Hi there, I’m “Getting Stale!”

What’s YOUR name?

     Do you think the answer to the old question, “what’s in a name?” is “nothing!”?? 

     Whether your business name is old (Hershey) or new (Smart Car), if you don’t reassess it regularly (at least annually), odds are it needs a tweak, a facelift, a transfusion, or a lobotomy! 

     Step back from the name and ask yourself if it’s still as meaningful, insightful, engaging, and competitive as it once was.  Does it play off of or make use of positive established associations (the Prudential Rock and MacIntosh Apple)?  Does it tie itself to positive, known or established concepts (Gorilla Glue)?  Is it born of positive, known or established (even competitive) name parents (Viagra from Niagra, Hondai from Honda)?  Does it offer a double entendre experience (Cluck U Chicken)? 

     Does your business name set up a branding line, themeline, rhyming or alliterative payoff (“You’ll never bite a burger better than a BUBBA!”)?  Is the URL taken (or purchasable)?  Is it easily visualized (Friendly’s)?  Has it some unusual aspect to its meaning or appearance (The Burger King crown, the colored Google lettering)?  Does it fit with where you are and where you’re going (EZPass)?  What would it take to achieve a fit? 

     Does it need total transformation or just a slight nudge (The New York Mets from The New York Metropolitans)?  Might it be presented as a new division or department or subsidiary of the old existing name in order to gain more market relevance (MsNBC)?  Is there too much “goodwill” accumulated with the old existing name to consider a departure or could it be time for introducing “the son or daughter or brother or sister of” the old established name (“From the makers of . . .”)?

     Why are you still reading this if you have no serious doubts?  If you’re a new or small business, the kind of transition suggested is certainly simpler and less-expensive to achieve than with and old or large business.  On the other hand, old large business name transformations (ESSO to EXXON, for example) can be historic and have monumental impact if they’re executed properly. 

     I drove by Charles Brown Glass Company yesterday, and thought, had that been my name and business, I would have bitten the proverbial bullet (and probably upset my grandparents) by simply using my less formal “Charlie” to capitalize on all the icon cartoon character references out there.  Wouldn’t you enjoy telling people you worked for or delivered to or supplied or represented or bought glass from Charlie Brown?  (Maybe even hire a receptionist named Lucy and pack the glass for delivery in “Linus Blankets”?)

     I know, I know, here come the lawyers!  But it’s pretty hard to legalize someone out of using their real name even when it’s an already-famous one.  BJ’s Bar in Ocean City, Maryland, must be thrilled beyond belief that a new BJ’s merchandise buyer’s club has just opened in Southern Delaware, half an hour away, accompanied by massive regional advertising that inadvertantly urges the public to both sets of business doorsteps.  

     What’s in YOUR business name?  Does it work?  Where’s it going?  Will changing it in any way get you where you’re going quicker, more productively, more profitably?  halalpiar

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If you have no customers

to start with, don’t start! 

Q. What single factor drives most business ventures under? 

A. Poor management. 

     You were thinking finances perhaps, or unproductive employees, or inability to compete effectively?  These negatives can certainly kill off great ideas and intentions quickly, but they all come from poor management.

     A key indicator of poor management (funding, employee and competitive status are not always evident, nor are they always indicative) is the sense of desperation (or ignorance) that accompanies strategic marketing pursuits focused on gaining new customers.

     The best source of business is existing and past business.  Period. 

     When you can present your sales message to those who have already been your customers, the task is always easier and the expense involved is always less because you are dealing with people or entities to whom you (your business) are (is) a known factor.  You have a history with them. 

     At some point, past customers have already paid you for your products or services.  They already know what you’re about and accept you for what they know.  You needn’t start from scratch to get their attention.  You need only to remind them of the positives of their experiences with you, and bring them up to date with your business.  This can be done for minimal expense. 

     The same can be said for existing customers– in spades!  You already have the ears of the people you are currently dealing with.  They wouldn’t be existing customers if they weren’t pleased with your business.  You don’t need to shout or drumroll your message.  You don’t need to underscore the benefits of your products and services. 

     You need only to maintain active communications, introduce new ideas and developments and give them what I call “Stand-On-Your-Head-And-Spit-Wooden-Nickles” service.  This can be done for zero expense!  

     When marketing gets expensive and drives businesses to the wall, is when over-zealous bursts of advertising, promotion, PR and Internet (more the former than the latter) are unleashed in attempts to get new customers. 

     NEW customers are VERY expensive to solicit and sell because you must start with the assumption that they don’t know you and perhaps never heard of you.  This means you have to get their attention, grab their hands, convince them to stay attentive and walk them through the benefits attached to your sales message, then motivate them to open their wallets.  Desired results are seldom produced. 

     Except for one in a billion odds, this is a long, drawn-out process that takes huge amounts of time, energy, and money.  Building a business slowly on the strengths of each past and present customer relationship will create new customers for you without all that draining output.

     The problems for brand new business ventures are even greater!  Where do you get past and present customers when you’ve just opened your doors? 

     If you have no customers to start with, don’t start! 

     If you have a small handful of customers to start with, you need to be prepared to commit your every waking minute to nurturing and cultivating that small handful until it’s an armful, and then a truckful . . . 

     Failure to do exactly that is one reason 9 out of 11 new businesses fail in the first 3 years and that it takes 5 years on average just to break even financially.  This notion goes full circle back to the top of this post: poor management! 

