This is an attitude message, not a sign-up or recruitment decree

Don’t let the media  

and the White House

bully you around!

It’s your business.

You’ve captained it through rough seas before.

You’ve made it this far.

You know in your heart that –as bad as this economy continues to be (in spite of all the White House and media protestations to the contrary)– you can survive the present turbulence by holding your ship steady and running the engines full ahead.

Why this message now? Because I see and hear about many small businesses getting weak-kneed and starting to actually consider caving in to all the psychological bullying messages that continue to run rampant out of the White House and the federal government’s puppet media, who have abandoned reporting for propagandizing.

Political manipulating has clearly replaced the reality of what it takes to turn around the economy. Don’t be bullied into buying all the nonsense spewing 24/7 out of the army of talking heads. Small business holds the only key to economic turnaround with genuine new job creation — real jobs that provide real career opportunities! 

I’ve had conversations with three business owners this past week (one retail, one manufacturer, and one service) who are claiming to be on the verge of abandoning most if not all marketing efforts to save money. “So board up your doors and windows too! Just toss in the towel now!” I was tempted to exclaim, but realized I’d simply be fueling the fires.

The L~A~S~T place to cut corners is marketing!

T h e   L~A~S~T   p l a c e.

No marketing, no prospects.

No prospects, no customers.

No customers, no sales.

Is that rocket science?

“Oh,” they say, “but we just can’t afford it anymore; marketing costs a fortune.”

No marketing doesn’t cost a fortune! Maybe the kinds of marketing you’ve historically done is proving too expensive to keep afloat in this killer economy, but good marketing does NOT have to be expensive.

In fact, really great marketing can be done for free or close to free when someone knowledgeable and experienced is handling it.

“Yes, but then there’s the expense of retaining those kinds of services!”   

First of all, the “Yes, but’s” run in the woods with the “Rabbuts.”

Secondly, and most importantly, there are VERY many resource people out there who have the know-how and the experience and the creative talents to put together a marketing program for you that is free or minimal expense, and that works, for far less money than you’ve been pouring into your earlier-days efforts.

Stop running! Stop doubting! Start searching! Be a detective!

If you are intent on marketing your business successfully for minimum expense and you are willing to focus a chunk of energy in finding the right individual or team who can do this for you, you will succeed!

And won’t that surprise your competitors? And (ahem!) the White House?     

# # #

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! 

In business and life:

THINGS AREN’T

ALWAYS WHAT

THEY SEEM

The business world is filled

with its share of illusionists.

Look in the mirror. Are you

coughing from the smoke?

We are under relentless media bombardment of fake unemployment numbers. The make-believe news has risen to howling proportions. It’s the White House’s feeble attempt to have us all swallow that the economy is on the upswing (which failure to confirm requires, merely, a trip to your nearest gaspump, with $8 a gallon coming soon to you!).

Just the word “gaspump” puts a gasp in your ump, right?

Probably because it prompts you to remember the last guy who ripped you off.

(Am I imaging this? I doubt it!)

Looking back to November, 2008, should remind us all that in business as well as government (and all of life!), what you see is not always what you get!

                                           

Though most of us think the Latin phrase “Caveat Emptor” — Let the buyer beware— first surfaced in the Ralph Nader consumerism movement of the 1960s, the birth of its use was in fact claimed in 1523, would you believe? So, bottom line here is that deception in business has been around for awhile.

Talk with anyone who sailed through the last few years of the “Dot Gone” Revolution in the 1990s, and you’ll hear sad tales of almost jumping out of tall buildings. I lost $500,000 with a legal signed contract in hand. Another family member lost $1.5 million with a signed contract in hand. The lesson? Signed documents mean nothing!

Where does that leave us? Having to be V~E~R~Y cautious about others we do business with. I’m not so much talking about customers (though big-ticket product and service customers have been known to take what they can and run). I’m really referring more to employment and investor and loan arrangements — big bucks deals!

But I’m also keying in on small business ripoffs that cost big-time hours and effort.

Those are the real killers of entrepreneurial spirit!

I need to make sales to eat.

It’s often hard to do due diligence on a small-time business down the road or in the next town enough to find out that the owner is a scam artist, looking to con as much information from your brain as possible, for free!

