How loud or quiet are

your community relations?

LOUD (high profile) community relations development counts most for:

• Educational and healthcare-based facilities and organizations (e.g., schools, hospitals, libraries, rehab centers)
• Professional practices (especially doctors, dentists, therapists, lawyers, and accountants).
• Retailers of every variety, size, and description (from restaurants to auto showrooms to department stores)
• Real estate professionals and all affiliated services
• Religious-based organizations
• Consumer transportation and shipping businesses)

These entities and individuals need to make positive community involvement impressions because their business interests are community-involved in direct consumer ways. They can achieve this by designing PR programs that support those communities that support their business and professional interests.

It’s called “enlightened self-interest” and it’s a good thing.

It means “enlightened” as to the perceived needs of key communities, neighborhoods, and regions, and taking a leadership posture that will produce good deeds which will ultimately produce some return on the investments of time, money and energy.

This is not the same thing as opportunism.

There is no selfishness involved.

Enlightened self-interest simply means following the awareness that the more good a business can do for the communities it serves, the more that appreciation for those good works will surface, and the more return can be realized, which ultimately allows the business to channel and contribute even more.

It’s all about demonstrating a sense of charity and coming at it from a position of strength which, in turn, makes even more charity possible. It’s hard to give meaningfully from a position of weakness. There’s nothing at all wrong with doing that; it’s simply limiting.

QUIET (low profile) community relations development counts most for:

• Manufacturers, fabricators, and distributors
• Home improvement services
• Online businesses
• B to B services (except media)
• Personal and family services (e.g., counseling, funeral homes, home care)
• Industrial and professional transportation and shipping businesses

These types of businesses have less need for public exposure in the community relations efforts they undertake, but no less of a need to be actively involved.

Both LOUD and QUIET community relations serve important purposes for all involved.

They can be achieved by ongoing and consistent efforts of groups, teams and individuals engaged in activities that benefit the welfare of others through guidance and participation in events, programs, sponsorships, news releases, and public stances on community-benefit positions.

There is never any shortage of needs your business can provide. Set budgets and terms for participating with matching dollar donations . . . and/or contributions of cash awards, products, services, time, facilities, contacts, equipment, and leadership.

# # #

931.854.0474 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!

The Answer IS . . .

ASK QUESTIONS!

Whether you’re looking for better grades, improved cash flow, an investor, a loan, new customers, repeat customers, a new employee (or  job), new revenue streams, the exact right set of words for a branding themeline, or some trace of your ex-mother-in-law who changed her name and left town with the contents of your wall safe . . . your odds of success increase dramatically when you:

ASK QUESTIONS! 

You might think that’s pretty basic advice, but my experience is that it least happens when you most expect it –especially with headstrong entrepreneurs.

It isn’t that business owners strut around with a know-it-all cockiness; it’s that they don’t want to waste time and it can often seem more productive to step out of a meeting, seminar, webinar, conference call, txtmsg exchange, or cocktail party, than to suck it up and stay there and have to ask questions (when time is perceived to be better spent, instead, taking action).

Does that ring a bell or am I just imaging things?

Entrepreneurs (and most men, it seems) have to be on the verge of total mental meltdown before they’ll ever stop to ask anyone for driving directions. It used to be the threat of embarrassment for being so dumb as to have gotten lost. Now. it’s more like cringing at the thought of getting a reply like: “Hey, man, you mean you ain’t got no GPS or MapQuest thing?”

Here’s the bottom line:

If you don’t ask for what you want,

or what you want to know, 

you don’t get it!

(Always? No, sometimes we get things by accident.) 

Oh, and asking questions is completely useless if you forget the answers. Write them down. Stop with all the excuses about how much time it wastes to write things out by hand on paper (assuming you actually still own a pen and can find some paper, and remember how to write ;<)).

When you write things down, you get them out of your head, create more think space, and deal better with the inevitable interruptions that occur within seconds of getting your question answered. Note taking is not only smart insurance that you’ll walk away with an undistorted idea of what you heard, it also communicates that you value and respect the source of the responses you get.

The answers to questions

are at the root of all progress.

If you’ve been focused on secondary research sources (like books, reports, and the Internet) as your primary decision making tools, you may want to get yourself out into the real world and ask real people real questions once in awhile. There’s nothing can compare with asking real customers what they really think, really listening to their answers, and really writing down what they say.

Formal focus groups? Perhaps. But just plain old informal questions (without rebuttals, defensive reasons, excuses, or “yes, but’s”) will serve the purpose just fine. You will walk away feeling gratified, maybe astonished, and definitely enlightened. So???  (That was a question.)

