The Emperor’s New Clothes!

     On the heels of begging Mr. Biden to stop hallucinating with his feebly http://halalpiar.com/2009/07/its-about-small-business-mr-biden/ unfounded economic turnaround braggioso, I turn to yesterday’s summary from U.S. News & World Report, another self-proclaimed mainstream media source of business acumen and salvation, and can only shout HOORAY!

     Now we can finally all stop being nervous and worried (frantic?) about the sick economy that our nation’s financial giants have birthed and nurtured because according to USN&WR, things are in fact getting better, just as Pal Joey would have us believe in his comments earlier this week, telling us to “just look around!” to see all the business rebounds and job creation that’s going on.

     Well, don’t you know, USN&WR has happily substantiated Mr. Biden’s claims with some hard-nosed assessments that all small business owners everywhere must by now be jumping up and down about.

     “We’re seeing some signs of the economy turning the corner” says USN&WR. WOW! I respond, and hungrily devour the article, searching out some hook to hang my hat on. Ah, and what to my wondrous eyes does appear, but six organizations that give me such hope, I had to run to throw up!

     Here, says USN&WR, take this: Positive financial news is surfacing from none other than these six entities that USN&WR no doubt considers representative for all of us:

• Goldman Sachs
• JP Morgan Chase
• CitiGroup
• Bank of American
• CIT
• The Federal Reserve

     Oh, my heavens! Such great news from these six. Can we in small business be far behind?

     Duh. Yes.

     When did the struggling farmer, retailer, transporter, wholesaler, distributor, construction firm, manufacturer, tourism-based business, and all the rest of us who actually work for a living have anything in common with the big business muckity-mucks who own and operate these monster wheeler-dealer corporations?

     When did their revenues and projections ever have anything to do with the reality of making a living based on the price of or market for corn, or shipping, or a decent hotel room?

     Where exactly is small business in this flurry of mixed economic messages? Why is the government sitting on it’s hands? Why is small business, the last remaining hope for economic turnaround through job creation, being disregarded?

     Why is small business seeing nothing more than tokenism fro government?

     Could it possibly be that union purchases of the presidency now need to be repaid in political favors to the exclusion of survival that only small business job creation has the capability of spearheading?

     Have we become so sick a nation that political IOUs have become more important than our hands, our hearts, our minds… our families? Let’s get real, mass media. The government surely isn’t!     

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Input aways welcome: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in    subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  

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 Turn up the heat, Mr. Biden!

I’ve been ranting and raving here for over a year that small business has proven time and again that it represents the one and only solution to our continually sinking economy. And just because the temperature hit 94 here today doesn’t mean it’s time to turn down the heat.

     Mr. Biden, you told us this week to “Just look around” and check out the great economic recovery in full swing. Uh, and you’re looking where?

     Mr. Biden, America is emphatically NOT on the rebound track that you have the chutzpah to be delivering sound bites on. You’re flat out wrong about the picture you’re trying to paint of booming job creation scenarios and an economic turn-around that’s rushing us back into high-roller high times.

     It’s simply not true, Mr. Biden, and you know that it’s not. Period.

     In fact, if you’ll pardon my brashness, Sir, perhaps you could better be using the influence of your position to develop some MEANINGFUL small business job creation incentives that go beyond the empty, token proclamations of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

     The SBA is so out-of-touch with reality that it hasn’t had a clue about the trials, tribulations, challenges, and opportunities of small business since the day it was founded. Their latest “incentive” plans prove it!

     I served two consecutive 2-year federal appointment terms on what’s been called the country’s most important SBA regional advisory council (NY/NJ/CT and the USVI. I resigned because the two dozen membership seats were filled with major corporate executives. I and one other member were the only ones who owned and operated small businesses. The job of representing and cultivating small business interests was not getting done.

     It is not getting done now. You are not getting it done. Why have you not surrounded yourself with small business owners, and immersed yourself in the process of their day-to-day existences?

     Do you think that walking through a diner and glad-handing the employees is giving you some great small business insight, or that it’s endearing you to or helping small business?

     Do you think there is some other answer to our economic catastrophes outside the province of small business? I’d love to hear that answer.

     It is waaaaay past time to get involved with the only hope that remains: small business! Do it now. Roll up those white sleeves and get yourself in the trenches.

     Visit the farmers in your own State! Listen to the retailers who are suffering through low tourism. Meet with struggling automotive dealerships who have been thrown under the bus by the same automakers your boss is rewarding for their screw-ups by passing out truckloads of tax dollars in a feeble, misguided attempt at business management.