Experience has taught me some, but –in the end– I still have to sell my services. Selling services requires giving services. You can sample the pastrami in a deli, but any kind of consultant (except maybe a pastrami consultant) has to provide a sampling of know-how and experience, and that takes time. And time costs money.

So figuring out how to best parcel out samples of your expertise in order to hook the fish but not lose your shirt is the ultimate challenge. And you may never win if you don’t approach prospects with reserved skepticism. I’m not suggesting distrust. I trust everyone until they prove otherwise. I’m talking about being yellow-light-cautious. 

Not everyone has your integrity. Not everyone believes in God. Not everyone functions completely on her or his own. (You’ve heard of silent partners? Wives? In-laws?)

There’s not a whole lot we can do about gas prices, but we always have control of whom we choose to do business with. Yellow lights are only followed by red lights!

Stay alert. Don’t get hurt!

# # #

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! 

When the odds are

stacked against you

. . . change you!

You may not always be able to do something to change the odds, but you can always do something about changing yourself. Entrepreneurs are best at this.

Many online business entities and retail shopping club organizations (like CostCo and BJ’s) excel at transforming both the ways and the means with which they do business.

Re-inventing yourself may be the greatest of all-time survival tactics– befitting of small business and professional practice owners in tough economic times– and it beats trying to “sidestep” the odds — reality!

In case, you had some fool idea that the economy’s getting better, by the way, HA!

Reports today of findings by The Bureau of Economic Analysis are alarming to say the least.

They translate to the fact that one (1) out of every three (3) adult Americans now exists 100% on some form of government handouts of others’ hard-earned tax-dollars.

1 out of 3! Yikes! Why work?

This whole re-distribution of wealth thing isn’t such a bad idea. Let others work to support me so I can lay around watching TV. I never cared much about achieving my potential anyway.

Besides, America has a whole eleven percent more to go to be as bad off as the pathetic 44% welfare state of the UK. And we’ve even got free healthcare coming down the road. Imagine! Free everything! Ain’t Socialism great?

And we can just keep printing money in Washington and doling it out to all of us who need it so we can get our no-more-work-to-live entitlements, right?

Hey, if you’re visiting this blog, you are surely not among those I speak of. You have drive and ambition and a realistic sense of responsibility. You will do what you have to to stay out of that welfare mentality abyss. But we know the runaway fuel prices will send all other costs, including food, right through the roof.

So survival may mean giving serious consideration to re-inventing yourself. You’re a fine artist and no one is buying expensive art these days? Paint smaller, less-expensive pictures; do your own framing; try commercial design work; cartooning?

You’ve made a living as a management trainer, but companies think training programs today are an unnecessary expense. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, but you won’t win that battle.

Instead, switch gears and offer your skills as a consultant to strengthen and/or negotiate separation of partnerships; serve as a mentor for next-generation family business takeovers; teach adult school courses at the community college; throw in with an existing online training entity; write a guidebook.

You’ve always written stodgy business plans and annual reports. Set yourself free and use those skills to start writing website content and news releases.

I visited a religious items store today that has a packing/shipping business. It used to be a packing/shipping store that had a religious items business. Fuel costs are raising shipping rates and people are doing their own packing. And who doesn’t need religion? 

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

There are 30 million of us,

and we know better!

Through your manipulated mainstream media mouthpieces –specifically all the TV networks (except Fox), public radio, and most major newspapers– you and your union-thug cronies can talk until you’re blue in the face trying to convince us all that the economy has turned.

We know better.

We are the 30 million catalysts of America’s society and economy who own and run small businesses.

We see the truth. We are not stupid. We know the economy has not turned.

In spite of all your empty claims and false promises, we know this is only the beginning.

We are watching

. . . the gas pumps guzzle our wallets! While you cheer the rising prices to “urge more prudent energy spending,” we are paying more to ship and transport less. (And forget about pleasure travel!)

Are you truly so naive as to think that preserving obscure wildlife species (like spotted owls?) that barely even inhabit America’s vast oil-rich tundras to start with, could possibly be more important than our nation’s self-sufficiency and long-term human survival?

How much longer do you think you can continue to cultivate our nation’s dependency on Arab oil supplies when there’s more than enough in the U.S. to be able to cut those ties completely?

