Small Businesses Once Again Ignored . . .

Financial Expert Reports 

of “Economic Rebound”

Grossly Exaggerated

 I had occasion yesterday to hear parts of a Baltimore radio broadcast that featured an on-air personality we will call Mr. Advisor, a man who proclaims himself a seminar presenter, radio and TV host, book author, and one of America’s top-ranked financial advisors.

I like this station’s programming. Most of the hosts are challenging, provocative, and informative. I try to tune in whenever I can.

I liked the overall theme of Mr. Advisor’s message which suggested that worrying about money gets us nowhere. As you know if you’ve visited here before, I have taught for more than 40 years that worry about ANYthing accomplishes nothing. Neither does dwelling on the past.

The past and future are fantasyland,

and generally not good places for

nurturing entrepreneurial minds.

So, if I am as I say, a present-moment, here-and-now thinker, who’s taught this mindset as the key to life success in management training sessions, college classrooms, books I’ve written, and this blog — what’s my issue? Part of my issue is with Mr. Advisor’s use of this awareness to quell economy fears as a bridge to selling his services.

I have no quarrel, in other words, with any effort to get people to focus more energy on the here and now because that is what life is really all about. I take exception with Mr. Advisor because after laying this groundwork, he proceeded to rattle off bogus interpretations of government and corporate statistics to make his points.

New housing startups and manufacturing indicators, he says, signal a rebounding economy . . . major corporate proclamations of sales and revenue increases and expansion plans add up to additional support, he says. Actual statements made were either misleading or naive. Considering his credentials, naivety is doubtful.

He tells his audience to not worry so much because things are looking up and that we can’t let fear of the unknown get in our way of making prudent investments. So do advisors who misrepresent reality.

Certainly, we as human beings do ourselves great injustice by fear of any unknown, but reality here has nothing to do with Mr. Advisor’s careful layering of reason to support his sales pitch.

The bottom line is that:

A)  The economy positively cannot rebound –no matter what government and mega-corporations do– until new small businesses begin to create new jobs.

B)  This is simply not going to happen with Mr. Obama in the White House because Mr. Obama has proven he is NOT a Democrat. He has proven, in fact, to be a Socialist who doesn’t believe in or accept the world of small business and free enterprise competition that built America (and the Democratic Party, I might add) to begin with. 

C)  It really makes no difference what big business and government try to accomplish if it’s without the support of small business.

(And, it’s here that Mr. Advisor goes astray. He seems –not unlike Messrs Obama and Biden– to forget and discount that there are 30 MILLION small business owners in the United States! But perhaps these are not prospective investors for Mr. Advisor?)

My point here is that Mr. Advisor is correct about the need for Americans to stay focused on the here and now, and not worry about what hasn’t come yet and may never come, and the unhealthiness of dwelling on the past that’s over and cannot be changed anyway.

These are mentally and emotionally sound ways to be thinking, but they are not portals to prudent investing. Neither are they any cause for a rebounding economy.

The economy is NOT turning around. Ask any of the 30 million small business owners out there. The economy is NOT rebounding because small business owners have no reason to trust a government that seeks to undermine, over-regulate and over-tax at every turn.

The issue, Mr. Advisor, is TRUST, and the fact is that this White House has failed to inspire any confidence or reason to believe. And as you surely know, Mr. Advisor, credibility is what drives market growth.

Why should small businesses create new jobs and then get slammed with major new taxes and regulations that end up costing them even more than a no-new-jobs economy is costing? Because Obama says that that won’t happen? HA! November 6, 2012. Be there.    

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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!

 A LIVE CASE

OF LOST SALES

A major global service provider recently sent me a direct mail piece offering a $50 gift card for a retailer I frequent if I sign up for their online demo. Hey, this is a win-win-win, I said to myself. I like the service provider company and imagine doing business with them on behalf of some of my clients. I’m interested in their updated information.

The mailing piece suggested I reply by mail OR by phone or email. I called. The rep at first acted skeptical that I was a legitimate prospect (I don’t think I sounded like a freeloader!), but I convinced him otherwise and he proceeded to put my contact info in for the gift card and schedule a demo for me.