# # #

931.854.0474    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!

Can I forget everything

I know up until now

. . . right now?

This is the question we must ask ourselves, and answer, if we are to thrive in leadership roles with our businesses and the communities we serve and that support us.

It is not a suggestion to wipe out memory banks or get a lobotomy, or set off toward early senility. It means: Can you let go of what you know long enough to shed some new light on the issue or person or group involved?

Can you let go of all the preconceived notions you have about someone or some group (or idea), give the benefit of doubt, put aside your beliefs, suspend your biases and prejudices, be truly non-judgemental, and see and hear the next three individuals or groups you encounter (or the next three times you examine the idea on the table) as if it were the very first time you ever met?

                                                           

Can you forget, in other words, everything you know about her/him/they/it from past experience?

Why? Because you’ll see that person or group or concept in a revealing new light and he/she/they will see you with a fresh outlook too! That happening alone will prompt new levels of receptivity and innovative thinking. 

When you can put the mental and emotional baggage of the past aside, and look at some one or some group with new eyes, you are in effect removing barricades to productivity. By initiating this way of thinking, you help others (and yourself) to rise to the occasion of dealing most effectively with the task at hand.

Every decision to pursue an intense focus on the present moment is typically met with resistance from those parts of your brain that seek to drive past and future issues to the foreground. Trying to disregard past associations, relationships, experiences, or what you know or think you know about the individual(s) you are meeting or conferencing or communicating with can be exhausting.

If you choose for it to be exhausting.

When you decide, for example, that it can really be simple and invigorating and worth it to turn around an historically difficult partner, customer, client, investor, key employee, or whomever, your odds are substantially increased when you can wipe the slate clean.

By responding only to what is communicated –and not to prior conclusions, reputations, beliefs and behaviors you have attached to the source– you establish a new ground for new possibilities to surface. Great leaders do this routinely. You can too. It may take a few tries, but three times on the runway will serve you well as preparation for takeoff. Have a nice flight!

YOUR FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS BLOG, CLICK: Posts RSS Feed

# # #

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!

Do You Hate

YOUR FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS BLOG, CLICK: Posts RSS Feed

# # #

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!

You flaunt it or you bury it.

  It’s a primary differential in determining business success.

Consider for a moment that government and corporate employees have little if any of it. Mothers, entrepreneurs, great athletes, great sales-people, and most detectives –on the other hand– are loaded with it!

Instinct, says Webster, is a natural or inherent aptitude, impulse or capacity . . . a tendency to make a complex and specific response to environmental stimuli without involving reason.

If you own or run a business, you’ve got it!

“Good heavens, man!” most town, county, state, and federal employees, and most low-tech, no-tech, and medium-tech corporate suits would exclaim, when challenged to get to the point without analyzing stuff to death.

You’ve either got it, or you’d better get it!

We are rapidly becoming a global business community that’s triggered and managed by instinct. This proclamation is –particularly for those in white shirts and ties or pantsuits and heels (or perhaps both on alternate days?)– probably a source of indigestion, even irritable bowel syndrome because it threatens their programmed response to every situation, to study it endlessly.

The great oil spill wrought such havoc with both the federal government and the corporate giants involved that they all chose to gasp and cover their faces with their hands, while peeking between fingers, only to settle (after WEEKS passed) to send people to the scene and “to STUDY it!” What was that comment from a couple of paragraphs back? “Good heavens, man!”

Whatever happened to taking action? Oh, right, that’s an entrepreneurial instinct, and entrepreneurs are, after all, a reckless bunch charging from one risk to another. Well, those who are entrepreneurs know this couldn’t be farther from the truth. We also know that today’s economic crisis would never have happened if entrepreneurial instincts had been unleashed to address the issues at hand.

Anyway, the oil spill and economic catastrophy are only symptomatic examples. The point is that you got into business and kept it going through thick and thin because you made decisions based on instinct instead of analytical studies. Well, guess what? The way out of the darkness is to resurrect that quality you’ve hidden away in fear. Take it back out and run with it. Make things happen!

What’s the worst case scenario? How reasonable is the risk? What will it take to jump start your ideas? Your people? Your customers? Your suppliers? Your investors and lenders? Your referrers? 

Why are you wasting time over-thinking when you can be taking step-at-a-time, trial-and-error action the same way you used to a few years back?

It doesn’t have to cost money you

don’t have to test and try ideas.

