Wake Up Congress!

The White House

is NOT on Your Side.

(PART 2 OF 2… The rest of the story)

PASS ALONG a printout or email this page link to your U.S. Senator and Congressional Representative

     Small business has been the backbone of America’s economy and the driving force behind job creation as the means to economic turnaround since the beginning of time. Yet small business has been not only blatantly disregarded in the search for economic and national survival, it has been literally stomped on by a penny-wise, dollar-foolish Federal Administration … that you are being dragged along into as a co-conspirator!

     Paying back union bosses for buying the election, and overriding common sense with big business bailout rewards that should not have come from taxpayers to begin with, and should have gone to small businesses instead to create jobs, was (and remains) a colossal error in judgment.

     Adding insult to injury, the White House is now trying to ramrod yet another version of a so-called healthcare reform plan down our throats.

     The voters are not stupid. They know that the schmooze-coated advances the President is making and the tokenism dropped at the feet of small business is meaningless, empty, UN-American nonsense designed solely to increase government control.

     The White House wants you to think the “new and improved” healthcare plan is what your constituents want and need. It is NOT.

     The White House wants you to think that small business is being awarded huge decision making benefits as part of this ill-founded, burdensome, unworkable plan. Not the case. Small business is being awarded gigantic, financially back-breaking responsibility for making healthcare work without being allowed meaningful input.

     If this healthcare plan goes through, the bankruptcy court lines will stretch all the way around the block in every city in America. If you, dear representatives of the people, think we have unemployment problems now, just give this financially-numbing plan 9-12 months to boil over… oh, and don’t worry about picking up the pieces because you won’t be around for another term.

     The people you represent are already fighting for their lives to avoid forclosures, pay bills, and feed their families. They sure as hell are not going to re-elect representatives who continually vote to spend more money that doesn’t exist — and that our children and grandchildren will be paying for, for decades.

     Jim Toedtman, the accomplished and perceptive Editor of AARP Bulletin, wrote last October (and it continues to ring true) that “It’s striking how closely” (Obama’s healthcare plan) “resembles the plan outlined by Nixon” (in 1970). “There’s a lesson here, and an important one that” (even the late Senator Ted) “Kennedy learned four decades too late: Don’t allow partisanship and deology to blind you to opportunity. But who,” Toedtman asks, “in the nation’s all but dysfunctional capital has learned Kennedy’s lesson? Who has the common sense and the willingness to listen? Who will set aside the partisanship that has paralyzed the health care debate? Who will step forward and seize the opportunity before them?”

     Surely that “who” could be YOU!

     Small business owners strongly urge that the torch be passed to those who know best how to fuel the job creation and healthcare reform fires: small business and healthcare professionals… not corporate giants, not hospital executives, not unions, not bankers, not automakers, and certainly not government administrators or media people. 

     There must be free market enterprise price competition, administered on a state-by-state basis (because health problems and needs vary considerably in different geographical regions) and small business owners cannot be expected to carry the financial burden.

     The White House is trying to make its backers look like heroes. But reality is that backers will instead be thought of by those who elect them as internal terrorists whose support of White House plans and policies are tearing at the very fabric of American life.

     Wake up, representatives of the people of America! Small Business Job Creation is what we need and want. If you were unemployed, could you pay for “the new” healthcare? First things first!   

Comment below or direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! Get blog emails FREE via RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Gr8 Gift 4 GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

IF YOU CAN FOLLOW

these 8 sentences, you 

understand how to fix

the economy — and the

White House is puzzled.

(PART 1 OF 2)

     Entrepreneurs pursue ideas. They taste, test, trial-and-error, and explore applications of their ideas. When they settle on a direction, they find or attract enough financial support to do two things: 1) Create an operations process to develop (manufacture, fabricate, enhance) the product(s) and/or service(s), and 2) Design and deliver a marketing program.

     Marketing drives prospects to the door and creates a support platform for sales. Salespeople (or the entrepreneur herself or himself, acting in a sales role) produce(s) sales. Sales produce revenues. Revenues pay operations process and marketing (and perhaps investor) expenses and hopefully generate profits.

     Profits allow entrepreneurs to create jobs.

     Big business really doesn’t create new jobs. Research demonstrates time and again that far more than the vast majority of new jobs created in America originate with small business.