     When you’re put in charge of running what is arguably the world’s biggest business and you have no business or management experience, and you can easily see that small business  job creation is what turns around economies, why do you bury your head in the sand?

     Why do you choose paths of arrogance and abstinence instead of humility and outreach to bring in the experts. No one knows business like  small business owners. Listen to them. Act on their behalf. Help them create REAL new jobs.     

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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!

Is your independence

going down the toilet?

     What better subject on Independence Day than our right to independent choice of healthcare coverage? But, STOP! Don’t click off! This concerns YOU, Dear Mr. or Ms. Entrepreneurially-Minded Business Leader!

     Mr. Obama (He’s only “Mr.” until he proves his citizenship) wants YOU and every other American to be required to buy a health insurance policy… regardless of whether you want it, whether you need it, or whether you can afford it. [Just imagine, if you can, what’s coming next if he gets his way with this. NON-Union Business survival? Right. Good luck!]

     Now get this reasoning: He says it’s the same thing as motorists being required to buy auto insurance.

BUT ISN’T DRIVING A PRIVILEGE?

ISN’T LIFE AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS (INCLUDING HEALTHCARE COVERAGE CHOICE) A RIGHT?

     You want to argue this? Go find me the place in our Constitution or our Bill of Rights that says the Federal Government has the authority to require the purchase of a health insurance policy as a condition of having been born!

     You think that’s a ridiculous exaggeration? Then tell me: WHERE IS FREEDOM when the Federal Government has the power to tell you how to spend after-tax dollars? What distinguishes disposable income from taxes?

     As for the proposal that the IRS be charged with fining citizens who do not purchase a health insurance policy, since the Federal Government just prints more paper money to pay debt, why is taxation or the IRS even necessary? Just shut down the IRS and transfer its budget to indigent care! [And won’t that satisfy all the screaming liberals?]

[With special appreciation for the inspiration and some of the wording to  “BenDoubleCrossed” editorial contributor to the June 26th Larchmont (NY) Gazette www.larchmontgazette.com]

    Before you jump to defend Mr. Obama on this issue, you should know that I speak from more years of healthcare business experience (including five years of National Committee of Quality Health Care membership, authorship of hundreds of healthcare-related articles, and two major books for and about doctors) than he has spent in a lifetime government career.

     His proposals are barking up the wrong tree. And he is continuing to alienate business and industry leaders, in whose hands rest the nation’s only hope for economic recovery! 

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  Is Your Business   

Half-Pregnant?

     I am convinced that the number one reason for business failure is not the economy, not insufficient capital, not poor management, and not over-regulation by government, though all are symptomatic.

     Government interference is of course particularly irksome because it’s being crafted, dictated, and delivered by an arrogant socialist stampede of naive, incompetent leaders whose total business experience equals zero.

     So, what IS the number one reason for business failure?

     Dig deeper.  

     In the past few years, I personally experienced or had first-hand reported more than two dozen incidents involving owners, operators, and managers of sizeable, established businesses hurtling their business interests the wrong way down one-way streets with reckless abandon.

     All have either since collided or failed or are on their way

All have or had the following characteristics in common:

• Lack of follow-through and a vested interest in maintaining the status quo (amazingly, even after hiring outside consultants to ignite, stimulate, and motivate!) 
• Disregard for and disrespect of their employees, with tokenism providing the prevailing wind 
• Disregard of the very talents and solutions they were outsourcing to shore up their own shortcomings (hard to believe, especially after paying for services, but true!) 
• Complete resistance to initiate two-way “partnership style” communicating
• Not having a sense of urgency.    

     I reduce all of these weaknesses to driving a business the wrong way on a one-way street. It’s noteworthy that many of them talk(ed) the good talk…but to themselves: Mission Statements with no teeth!

     Without keeping open to and encouraging two-way communication by exercising strong listening and feedback skills, by making assumptions instead of addressing differences, and by disregarding the very consulting input they were paying for (and then not providing feedback), they were/are setting themselves up for failure. 

The economy, under-capitalization, poor management, and over-regulation are excuses. Businesses succeed–even with all of these factors working against them–by communicating openly at all levels all of the time. Communicating openly at all levels all of the time is the ultimate trigger for business transparency.

Transparency, like pregnancy, cannot be half-way.

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 Hal@TheWriterWorks.com or comment below. Thanks for visiting. 

Go for your goals, good night and God bless you!

Do you have a Wimp Complex?

More businesses these days seem to be functioning like wussies!

     A (farmland) truck dealer is giving away a free tractor with every truck purchase. What a great idea, especially given an uncertain overloaded inventory of vehicles manufactured by what has become an uncertain source. But the dealer has stopped short of making the tractor deal a slam-bam promotion, and will no doubt write it off as a loss. (Lots of examples of how to make trucks fly off the lot with this idea : call me!)