A few days later, I sat in on the demo and Q&A,

Three weeks passed, and a follow-up call from the rep prompted me to ask if, btw, there was some problem or delay with getting the gift card. He said he “had no control of the gift card delivery once the contact data was entered, but it shouldn’t be longer than 30 days fulfillment period.”

Another month later, after an additional follow-up phone message and two follow-up emails — and no gift card!–  I politely asked once more by email reply, underscoring my legitimate interest in doing business, about the $50 card. His response was that those cards were only for people who sat in on the demo, and did I still have the mailing piece.

As luck would have it, I did have the mailing piece in a file folder (along with 12 pages of the company’s service descriptions that I downloaded to share with clients) and emailed him with the mailing piece code number and the exact date of the demo, which I had jotted on the file. I politely asked again for the gift card.

I added the comment that “given the circumstances of not delivering on a promo promise– I am not feeling very confident in your company’s services.”

His response: “I did put in the request. I apologize for it taking longer than expected. But what does a promo gift card have to do with using our services? Don’t let a gift card get in the way of what we can offer your clients. (boldfacing mine)”

 Ah, but it   

DOES get in the way.

In fact, on the “Don’t” list —

Don’t Promise What You Can’t Deliver!

[Keep in mind that I never questioned legitimacy, or entertained any doubt about this company prior to this failure to honor a promotional deal — and the attitude that accompanied it.] 

The experience made me wonder how many others were deceived. I wonder if the company provides all the services it claims to provide. I wonder if the company thinks so little about $50, what its attitude would be about an invoice discrepancy with one of my clients (or whether they would pad their bill).

The experience made me wonder how true their performance is and whether any of their performance documentation is fudged (there would be very little way to know without hiring a detective). The services they deliver are not always tangible or identifiable. Neither do they always produce accountable results.

Does it strike you as odd that a business (with sales far beyond a hundred million dollars) whose performance is entrenched in trustworthiness, and in the interest of protecting their brand integrity, would balk at making good as promised on a $50 gift card promotional incentive? 

Do you see shreds of bad customer service here?

Or is it just me? 

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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!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, 

and Clients and Patients

and Customers Too!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My! As different as each creature may be from one another, all are considered equally dangerous, equally entrancing to watch, equally exciting to find in one’s camera lens, equally cuddly, equally threatening, equally enthralling. In other words, sometimes they can all fit the same category.

As marketing targets, it’s often all for one and one for all. Professional practices (doctors, lawyers, accountants, management consultants and trainers) are small businesses with special skills and special interests. They have clients and patients. But clients and patients are customers too. They just have special needs.

All this specialization stuff, however, makes little if any difference in marketing plans, targets, approaches, strategies, or branding programs. Perceived differences matter only to professional practice principals. No one else cares. The bottom line is that we each spend our money to get a product or service.

And each of us wants to know:

“What’s in it for me?”

Whether a product or service is life-saving or life-threatening has nothing to do with whether a client or patient is considered a client or patient — or customer. All that matters is product or service performance, and the integrity and authenticity of the person(s) representing or standing behind the product or services purchased.

The issue, say some, revolves around the concept and delivery of “high trust” vs. “low-trust.” Marketing people will be quick to recite the five criteria of effective programs, campaigns, and messages. Regardless of what name is used to define a target market (customers, clients, or patients), marketing must:

1)  Attract Attention

2)  Create Interest

3)  Stimulate Desire

4)  Bring About Action

5)  Provide Satisfaction

. . . and it really must do ALL of these to be effective.

On top of that, the rule of thumb applies to ALL FORMS of marketing — print, broadcast and outdoor advertising; sales; public (industrial, professional and community) relations; promotion; merchandising; pricing; packaging; labeling; website content; social media content ; business and appointment cards; stationery and invoices.

It applies as well to direct mail, bumper stickers and building signage, plus a hundred other uses. It applies to branding themes, logos, and jingles as well as trade and professional show banners and exhibits.

When you want to know how your business or practice is coming across to others, ask. Measure people’s responses and each marketing implementation against the five criteria.

If you’re looking for prime examples of marketing that fails because it fails to deliver all five criteria, you need go no farther than your local hospital. Hospitals breed marketing mediocrity because they refuse to spend money on outsourced creative services and convince themselves they can handle it all in-house!

