“It’s not the economy, stupid!”

Anonymous paraphrase of some political statement

     From organizational development studies,  we know that the solution to every group problem lies within the group. From business success and failure analytics, we know the solution to every business problem lies within the business.

     Stop looking out the window for answers.  It’s NOT the economy that’s the problem. And the answer isn’t outside. The problem and the solution are HOW YOU DEAL with the economy!

Get this “throwing in the towel” and “folding up the tent” and “boarding up the windows” and “closing on Fridays” and “cutting back hours” mindset out of your mind.

You are not the Post Office!

You are not the government!

You are an entrepreneur.

YOU are better than that!

ANYone can quit when the going gets tough.

Success takes courage.

     Show some gumption, you!

     You were full of spunk  when you started your business. Did you lose your spunk when you lost your marbles when you lost you mind thinking that “too much other stuff was to blame?

     Have you chosen  for the economy, the market, the competition, the cost of raw materials, the overpriced goods and services, the disastrous fuel prices and cost of shipping, the lack of customers, incompetent employees, and overkill regulatory compliances to de-rail your business onto a failure track?

     Well? Did you?  Are you STILL using all this nonsense as an excuse for not working your sales pipeline? For not training your employees? For raising your own prices to keep from absorbing supplier cost increases? For not getting on-the-job as early as you used to? For delegating sales functions? For cutting back to “no-frills” customer service?

     PSSSSSSST:  No one else can sell your business products/services as well as YOU can! And no one else can appreciate and serve your customers as well as you. It’s your business; it’s your baby! Get back out there and start talking it up!

     PSSSSSSST:  SALES is the ONLY activity that brings in money! Turning off lights, doing your own books and taking out your own trash are nice economical and ecological things to do, but THEY DON’T BRING IN MONEY! 

     When you can cut out  the excuses, and realize that making your business successful in spite of what everyone around you may seem to be saying (because THEY haven’t learned to cut out the excuses) IS A CHOICE. You CHOOSE your behavior. And you CHOOSE your business’s behavior. It is just as easy (in fact easier) to choose success as it is to choose failure.

     Get your glove and get in the game, and step up to the plate when it’s time to make things happen. PSSSSSSST: Like…NOW?! 

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Faster Than A Speeding

Twitter Tweet . . .

First and foremost,  I hope that the “Twitter Tweeter” who is  responsible for the 9 words I plucked off of Twitter (to feature in my blog post tonight) steps forward. I’d like to put a gold-medal ribbon around her/his neck.

Staring blankly at the rampaging scroll  of recent Twitter trash, I was reading:

“Gosh” and “Golly” and Obama this and Rush that; how to get 14 zillion followers in 24 hours; who’s listening to Jeremiah Was A Bullfrog;what stale peanut butter tastes like; when did Jesus last appear in midtown Manhattan; what the weather is in Southwest Padula; the now infamous “I did not…” quote by Clinton; and how cool Ban-Ray sunglasses are; THEN 9 words rolled by that caught my eye . . .

WHY?

WHY NOT?

WHY NOT ME?

WHY NOT NOW? 

     Whoa!  I said to myself, “Self, these four questions, these nine words, could turn the business world around.” Then I scribbled them down quick before they fell off my screen into Twitter oblivion (Yes, some people do still write things on paper! And, yes, Virginia, there IS a Twitter Oblivion!).

     When I looked up,  sure enough; they were gone. Was it a mirage? NO, I had them on this little scrap that I stuck in my pocket. For days, I kept pulling it out to think about. Guess what I figured out? These 9 words could be the official Mantra for Entrepreneurs.

     These 9 words  are the reason that upstart business startups get started! I mean you’re not likely to see this grafittied on nursing home walls, or in the men’s room at your local bar. This is heady stuff here.

     WHY? WHY NOT? WHY NOT ME? WHY NOT NOW?  works big-time as a thought-provoking motivator for salespeople. And aren’t we ALL salespeople? Well? Aren’t we? When did the last day ever pass in your life that you were not trying to “sell” something to somebody?