     So— why does the White House insist on avoiding and glossing over small business as an insignificant source of new jobs? Why does the White House pretend to befriend small business, shaking hands with the right hand while stabbing it in the back with the left hand?

     Can someone please answer this? Can the answer please be a real one, and not some convoluted response anchored by union-held political chips or fantasyland corporate moguls riding bailout coattails?

     How do”We the people…” choose to allow narcissistic political arrogance to override the critical needs of our economically-threatened society to stimulate and foster job creation?  Part of the answer is that we have a federal government that’s universally comprised of individuals who have not one iota of business experience, and who adamantly refuse to get the business advice needed for economic recovery from the only source that matters: small business.

     And surely–because, really, no one could be this dumb– the government can’t possibly be thinking that the SBA is the place to turn for meaningful input. (Yes, this is the same Small Business Administration administered by small-business-braindead government employees and stimulus-recipient big business corporate types who can’t even spell entrepreneur, let alone think like one) .

     The message is: WAKE UP AMERICA!  There’s more to this story, and it’s coming tomorrow.

     I hope you’ll return for –as one of my heroes, Paul Harvey, used to say– the rest of the story!

# # #

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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!

Hold your nose

and dunk under

 the wave . . . or 

 ride it to shore!

     Surfers (not the TV channel kind!) are actually smarter than they look. They know enough to take a deep breath and either dunk under a wave to get out of the way, or stand up and ride it onto the beach. When your business cash flow is outbound, it’s time to make that same decision.

     If you choose to dunk under — like leave town, change your name, and disappear into some cave or head for the islands (until your butt’s hauled back to jail) — go for it! But prepare (at least) for a stiff neck from looking back over your shoulder 16 hours a day … maybe work for a chiropractor?

     My guess is that when payables tip the receivables scale into the stratosphere, most of us will opt for survival instead of surrender. Certa Bonum Certamen say the Latins (“Fight The Good Fight”) and giving our businesses CPR is certainly preferable to filing Chapter 11. Rule of thumb: One first aider beats a full house of lawyers.

     Okay, so where to start? Make the unpleasant calls to creditors; beg for mercy; give them (and stick to) payback plans. Stay in communication with them no matter how awkward, uncomfortable or embarrassing it feels. DO NOT borrow money to pay back loans; it will catch up with you.

     Consider reputable debt consolidation services. Fill in staff-cutback areas with interns. It’s true a recent President kind of ruined that idea, but truth is that if you’re willing to provide the proper guidance and leadership, you can literally build an empire on the enthusiasm and energy of young interns.

     The best source of interns (and usually a structured program that keeps students focused and offers employers recourse) will come from your nearest community college, though some major universities have established highly successful internship (often called “cooperative education”) programs.

     Interns will occasionally work for free, sometimes for commission or bonus arrangements, and often for minimum wage or less. They require ongoing supervision. You may have to fill out evaluation forms and meet with a faculty or administrative advisor once a semester. That’s it. If this is something you want to make work, make it work.

     If you’re a one-man-band, ask family members for hours in exchange for breakfasts or dinners out, or periodic sports or concert tickets … i-tune cards? Be creative.

     One boss I know who’s struggling to get his business back on its feet reports getting productive work hours from his cousin’s teenage son in exchange for covering periodontal work (teeth braces) not covered by insurance. He gets six months of work from another relative in exchange for new tires on two family cars.

     Be creative. Make it work. Ride it to shore!

Comment below or direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! Get blog emails FREE via RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Gr8 Gift 4 GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

Arrogance

and obstinancy

are not solutions to 

sales, job creation,

 or healthcare!

     If you’re searching for role-models to run up some business success, don’t waste your time copying what government and union “leaders” practice. Arrogance and obstinancy don’t work. Running roughshod over the public and small business doesn’t cut it.

     Consistently practicing integrity and authenticity (not just talking about it) is what wins sales. Treating every person you encounter with respect, every day, is what wins support.

     Giving genuine help (meaningful tax incentives) to small businesses to create jobs will produce the jobs needed to turn the economy around. This canNOT be accomplished by government plans to use the $30 billion TARP funds that are intended to offset the national deficit. All that that will accomplish will be to dig the economy even deeper into debt by having the 100% inept SBA provide loans for small businesses to pay off other loans. Seems to me that’s the definition of a vicious circle!  

