Hold Your Next Meeting

S T A N D I N G ! 

It’s your company or professional practice, division, department, team or work group . . . and meetings are eating up valuable time that needs to be used more productively.  Welcome to the majority, dear boss!  You are not alone in your frustration.  There ARE however some steps you can take to eliminate or minimize the impact of time-wasting get-togethers. 

Here are two first steps you may want to consider:

     First, accept the fact that it’s worth taking the risk of changing your approach to meetings!  What’s the worst that could happen?  Next, take a minute to write a summary sentence of what a typical meeting is like and what’s typically wrong. 

Then, think on the sentence you wrote as you consider the following questions:

• Do you use an agenda?  Is it circulated a day or two ahead of time so others can contribute topics under the (usually last, in case time runs out) new business section?  Is the agenda posted on newsprint or a posterboard or whiteboard or someplace where all can see it and keep track of topics and progress during the meeting? 
• Do agenda points have names or initials of those designated or responsible next to each?  Is the agenda a reasonable length given the alloted time?  Do you STICK to the agenda?  Do you step up to tell someone who’s strayed from the agenda that this meeting needs to stay on the agenda and that the point raised is a good one but needs to be dealt with separately after the meeting or with a separate session?
• Do you hold regular ongoing “status report” type meetings at regular set times at the beginning of every week or, in some cases when needed, at the beginning of every day?  Do you hold special monthly, quarterly, annual or semi-annual, or weekend retreat meetings?  Are these planned well in advance?
• Are ONLY those whose input is essential invited to your meetings?  Are people kept captive in your meetings for an hour or more when they need only be present for a five or ten-minute hunk of time, and could more easily be scheduled in a specific times on the agenda?  Do you remember to ALWAYS praise in public and criticize in private? 
• Do you solicit input from those attending or have them serve as an audience?
• Do you take notes and specifically request that all attendees take handwritten notes?  (Laptops are too distracting!)  Are follow-up issues given (and held to) deadlines or due dates?  Are expectations about follow-up actions clear to everyone involved?  You’re sure?
• Do you always start and end every meeting at exactly the times you advertise? 

     If you’ve been doing all or most of these things, and STILL have a meeting problem, remove the chairs from the meeting room, and conduct your next meeting STANDING!  Watch how fast things move and how little B.S. comes to the surface! 

     Finally, remember that:

 The more you manage by walking around, the less you’ll need to manage by sitting around!

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

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

It takes 5 Attempts

                                      

to make a sale!

     Some of the most effective prompts I’ve seen that get me to check out websites or blogs come from the world of traditional advertising (remember that?) 

     Selected billboards, targeted ads and pinpoint direct mail are some of the best ways to get your online presence noticed.  They are not always the best ways.  And they are seldom the most economical.  They do however serve an important purpose when you have more money than time available.  They also serve an important purpose when your goal is to create and/or support a meaningful branding image, because repetition sells!

Eh?  What’s that?  Repetition sells.  Repetition sells? 

Yup!  Repetition sells! 

     Not just repeating the same message over and over, but also repeating it in as many different ways and contexts and media forms as possible.  Why do you think the monster corporate entities strive to register multiple impressions? 

     Sophisticated marketers recognize that –on the average– it takes five attempts to close a sale.  That means your message or branding theme usually needs to be seen/heard/experienced at least five times before someone will consider making a buying decision. 

     Sophisticated marketersalso understand the value and finer points of using public relations vehicles (events and news releases) to support online sales efforts.  These are especially valuable tools because they don’t cost anything (compared to broadcast air time and print space, for example) except for preparation and follow through, which needs to be tenacious, can be extensive, and is almost always very time-consuming. 

     And PR does also present a myriad of unspoken rules and regulations that must be adhered to, to be truly effective . . . from how news releases are prepared and distributed to when events should be scheduled and how much planning should be involved.  It’s best to find a professional who can do this for you

     Your odds of increasing online business are much increased when you spread out the media you’re using.  An online sales pitch will have greater impact on someone who has already been exposed to the message on a postcard, in a magazine or newspaper ad, in a radio commercial, on a billboard, on a trade show banner, or in a local or trade paper feature story. 

     Don’t think that once your site is up and running, the story it tells will send business flocking to you.  Online presence is just part of the story.  What you do to support that presence is the other part that will drive the sales.     

 Life is more like baseball

 than any other sport. 

     With every inning a decade long, where only a few of us actually get into extra innings, life is more like baseball than any other sport. 

     We walk, strike out, we get some foul tips, and sometimes manage to get big hits in the clutch.  We make errors.  We tag others whenever we can, and avoid those who come barreling home. 

     We get cheered when we perform.  We get booed when we don’t.  There are times when we need to get a glove and get in the game, and other times when we need to step up to the plate.  All of us have to sacrifice from time to time, and a few of us steal when no one is looking. 

     Those who are exceptional travel inside the park and make round-trippers.  And have you ever balked?  When did you last set the table, or be in a clean up position?  We relax on deck, and work when we’re in the hole, and we work even harder to stay away from arbitration, appeals, getting thrown out, and avoiding the bullpen or —heaven forbid— being shut out! 