     If you’re honest,  the answer may be “never.” Even babies and puppies try to get attention. The blessed difference is they don’t have hidden agendas! So, back to the question, and back to the four questions, and 9 words:

WHY?

WHY NOT?

WHY NOT ME?

WHY NOT NOW? 

     My humble suggestion:  Write them down, paste them up, and think about them everyday for 3 weeks. I’m betting that you will astound even your skeptical self!     

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Sometimes

Smaller Is Better!

Stop trying to jam  big-budget marketing into today’s low-budget economy! You’ll lose time, money, energy, and respect! (Maybe even your business!)

Having helped to start  hundreds of successful businesses, I’m rarely wrong when it comes to predicting business failure. And I’ll tell you right now that I can name a doctor, a manufacturer, a furniture retailer, a trucking business, a bank, a college, and two car dealerships that are positively headed South. The worst part is they don’t even know it. (Or perhaps they do and just don’t want to admit it!)

They’re all caught up  in trying to beat the economy by overwhelming it, like the poor schlemiel with a gambling addiction, throwing good money after bad. Each of these incipient failures have undertaken paths of reckless endangerment, thinking they are some kinds of hot-shot entrepreneurs. Sadly, they are not likely to survive long enough to see the economy turn.

     SOMETIMES  

(contrary to all the “enlargement” spam emails),

 SMALLER

(as the little Beetle automaker has proven time and again)

  IS BETTER!

     Marketing  doesn’t have to be exorbitantly expensive and splashy to be effective. There are some enormously successful direct mail campaigns out there that use postcards. Some of the world’s greatest print space advertisers have discovered they can be equally effective with great (tiny and infinitely less expensive) front page classified ads.

     Baseball managers  who lack big-time sluggers resort to winning games by playing “small ball” …focusing on the basics like not swinging at first pitches, drawing walks, bunting, base-stealing, catching with two hands (!) and playing “heads up” on each pitch. It works.

     Professionally-written  email campaigns can be hugely successful for no cost beyond a writer and a technician (and maybe a list rental). I am presently preparing a frugal campaign for one client that calls for strategically-placed highly-specialized business cards instead of the elaborate and expensive brochures he originally planned.

For another client,  I am preparing an inexpensive customer attitude survey that will get the business significant sales simply by virtue of asking for opinions (and might even collect some valuable ideas and feedback as well!) Bumper stickers are making a comeback.

Bartering  website banners and, of course, the much-talked-about use of social media also represent free and often very effective marketing tools. And, done right, not enough can be said about the value of professionally-done (and again, free) public relations news release and BUZZ (word-of-mouth) programs.

Before you dig  into your pocket to bet on yet another roll of the dice, stop and think about other effective, less-expensive ways to get your message across. The ways are there waiting for you. When smaller is better, open minds open doors!

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Hal@Businessworks.US    302.933.0116

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Next time someone calls you

“Four i’s,” say thank you!

Radio station WIIFM  (What’s In It For Me?) has been on the air now for over 30 years that I can remember, as the acronym for reminding marketers and advertisers and salespeople that benefits, not features, are what people buy! You want to make a sale? Tell prospects how they’ll benefit, not how great you are!

Okay,  you got that, right? So what’re the “Four-i’s” in SMALL BUSiiNESS STiiMULUS?

Here it is,  all you acronym fanatics (and don’t say I never gave you anything!):

• Intelligence –

Cause literally EVERYone outside Federal and state government circles knows that ONLY small business job creation will reverse this sick economy, and that small business owners must rise above the meaningless token incentives being waved around… and go for the gold under their own steam!

• Innovation –

Cause everybody has ideas, but very few see them through to completion!

• Impression –

Cause you never get a second first one!

• Integrity –

Cause without it, you have no business and no chance of survival in ANY kind of economy! Doing the right thing all of the time means having no exceptions.