Most professional practices seem to think in similar terms. The problem is that their products and services are justifiably more expensive than the local coffee shop and must carry messages that appeal to a higher level of audience needs, but that doesn’t eliminate the need to trigger emotional buying motives.

Sophisticated products and services are not sold with dumb slogans or rational, logical appeals that push features instead of benefits. Humans are humans are humans. Market from the heart. Market benefits! Pay attention to corporate advertising for Mercedes Benz.

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Hal@Businessworks.US     931.854.0474

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Success seldom surfaces

when creative service

providers are squashed

. . . or does it? 

Show me a writer or designer who thrives on being torturously pushed and prodded to stressful deadlines, and I’ll show you someone who is likely to be a do-nothing PR agent or brain-dead news media person, but don’t expect to find great advertisers, marketers or creative service people thrive in angst-ridden  pandemonium.

With rare exception, creative development work that’s “rushed” breeds mediocrity (and costs more, which makes the engager a double loser!). Truly remarkable talent, it is said by many, is born of free spirit, and ample time.

Do I know exceptions? Plenty. But exceptional creativity is the product of unconstrained imagination and self-discipline. The exceptions I know –ah, including myself (!)– coulda/shoulda/woulda produced more outstanding creations if they’d (we’d) not been pushed, prodded, intimidated, threatened, and time-pressured.

My best writing has surfaced during both

great duress and great relaxation. So

maybe the rule is an exception?

My national boo0k award effort was done at my leisure. Its underperforming predecessor took two years under pressing deadlines. My worst book was written under crushing due dates. My best book –now almost ready to market– was ten years on the drawing board. My best award-winning jingle was done in one all-nighter.

My worst ad campaign took six months to research and justify and another six months to finalize and launch. My national award-winning, record-sales marketing program took three months start to finish. I have a future award-winning children’s book series ready to launch after 40 years in hiding.

And only heaven knows how many hundreds of new business startups have benefited by my rushing attacks on their website content, news releases, packaging, media positioning, and strategic planning. Yet the most successful, sales-productive efforts I have made have come only with major investments of time.

The trouble is that upstart business owners want what they want when they want it and time is not a worthy commodity to offer when they’re sitting on a hot idea and investor dollars.

Neither patience nor perfectionism has ever been a trait of entrepreneurs.

Neither has analysis, which is typically the province of corporate muckity-mucks. 

Okay, so knocking this subject all over doesn’t settle the issue of business time pressures and the creative product. That, however, is the issue. Pushing and prodding and time-pressuring creative people may not always produce the best or most productive work, but it gets the job done.

Depending on circumstances and the marketplace and the economy (and who can depend on the economy?), a judgement must be made about whether you want to win awards or customers. Without a lot of room for awards on the walls of a crushing economy, the bottom line should be to insist on results, not pretty words and pictures.

Design awards only produce sales for designers. Copywriting awards only produce sales for copywriters. You can stop paying for your creative service providers to get more sales by putting some heat on their abilities to perform for you, the client.

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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!

When you think 

you’re communicating

just the right amount of 

information, you’re not!

How do I know? Because you are the boss. And the boss rarely if ever gets it right the first time because what the boss thinks is “too much” or “too little” information is not what employees think, but are often afraid to ask about or say so. And when it’s not what customers think, they won’t ask or say so either; they’ll just go somewhere else.

Okay, I know it’s making you crazy. So what does the blog post title ROTFLMBOAFOYCTBPSSOHLT mean? You should know, first of all, that this “message” actually appeared on the screen of a Fortune 500 company employee, sent by a departmental teammate. Even the recipient had no clue  

It stands for: Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Butt Off After Finding Out You Caught The Boss Playing Spider Solitaire On His LapTop. The acronym is obviously an example of a text messenger gone amok and, of course, far too little information to be understood.

Sending a convoluted message is

  like telling a joke that nobody gets.

Misunderstood verbal and written one-way messages have ended in disasters, explosions, shootings, robberies, suicides, addictions, bankruptcies, firings, lost confidence, and lost sales. Even when the message receiver has perfect hearing, perfect vision, three college degrees, twenty years of experience, and is sober, confusion happens.

You already know all the little rules about not assuming things. You’ve learned the hard way that communication can be either verbal and/or nonverbal and that both of these forms have many signals, styles, applications, modes, and inferences. You have a general sense of when you’ve said or written too much or too little.