     A small handmade product retailer says she’s closing (to become an Internet business and work from home) because the mortgage payments are too high, and there’s not enough store traffic. There was no mention made of the sparse high-priced inventory or the two large dogs that came bounding from behind the counter, jumping on (literally) six panicked customers in four minutes.

     The owner of a new Chinese restaurant (with better quality food and lower prices than any of the dozens of others within 20-30 minutes) reports he cannot attract enough business because two of his customers who run their own companies told him that business everywhere is suffering and that it might take him a couple of years to break even. (Y’think he’s heard about The Emperor’s New Clothes?)  

     The Post Office cuts services and raises prices. (Now there’s a great solution vs. maybe being more competitive with UPS and Fed Ex?)

     One state government is talking about financial crisis tactics that would close down the government one day a week along with their (greatest natural resource) parks operations which are the primary tourism industry attraction and income source… while approving a gazillion-dollar casino and racetrack complex (no doubt to cater to the gambling unemployed). 

     Financially-strapped ferry operations aren’t far behind. They’ve lowered foodservice quality and raised their vehicle and foot passenger rates through the roof, and can’t figure out why they’re continuing to lose money. (Must be products of the same graduate school that cranked out the Postal Service and government muckity-mucks!)

     This list could go on for thousands of pages, but the point of it all is that entrepreneurs–true entrepreneurs–have more gumption than these examples. They have more spunk. They rise to the occasion, and make things happen by sinking their teeth into the situations that are throwing knockout punches to people in the business examples noted.

     Entrepreneurs are the catalysts of change. They represent both the past and the future of this country. They don’t get discouraged over news from other business owners, or economy woes… and certainly not from government “leaders” who have no business sense or experience whatsoever. 

     Entrepreneurs take promotional ideas all the way through to completion and, in the face of hard times: work harder, stay open more hours, increase services and market competition, and lower prices as necessary.  When times are tough, it’s time to go the extra mile! 

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Input welcome anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

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What does “business

as usual” mean to you?

Guess what you are? You get to your desk or worksite by 8:30 to beat the 9am employee rush. You make the rounds  with staff, do emails and phone calls. 12 to 1:30 is a fat lunch with an associate, customer, prospect, or relative who’s in town for the day. You return to a lineup of boring, energy-draining meetings where every attendee feels compelled to advance her or his personal agenda. You leave between 5:15 and 5:30 after most everyone else has cleared out.”

    Answer: Odds are you’re a corporate employee. So don’t waste time here; go to FaceBook, CNN, C-SPAN, MSNBC, the local commuter bar, or whatever floats your boat…and leave the business of straightening out the economy to the only people around who know how.

     I speak of course of those who frequent this blog: small business owners, operators, managers, entrepreneurs, and professional salespeople… those who aren’t conscious of time, who rarely spend more than 20-30 minutes eating anything, and who have no tolerance for time-wasting meetings.

     Their disciplined nature, by the way, doesn’t make these folks numb or humorless; they’re simply dedicated to their pursuits and tend, I believe, to be far more fun to be around than their “Fortune 1000” counterparts.

     None of them live like the “business as usual” guy described above. All of them are busy making their business innovations work because they don’t get corporate bailouts or economic stimulus packages.

     “Business as usual” has been made a thousand times more difficult by the shortsightedness and naivete of our government.

     When history points to small business as overwhelmingly responsible for American job creation, and job creation has been proven to be overwhelmingly responsible for building and strengthening our economy, history needs to be heeded, not re-invented as socialism.

     Sharing wealth and funding corporate and government incompetency doesn’t do it. Channeling staggering amounts of (not yet even available) tax dollars into major corporate entities whose insolent greed put us here to start with makes no sense. 

     The very same small businesses that stand the best chance of being positive economic impact catalysts are the ones being the most harshly drained. This is how to create job creation incentives?  

     “Business as usual” has a prayer attached. We need to pray that small business spirit and entrepreneurial innovativeness can rise up against all odds and once again rescue America’s economy.

     We need to nurture small business and business startups and pray that our nation’s small business owners and managers can make their dreams work in spite of government interference and corporate anchors.

     We need to support small business now more than ever before.    

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Input welcome anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

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STOP PUNCHING

YOUR BRAINS OUT!

     In case you may have started thinking the whole world’s joined forces with the government to push your business off the rooftop, STOP! Maybe they have all joined forces with the government; I’ll grant you that possibility.