     Union management is cashing in its presidential election chips and driving federal government puppets (with state governments sadly falling into step) into making decisions and spending money that no one has. These are the dynamics that are driving the American economy into the ground. 

     How far do you think you would get if you were legally insolvent and went on a family spending spree — cars, cruises, expensive restaurants and entertainment, new appliances, a vacation home…? What makes that irresponsible behavior acceptable as a government or union path?

     Has anyone asked small business people what they think the best economy solutions are? (No, not the Small Business Administration, which is comprised of corporate and government administrators who have little if any hard-nosed small business know-how or experience.)

     Yet, in the entire history of the United States, hasn’t it ALWAYS been job creation by small businesses that have bailed out sour economies? 

     It’s all about misplaced and misguided priorities. There is NO way to fix healthcare without first fixing the economy. And there is NO way to fix the economy without small business birthing new jobs. 

     The government, and union management,must learn that the solutions they seek will not come about by banging the door harder. A battering ram doesn’t produce progress or better answers. It really is time to listen to those who know best about how to jumpstart small business to create jobs — small business owners and entrepreneurs.

     Surely they will produce more meaningful answers than other politicians or big business union management.

Integrity and authenticity start with genuine respect, listening, and attentiveness. Can we please see some evidence of those behaviors offered to the small business community?

Comment below or direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! Get blog emails FREE via RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Gr8 Gift 4 GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

JUST DON’T DARE

TO COME UP

FOR AIR!

     Right when we were starting to think we might be coming close to turning an economic corner, we get slammed with a Healthcare Summit instead of a Jobs Summit!?!

     In addition to extolling the new healthcare plan “affordability,” today’s White House declaration reads: “The President’s proposal puts American families and small business owners in control of their own healthcare.” 

     It does nothing of the kind. 

     First off, if you don’t have a job to pay for healthcare, what makes affordability important? And if you can’t afford it, who cares about control? Adding insult to injury, even if you are employed and can afford it, you are not in control; the federal government is in control.

     We’ve said it here before, healthcare reform can only succeed if it is free-market-enterprise price-competitive, and is run on a state-by-state basis. Citizens of Rangeley, Maine, have totally different healthcare needs than those of San Diego . . . or Dallas, Wisconsin, Kansas, or New Jersey.  

     The federal government, in its continuing resistance to acknowledge and foster the fact that small business is America’s only genuine economic survival lifeline, continues to backstab entrepreneurial leaders while smiling at them and shaking their hands.

     Anyway, whatever you do, don’t come up for air just yet because the minute you open your mouth to gasp, the socialist zealots (who decry its use in terrorist interrogation) are standing ready to waterboard small business owners with yet another obstinate attempt to shove a one-size-fits-all healthcare plan down our throats.

     This latest healthcare runaround does nothing except drain small businesses even more and further prevent them from the essential (and only) economic survival solution of creating new jobs. 

     The White House doesn’t get it. Americans simply do not want what is being sold no matter how it’s packaged and promoted, anymore than they’re rushing off to storm local jewelers to cash in on 2 for 1 diamond deals. When you’re sweating this month’s bills and this week’s meals, the healthcare system reforms someone else thinks is needed hardly matter.

     Jobs are what’s important.

     Bailouts and stimulus money are creating jobs? That’s a myth. Do the research if you doubt it. And funneling $30 billion into community banks will not jumpstart small business job creation either.  Oh, if I dare ask, by the way, where on Earth is that $30 billion coming from in the first place? How will it be used? Loans to pay off loans doesn’t seem like a promising solution. What will be the guidelines?

    Is there even a shred of Executive and Congressional awareness about the realities of small business ownership and management?

     Why have unions and big business locked arms with government to prevent small business entrepreneurs from saving all of our butts? It’s called creeping socialism, political greed and outright stupidity.

     It’s past time to stop buying what the President and Congress are trying to sell to further their own agendas under the pretense that they know what’s best, and to instead get them focused on what the American people really need: genuine and simple job creation incentives to small business.      

Comment below or direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! Get blog emails FREE via RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Gr8 Gift 4 GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

S T O P

managing problems

and S T A R T

ending them!

     We are unfortunately taught from pre-K through graduate school, and brain-deadened all along the way by government, unions, and giant corporations (plus well-intentioned family, friends and associates), to wring out our dripping old problem washcloths and use them again.

     Some kind of recycling “green” thinking stewardship-leadership idea?