BUT — the recipient of your communication is the only one whose sense of what’s too much or too little really counts. If a receiver on the football field cuts right instead of left and the quarterback launches a picture-perfect pass to the left, it doesn’t much matter how great the pass looked. Your message is all about the receiver.

The only insurance you have for being clearly understood is to check on what’s written or said or agreed-to with the receiver, to confirm delivery, to paraphrase statements, to request feedback. I just received an important piece of mail from three weeks ago, from a neighbor who’s been away for three weeks, who got my mail by mistake.

Horror stories run rampant through the halls of shipping, transportation, and delivery companies worldwide every day. Wrong addresses, wrong times, wrong account numbers, and on and on. Your small business cannot afford communication screw-ups. This doesn’t mean harping away and repeating things.

It means accepting the reality that others do not have the same ways of thinking as you, and that getting it right the first time will take you longer and be more work than you would like. YOU must take the responsibility to ensure that the messages people get from you are indeed the same ones you intend them to get. Work at it. It pays.

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Hal@Businessworks.US   931.854.0474

Open Minds Open Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

 Make today a GREAT day for someone!

“Detail” Counts

Big Time In 

Small Business

My first employee review in my first real job accused me of not liking or tending to detail. Decades later, I still don’t like it or tend to it, except as absolutely required by clients, the IRS, or a book manuscript or marketing program that demands it. And even then, I still don’t like it.

After all, how can creative spirit flow freely

 with “detail anchors” weighing it down?

And, it seems when I look back, that entrepreneurs and small business owners of every conceivable description, similarly hate having to deal with detail. Yet, meticulous attention to detail is what often makes a small business become a big business. At every level: finance and operations as well as marketing and sales.

By listening carefully (vs. just hearing) to what customers and prospects say they REALLY want, you engage yourself in the world of providing detail, and the better you do at it, the better you will invariably do at not just servicing, but delighting each person and entity that you confront.

Detail –except in word choices and design applications– is not generally an area that commands great attention from those who provide creative services.

Attention to detail is most typically the milieu of those who provide accounting and legal services, intricate products, operational equipment, and safety-oriented products.

This doesn’t mean you need to be a bean counter, brain surgeon or rocket ship c0mponent manufacturer to justify the need for attention to detail. In fact, the further away from these “expected” areas of business a customer or prospect encounters what you have to offer, the more likely you are to have positive impression opportunities.

Why? Because most people don’t expect a roofer or plumber, or dog groomer, graphic illustrator, a self-proclaimed SEO or social media  “expert,” or shoelace salesman, to be able to support product and service claims with hard evidence and factual findings –details– that boost and solidify the sales message. 

Details are what drive home the emotionally-triggered sale by providing the objective, factual, unemotional supportive features that purchasers use to justify their decisions to themselves, their spouses, their boss’s, their partners, their associates, employees, shareholders.

Details may not always be fun. But –in every sale, they prevail! Do you? Are you supporting claims with facts? Attention to detail means attention to customers and prospects . . . a practice you can never go wrong with!  

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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!

Books, billboards, news

releases, website content, 

magazines and magazine

articles, posters and

displays, newspaper

 columns, surveys, signs,

 postcards, brochures, 

commercials, promotional

 emails, direct mail, photo

captions, jingles, branding

themelines, package labels,

training curricula, promo

literature and exhibit

 materials, webinars, sales

presentations, seminars 

lyrics, booklets, speeches,

 ebooks, blog posts, scripts

  business plans, marketing 

 strategies, love letters,  

manuals, greeting cards,

and matchbook covers

Ever write any of these yourself? How’d it come out? Did you get the results you wanted? What happened? Are you a skilled writer? An experienced wordsmith? Probably not. If you’re reading posts on this blog site, it’s because you’re an entrepreneur, a small business or professional practice owner, manager, or principal, a student, or a leader.

If you fit any of those kinds of career descriptions, odds are that you are marketing a product, service, or idea (or some combination) and the daily challenges of keeping your business or organization moving forward leaves little room for you to indulge in fantasy of seeing yourself as a talented writer. And you’re smart enough to know when to get help.