Let we whose lives your decisions are impacting make those choices for ourselves and our own grandchildren.  

We are watching

. . . food prices soar. We are eating (and feeding our families) less healthy more affordable meals in order to cut costs. Food costs will continue to rise as Arab-imported oil costs rise.

At some point, your defiance will shut down the shipping industry, and the rest of our industrialized nation will get flushed away in its wake. No? Then prove it. At the very least explain it! 

Your creeping socialism power-craze has overtaken the reality of America’s survival. Your misguided actions are succeeding at snuffing out the very spirit of entrepreneurship that has made America great! 

We are watching

. . . your tax dollar handouts go to bungling corporate giants who contribute not one iota to new job creation.

We are watching

. . .  unnecessary useless jobs be “created” in government so you, the bosses, can step back and smile and orate and snap your suspenders and gloat about all the new jobs being created.

Those meaningless jobs accomplish nothing except increase the already-catastrophic deficit that you have had the power to fix by putting an end to your administration’s reckless spending. You have instead opted to usher in a state of chaos and convulsiveness that tears at the very fabric of American life and America’s families.

Exaggeration? Oh, how we wish that were the case.  

Evidently, the news has somehow escaped you that America’s 30 million small businesses account for the vast majority of new jobs (97.7% by some estimates!). 

It must be hard to accept and act upon that fact when you’re deliriously busy spending the tax-dollars extracted from those same small businesses, and using them to bail out the dark corners of corporate incompetency.

Adding insult to injury, you’re using our hard-earned tax-dollars to secure and pay back voter support by urging we cave in to gluttonous union demands. You’re trying to improve education by increasing (already outrageously high) teacher benefits? Do people perform better because they’re paid more? That’s a new one.

Isn’t it bad enough that small business will be paying through the nose for ten years just to cover your inept healthcare plan that simply cannot achieve the ends you think the means are designed for?

Okay, maybe these questions won’t get answered, but the small business owners and managers of America will have to be answered. The political rug you’re trying to sweep us all under won’t hide 30 million self-starters. 

We are watching, and soon

(11/06/12) we will be acting!

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

$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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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!

TO: The Presidents of America’s

       30 Million Small Businesses

FR: Hal, on Behalf of Your  

        Families, Friends and

        Loyal Employees

RE: Happy Presidents Day!

Dear Small Business President:

Presidents Day is your day too

 …Lincoln, Washington, and YOU!

Your finger may not be poised at some war and peace hot button, but you are just as important to your customers, clients, and patients as you are to the partners, employees, vendors, referrers, investors and lenders who serve you. Whew! There’s a brainful of thought.

Now layer on top of that, your importance to your family, friends, and loved ones. Obligations, emotions, responsibilities, and headaches galore! (Maybe where the title, Pride and Punishment came from?)

Yet you run FULL AHEAD, battling the storms at sea, and always with your business strapped to your back. It’s no wonder people think you’re crazy! Ah, but you’re still there. You have consistently seen problems as opportunities. You have exercised leadership by example. And you’re still captaining your ship.

That alone is cause for celebration… so 

take some Presidents Day time to party!

In fact, odds are pretty good that you’ve already outlived (or surely will) the terms of any elected American President. And though it’s hard to imagine upstaging the likes of Teddy Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan, odds are also pretty good that you’ve probably outperformed them all as well.

Well, you might say, almost all of them were both caught up with and bogged down in partisan politics. But, hey, you’ve had your in-laws to deal with, and probably your fill of rambunctious txtmsging teenagers, not to mention the dysfunctional families we all have standing in the wings.

So like the old hamburger slogan,

“You Deserve A Break Today!”

Take some time out to appreciate your SELF and what you’ve been able to accomplish. (I mean, you have stayed out of jail so far, right?) Your business is still functioning even though our government is not, and big business just pretends to be. Somehow or another, you have stayed the course, and kept on ticking.

Give yourself a pat on the back!

Call the president of another small business you know, and wish her or him Happy Presidents Day. You may even strike up a collaborative relationship discussion. Y’never know!

Oh, most important of all . . . tell your family you love them for giving you the chance to run your own business, and call a couple of friends you’ve not kept up with to thank them for their patience and understanding about you being so preoccupied so often. Guaranteed you’ll be glad you did.