     Well, far be it from me to not be fully supportive of environmental and ecological interests, but “No Thanks!” when it comes to recycling problems. To manage a problem is to recycle the problem until it comes back again and bites you in the butt! Small businesses don’t have the financial staying power to withstand multiple butt-bites.

     This leaves small business leaders to end the dripping-old-problem washcloth cycle before it begins by blowing the thing up, instead of letting it collect bacteria before its next use. How? STOP doing everything we’ve been taught since childhood: STOP STUDYING THINGS SO MUCH!

     “OMG, that’s sacrilegious! We have to be analytical — especially men — that’s our job!” Right. Because every blue-blooded American is crazed about getting and regurgitating the “in-depth analysis” offered by competitive sporting events commentators, by political and news pundits, by medical and diagnostic healthcare professionals … and by the vast majority of teachers in the vast majority of classrooms. 

     But this is about your small business and my small business, not the AFL-CIO,  AARP, Chevrolet, Bank of America, VERIZON, GOOGLE, main-stream media or the American Federation of Teachers. This is not about the futility of trying to end the vicious cycle of problems of the deep-pocketed. This is about learning what no one (except perhaps for some wise old grandparents!) has ever taught us: HOW TO THINK!

     Leadership means many different things to many people and organizations and governments, but to small business owners, operators, managers, and entrepreneurs, it can only mean one thing: HOW TO THINK!

     Even college which is supposed to teach us how to think, teaches us instead simply more of how to analyze. Analysis skills will not ingratiate a customer, pay a bill, respond to an immediate market opportunity or patch up piece of bad press.

     Long-term strategic planning is the lifeblood of big business and often accounts for giant corporate leaders’ collective inability to see their hands in front of their faces. Action plans are the regimen of small business; they are about what’s happening now and what can be done now to start ending problems now.

     Successful small businesspeople don’t waste time re-assessing, re-evaluating, re-comparing, re-contrasting, re-thinking, revising, re-visiting, re-structuring, or dwelling on re-reads of studies, surveys, and reports.

     Successful small businesspeople try solutions, and when the solutions don’t work, they try other solutions; they don’t waste valuable time, money, and effort running around in circles trying to manage the fire and put the same flame out over and over again. They get rid of the fire.

What can you do today to start ending

            the problems you’ve been managing?          

Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US 

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

No, we’re NOT past the worst,

the job creation plan’s a scam

…but yes, you can still thrive!

Here is The State of Small Business Message:

WORK HARDER, NOT SMARTER!

     Let the giant freshly-bailed-out corporations with taxpayer-dollar-supported operating budgets do all the “SMARTER” stuff. They did, after all, manage to get themselves financially stimulated, so they must be smarter than small businesses.

     And let us, the small businesses of America, simply not be stupid. Let us not be duped by grandiose, self-serving pep-talks that don’t walk the talk. We cannot choose to waste time and energy dealing with those down deep, fraudulent attempts to force-feed us bone-crushing defeats while patting us on the hands and telling us how great everything is going to be.

     Oh, sure, government should be rewarded for creating jobs, even though the jobs to be created are government job creations for government-funded projects being paid for with loans borrowed against our tax dollars? Does that sound like an economic recovery plan to you? It sounds like digging a deeper hole to me. Would you do this with your own business?

     But we can’t fight that without giving up our businesses and our lives to do it. We need to cast this misguided naivete aside and just get on with making our businesses work. Yes, that’s hard. And no, we’re NOT out of economic bad times; we have NOT turned the corner; things are NOT getting better. If you think otherwise, just look around you, and listen…

     But the good news is that, YES, we can survive and thrive. It means doing things differently. We need to not worry about rising above our nation’s financial mess and bureaucratic free-spending incompetence, and instead to concentrate all of our energy and attention on making our own businesses work better.

     That means we must accept the fact that to truly make a difference, we must work harder. Here’s one small example:

     If you can get yourself to work just 15 minutes earlier than usual and leave just 15 minutes later than usual everyday, you will be adding as much as 2.5 hours a week, which equals 10 hours a month, which translates to 125 hours a (50-week) year, which equals more than 15.6 extra full 8-hour work-DAYS a year. Uh ~~~ 3 WEEKS!

     What could you accomplishfor your business with those three additional weeks? How about if everybody in your business agrees to donate just 10 minutes a day of early arrival or stay late time? Hmmm. What else does that make you think about? 

