If every decision you face 

is a coin toss, you’d make a 

good referee. But business 

and life decisions demand

 L  E  A  D  E  R  S  H  I  P. 

     Referees toss coins and make judgement calls about physical actions and movements within physical boundaries. Small business owners and managers must make informed decisions about psychological, mental and emotional  behaviors as well as physical ones, and business has no boundaries.

     Business owners and managers focus on accumulating coins, not tossing them. Referees need 20/20 vision. Business owners and managers require leadership vision. Referees put together all the pieces of a complex, moving jigsaw puzzle. Business leaders never have all the pieces.

     According to the likes of great minds as diverse as Albert Einstein and Henry David Thoreau, all we ever have is limited knowledge. Certainly that’s no truer anywhere than it is in business, especially because daily business decisions revolve around how others think, and we can never know all of what others think.

     Customers, associates, employees, suppliers, competitors, prospects, referrers, professional advisers are all focused groups of individuals with common interests but uncommon (i.e., unique) minds and brainpower. This depth of differences (and the selective perception filters of each) call for decisions that are customized and personalized as much of the time as possible if they are intended to have impact.

     Other than mathematicians, accountants, and engineers, not many careers thrive on rational, logical, objective, unemotional decision making. And EVERY purchase decision–no matter how rational, logical, objective and unemotional (even rocket-ship parts!)–is in fact emotionally-triggered.

     What all this means is that business decision making needs to go FAR beyond refereeing into the land of leadership that recognizes the individuality of emotional platforms and experiences, and that addresses those with respect, grace, and finesse. Decisions are the lifeblood of leadership.

     Making decisions that motivate others to strive wholeheartedly to achieve is what great leaders of the universe have done through the ages. The dynamics apply equally to Washington, Lincoln, Churchill, Eisenhower, and Reagan as they do to Gates, Jobs, and the owners of the successful “Mom and Pop” deli down the street from your home or office.

     It’s probable that there are hundreds if not thousands of factors to be weighed in every small business decision, from investor and government influences to inventories and service supply lines, to the demands of unions, communities and the weather.

     We can only decide based on what’s available to weigh, our related base of experience, the input we get, and our gut instincts. True leaders decide, then move on. Make-believe leaders (usually those of political and big business persuasion) analyze to death then drag out decisions past the point of relevancy.   

     If you own or manage a business, you are paid to make decisions. Coin tossing is simply another form of knee-jerking and winging it. “None of the above” produces decisions that cultivate consistent high impact, long-term results. But leadership does.

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

 “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!

REALITY IN YOUR FACE:

When it’s time to let go . . .

     As I’ve been reminded again twice this week, facing death is never easy, and I think I can make that statement with some conviction because I’ve probably experienced all kinds and proximities of death in one way or another. Some (like family members, heroes and pets) can be devastating; some take a lesser toll, but none escape the memory banks.

     Now this may seem like an inappropriate transition into business, but — if you really think about it — it’s  not. Our businesses are living, breathing entities that are devoid of emotion but that maintain all the outward expressions of existence. Our businesses actually experience all the highs and lows that we’ve come to associate as the exclusive domain of human life.

     If you’ve ever had to close down or bankrupt a business, or experience major business losses due to fire, flood, earthquake, burglary, or embezzlement, you surely can relate to this . . .

     Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, the world’s foremost expert on “death and dying,” identified the five emotional stages we all experience:

1)Denial and Isolation  2)Anger  3)Bargaining  4)Depression  5)Acceptance 

     She said all of us must experience each of these five stages to one degree or another in the order they are shown with EVERY loss experience. Some of course get stuck and never make it to #5. As business owners, managers, and entrepreneurs, we experience bits and pieces of these five stages with daily losses.

     Kübler-Ross noted losses are not limited to human death, and can  include the loss of a limb or faculty, or ability … loss of a valuable possession (home, car, a business), loss of companionship (including divorce and separation), loss of freedom (including jail), loss of a job, loss of a client, loss of a prospect or opportunity, loss of self-esteem, loss of authority, etc.

     To a lesser degree, we even experience these stages when we lose a dollar, a photograph, a letter, an address, a contest, and so on. So what’s the point? 

Healthy successful people do everything humanly possible to channel all their energies and mental focus on reaching the Stage of ACCEPTANCE as quickly as possible, and on maintaining themselves at that level as permanently as possible.”