Then, get back to work!

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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!

The best way to inspire 

your people is to accept

them as your internal

customers . . . and not

your puppies.

Did you ever think of your “inner circle” of employees, your key support staff, as a pack of puppies? Not the same as a litter; those are all the same breed. A pack! A pack of puppies. Some are more aggressive than others. Some are more animated. Some bark louder. Only a few pay serious attention to the tasks at hand. They run and jump in every direction, except at dinnertime — they all like to eat!

And all will, of course, perform as challenged

for the smallest of treats.

They look up to you as their leader. They pay off your expenditures of energy and time (which they sense or understand) and money (which they do not understand) with unsolicited admiration and unquestioning, unchallenging instincts to follow your commands and your examples. They won’t cross you because they don’t want to risk missing dinner and . . . because they know you’re “the boss”! 

As they grow, they become more set in their ways. Regardless 0f temperament, most like to explore –the woods, the beach, the basement, maybe only their own paws, but some thing. They can get discouraged though quickly when explorations are frowned upon.

Have you seen employees become discouraged when management emphasis is having them learn to stay in line, follow orders, and continually focus on past events and future plans at the expense of the present moment.

Puppies and free-wheeling innovative employees are present-moment creatures.

To keep things manageable, you coax them all (puppies and employees alike) into a the security of a routine. As if almost in a trance-like state, routines tend to be non-threatening and predictable. But, wait! Is that what you want for your entrepreneurial mission? Are you in search of  innovators or household pets?

The trouble is that as the relationships grow over time, and the reward treats become bigger and more expensive, there seems to rise from the ground in a great cloud of smoke, an irresistible temptation to mix up that smoke with some mirror tricks, and/or become lackadaisical, dependent, and reliant on the leader for direction.

Consider the ultimate corporate and (excluding military, police, fire, and EMT services) government life routines of: 9 to 5, paychecks, benefit plans, and (for those lucky-but-mostly-come-to-be-unappreciative few), holiday turkeys. These are wonderful reassuring kinds of expectations for cultivating employees to behave like pets.

It keeps them in control, and makes healthy, fun-loving life companions out of them. But (and you know what’s coming):

Entrepreneurs and small business owners and managers can no longer afford compliant, obedient, do-nothing employees.

Despite preachings you may hear from the White House, there is no denying that these are, and continue to be, tough times.

Trying to be profitable in a country that is virtually broke is like trying to play inspired World Cup Soccer in a silent, empty stadium.

Employees must be catered to as much as customers. Innovation needs to be ignited and encouraged daily. Employees are your key internal customers and they will either drive business for you, or they will quickly transform from entrepreneurial puppydom into corporate and government sheep, waiting for you to sheer and feed and shepherd them!

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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!

America’s small business

community is 30 million strong.

On one issue —the economy— we

stand shoulder to shoulder

with one voice:

The economy can only be saved by new job creation.

New jobs come —only— from small business.

(Check history!)

It’s time to face the fact that America’s small businesses drive America’s economy. Period.

It’s time to step up to the plate, Mr. Obama, and exercise the kind of domestic leadership you were elected to provide.

Without a strong economy, there is nothing else you can provide. Your social agenda will continue to dissolve. Our nation’s image will continue to deteriorate. Your support will continue to erode. And the kind of legacy you surely pursue will become more elusive each day.

But you can turn the tide.

You need only to choose to stop being driven by fear of losing face and votes, and show the world the leadership you appear to be capable of.

Bottom line, Mr. Obama:

Stop being an under-achiever!

Your “pulling up short” behavior simply doesn’t do justice to the promises you represent. Surely you can do better than that?

Instead of:

• Blockading and berating small businesses at every turn, and catering to big businesses that are over-run with lethargic 9 to 5 attitudes and disreputable union leaders . . . corporate giants entrenched in maintaining the status quo.

• Creating artificial government “jobs” that simply add to the deficit . . . how many people does it take to fill a pothole? (A State issue? And where do the states take their lead?) 

• Making lots of PR sound-bites and photo ops to illustrate your administration’s dedication to business (and setting up token programs through the pathetic SBA and other smoke and mirror entities to try to look good to voters). . . I served the SBA Advisory Council for two, two-year terms; it’s a farce run by corporate giants. 