One telling characteristic of successful entrepreneurs, in fact, is that they know how to pull their ideas forward while leaving necessary professional services up to professionals they engage — CPA, attorney, management consultant, and more often than not: creative services, especially writers and designers.

Entrepreneurs, after all, are the catalysts of business and the economy, and serve as mirrors of society wants and needs. They alone are responsible for new job growth (not corporations, and certainly not government). As a result, entrepreneurs are also the most sensitive of business people, and the quickest to recruit outside expertise when they see the need.

Small business owners are far more in touch than their big business counterparts who are obsessed with analyzing with what message content and structure communicates best, and sells.

They recognize that one dot or small sweep of a design line, or one word can make the difference between sale and no sale.

They respect and appreciate the value of expertise.

So the list above is not just a teaser or composite of writing applications. It is a list of real business-related (yes, even love letters!) writing needs that most entrepreneurs are confronted with at one time or another. It is also a list of writing applications that anyone you hire to write for you should have experience with, at least most of them.

I know. I’ve written all of the above many times over. And I can tell you that a marketing writer who hasn’t written a book doesn’t know how to tell a story, and stories sell. A website content writer who hasn’t written radio and TV commercials has no sense of writing concise, punchy stuff that’s short and sweet, and short and sweet sells.

Someone who’s never written a billboard hasn’t even a clue about how to write branding lines because the discipline is the same:  Aim for 7 words or less and tell a story in those 7 words that has a beginning, middle, and ending . . . and is persuasive. And in direct mail, the more you tell, the more you sell — that means, literally, a blanket of billboards.

Writing emphasis must always be “you” focused (not “we”). It must attract attention, create interest, stimulate desire, bring about action, and deliver satisfaction. All writing –even an instruction manual– represents an opportunity to make a sale and/or create a favorable impression. The writing you have now? Does it work as hard as you do?

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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!

You already know this, but

perhaps you’ve forgotten:

  You and your business are

here on Earth to make a

d  i  f  f  e  r  e  n  c  e  !

Does that mean you need to revamp your food business to offer only organic produce, fruits, meats and poultry? No. You may want to consider a direction like that for business reasons, but making a difference for others is not a pursuit that –unlike government bills and riders– has restrictions attached.

Making a difference with your business doesn’t mean you must suddenly be a better Boy Scout or Girl Scout. It does mean holding to a higher integrity, and offering goods and services that don’t inherently harm people. Cigarettes come to mind. Oh, and don’t rationalize with raves about all the tobacco industry jobs and good deeds.

That’s a big business/government style-defense. Drive responsibly, say the alcoholic beverage companies. We grow forests, say the paper mills and logging companies that strip mountainsides bare of trees. You can add your own examples here. Hypocrisy has become a mainstay of corporate marketing, PR, and government control.

You can’t make a difference on Earth

by being two-faced.

(Politicians take note.)

And —TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-TICK— time marches on, so the amount of time you have to improve the business and personal lives of those around you and those who come after you are perhaps a whole lot less than you might have imagined (or maybe never thought about!) when you rolled out of bed this morning.

Bottom line: The time to act is NOW!

Start thinking about your legacy as you’re reading this, and take just one step in the direction of putting those thoughts to work by the time you walk away from your keyboard. Carpe Momento!

Recommended guiding words:

The old hit song lyrics from Seals & Crofts —

We may never pass this way again.

“There’s no time like the present,” my father always said. “Time and tide wait for no man,” my mother always said. “DO IT” says Nike. Now, entrepreneurs seem to know this instinctively, but they also seem to limit their hurries to business deals instead of to their own internal missions. Those little voices that point to reality.

What speaks to your ears from inside your gut? It may be different than the words that come from your brain. Words from the brain can be easily over-thought, manipulative, too rational, too unemotional, too logical — the stuff that corporate and government analysis paralysis is made of — What comes from your gut has no limits.

So maybe your gut instinct to meet your down-deep-inside legacy goals isn’t finding a platform in your business pursuits? Then set up something separate to make it happen. A new division, revenue stream, referral channel, product or service line extension . . . something that addresses your true life purposes.

Running a successful business is problematical enough; why saddle yourself with yet another entity? Because if the business isn’t satisfying your inner needs to, for example, help needy people and organizations, a nonprofit charitable or educational family foundation might. What’s the worst possibility?