Cash is short? So what? It’s always short. Do you want to be still sitting there wallowing in worry a year from now just because you don’t have barrels of cash to work with? Seize the day? Seize the moment!

You have your mind. You have your experience. You have your skills and knowledge. And hopefully, you’re smart enough to step up to the plate and pray for a fastball right down the middle. (Praying will help you avoid the curves and spitballs!).

You have your instinct. Use it more. 

YOUR FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS BLOG, CLICK: Posts RSS Feed

# # #

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! 

A knock unanswered is a nudge

in the direction of more

productive selling, not an

invitation to pound on the door.

Every one in every business or profession is engaged in sales. Some don’t want to be. Some don’t accept that they are. Some push so hard running in place that they wear out their treads and lose traction.

Some give up on the starting line.

For the benefit of those from the “knock ’em dead” school of pushy salesmanship (who are probably out there selling cars instead of reading this anyway), put all “the failing economy” excuses aside, and consider these ugly face-the-facts truisms as you examine reasons for not making sales quota:

Assertiveness is not aggressiveness.

Speaking up for yourself is not the same

as punching someone in the nose

. . . and the flip side:

No one ever bought anything

from a slab of fish fillet.

How happy this news must make all you handshake aficionados who are smart enough to know deliver a handshake that comes down the middle, avoiding both the MMA bone-crusher grip and the floppy wet, soaped-up washcloth slither slide.

Effective, successful sales professionals mimic and resemble in attitude what they present of themselves in that first three customer-size-up seconds of presenting a genuine smile, trustworthy eye contact, and a handshake that speaks of authenticity.

So why do most home and business service providers not get it? Most one-man-band performers see themselves as service provider performers, not sales professionals . . . not sales anything.

They are SEO consultants, or upholsterers, or plumbers or electricians, or painters, or carpenters, or designers, or bookkeepers, or carpet cleaners, or hairdressers, or artists, or window-washers, or specialty retailers, or delivery service people, or car service specialists, or appliance repair specialists, or photographers, or building maintenance people, or writers or editors, or . . . you name it.

They are not, and do not want to be salespeople.

They are not and do not want to be politicians.

They are not and do not want to be agents.

They DO want to be businesspeople and get paid fairly for their services, but most are not willing to be open-minded enough to accept that today’s market for home and business services is filled with less capable, more personable provider options.

And being successful means being able to compete . . . not by being “Mr. or Ms. Personality” but by being more focused on how they come across to others, on how carefully they listen.

It really doesn’t take much to ask questions, listen carefully to the answers without interrupting, take notes, nod, smile, offer reassurance, and hand over a supportive piece of paper or simple folder that outlines the basics:

• credentials

• insurance and bonding contacts

• customer references

• contact information

• payment terms

• satisfaction guarantee

• ah, yes, and a website address (simple outperforms nothing every time!)

There’s no need to stand in place and recite these.

Face-to-face time must be used productively, listening 80%, talking 20%!

When a best-effort presentation or introduction has been made, and there’s no expression of interest, or there’s an expression of interest but the prospect literally “disappears,” stop beating your fist (head?) against the guy’s door.

A dead-in-the-water sales pitch will not revive itself because you don’t want to give up. It will instead eat your time up sideways, and haunt you. Knock on another door.

Accept that what you had to offer just didn’t work for that person at that time and/or that she/he simply overlooked being courteous enough to not lead you on . . . and get on with life!

YOUR FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS BLOG, CLICK: Posts RSS Feed

# # #

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! 

Trying to run a small business

amid today’s world turmoils is 

like trying to do your tax return

 at a Chucky Cheese

birthday party!

CIA people will tell you that you really don’t want to know what’s going on in the world 24/7. Global terrorist threats and attacks are literally nonstop across the entire planet, all day and night, every day and night.

We hear from off-the-deep-end-tree-huggers (so described as to separate them from genuine environmentalists) that Al Gore’s “global warming” warnings were not so “warm” and were actually intended to focus more broadly on “climate change.”

Whew!

We should all be relieved to know that the man didn’t have the warming warning thing any more wrong than his claims to have “invented the Internet,” and that he really meant to say “climate change” from the outset.

Oh! Okay.

And we all know about gas prices, and the federal government’s bungling of the economy. [See my 87 gazillion posts about how to turn the economy around with tax incentives for job creation to new entrepreneurs — instead of tax-dollar handouts to incompetent corporate giants, thieving unions, and socialistic reform programs that simply add to the crushing deficit burden.]