     The bottom line is  that if you are lacking in even one 0f these four I’s, you are in big-time trouble, and need to get on the stick before 9am tomorrow morning! And, incidentally, none of these qualities, values, characteristics, whatever you want to call them, costs anything.

In fact,  all four involve conscious daily choices to pursue them. When you have Intelligence, and know your market, know your industry, know your competition, know your product and service benefits (and features) and know what you’re up against with narrow-minded government perspectives that will only provide lip-service instead of solid support, you will be in the best possible position to move your business forward.

     When you choose  innovation and innovative thinking, you are choosing to see every step of the birthing process for launching a new idea. That focus alone will carry the best ideas forward and lose the unproductive ones quickly along the way.

     When you realize  that no one will take the trouble to judge your business twice and that your first impression must be the one that flies, you will be well on the way to achieving the acceptance levels you seek. This means not settling for inferior marketing, advertising, sales, promotion, merchandising, and public relations programs and materials.

     Integrity is the backbone of business.  The recent failures of giant corporate entities have underscored the truth of this point. The day-to-day failures and successes of small businesses are 100% attributable to having and consistently demonstrating high levels of trust and integrity or not. Failures blamed on under-capitalization are failures of poor management. Failures of poor management can inevitably be traced back to failures of integrity.

Heed the Four i’s  as if they were your own two i’s because in the end, the i’s have it!

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Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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

Hal@Businessworks.US         931.854.0474

Guidance to 500+ Successful Business Startups

Creating Record-Sales for Clients Since 1981!

“Stick to your knitting!”

(and risk going down the tubes!)

All of history’s great management gurus  have traditionally advised business owners and managers to stick to their knitting, as in “do what you do best, put your head down, and charge forward!”

But these are radical times  that call for radical solutions. “Sticking to your knitting” can earn you bankruptcy. Look around you for the proof. Would you like a list of all the (big AND small) single-minded-pursuit businesses that closed in the last two years?

Except for those few businesses  that thrive on hard times… do-it-yourself stuff and debt consolidation and pawn shops and vulture lawyers… those who do best are adapting and expanding and re-inventing themselves!

You run a service business  but have more to offer than just your accounting skills. I’m not talking about your tuba-playing. Surely you have taught others something about your specialization at some point. Why not add that ability to the range of services you offer?  

VOILA!  Now you are also a consultant and trainer. Package these add-on services, price them, and include them on your business cards and letterheads. Hey, nothing ventured… 

You’re a painter or designer?  Add less-expensive, one-of-a-kind postcards and greeting cards to your lineup.

You sell furniture  and discover the new senior housing complex down the road provides a small alcove area next to every front door; nothing you carry fits there, but you (or someone you’re connected with) have (has) some carpentry skills. Measure twice; cut once. Skinny/tall/customized corner cabinets! Sell affordably and POOF! A new revenue stream and new prospective customer base.

Every problem is an opportunity.  

A lousy economy is an opportunity

to innovate and spin new business

directions out of your old knitting.

“A stitch in time…”     

And now’s the time to prune the

brittle dead and the overgrown.

     In this second straight year  of continuing economic setbacks for you and your business, you have no doubt suffered losses —money and people— you would certainly have preferred to avoid. And now you’re sitting out on the farthest-most limb of your company tree, saw in hand.

     Well, scramble back down  and spare that big old branch. It may not look altogether healthy, but there’s some green stuff coming out of those barren bark areas, and it’ll survive and thrive if you just —instead— get out the pruning shears for one last ruthless sweep of the brittle dead and the overgrown.   

     But, wait, you say,  you’ve done this already, just months ago! Well, if you’ll promise to shoot the message and not the messenger, I’ll take the risk of telling you that you need to consider it again. When overgrown shrubs and dead branches are lopped off, more nutrients go into growing that which remains and the discarded pieces will return to life in some other form.