  . . . how about trying a bold new tact?                                           

What, for example, could happen if you actually threw Federal support behind small business development by providing genuine tax incentives for job creation?

What, for example, could happen by introducing genuine tax incentives for meaningful small business expansion, and for the creation of entrepreneurial and innovative new revenue streams?

Will you please set the stage for entrepreneurial input by taking the high road? In other words:

• Can you start to genuinely demonstrate a more receptive attitude toward small business owners?

• Can you show a little entrepreneurial spirit yourself by taking the reasonable risk of rolling up your sleeves and setting to work with non-politicized teams of America’s great entrepreneurs? (This includes looking past just those who have worked with and on your various campaigns.)

• Can you put political ambition aside long enough to recruit some active “straighten-out-the-economy” participation by small business? (This means doing far more than just dispatching small armies of researchers and interviewers and surveyors into consumer, industrial and professional marketplaces to “report back.”)   

So far, it seems to ALL of the hundreds of small business owners I informally communicate with regularly, that your administration has done everything humanly possible to alienate entrepreneurs and small business owners and operators and managers, instead of tap into their experience and knowledge, and embrace their spirit.

Small business owners and operators and managers and entrepreneurs know how to be productive.

They know how to turn on a dime.

They know how to create and manage marketplace opportunities.

They know how to do whatever it takes with a passionate sense of urgency.

They know how to make things happen.

It’s hard to know the source of numbers that have crossed your desk, but reality is that there are indeed 30 million of us who are tired of being stepped on, over, under, and around. And many of us care more about turning things around than we do about making political points.

We truly want the opportunity to work with government to turn things around, but there must be an ongoing and mutual sense of purpose and respect coming from the White House. There has not been so far. 

Just say you’re willing to try, Mr. Obama, and let’s get started! Yes, it’s that simple.    

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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!

Why is it so hard to just

  shut up and do what’s right? 

An awful lot of nonsense gets carried over into the business world from society and the media. But I guess that’s to be expected. After all, business is simply a mirror reflection of society’s needs and wants. And the media makes a living by attracting attention with lies and sensationalism that “play off of” society’s needs and wants.

Lies and sensationalism attract attention and create interest. That, in turn, sells newspapers and magazines and draws TV and radio audiences. Media lies and sensationalism boost Internet website visits.

The higher the numbers get, the bigger the demand created for businesses (especially big businesses with multi-million-dollar advertising and marketing budgets) to purchase message time and space. The more message time and space purchased, the more media is incited to lie and sensationalize. A vicious circle.

Bottom line?

There’s a lot of noise out there!

What I find particularly disconcerting is what appears to me to be a growing pervasiveness of leadership reliance on chatter instead of on listening.

The American public has (hopefully) had a two-year-long lesson in the societal strangulation that occurs when you make a great orator –with less than minor league leadership skills and experience– into a national leader who clearly does not know how to listen.

Not listening is by itself an unforgivable offense for any leader. Openly espousing a socialist (Marxist, some even say) agenda that literally flies in the face of America’s Constitution adds fuel to the leadership fire.

One compounds the other by pulling the rug out from under small business’s ability to reverse direction of our ever-plunging economy. It is small business, and only  small business, that can create new jobs. Small business doesn’t fit a socialist agenda. Connect the dots. 

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And so, we are now also seeing a long trail of energetic young entrepreneurs moving into business leadership posts. But they have nothing much to guide them except the seats of their pants and the role model they naively swept into the White House.

The ugly thought alone of a nation of outspoken, brash young business “leaders” preoccupied with presenting instead of listening is frightening to say the least. Pep rally speeches can get people excited, but they don’t get the job done. 

And as disheartening as it is for me to even use this blog as a place to address concerns like this, I can’t help but think that America has brought herself to her knees . . . and that now is the time for every leader of every business entity to 1) get up, 2) stand tall, and 3) listen carefully to what others are saying:

customers, partners, employees, investors, referrers, lenders, suppliers, vendors, service providers, advisors, geographic and industrial and professional communities served.

We cannot just “hear” them.

We must actively “listen” to them.

We might even learn something

about not only doing what

works…but about doing

w h a t ‘ s    r i g h t !   

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www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

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

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