     Even if the whole world is not actually involved, there IS certainly some truth to be said for the government’s strangulation taxes and requirements to comply with the bombardment of over-regulations that threaten and seek to control small businesses.

     But, guess what? You can put a stop to it!

     HOW TO STOP IT: First, step back from the upset feelings and take a deep breath: http://halalpiar.com/2009/05/4-steps-in-one-minute-zero-stress/ 

     Next, accept the fact that you are you and in all the world, there is no one else exactly like you. You are unique. Got it? No? RE-read the boldfacing again. Go ahead. I’ll wait right here for you. Got it now? Good. Believe it? If no, you may want to explore some therapy options. If yes, then take the leap of faith to the next level:  

     If you can accept what you just read, then it should be a no-brainer that the business you own or manage or the part of a business you own or manage is also unique. Why? Simple. YOU are unique and YOU are running it! YOU control the day-to-day activities, and what takes place is YOUR choice. Your behavior and your attitude are YOUR choice. What you decide to do with and about your business is YOUR choice. 

     Leave the victim role to Atlas in Greek Mythology; he took the whole world on his shoulders. [For more on the victim “Poor Me” role that many business owners insist on playing, see the great old Gestalt Psychology classic book, BORN TO WIN, by Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward. I promise that even now, 40 some-odd years later, it will astound your sensibilities about what makes people choose so many self-destruct directions in life.

     If you continue to worry, check this post for reassurance: http://halalpiar.com/2009/05/stress-kills-sales-quicker-than-the-economy/

     The bottom line is that there simply IS NO OTHER BUSINESS like your business because yours is the business that reflects your uniqueness.

     So choose to rise above the rubble and the unfairness and the shortsighted incompetence of government. Extract yourself from the mire of those around you who choose to wallow in self-pity and act defeatist and negative.

     Choose instead to surround yourself with positive people and thoughts and appreciation for the differences you bring to your company and industry and community tables. Make them work FOR you!  

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Input welcome anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

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U.S. Hospitals and healthcare

proposals waaaaay past 

the point of 1st Aid!

A SHORT STORY THAT’S ANCHORED IN TWO DECADES

OF INDEPENDENT MANAGEMENT CONSULTING SERVICES

RENDERED TO HOSPITALS AND HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS:

     At some obscure moment in recent history, about 30-40 years ago, it seems to me, someone had the bright idea to start advertising hospital services. And it was contagious. Pretty soon, ripples began to surface amid the vast sea of shallow-mindedness and business incompetency (that many physicians and business professionals still consider a) breeding ground for hospital executives, administrators, and boards of trustees.

     Hey, marketing works for other kinds of services, these do-good-Boy-Scout-type doctor-wannabes were running around proclaiming, why not hospitals?  Sure, agreed the medical professionals who knew even less about business, why not? they said; nothing else you’ve done has worked. And so it came to pass that hospitals then began to compete with hot dogs, beer, cigarettes, cosmetics and car dealers.

     Well, sure, alcohol and tobacco advertising have since taken a big hit (thankfully), but guess what? Hospital marketing has just continued to get worse. With very rare exception, today’s hospital advertising and marketing programs are ineffectual, misdirected, and unnecessarily expensive. The job is simply not getting done, and they keep spending more to make it not work!

     Present federal government administrative healthcare overtures are equally misdirected and will cost taxpayers a fortune, not to mention the staggering losses in professional healthcare skills that will certainly accompany socialized medicine.

     The problem with what the government proposes is the same one that hospitals have struggled with all these years. It’s that the ideas behind it all are being manipulated to appear creative and the public is being sold on the creativity.

    Unfortunately, creativity does not sell. Everyone on Earth can be creative. Very few are innovative. Innovation gets things done. http://halalpiar.com/2009/06/creative-ideas-vs-innovative-ideas/

     The bottom line is that hospitals need to shape up and start to get their messages straight; the public isn’t as stupid as hospital executives think.

     Similarly, the federal government needs to shape up and get its thinking straight, start being innovative, start thinking these empty, ill-suited proposals all the way through in the context of reality, not fantasy.

     The uninformed, incompetent socialistically-manipulative people being relied on may be well-intentioned, but they haven’t a clue about the business of healthcare, or any business for that matter.

     In the end, communities, citizens, healthcare professionals, and taxpayers will suffer. The time to step back and reassess is NOW. Remember that in the end, after all is said and done, it’s YOUR body and your family’s bodies that will be, so to speak, on the line.

     Do you really want hospital business administrators and government representatives with zero or inadequate healthcare knowledge and experience dictating to you what doctor you need to see and when and where? And do you really think socialized medicine will reward you with quality care? Think again. 

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Hal@TheWriterWorks.com or comment below.