     When you work harder, you lead by example, you attract more sales and referrals, you get more organized, your customers and suppliers will respect you more … and you’ll probably play harder too! You’re already working harder? Keep it up! It WILL pay you back!   

Visit Hal’s Guest Blog Posts

Comment below or Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US 

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

Make Today a GREAT Day for Someone! 

America runs on small business!

Small business runs on

competition.

Competition runs on sales.

     It’s beyond me why no one in government has yet to figure out this relationship, or be able to translate it into the two following, near-unanimous, conclusions by leading national and global experts:

Free market price competition, state-by-state, is the only workable answer to healthcare reform.

Small business sales success is the ticket to job creation, and job creation is the only workable answer to economic recovery.

     I can understand that most politicians have little or no experience in business, but I cannot understand why they so adamantly refuse to acknowledge the truth of the two statements cited above … why they simply cannot deal with the simplicity of each. 

     They have political agendas. Who cares about their political agendas? Do you know anyone who cares about their political agendas? Our economy and our healthcare reform plans are sitting deep in the bottom of the toilet because our elected officials have agendas for self-aggrandizement, self-promotion, and self-preservation.

     Last time I looked, these people lugging around their agendas were supposed to be representing the taxpayers who have hired them. Hmmm, now there’s a unique thought! Just imagine how much would be possible to achieve if elected officials were not preoccupied with protecting their own butts.

     Imagine if politicians actually served those who elected them, instead of pandering to the government agencies, big business entities, and union constituencies who trip over themselves clinging to elected (and bought) coattails, seeking stimulus money to bail out of the holes they’ve dug for themselves.  

     In fact, ask any group of small business owners, and they’ll tell you that that federal and state government leaders are misguided, ill-informed, inexperienced, and completely unrealistic. They are trying to appease small businesses with a ridiculous, unnecessarily and overly-complicated loan program that no small business owner has time to deal with. And who needs a loan now anyway? Why do tax-incentives have to be Rubix Cubes?

     Government is trying to ramrod an unwanted, unworkable, astronomically expensive healthcare reform program down the throats of small business owners, and simultaneously smokescreen the public into thinking it’s in every one’s best interest when it clearly is not.

     Maybe America’s government and corporate giants and unions do run on donuts and promises and paybacks, but America’s small businesses are fueled by genuine competition, authentic innovation and accountable sales. 

• Small business owners know how to reform healthcare with free market enterprise price competition.
• Small business owners know how to fix the broken industrial manufacturing and financial communities with value-adding and innovation instead of cash handouts.
• Small business owners know how to turn the economy around by creating jobs that big business cannot. And frankly, it sucks that the government flat out refuses to give small businesspeople the chance to do these things that government is incapable of achieving.

     Competition makes life work. Sales are both the heart and the fuel of business. And small business is the engine of our economy. Small business owners don’t talk about “downsizing” and “cashing in political chips” and “taking loans to pay loans.”

     Small business ownerstalk about “opportunity costs” and “cashflow” and “innovation” and “asking and listening to their customers.” They equate sports with their businesses and use competitive terms like: Slamdunk! Goal! Hole-in-one! Gamepoint! TKO! Touchdown! Grandslam! to describe their sales efforts!

     Which sounds healthier to you?

# # #  

STOP THE GOOD

GREEN CITIZEN B.S.!

     This past week, I passed a dozen retail stores at night with their electric-lighted signs shut off. My opinion? Sheer stupidity that will end up as self-fulfilling prophesy. [My opinion? Nighttime or otherwise, “A business with no sign is a sign of no business!”]

     One major mall-anchor department store I went into had the escalator to the second floor turned off. “Well,” an ernest young employee I asked about it, told me, “we haven’t had enough shopper traffic since the Christmas rush to warrant the overhead costs. At least that’s what the boss told us.” [My opinion? Idiotic, panicky, self-defeating, misguided management.] 

     A retail warehouse shopping club I visited last week had half their lights off with a placard at the entrance explaining that they were “practicing energy conservation and good citizenship by not being a drain on community electric supplies.” [My opinion? That’s B.S.!]

     Pretty opinionated, huh? Well somebody’s gotta do it. Why not me?

     What’s happening here is that businesspeople who should know better have simply stopped thinking. They are all examples of smokescreen public relations, and of admitting that they have run dry on the kinds of innovative thinking that must emerge as pervasive in business today to survive and thrive in this lousy economy.