     If you’re an entrepreneur and this hasn’t scared you off, be prepared to pursue your ideas to the exclusion of all other pursuits, and recognize that this level of sacrifice often breaks up personal relationships and entire families.  Still there?  Then stop reading this and get moving!  halalpiar

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 132 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link. 

Talk that’s never walked

cannot survive in business.

     If you’ve heard me railing against the incoming government’s total lack of business experience, it’s with good reason.  Neither the new President nor the new Vice President have one iota of business experience.  Can you honestly sit there reading this and think that it really doesn’t matter to you?    

     Does it matter to you that neither of these velvet-tongued politicians have a shred of management experience?  Can you honestly sit there and say that that doesn’t matter that neither of these people have ever even managed a state national guard unit? 

     You know what?  If you answered “yes” to either or both of the last two questions, you are simply not a business owner or business manager or savvy entrepreneur (so I don’t know why you’re reading this in the first place), OR perhaps it’s possible that you’ve been hoodwinked, manipulated, and brainwashed by the media, or by the eloquent rhetoric that oozes from these two leaders’ mouths?  Are you a victim of talk that’s been talked but that’s never been walked?   

     Oh, I’m being disrespectful?  Sorry you would think that.  No, I’m not in the least. 

     I AM being brutally honest here though.  You may not want to hear this but if you have disrespect for the Presidency, that is your CHOICE.  You can just as easily choose to respect the office, regardless of your inability to relate to the person who holds it.  Even deep dislike for disreputable or disingenuous presidents past (except perhaps Clinton) never tarnished the respect for the office they held. 

     Business vs. politics.  The difference is this:  business success is built on hard work and innovation and follow-through, not loose talk that sounds nice.  It is not built on unrealistic fantasyland ambitions, nor empty promises.  Business success does not sprout from sounding great and delivering nothing.  It certainly is not the product of inexperience and disrespect for those who have business experience. . . and unlike politics, popularity contests do not breed success.

     Representing a state is not the same as managing a business. 

     Dealing with others who represent other states is not the same as building employee and customer loyalty; it’s not the same as making sales.  Trading off favors to get what you want is not the same as keeping AR and AP in balance, generating ROI, cutting costs and devising new revenue streams, getting/keeping/motivating top employees and vendors, fostering product and service innovation, dealing with the forces of the marketplace and the competition, and creating new and repeat sales! 

     It’s not the same.  It’s not even close! 

     So what’s a business owner or manager to do?  Answer: A better job!  We have to work harder AND smarter because we have no national leadership that understands what makes us tick.  The track-record is that business is viewed by our nation’s new leaders as nothing more than a source of money with which to fund socialistic programs instead of stimulate job creation and economic growth. 

     We have no national leadership that can appreciate and value and stimulate entrepreneurship.  Is there even a sliver of national leadership respect for the fact that it’s entrepreneurs who have made this country what it is, and that it’s our brave young military people who have kept it that way?  Or will we be getting lip-service alone?  Tuesday’s as good a day as any to decide.  Listen carefully to what’s not said. halalpiar

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 131 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

    “WE DON’T SWIM

     IN YOUR TOILET

   . . . SO DON’T YOU

     PEE IN OUR POOL!”

      As a youngster, I remember snickering at seeing one of these comedic placards that you always find in tourist trap souvenir stores (and the one next to my friend’s father’s fish tank!).

     Well, you know what?  That maybe-not-so-silly little pool rule seems to me to have some surprisingly important value when you apply the notion to working in someone else’s office, joining in someone else’s conversation, sitting in on someone else’s meeting, visiting in someone else’s home, entering someone else’s private space, and being entrusted to spend someone else’s money. 

     Break it down and it’s all about respect, which sometimes these days appears to be going the way of buggy whips, 8-track cassettes, and carbon paper.  The only trouble is that buggy whips, 8-track cassettes, and carbon paper are all things, and have all been replaced by newer better stuff.  Respect (aka R-E-S-P-E-C-T, as in the song!), though, is a value, not a thing.  And I’ve never heard of an adequate substitute. 

     We speak of having to earn respect.  We’re told as children to respect our elders . . . and keep a respectful distance from the neighborhood mongrel, and from strangers who offer candy.  Yet, something here is missing. 

How many friends, family members and work associates can you honestly say you respect? 

How many do you think respect you? 

(Have you earned it?) 

How important is respect to your life pursuits? 

Your career? 

Your love life? 

Your feelings about your SELF? 

     What can you do to make this better than it is, or turn it around if it’s headed in the wrong direction?  What specific steps can you take now that are genuine (vs. quick-fix), to help yourself gain greater respect from others?  How much of your answer to the last question relates to the amount of respect you put out to those around you?

     A good place to start may be to take inventory so that you have a clearer image of those who are “around you”!   Draw a target —three or four concentric circles— on paper and decide who is closest to you (put them or he or she in the middle circle), next closest person/people (next ring), and so forth.  Of course, include animals if you like. 

     A few rings worth will give you a more accurate and balanced and realistic idea than the image you may have of these relationships that you carry around in your head.  If you’re happy with your circles, congratulations!  If you think you can do better, the R-E-S-P-E-C-T song isn’t a bad place to begin!  (Oh, and by the way, there is no end to respecting others!) 

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

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