Thanks for visiting. 

Go for your goals, good night and God bless you!

Shut Your Business Down!

     Can the service your business provides be better? Are you in a position to MAKE it better? I would hope so, or you wouldn’t be likely to be visiting this blog for business owners and managers. But perhaps you think you need to live with what you’ve got?

     Maybe you feel like you just shouldn’t rock the boat? Or could it be that you might be stepping on someone else’s toes, or that service improvements wouldn’t work, or may create havoc in your industry or –let’s see– you could never get your dollar value back for the time invested?

     Anything like any of those reasons serve you as a quick answer so now you can move along to some other site? Do yourself a favor. Shut your business down tomorrow. You’re likely to have more success selling off your office or site supplies and equipment than you will staying where you are, doing what you’re doing. You find that insulting? Good! Maybe there’s hope yet.

     If the suggestion to hang up your spikes makes you angry, maybe you need to look in the mirror and shake yourself by the shoulders and breathe some new life into the services you’re providing. Making your services better is more likely, FYI, to INCREASE your business than decrease it.

     Why? Because people talk. People who get better quality services tell others, and this works much quicker and much deeper than any advertising can produce. A couple of years back, some shrewd entrepreneurs even invented the word BUZZ as the modern day equivalent of “Word of Mouth”– except that word of mouth is genuine; BUZZ is contrived.

     The point is that THIS– this economy, this time in history, this year, this month, this week– is in fact the time to start making better what you already have. Don’t let the biased mainstream news media, the zero business-experienced government, the monster union-dominated automakers, the moronic 37 trillion bank VP’s who all know less than one another convince you to sit back and take it on the chin!

     You didn’t start and grow your business to shut it down. Don’t let others lead you down the path of status quo. Now is the time to rise, to innovate, to take a fresh look at what you have, and who you have…associates, employees, customers, vendors, affiliates, neighbors, industry, community.

     How can you make more of all that now? What new ways can you pull your assets together to put yourself and your service business in a leadership position? What’s holding you back? It’s a choice. It’s your choice. 

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Send your input anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Good night and God bless you! halalpiar              # # # 

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Forget The 5 W’s!

     Asking and answering: Who? What? When? Where? and Why? is the stuff that reporters and PR people feed on…it’s the cornerstone of a weak corporate management mentality, and of (even weaker) government managers and directors.

     Constant attention to answering these five questions makes for useless, time-wasting pursuit for business owners, managers and entrepreneurs. Any entrepreneur worth her or his salt will typically respond “So What!” to those who exert themselves trying to provide the answers to them.

     Asking associates, employees, customers and vendors to give you the answers to Who? What? When? Where? and Why? is nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to uncover the person and circumstances to place blame on when something doesn’t go right…usually as a way to cover one’s own butt! 

     And besides the fact that absolutely no one cares except those engaged in the game, it’s a complete waste of time, money and energy (and I’ll be happy to prove it; send me an email with your phone number and I’ll spell out the details in a 3-minute call!), it’s also the wrong attitude if you’re serious about growing your business.

It’s one of the most basic differences between entrepreneurial and corporate on-the-job actions, and between entrepreneurial and corporate off-the-job lifestyles.

     Which of these behavioral choices (dogged pursuit of answers to the 5 W’s, OR overlooking the 5 W’s to concentrate on the HOW?) do you think is most productive for the business? For living life? For the personal and professional growth and development of the people involved?

[If you’re not with me here,you’re a 9 to 5 guy and should just stay there, and must have gotten to this blog by mistake, and you should probably “X” out now and go get your rocks off by visiting Facebook or Disney or ESPN or something not so threatening to your mindset.]

     Is PLACING BLAME the answer in your organization? Does it seem to be an S.O.P goal? Maybe it’s time to hit the road and find a place that respects your efforts? Many of the world’s most successful and fastest-growing organizations actually REWARD what most corporate executives would certainly regard as “FAILURE.”

     Not succeeding at reaching a legitimate goal is not failure. It is instead a positive step in the direction of achieving success because it eliminates one pathway that doesn’t take you to where you want to go. So it serves to narrow down your pursuits more meaningfully.

     Still doubtful? Think about the answers you get from any human on Earth when you ask the question “WHY?” Go ahead; think about it! You get excuses, right? “WHY?” is a breeding ground for excuses.

     Try instead asking “HOW?” as in “HOW” can we perform this task more effectively next time (vs. “Why did this happen?”). HOW? “What three steps can you recommend to prevent this problem in the future?” will provide much more actionable information than a long, time-wasting autopsy which will only show what happened and who did what to whom. 

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 931.854.0474

“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!