asset.

• She or he makes a conscious effort to be positive, optimistic, straightforward, appreciative, and motivational in EVERY single encounter with EVERY person EVERY day. . . exercising authenticity, giving full attention, respect, empathy, and providing solution direction guidance. 

• This means understanding that being genuine 24/7 is not necessarily an easy behavior, but that behavior is a choice. 

Delivering confusing messages to a target market can be worse than delivering no message at all. People will not easily or quickly forget marketing message mistakes. So marketing is just one more place to recruit and rely on professional skills.

An experienced outsider will almost always do a better job of clarifying direction and eliminating marketing message confusion than the business creator.

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 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!

She Tweets Me,

She Tweets Me Not,

She Tweets Me,

She Tweets Me Not,

She Tweets Me…

Howcum all we 30 million small business owners only ever hear about using Twitter and Facebook comes to us in useless abstract terms?

Do we really care about all the bundles of tech apps and clever little increase-your-overnight-income opps? And how credible are the sources that bombard us with such meaningless, time-wasting minutia? Is there really a business owner anywhere on the planet who actually buys into the daily onslaught of claims being foisted on us by self-anointed “social media experts”?

Surely those online businesses that promise 27,943 new followers a day or 16 million new fans a year can’t be serious? Why is it that mixed in with these thousands of clowns, there is only a handful of resources that truly teach the only information that’s really needed in order to be successful with social media marketing messages?

When was the last time you saw a

good run-down of things to avoid,

when trying to market your business

on Twitter and Facebook?

What’s acceptable as social media business content is far different than what you might put on your website, or in an email blast or a news release or a traditional ad or commercial. More importantly, it is far different than the “socializing” climate that most Twitter and Facebook users indulge in.

I have seen countless scores of respectable businesses stumbling through trying to manage Facebook content (text/words/copy/photos) that is tasteless, vulgar, trashy and often filled with curse words posted by disgruntled employees or vendors, and even by young adult children of the business owner or manager.

Marketing your business on Facebook requires persistent (often constant) ongoing attention and maintenance to ensure that others who don’t share your sense of business decorum are not invading your site with negative associations while you sleep.

Business users of Twitter are not as subjected to outside influence because Twitter is an outbound media vehicle, where people can –like ships in the night– respond to your passing business message with their own passing message but they can’t invade your business message space with negative input.

Facebook, on the other hand, is an inbound media vehicle that allows outsiders to post virtually anything they choose whenever they choose, and it ends up plastered right there next to your carefully constructed heartfelt business message, serving to undermine your business credibility until it can be spotted and removed.

What this distills down to is that business marketing applications in social media can be very effective when they are carefully planned and monitored daily. Yes, daily.

You may think you’re above all that, and are 

capable of simply “winging it.” Think again.

You can’t let other Twitter users provoke you into a debate (or even a one-time comment) about politics or religion unless these subject areas are part of your business foundation.

Don’t believe me? Try it once; your “Followers” will drop like flies. Business-focused Twitter users appreciate business-focused and/or motivational messages, but if those same people do not like your politics, or posts you might make about other taboo subjects (racial profiling, sexism, abortion, anything that’s highly-charged), they will cut you out of their contact base in an instant.

Like joining a game or contest that’s already in progress, enter slowly and politely until you have a clear reading on the unwritten rules. Then plan accordingly and be prepared to stay on top of it every day.

Oh, and please always remember to say “Please”

and especially “Thank you.” Thank you! 

 931.854.0474 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!

Two heads may be

better than one,

but not always

two tongues…

When you are planning or starting out to work with another entity, intent on accomplishing a mutual goal, there are some simple steps you might want to take that can dramatically increase your odds for success.

Regardless of whether the root of your pursuit is to save money with centralized purchasing arrangements, add impact to a community fundraiser, introduce a new strategic alliance or affiliate partner, send out a joint-mission news release, join forces launching a new product or service, or just share clerical or cleaning help, the burden of success rests squarely on your tongue.

Huh? Tongue? What’s that about?

When we buy into a plan or idea or action with another person or business or organization, one that brings mutual benefit to the surface, the responsibility for making things work depends on the mutual ability to communicate clearly.

This translates to using word choices you both understand (vs. jargon that only you and your people can readily digest) and consciously limiting descriptions, requests, suggestions, and commitments to the right amount of words — avoiding with equal disdain too much or too little input. Of course, the flapping of the tongue also necessitates the listening of the ear!

U.S. Naval Academy class underlings are subjected to many disciplines. One of these is the response that’s traditionally been required to be delivered (with a salute) to any upperclassman who asks the question:

“Sir, I am greatly embarrassed and deeply humiliated that due to unforeseen circumstances beyond my control, the inner workings and hidden mechanisms of my chronometer are in such inaccord with the great sidereal movement with which time is generally reckoned that I cannot with any degree of accuracy state the correct time, sir.  But without fear of being too greatly in error, I will state that it is about __ minutes, __ seconds, and __ ticks past __ bells.”