     Everything else is non-productive. Everything else leaves us feeling deflated, defeated, and negative. Some stay in these places their entire lives. Some are institutionalized. Some don’t survive.

     Stages 1-4 are pure torment. We must go through them, but the goal needs to be to move through them as rapidly as our minds and bodies allow us to. Getting through the maze may take friends and rescuers. We have all performed that function for someone else, but perhaps have forgotten?  

     Keep always in the front of your mind that no matter how hopeless it may feel to be stuck somewhere in denial and isolation, or in anger, or in a bargaining position, or a state of depression, it IS a matter of choice!

     The minute we choose to accept loss, and continue to choose that, the quicker we can get on with a happy and productive existence and make the most of the short time we each have here on Earth … make the most of the relationships and purposes we’ve been blessed with.

     We need not choose to lock ourselves into suffering and misery. Life and business life are way too short to have wasted time and energy with anything besides being happy and healthy and in active pursuit of our dreams.

Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US 

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

S T O P

managing problems

and S T A R T

ending them!

     We are unfortunately taught from pre-K through graduate school, and brain-deadened all along the way by government, unions, and giant corporations (plus well-intentioned family, friends and associates), to wring out our dripping old problem washcloths and use them again.

     Some kind of recycling “green” thinking stewardship-leadership idea?

     Well, far be it from me to not be fully supportive of environmental and ecological interests, but “No Thanks!” when it comes to recycling problems. To manage a problem is to recycle the problem until it comes back again and bites you in the butt! Small businesses don’t have the financial staying power to withstand multiple butt-bites.

     This leaves small business leaders to end the dripping-old-problem washcloth cycle before it begins by blowing the thing up, instead of letting it collect bacteria before its next use. How? STOP doing everything we’ve been taught since childhood: STOP STUDYING THINGS SO MUCH!

     “OMG, that’s sacrilegious! We have to be analytical — especially men — that’s our job!” Right. Because every blue-blooded American is crazed about getting and regurgitating the “in-depth analysis” offered by competitive sporting events commentators, by political and news pundits, by medical and diagnostic healthcare professionals … and by the vast majority of teachers in the vast majority of classrooms. 

     But this is about your small business and my small business, not the AFL-CIO,  AARP, Chevrolet, Bank of America, VERIZON, GOOGLE, main-stream media or the American Federation of Teachers. This is not about the futility of trying to end the vicious cycle of problems of the deep-pocketed. This is about learning what no one (except perhaps for some wise old grandparents!) has ever taught us: HOW TO THINK!

     Leadership means many different things to many people and organizations and governments, but to small business owners, operators, managers, and entrepreneurs, it can only mean one thing: HOW TO THINK!

     Even college which is supposed to teach us how to think, teaches us instead simply more of how to analyze. Analysis skills will not ingratiate a customer, pay a bill, respond to an immediate market opportunity or patch up piece of bad press.

     Long-term strategic planning is the lifeblood of big business and often accounts for giant corporate leaders’ collective inability to see their hands in front of their faces. Action plans are the regimen of small business; they are about what’s happening now and what can be done now to start ending problems now.

     Successful small businesspeople don’t waste time re-assessing, re-evaluating, re-comparing, re-contrasting, re-thinking, revising, re-visiting, re-structuring, or dwelling on re-reads of studies, surveys, and reports.

     Successful small businesspeople try solutions, and when the solutions don’t work, they try other solutions; they don’t waste valuable time, money, and effort running around in circles trying to manage the fire and put the same flame out over and over again. They get rid of the fire.

What can you do today to start ending

            the problems you’ve been managing?          

Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US 

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

“Git yer shovel and

hipboots, Mollie;

that slick sales guy’s

back agin.”

     When did you last encounter a slick, fast-talking salesperson who answered your questions like he was snapping a towel? A car dealership? Discount furniture store? Stereotypes? Sure, but the examples serve a purpose because they bring the worst images of sales to the surface. If we can know the worst case scenario, it’s easier to strive for the best.

     The problem is, it seems to me, that many salespeople who appear to be best case scenario salespeople on the surface are actually worse than the worst underneath. They are the ones who are smart enough to recognize that nobody likes or buys a “sales hustle” anymore, that today’s consumers are more enlightened shoppers, so they blanket the truth with a snow job and hope no one notices the slippery ice below until the check clears the bank.