You start a foundation and can’t make the time to run it? Find someone who believes in your purpose to step in, and you simply provide the guiding light. You start a foundation and the goals or mission become obsolete? Redefine them. You’ve already re-invented yourself and your business at least ten times over. Well?

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Hal@Businessworks.US   931.854.0474

Open Minds Open Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Hopefully, your mouse is pointing to (and clicking on) the HIGH TIDE box on the right~~~>

BUT, where is your foot pointed?

YES, I have better things to do. NO, I am not a kinetics (body language) expert nor a walking lie detector. Like most business owners, I muddle through exchanges with others –using a combination of what I know and feel from experience– to decide on another person’s intents, genuineness, and ability to perform up to my belief system.

But I have written and taught considerably on the subject, and am frequently asked about practical business applications. So, remembering that you’re not licensed to practice psychotherapy, here’s enough body barometer stuff to shrink out some of those business head cases you deal with:

Let’s first distinguish between verbal and nonverbal communication, keeping in mind that: A) words themselves do not have meaning; only people have meaning, and that: B) Only 7% of communication is generally believed to be verbal. (38% is believed to be tone of voice, and 55%, nonverbal!)

Nonverbal communication, I recall, is accomplished in 9 different ways (there may be more, but who needs more?):

1. AMBULATION — How someone walks. Big differences in the messages coming from someone who swishes vs, stomps or swaggers, bounces, strides, or drags.

2. TOUCHING — The most powerful form of nonverbal communication. Consider the differences in touch for expressing anger, interest, trust, tenderness, warmth . . . and the differences in willingness to touch or be touched.

3. EYE CONTACT — When do pupils dilate? What’s in your unconscious mind about eye colors? Trust? Sincerity? Forthrightness? Does someone stare, shoot daggers, avoid direct eye contact, glance slyly?

4. POSTURING — Are arms and legs crossed defensively? Stand or sit slouched or erect. Severe threats promote fetal positions.

5. TICS — Uncontrollable nervous twitches may indicate a sensing of possible threats.

6. S UBVOCALS — Um, er, uh, whew! . . . and grunts and groans, whistles, loud swallowing, tongue clicking.

7. DISTANCING — We each have our own Space. Comfort zones vary by person, geographical region, country, and by odors.

8. GESTURING — A wave, thumbs up or down, an OK sign or angry fist, a V can all be acceptable in one place and not in another.

9. VOCALISM — Say: I LOVE my children! vs. I love MY children! vs. I love my CHILDREN! vs. I love my children! Same words, but do you hear different meanings?

STROKING arms, legs, or hair often indicates a lack of affection (perhaps at the moment, perhaps in general). See if talking about how valuable that person is to your business stops that activity.  SMILES are great, but can often be a defense mechanism. THE FACE ALONE CAN PRODUCE 250,000 EXPRESSIONS! (Weird research, huh?)

Sports guys and politicians use THUMBS UP and THUMBS DOWN. Hitchhikers point THUMBS SIDEWAYS.

CONFIDENCE is often expressed by pyramiding fingers, by hands in pockets with thumbs out and by hands held behind a stiff back.

INSECURITY is frequently communicated by pinching, chewing (pens, pencils, pipe, fingernails, gums), by hands stuffed deep into pockets, as well as by smoking, fidgeting, jingling coins, tugging ears or mustache, or underclothing, by someone who frequently covers her or his mouth and /or “ahems” often.

HOW a person lights and holds a cigarette, pipe or cigar, how he or she writes (including pen pressure), how glasses and eating utensils are held and used, how food is picked up and eaten. These are barometers. So are the ways people greet and say goodbye to one another. Handshakes (firm, wimpy, bone-crushing?). Hugs and kisses. Who touches whom?

The boss’s hand on someone’s shoulder shows authority. People in power feel comfortable touching subordinates, but not the other way around! Is it acceptable to touch a pregnant woman? Holding one’s hand to show the palm is regarded as a sexual attraction signal, especially when pupils dilate.

Watch how people move toward and away from one another — Distances? Who moves first? When?  Is someone’s foot pointed toward you when she or he speaks with you, or toward the door? Effective communications requires effort!

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Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0911

Open Minds Open Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!