That’s a great tool for cultivating discipline. And those who can rattle out that response (plus many others!) on the spot should be valued and appreciated for their commitment. The thing is that the military (and God Bless Our Troops!) is not business.

In business, and especially in collaborative business where the other entity may not be a deeply-known entity, the response must be “3pm” (or “3:15” or some other approximation) because anything more or less creates confusion, and confusion costs money. Effective collaborators articulate just the right amount of information to get the job done.

When you agree to work with an “outside” business, take the responsibility for getting it right. Take the extra time and trouble to make sure that you’re not only on the same mission, but that you’re also on the same channel, speaking the same language.

“Let me make sure I understand you” or “Do I understand you correctly to mean…” or “Can you give me an example of what you mean by that?” are all ways to help ensure that you and your “partners” will get to where you’re going. Don’t worry about what others think of your efforts to clarify. Worry about failing to achieve the mutual goals if you don’t.

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’m too busy for you!”

(Translated: “I’ll never be a leader because

I don’t really care about anybody else!”)

Is “I’m too busy for you!” the verbal or nonverbal message you might be putting out to others?

I just read a promotional endorsement written by someone I know who, years ago, I used to respect. He starts out his explanation of why the particular newsletter he raves about is one of a very few that he actually makes time to read. He opens his statement by saying:

“I’m busy — painfully busy, so

I’m stingy with my time…”

Pull-eease! Who cares? The source, though, may want to know that comments like this scream of the kind of personal frustration known to have led many to depression and isolation.

It would be viewed by not a few psychology professionals as the monolithic signature of an individual who has deep fears of experiencing any forms of intimacy with others.

“Intimacy,”defined by ground-breaking Gestalt Psychology authors James and Jongeward, “is free of games and free of exploitation. It occurs in those rare moments of human contact that arouse feelings of tenderness, empathy…genuine caring…and affection.” 

Businesspeople are not immune to these kinds of connections and cannot hide behind “business” as if it were a protective shield. But many don’t know that they’re doing it. It may be going on for so long, that it feels natural to be a “workaholic.”

Some may say, why interrupt my career mission to get close enough to someone who will want me to pat their hand when they have a crisis? Dealing with other people’s crises slows me down and forces me to sidetrack.

Much has been written in the literature of Gestalt and Reality Therapy about those who play the “Harried Executive” game in life and business.

These are people who define themselves as “overwhelmed” and “overloaded” and “swamped” and “up to my ears…”

They make themselves too busy to have to spend any genuine quality time relating to others.

This is not a healthy mindset, but it is often masked by offering token attentions and participating in general socializing. It frequently requires professional counseling and coaching to move this type of behavior beyond the personal relationship barricade the person has set up for her or himself.

That you might be conveying to others that you are too busy for them, means you are close to the edge of the abyss that forecloses on many of life’s most valuable opportunities.

“I’m too busy” type statements can also be taken by many to mean:

“You’re worthless to me;

  get out of my way!” 

(Can there be any more insulting an attitude to communicate?)

Can you, or anyone who works with you, actually afford to practice being too busy, never mind flaunting it as in the above example?

Time is our most precious and cherished commodity. Of course we need air and water and food and clothing and shelter, but time is what drives those needs.

One of your grandparents no doubt once told you that “Time and tide wait for no man” (a statement that predates modern English and whose authorship is ascribed to St. Marher in 1225) and that “No man is an island” (attributed to the Englishman who was proclaimed the greatest of all metaphysical poets, John Donne, 1572-1631). 

Surely you’ve heard those statements somewhere? Maybe they are worthy of re-considering from time to time.

What kinds of nonverbal “I’m too busy” messages could you be sending out? Arms and/or legs crossed defensively in meetings? Parentally looking over the tops of your glasses at other’s suggestions that seem too time-consuming?

You keep checking your watch, the clock on the wall? You keep checking for text messages? You keep reading emails while someone is speaking with you? Do you walk ahead of others you’re speaking with, or shoulder to shoulder?

Do you pick up the phone and dial when someone approaches you? Do you put off invitations to family gatherings and neighborhood events, or show up to smile and handshake a few people and then slide out the side door when others seem preoccupied?                                                                    

You may want to listen to yourself more…and, hey, check out that great smile of yours in the mirror once in awhile!

 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!

Not all work is labor.

Is There a Crack in Your

Business Liberty Bell?

Dear Ship Captain:

Maybe your people were never at liberty to learn how to hold on to customers when economic seas got rough? No, bungee cords are not the solution! Giving your people the freedom and incentive to learn is the solution. Why now when every penny counts? Because every customer counts! And the bigger the waves, the more widespread the sense of panic — for your customers and customer businesses as well as for your own.

Your customers may not be in the same boat 

. . . but they’re in the same boat!

This of course doesn’t apply if you’re working in a cushy, tax-dollar-supported government position — one of those newly-created jobs we hear about that are simply adding to our catestrophic national debt. (Sorry, had to get that dig in because, regardless of who did what to whom or who blames whom, the fact remains that those artificial “new jobs” are a large part of why things are the way they are.)