     We go through different coaches, and we fire managers, but no matter how much money we make, we still always do what the owner and general manager order us to do. 

     Usually in our later decades, we bring in short and long relievers, and of course the eventual closer.  But reality is that we only live life in the National League . . . because we never get to have a designated hitter! 

     If Shakespeare was right that “All the world’s a stage . . .” he had to be talking about our love affair with the diamond.  Diamonds are, after all, forever! 

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

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Well, you must finally be happy to have less gas available, and be paying astronomical amounts at the pump to fill up your tank.  

Oh, yes, and it thrills you to be paying equally mind-boggling amounts to your local grocery store to fill up your refrigerator and kitchen cabinets, right?

Why, you might ask, would I say that? 

Because, of course, you still have spotted owls and views of nature that are unspoiled by wind farms, and polar bears (which you would surely love to cuddle with and invite into your home) running free across the Artic Circle.

And, no doubt, these are all creature survival things that matter intensly to struggling young families, and single parents, and senior citizens on fixed income, and handicapped people living on disability checks, and hurricane victims, right? 

I mean, just ask any of them how important the plight of spotted owls is when they’re scratching and clawing for their next meal.  See how utterly devoted they are to protecting the polar bears when they can’t afford needed medical care.  Yeah.  Go ahead and ask them. 

Get your environmentalist priorities straight!  If you think human beings come first on this planet while you’re busy protesting nuclear energy and hugging trees, you might want to consider rearranging your protest priorities.

Maybe Al Gore did invent the Internet. 

Who knows? 

Stranger things have happened. 

But he surely is as wrong as the sorely misguided (a generous adjective) Nobel Prize Committee when it comes to the subject of global warming. 

Ask any credible scientist. 

And contrary to Mr. Gore’s representations, YOU as an individual CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!  Get started.  This is grassroots stuff.  Set an example.  Teach others.  It’s all about stepping up to the plate!  It’s all about choosing the path of self-sufficiency for our own human species before worrying about other lower forms of existence. 

Regardless of endangered species contributions to our aesthetic senses, or the amount of tear-jerking endorsements and crusading that’s thrust in our faces by Hollywood’s finest, we need to remember that putting human preservation first is the only way we’ll ever be able to have positive impact on the preservation of other species.    

The bottom line is that more drilling is needed to relieve the oil/gas price crisis and related food price crisis because America has enough oil to allow us to completely eliminate dependency on greedy Arab nations. 

But, oh, hey, it might mean losing some endangered species!  Well, I love and subscribe to National Geographic too, but I like to believe that we as human beings are a slightly more important species to risk losing than some owls and bears, and some upturning of the balance of nature.  We’re smart enough to RE-balance whatever we might upset. 

Because we as humans have the ability to think, we have the ability to make changes in our environment that preserve and protect the human species in addition to balancing nature. 

But it has to start with our elected representatives in Congress having the foresight and integrity to initiate expanded oil drilling efforts and to stop bending over to the special interest groups that seek to preserve owls over humans (and human pocketbooks!).  Call your Representative.  Express yourself!        

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www.TheWriterWorks.com

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

“The difference between 

the almost right word

and the right word is 

really a large matter— 

’tis the difference

between

the lightning-bug

and the lightning.”

     Whether for business or pleasure, for commercial reward or literary accolades . . . when you’re writing an advertisement, commercial, website, direct mail piece, news release, brochure, billboard, matchbook cover, a poem or short story, a fiction or nonfiction book chapter, a technical report, business plan, magazine or newspaper item or feature, a speech, photo caption, letter to the editor or a letter to your lover . . . remember Mark Twain’s words above.

     He was right, indeed! 

     Ah, you may say, but he’s ancient, and that was in the days of yore!  The truth?  He might just as well have said it this morning! 

     Writers will do themselves (and their readers) the greatest justice, achieve maximum impact, and most effectively march their persuasion skills to the beat of a different drum when they follow one simple rule of thumb (or pen, or keyboard). 

     It is the single most dramatically productive guideline that directly addresses the sentiments of Mark Twain’s quote, and where oh where does it originate? 

     Why from surgeons of course!  Where else?  And where did those super skilled, robotic, ice-water-veined ER and OR scalpel-slicers learn the trick? 

     Why, where else but from the friendly neighborhood carpenter. And guess what?  If you, dear communicator friend, will follow their lead (the surgeons and carpenters — not the hammering, drilling, screwing and scalpeling), you too will discover that getting through skin, wood, paper, airwaves, and cyberspace all have one thing in common! 

     You will (I personally guarantee it) end up putting your message across more clearly, more effectively, and more persuasively than ever before if you’ll simply remember to:

Measure twice and cut once! 

And so, the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning is not far from the difference between the Conscious and the UNconscious.

They are not extreme opposites.

In the case of the bug and the lightning, one begets the other (grammatically). Consciousness also often prompts UNconsciousness, and vice versa.

In business decision making, FLEXIBILITY is king! And when there’s no time to measure, gut instinct has to kick in!

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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!