     When you let go  of marginal employees, you are strengthening the organization and you are giving everybody a chance to reinvent themselves. They may not like it; they may suffer for it; they may not see it as an opportunity, but in the end they’ll be happier for finding work situations that are better suited to them.

     UNLIKE trees and shrubs,  you are dealing with human emotions and frailties, so a realistic tone of understanding, empathy, active listening, and genuine helpfulness is what you must offer as your end of the trade-off. Losing a job is equal to losing a life for many because it’s such a devastating blow to the ego and self-esteem.

     You must be tuned into  that dynamic and do everything possible to help ease the life transition your business survival needs are prompting. Yes, you must be firm in making and communicating your decisions, but you must also be willing to listen, eager to refer, agreeable to compensate, and share in the responsibility. Why? Because it comes with being a leader.

     And why now?  Because as we let go, we grow. Because the longer we hold onto weak, unproductive, marginal employees, the closer we come to the point of no return, where it’s simply too late to let go and too late to survive.

     Just keep in mind  that there is also a time for every purpose under heaven, and that one purpose of a leader is to show heart in helping the downtrodden to see the light, while showing courage in inspiring the strongest of remaining forces to move forward, onward and upward for the collective good.

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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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This blog free via list-protected email: click RSS Feed above…$1.99/mo on  AMAZON Kindle. Creative? Add your own 7 words to the 318-day 7-Word Story (under RSS) We’re making it up as we go!  GET Hal Alpiar short story in Sept. release book from Nightengale Press: THE ART OF GRANDPARENTING Amazon, B&N, OR order special (signed by Hal) pre-publication $22.45 total check only (includes s&h), payable & mail to: TheWriterWorks.com, LLC @PO Box 1236, Millsboro, DE 19966. Include continental US ship-to address. 9/13 is Grandparent’s Day!

Are You Juggling Seagulls?

     With the economy  nipping at your hindquarters, if it’s beginning to feel like there simply are not enough hours in the day, you’re probably not on the verge of the nervous breakdown you’re thinking you’re on. You’re probably just juggling seagulls!

     Oh, right,  well that makes everything okay now, doesn’t it? I mean anyone can do that little trick if she just puts her mind to it. Seagulls are, after all, very cooperative creatures and will surely do whatever you might ask of them. “Roll over, Jonathan!”

     Serious,  we already know that time and tide wait for no man. One of our parents said that once. So (the other parent probably said) time marches on. What this means is that since you can’t change time, you CAN change two things that use it up: Tasks and Takers.

     Tasks.  The simple answer here is to delegate. You’re worried that no one else will do the tasks the way you do them? Guess what? You’ve no doubt heard that SOME things never change?

     Well, others not doing stuff the way you do stuff  is one of those things that never changes. Extract your ego! Accept the fact that if others do things differently than you, the world will not end, and that getting the tasks done is what’s important. 

     On the more complicated front,  when you just can’t bite the proverbial bullet (which certainly has to hurt one’s teeth), then accept the fact that EVERYthing you do doesn’t have to be letter perfect (unless you’re an editor!), and make your mind up that getting the task done is what’s important. (Hmmm, did I say that before?)

     Okay, you’ve got the time deal  and the tasking functions covered, so there’s just one more nasty little seagull to catch up with and confront: Takers! These are people who have no regard for your time or sense of urgency and will–consciously or unconsciously– take every conceivable minute of your time up, if you let them.

     Aha,  therein lies the complete juggling trick! Yeah. Don’t let them. Period. But that’s hard, you say, especially when one of them’s your mother-in-law. Yeah, well, spit happens you know. The bottom line is that people will not take advantage of your time if you make an active choice to not allow it.

     “Excuse me,  but I need to be on my phone (in my office, at a meeting, working on a speech, visiting the bathroom) right this minute. Perhaps you can catch me a week from Thursday when I’m on the road; just call my cell phone (which will certainly be on it’s last charge bar by then).”

     If you are getting stressed  from juggling seagulls, either give up juggling, or move farther inland.   