     These are the same hot-shots who ignore or trivialize prospects’ concerns and create diversions by instead emphasizing the strengths of the product or service being shopped, to the exclusion of the weaknesses. It’s a throwback sales attitude that no longer tweaks the twitter, if you know what I mean. 

     But, hey, doesn’t every one in sales do that? No. True sales professionals treat prospects like family (well, not including the dysfunctional cousins). True sales professionals may not dwell on weak sales points, but they won’t smoke and mirror the negatives into some dark corner either.

     Professional salespeople build high-trust reputations at every opportunity. They are invested in selling as a career. They get the big picture of life. They seek to build a reputation for honesty, not deal-making. They want to be able to establish long-term repeat-sale relationships once the sale is made.

     If you’re serious about sales and you should be… if you’re a rep or business owner or manager (of ANY part of ANY business), or an entrepreneur… because your very existence depends on how effectively you listen to customers and respond to their needs and concerns.

     This includes being as open and honest about your product and service weaknesses as you are about the strengths. Leave the one-sided boasting to the advertising and PR people. YOU are the company! Customers and prospects expect and deserve truth as well as benefits.

     When a salesperson tries to give someone a snow job, he or she is starting out with the assumption that the customer or prospect is stupid. Frankly, ANY assumption is dumb (We can all stand to be reminded that expectations breed disappointment), but starting out with a snow-making machine — and not first handing the prospect a shovel and hip-boots — is particularly self-destruct-targeted.

     It doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes with Bing or Google to learn as much if not more than any sales rep about a particular brand or product or service… and whether snow is in the forecast! 

Comment below or reply direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US  Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day!  Blog FREE via list-protected RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Great VALENTINE for GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

“GIVE ‘EM

 THE SCREW!”

CUSTOMER: “Could I please get an extra screw or two for mounting the brackets that go with the sets of decorator shelves I just bought? One was missing last time and I wasted hours looking for an exact match.”

HARDWARE CLERK: “Sure, Honey, but they come in little six-packs, and it’ll cost you an extra buck and a half.”

OWNER/MANAGER (who overheard the exchange): “Give ’em the screw, Hazel!” (Then whispering to her: “The whole packet only costs us 75-cents and this man just spent $300 here!”).

The happy customer leaves with his free six-pack of screws.

OWNER/MANAGER: “Listen Sweetheart, I appreciate you wanting to charge for all our products, but sometimes it’s best to just give people the little extras they ask for, as a courtesy…like the sample cheese and lunch meat slices at the deli. In this case, y’just give ’em the screw and he’ll remember us longer; he’ll send his friends; and he’ll come back again. And, then, maybe you get a raise.”

     Customer Service 2010 means standing on your head and tap dancing on the ceiling if it makes the customer happy! Does YOUR business sport hand prints on the floor and tread marks on the ceiling? Why not?

     What possesses business owners and managers to add “Handling” fees to shipping costs? Isn’t handling part of the job people are paid for… to get merchandise from inventory, and then wrap and ship it?

     And, by the way, why is this service added to the purchase cost and charged separately? And why’s it always a whacked out amount? A $19.95 item I bought recently had $6.95 added for “S&H” so the under-$20 product ended up a dime short of $27! I sent it back.

     I thought car dealers were struggling. So why do only luxury car dealers pick up and drop off cars to be serviced, and go the extra mile to wash the car before returning it after servicing?

     What right do restaurants have to decide what tipping percentage to charge for parties of six or more? If service is lousy, the percentage is the same as if it’s great? Is it just me or do other people believe you should tip routinely for routine service and exceptional for exceptional service? If the party of 8 or 10 or whatever is going to produce X dollars for a foodservice person regardless of whether she or he rates a 1 or a 10, why should the person care?

     “Slop that food on the table, Mable, and don’t waste time being nice; you’re gonna get paid the same regardless. Spend your energy instead with those four old men trying to impress one another; You’ll get more tips out of them if you kiss up enough!”

Does your business give customers the screw?

Comment below or reply direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US  Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day!  Blog FREE via list-protected RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Great VALENTINE for GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

Marketing your business outside

your small business market can

bring you BIG business returns!