Now I know this next statement will send 14,000 PETA members picketing me and no doubt some threats from civil liberties lawyers, but by way of meaningful advice to small business and professional practice owners, operators, partners and managers:

When a horse throws you,

get up, brush yourself off,

punch the horse in the nose

and climb back on!

(Ask any horse trainer)

Right, says you, but how do you concentrate on your own business when all the walls around you come tumbling down? First, all the walls around you are not tumbling down.

It’s cold in lots of places where it was always warm. People riot in the streets and get killed every day of the week in some town or city in some country. That doesn’t make it right, or even alright, but it should be enough to convince you that you need to stay alert while keeping your shoulder to the wheel. Stick-to-it-tive-ness is one of the great entrepreneurial traits.

The economy? The only thing that will turn that around — realistically speaking — is new national leadership that values and understands the contributions of small business, that responds to small business, and that rises to the occasion to nurture entrepreneurship with more than tokenism, empty promises, and babble.

So the bottom line is that you need to send your star rising on your own. There’s no place left to lean. Challenge yourself and your people to innovate, build high trust, exceed customer service expectations, and market the truth.

FREE Blog subscription Posts RSS Feed

# # #

302.933.0116   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! 

STEP RIGHT UP . . .

Step-sister, step-brother, step-father, step-mother, step it up, step up, step down, step back, step forward, step across, step into it, step in it, step on it, step over it, step under it, step around it, get in step.

If you have all four of the first four of these, let’s pray you’ve been fortunate enough to also have any or all four care for and love you and tend to your needs. If you do the other 13, you are compliant and evasive. (I know, I should start writing horoscopes!)

And then there’s my magnificent granddaughter who’s engaged in active ice rink competition as a member of the worldclass synchronized skating team named The Capitol Steps, based (where else?) in Washington, DC.

You know what? I love my granddaughter beyond description, and The Capitol Steps performances are remarkable in the team’s applications of  hard work, skill, spirit and discipline (5AM practices!), but I could do without all the other kinds of magical “steps” being pushed down the gagging throats of struggling business owners.

Well, okay that was a rather long way around, but you are still reading, right?

Ah, yes, some will click off here because they think there’s nothing more sensible coming.

Oh, how wrong they may be, like tossing a lottery ticket to the wind because the first number doesn’t match.

“Patience,” my mother always said, “is a virtue.” Of course my father’s credo was “He who hesitates is lost!” (Notice my father spoke with exclamation points.)

I have read The 9 Best Steps to This, and The 9 Best Steps to That; 10 Steps to Success; 3 Steps to Great Wealth; 12 Steps to Happiness; 16 Steps to Great Leadership (I guess it’s harder to be a great leader than to gain great wealth); 20 Steps to Make Your Man Happy (from Cosmo); The 7 Steps to Highly Effective Behavior Stuff, and only heaven knows all the other secret formulas.   

When I was younger, and eager to advance my career, I used to try them all. My legs got tired. Now, they actually have “Step Class” sessions… I guess to limber you up for taking all the mystical steps that promise greatness.

Here’s the point:

You own, or operate, or manage a business or professional practice.

Somehow, you have managed to keep the doors open and stay out of jail.

You already know what steps to take and which ones to avoid. You don’t need anyone else’s hocus-pocus “Steps” to take.

You need only to trust yourself more. You need to trust your own judgment. It’s what got you here and has kept your business breathing.

Sure, you can do better. But you will only do better by being true to yourself and following your heart as well as your mind.

You are on the way to making a difference in this world.

Don’t let anyone or any book or video or orator or feature story or “outside” influence prompt you to step sideways into someone else’s spotlight.

You will be wasting time and energy and money, and moving away from the strengths of your own insights and your own depth of character. Be true to yourself. 

Try new ideas, but stick to what you believe. And keep believing in you.    

  

YOUR FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS BLOG, CLICK: Posts RSS Feed

# # #

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! 

Do the WAYS

we do business

determine

the results we get?

ATTITUDES

Do you and your partners, associates, and advisers ALL demonstrate positive upbeat attitudes in practically everything you say and do? When it’s time to swallow hard, eat crow, and bite the bullet (heck of a name for a restaurant!), do you and those around you own up, face the music, take it on the chin, take some deep breaths, and then step forward, onward, and upward? 

Are high-trust responsive attitudes standard fare in all your business dealings? Do you practice and foster “OPEN MINDS OPEN DOORS” attitudes? Are you listening?