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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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This blog free via list-protected email: click RSS Feed above…$1.99/mo on  AMAZON Kindle. Creative? Add your own 7 words to the 315-day 7-Word Story (under RSS) We’re making it up as we go!  GET Hal Alpiar short story in Sept. release book from Nightengale Press: THE ART OF GRANDPARENTING Amazon, B&N, OR order special (signed by Hal) pre-publication $22.45 total check only (includes s&h), payable & mail to: TheWriterWorks.com, LLC @PO Box 1236, Millsboro, DE 19966. Include continental US ship-to address. 9/13 is Grandparent’s Day!

So you had bad toilet training

as a child. So what?

     Imagine what this world would be like  without hidden agendas. Okay, maybe you can’t change the world. Imagine what your business would be like without hidden agendas? Your life?

“Man is not totally at the mercy of either his heredity or his environment, He can modify both.” It starts with increasing “a person’s awareness of the real power he has to direct his own life, to make decisions, to develop his own ethical system, to enhance the lives of others, and to understand that he was born to win.” 

Excerpts from the Preface of BORN TO WIN by Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward

     Here’s the deal:  Psychological “game-playing” (often unconsciously provoked) has been defined by psychology icons Dr. Eric Berne and Dr. Frederick Perls as a series of transactions or communication exchanges (often repetitive) with a hidden motive or agenda.

     These “game” exchanges,  which may seem innocent and perfectly rational on the surface, can have extremely destructive mental and emotional consequences. “They prevent honest, intimate and open relationships” at home and on the job, say author/therapists James and Jongeward.

     They go on  to point out that we “wear many masks and have many forms of armor” that keep our true selves confined and unknown, even to ourselves. The possibility of encountering our own reality–learning about ourselves– can be “frightening and frustrating.”

     Many of us,  say James and Jongeward, “expect to discover the worst” when we set out on a path of self-exploration, “and a hidden fear lies in the fact that we may also discover the best.”

     To discover the worst  means we must “face the decision of whether or not to continue in the same patterns” of behavior, they say, and “To learn the best is to face the decision of whether or not to live up to it.”

     Because either discovery  may involve change, it is anxiety-provoking, which can be good or bad, depending on how we use the information and exercise the change.

     It all comes down to  making a conscious choice to learn more about what makes you tick so you can minimize game-playing, recognize it in others and not play, be better able to generally run a healthier more productive business… and experience a healthier and happier personal life in the process.

     What have you got to lose?  Finding out you had bad toilet training when you were three years-old? So what? Choose to make the reality of your present moment your focus, and watch the joy that comes to the surface, and stays! 

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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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This blog free via list-protected email: Posts RSS Feed (center col.)…$1.99/ month on AMAZON Kindle. Creative? Add your own 7 words to the 313-day 7-Word Story (under RSS) We’re making it up as we go!  GET Hal Alpiar short story in Sept. release book from Nightengale Press: THE ART OF GRANDPARENTING Amazon, B&N, OR order special (signed by Hal) pre-publication $22.45 total check only (includes s&h), payable & mail to: TheWriterWorks.com, LLC @PO Box 1236, Millsboro, DE 19966. Include continental US ship-to address. 9/13 is Grandparent’s Day!

 Did you let somebody

down this week?

Did someone have expectations that you would do justice to her or him, or to the task at hand…that you would turn in a stellar performance? And you bombed out?

By any chance, was that “someone” who anticipated greatness from you…was that you?

Regardless of whether you did yourself in, or let someone else down, the point is that you flubbed it, right? Badly? So badly that you hate reading this right now because just thinking about it gives you the guilties?

Step back. Get out of your own way for a minute. Take a deep breath and clear your brain. Now look at this again. We’re taught to aim high. Nothing wrong with that.

But if you screwed yourself, figuratively speaking of course, maybe it’s because you weren’t leaving room to be flexible about achieving an outcome?