     “Lousy” economy? Yup. (Sorry; don’t shoot the messenger!) It is frankly not getting better any time soon (until GENUINE small business job creation incentives exist, and with all the token lip-service plans afoot, plus a zero-experienced government running the show, it’s going to be quite a while!).

     Unfortunately, the environment has become a scapegoat excuse for many businesses to cut back on expenses. It’s ludicrous to think that electric lighting cutbacks are substantial enough to offset the reality of lost business, or to think (and proclaim no less) that lower electric usage is benefitting society, and that customers should applaud shopping in the dark and hiking up stationary escalators.

     Here, ladies and gentlemen, is what’s at the heart of this blog message:

Utility cutbacks do not produce sales!

     Sales are what make business go. Sales are what stimulate small business to create jobs. Some may think it sounds good, but the truth is that GREEN is OUT right now. No one — outside of a ten-minute ring around Washington, DC, or Hollywood, cares. Show people how they’ll benefit by your products and services, and don’t allow others to make feeble excuses for their own incompetency in value-adding and catering to customer service initiatives.

     Or let your people focus on cost savings instead of sales … and die on the vine.

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 LOOKING FOR LEADERSHIP? See Hal’s 12/30 Guest Blog Post at TBD Consulting’s Jonena Relth’s HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED site http://bit.ly/XhN1h

 WONDERING WHEN NO is Better Than MAYBE? See Hal’s 1/6 Guest Blog Post in BonMot Communications’ Angelique Rewer’s FREE HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED e-zine www.thecorporatecommunicator.net 

# # #               

“We cannot afford another

year like last year, and survive!”

                                                                                                             –A farmer, a doctor, and two retailers

     Whether America’s Federal Government is small business ignorant, or small business hostile –and surely it has proven to be at least one of these — makes little difference.

     In the end, you need to accept that politicians with zero business experience surrounded by advisors with zero business experience are on the cusp of running America’s businesses into the ground.

     Accept it, dismiss it, and get on with life.

     Why? Because this isn’t football. The more energy you expend worrying and fretting about the opposition — the more attention you divert from growing your own business — the less effective, less productive, and less efficient you and your people become.

     This isn’t football. It’s rape. Over-dramatic? No.

     Small business people are being violated every day by political zealots who haven’t a clue about the daily outpouring of blood, sweat and tears that go into owning and operating and managing and growing a business.

     We are about to be overrun by a healthcare reform plan that forces increased government control on our lives, even to the point of imposing fines on those who don’t buy in and that force us to see providers we don’t choose.

    This so-called “healthcare” plan in fact addresses just about every subject under the sun except healthcare. And it fails to foster (or even acknowledge) the necessary lifeblood of effective healthcare reform: free market price competition. Oh, and we’ll all be paying for it for decades. 

     We are looking at a cap and trade plan that forces increased government control on our lives, even to the point of preventing us from selling our own homes unless they measure up to expensive and meaningless government imposed standards. Oh, and we’ll all be paying for it for decades.

     We are days away from an utterly meaningless Senate jobs bill which pumps up government jobs and puts some totally confusing tax-credit bait on the end of the fishing line for all those small business owners who have nothing to do except pour through paperwork trying to figure out how to qualify (or who will have to pay through the nose for CPAs and tax attorneys to do it for them).

     Maybe small businesses should get subsidized for creating work for CPAs and lawyers?

     So, what’s the way out?

     There’s one way out and very little choice involved. Here’s the solution: Charge forward with your head down and work your butt off at customer cultivation and customer service. Remember how you felt when you started your business or manager job? Kinda like that.

     What else? You need to take even more innovative approaches to developing your products, services, markets and ideas.

     Anything more? Yes, you must continually add value to everything you sell.

     And, above all, you need to do whatever is necessary to maintain high-level trust and integrity reputations with every customer, prospect, associate, employee, vendor, referrer, visitor, and community you serve … with every encounter, every day.

Your personal authenticity and the authenticity of your business will rise above the tumolt and threats and deceptiveness and empty promises. And when you succeed for yourself, you will be succeeding for many. 

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More on 2010 “LEADERSHIP”? Come visit me and comment on my Guest Blog post at TBD Consulting’s Jonena Relth’s site http://bit.ly/XhN1h

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