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Can you honestly say there are no exceptions ever to: the customer is always right, the customer is always right, the customer is always right? (Even when it’s a customer who has overstepped bounds, or someone you don’t particularly like?) Do you and your people try to make EVERY customer deliriously delighted. Are you invested in cultivating repeat sales with a present moment focus? Are you listening?

EMPLOYEES

Are you taking the time and trouble to get to know your people well enough to make the most of their strengths (or are you constantly trying to shore up their weaknesses)? Have you frequently matched employee need levels against Maslow’s Hierarchy (Google or Bing it if you’ve forgotten it) to most effectively motivate productive performances? Do you practice leadership by teaching by example? Are you listening?

INVESTORS, LENDERS, AND REFERRERS

Is your level of transparency what you would want it to be if you were investing in you, or referring others to your business? Are you keeping these key connections inside your inner loop? Are you tapping them as resources and regularly soliciting their input. Have you recruited them into unpaid Advisory Board positions? Are you listening?

VENDORS AND SUPPLIERS

Do you treat these resource people and companies like partners? Can you extend and generate better terms for exchanging and referring and bartering products and services? Do you keep them competitive with an ongoing bid process, and constantly review their performances while keeping open-minded to other options? Do they know where they stand with you? Are you listening?

POLICIES AND PROCEDURES

Are you running a U.S.Marine Drill Instructors Academy, or a hospice, or something in between? Is the way you run your business in keeping with the industry or profession you’re part of? Is it too much in keeping that it doesn’t stand out? Do your policies and procedures squelch innovative thinking and doing, or enhance it? How lawyer-crazed tight are your policy interpretations? 

EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING

Are you constantly making room for top talent, and cultivating it. Are you providing enough of the right kinds of training. Are you aware of how importantly regarded expanded opportunities and responsibilities are to most people? Did you know that young people are positively more attracted to being praised than they are to sex, drugs, and alcohol? 

COMMUNITY RELATIONS

Are you and your business being good citizens in the various (professional, industry, geographic, neighborhood)communities that patronize your business and support your existence?

GOD AND COUNTRY

When you put God and country first on your business agenda, all the other pieces will fit together because both God and your country will know about your allegiance, your commitment, and where your heart is. As we sow, so shall we reap. 

FREE Blog Subscription Posts RSS Feed

# # #

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! 

Do-dah’s practice

the three Dah’s:

“Shouldah”  “Couldah”

and “Wouldah”

When did you last embark on a Dah Mission? First off it’s been said by far better men than I that the Shouldahs run together in the woods with the Couldas and the Wouldas.

All three of those Dah’s pump themselves up with regret over their conscious and unconscious choices they’ve made to reject the Dones. There’s I Shoulda Done, YOU Shoulda Done and WE Shoulda Done (whatever the stuff is that never got done!).

And, yes, there is of course the I/YOU/WE applications to Coulda Done and Wouldah Done as well.

Everyone passes this way at one time or another. Those who get themselves stuck in thinking about past events and situations that they or others mishandled (or never handled) are the ones who traditionally become and create problems for others.

Dwelling on the past is as emotionally and mentally (and frequently physically) unhealthy, as worrying about the future (which hasn’t yet come and maybe never will!).

Focusing on what might have been, on what should have been done or could have been done or would have been done, is as nonproductive a waste of time and energy (and often, money) as the underpinnings of those notions advanced by naive leaders that “HOPE” will solve all problems.

Wishing whets appetites for failure.

ACTION, not hope, is what makes things happen.

When you hear one of the three “Dah’s” worm it’s way into a discussion, treat it like a yellow caution light. Slow things down and bring attention back to the reality of the moment.

Emphasize specific steps or suggestions or directions that can be addressed. You drive through a yellow light at your peril.

And, by the way, it’s pretty hard to get where you want to go by driving in reverse, by leaving no stone unturned in assessing and evaluating and analyzing what happened that shouldn’t have, what didn’t happen, or what went wrong.

If it’s not life or death, get on with it. Take a minute to learn from experience instead of burying it under reasons and excuses, then move on. Who did what to whom doesn’t matter when forward motion is what’s called for.

We are a nation of sportaholics and we have brainwashed ourselves into analyzing things to death. We literally live for instant replays.

And just think about how much more detail we can pull out of a replay that we’ve seen three or four times. Sports talk radio stations regularly hear from callers who want to debate a game play that they’ve replayed 12, 15, even 20 times! Now THAT’s Do-Dah material. 

FREE blog subscription Posts RSS Feed

# # #

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!