Bottom line is that you have to know that being in the same boat as your customers (and your neighboring and affiliated businesses) translates to the need for teamwork in order to survive in storms, and help ensure that every one’s rowing in the same direction. (You’ve seen the Olympic motivational poster: TEAM…Together Everyone Achieves More. It’s true in business too!)

What can you do about weathering this storm

beginning first thing Tuesday morning?

How can you take a firm foothold of quiet leadership? How can you promote and foster teamwork between your own unsteady business and your nervous or floundering customers who may be on the cusp of giving up their loyalty to you, in favor of less expensive products and services?

The first answer: SET AN EXAMPLE. Show your employees and your customers (and other businesses) how to lead your common interests out of the darkness. Sure you have a vote in November, but that’s 60 days away and, even with sweeping changes, it maybe another year before any entrepreneurial-job-creation relief surfaces. (This may help you get started: http://bit.ly/bo3ZJy)

The second answer: FIRST AID. Give your staff a “refresher” crash course on how to trip over yourself trying to delight every customer and every prospect. Keep reminding them to treat every business visit and contact the way they would want their closest family and friends to be treated. Make sure that “The Customer Is Always Right!” is not just a token expression.

Check out an A-1 classic customer service training video entitled “Give ’em the Pickle!” with Bob Farrell http://bit.ly/gD1b6

Develop an incentive planor program that rewards exceptional customer care efforts. Keep in mind that cash is not always the best or most sought-after reward. Read up on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs motivational theory; it works. Start with Net MBA:  http://bit.ly/mKk7D Scroll to “Implications for Management.”

The third answer: LONG-TERM CARE. There are many competent training organizations that specialize in customer service and customer relationship development and management that you can contract with for ongoing or quarterly session programs. Annual and semi-annual efforts are a waste of time and money. Here are two of the best resources to contact: 

Consider a customer-centric “Train the trainer” style leadership program from an organization like TBD Consulting (contact Jonena Relth) www.TBDConsulting.com for options that can bring your designated human resource person up to speed to be able to run ongoing in-house programs.

Another strong alternative –and one that can work independently or in concert with a program like Jonena’s– is Pro-Star (contact Meredith Bell) www.ProStarCoach.com –an exciting new way to provide every employee with their own individually customized computer skill development training and follow-up program, one that also allows for each participant to communicate regularly with her or his hand-picked skill development support team. 

www.TWWsells.com or 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!

“Aha! Foiled Again!”  

With so many contemptuous disingenuous manipulative self-serving business souls running around out there, your odds as business owner of being “taken” by someone, escalate –it seems to me– in proportion to the growth of your reputation for integrity.

I’m referring to the “wolves in sheep’s clothing” types, the kinds of prospective partners and clients or customers who are masters of deception. They are disarming; they pick up on and exploit your enthusiasm; their false commitments seem credible.

Beware Falsified Authenticity!

The motto, slogan, branding line, t-shirt, bumper sticker that best represents the behaviors of these business impostors roaming the planet –and liberally practicing falsified authenticity– might be best expressed in three words:  Promises Not Kept.

Every business owner and entrepreneur has run across people in this category who inevitably cost them large amounts of “learned my lesson” time and money. Some may simply swindle you out of advances, commissions, or expense money. Some may actually be bold enough to bilk you and then take you to court, even blackmail you.

The business world is not just one big happy place!

Sadly, the business world is not just one big happy place filled with genuine people walking high moral ground who are anxious to help everyone in their path take a giant step closer to nirvana.

That’s not to suggest that utopia is impossible to reach; it’s simply an unlikely business destination for many.

It’s also not to suggest that most business leaders aren’t authentic; I believe they are! Or that they don’t practice goal-setting aimed at making the world a better place, I believe most do!

It’s the “one rotten apple” theory that every business owner and manager needs to be constantly and forever on the alert to avoid, because the associated risks of dissing the possibilities can bring down any business literally overnight.

Here’s the least you can do when you feel the least bit uneasy about someone who works him or herself into a position of significant influence and/or compensation (e.g., hiring or promoting someone to a key position, retaining an outside consultant or creative service or professional advisor, considering an investment or operations or financial or marketing partner, etc.):

• Do due diligence. Don’t stop with routine questions or reference calls. Ask references for references and talk with them (“Who else in your organization might I speak with who worked with this person when she was there?” is often a productive and revealing route to take).

• Be suspicious of offers that seem unbusinesslike, until proven otherwise.

• Have a meal together. Ask. Listen. Observe. Note the ways an individual deals with others (e.g., foodservice personnel? people at the next table?). Arrange to be interrupted and see how on-track the person stays, how agitated he responds (or reacts?) to the interruption.

Worried about these kinds of steps seeming too tricky? Worry instead about misreading someone because you put blinders over your good intentions. We’re talking here about the destructive minority who manage to infiltrate almost every business at some point.

They are people who are typically skilled communicators, who can be good at deception — even eye contact, handshakes, mental hand-holding and back-pats.

If you choose to let them set you up be a pawn (fill in the blank) . . . 

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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