Maybe you lost sightof the reality that you choose your behavior, that you choose your pursuits–even that you choose to feel guilty. Hmmm, that’s worth choosing to think about.

You didn’t fail anyone else because others don’t have the right to judge you based on expectations. Yeah, well, sounds good, I know, but it’s done every day, probably every minute of every hour. Reality says that more likely than not, it just seems that way.

So, how can you pull the rug out from under faulty assumptions? First don’t make any yourself! You already know about “assume” making an “ass” out of “u” and “me.” Recognize that expectations (which are usually based on assumptions) breed disappointment.

Unless you work at not having expectations and at not making assumptions, you will do both. Then comes failure to rise to the occasion. Then comes disappointment and then along comes guilt. You remember guilt?

      THE FIX:

• Keep conscious control of your unconscious mind by focusing on the present here-and-now moment each passing moment as much as you possibly can.
• Don’t waste energy dwelling on past fantasies that cannot be changed and don’t wast energy worrying about future fantasies that haven’t yet come, and may never.
• Do lots of deep breathing to relax muscles and make your mind more alert.
• Withhold judgements as much as possible. (And remember everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle!)
• Remember that assumptions, expectations and guilt feelings are all CHOICES, and that it’s just as easy to choose a positive attitude as it is to choose a negative one.

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 Hal@TheWriterWorks.com or 931.854.0474  Thanks for visiting. 

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

It’s the Lightening Up

of Corporate America!

     You’re a management trainer and corporate economic climates have taken the wind out of your sails. You’re looking around for community college adult education courses to run. You’re doing drips and drabs of HR consulting with some old friends. Times are tighter than your shoelaces. 

     Stop beating yourself up; stop doing all the things you’ve always advised and taught others to not do. Take some of those deep breaths you advocate. The message is this: L-I-G-H-T-E-N    U-P ! Lighten up the programs you’re proposing. Companies do not want any in-depth, heavy-duty, psycho-analytic training programs for their managers right now!

     They want L-I-G-H-T agendas combined with good relaxing fun and team-building. Corporate America may be stupid about growing business and productivity ratios and revenue streams and job creation, but they know when it’s time to lighten up the stress that their loyal managers have been shouldering. 

     And it’s time now.

     I had my own management training company for many years. I ran over 2,000 workshops and training programs, and had over 20,000 participants in 50 different cities and half a dozen different countries.

     It was everything from Maslow’s Hierarchy to Quality Circles, One-Minute Manager, TA, Theory X, TheoryY, Theory Z, Empowerment, Assertiveness Training, Anger Management, and my own inventions: Corporate Entrepreneurship, Doctorpreneurs and Teacherpreneurs.  

     Then is not now. Then corporate executives charged trainers with the responsibility to teach them how to be better, more effective, more efficient, more productive executives and how to be better humans. This took some doing, and tons of analytical diagnostics and psychotherapy.

     Today, the word is L I G H T. As in S I M P L E and having F U N while gaining firsthand leadership and teamwork experiences with fellow employees. A best buddy of mine, Kevin Bousquet, who runs Interlaken Inn Executive Resort & Conference Center www.InterlakenInn.com in Northwest Connecticut, agrees.

     You may have seen my plugs here for Interlaken. It truly is THE premier business escape (2 hours/NYC and 3 hours/BOS) with the finest location, facility, amenities, meals, service AND budget-conscious prices that any management trainer or meeting planner will find. (If you call, tell Kristy I sent you and get a special gift!)

     Kevin tells me that the programs that are having the most success are those with the least stress and the most fun. Not all fun and games, but fun and learning. Interlaken’s Executive Ropes Course, lakefront boating and golf options and gourmet challenge programs are the busiest and most talked-about. Dump the heavy stuff!

Think of it as the Lightening Up of Corporate America!  

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Input always welcome: Hal@BusinessWorks.US

(”Businessworks” in subject line) or comment below.

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals and God bless you!