     Before you stick your nose up at the idea of marketing your small business outside your business market, sit back, absorb, and be willing to be surprised! In fact, I’m willing to bet that I’ll stop your mouse in mid-air within the next 3 sentences.

     Before you offer one of those 37 pet excuses why it doesn’t work, won’t work, can’t work, costs too much, makes no sense, is fantasy, and just ain’t worth the time or trouble — before you start in, let me tell you that you need to open your mind and re-visit the idea. Because it works! [That’s 2 sentences; 1 more to go; this bracketed stuff doesn’t count.]

     It can work for you and your business and (AHEM!) it’s free! Ah, there it is. The magic word that suckers every small business owner/ manager/partner/entrepreneur. Did it stop your runaway mouse?

     Okay, here we go…Let’s say you own a small appliance repair service business in Gumboro, Delaware, and you think it’s ridiculous to promote what you do to people who live in San Diego, Dallas, Detroit, Denmark, or Djibouti, right? (Sorry about getting stuck on D’s, and Djibouti? Who knows?)

     Well, you might have been right a few years ago, but with today’s smaller, quicker world, there’s really “no tellin'” where your next sale is coming from. Someone who sees mention of a small appliance business in her cousin’s hometown is likely to mention it in a next phone call or email. If you believe sales could be from anywhere, then sales could be from anywhere. Check out this little story:

A restaurateur friend of mine in California, knowing I went to college in New Rochelle, New York, recently raved to me in an email about a unique “no-menu” restaurant located in New Rochelle after having just seen it mentioned on Twitter, and then checked its website.

I’m a couple of states away now, but my brother’s insurance business is in Larchmont, New York, next to New Rochelle. When I called to wish him Happy New Year, I asked his wife about the restaurant. They knew the place, she said, but had shied away because they heard it had no menu. But my mention of the email I got piqued her interest and she said they would try it this week.

• Total cost to the restaurant:    ZERO
• Total value to the restaurant: PRICELESS (My brother’s a big eater AND a big tipper!) 

     There are thousands more stories like this for all kinds of small businesses that choose to not limit their marketing because making excuses and staying stuck in a time warp is easier to deal with than having to develop new promotional, publicity and marketing strategies.

     I’m not suggesting you suddenly abandon your steady customer base, or that you plunk down barrels full of cash to sponsor American Idol.

     I AM suggesting that small businesses need to put aside past thinking limitations and step up to global promotional efforts, especially when they’re available for free, 24/7, exercise a little imagination, and go at it persistently.

“Tell your LA & NYC friends they can get LA & NYC music composed & recorded in Ohio…better & cheaper @ http://bit.ly/7LzLES” is all it might take, for example, as a Twitter post (and a dozen characters left over, no less!) or post some variation a few times a day. Or on Facebook, or with a video and soundtrack sampler on YouTube.

     Got the idea? Go get the business? It may take longer than you like to get the “buzz” going, but it’s hard to beat the cost.      

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

“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! 

STOP THE GOOD

GREEN CITIZEN B.S.!

     This past week, I passed a dozen retail stores at night with their electric-lighted signs shut off. My opinion? Sheer stupidity that will end up as self-fulfilling prophesy. [My opinion? Nighttime or otherwise, “A business with no sign is a sign of no business!”]

     One major mall-anchor department store I went into had the escalator to the second floor turned off. “Well,” an ernest young employee I asked about it, told me, “we haven’t had enough shopper traffic since the Christmas rush to warrant the overhead costs. At least that’s what the boss told us.” [My opinion? Idiotic, panicky, self-defeating, misguided management.] 

     A retail warehouse shopping club I visited last week had half their lights off with a placard at the entrance explaining that they were “practicing energy conservation and good citizenship by not being a drain on community electric supplies.” [My opinion? That’s B.S.!]

     Pretty opinionated, huh? Well somebody’s gotta do it. Why not me?

     What’s happening here is that businesspeople who should know better have simply stopped thinking. They are all examples of smokescreen public relations, and of admitting that they have run dry on the kinds of innovative thinking that must emerge as pervasive in business today to survive and thrive in this lousy economy.

     “Lousy” economy? Yup. (Sorry; don’t shoot the messenger!) It is frankly not getting better any time soon (until GENUINE small business job creation incentives exist, and with all the token lip-service plans afoot, plus a zero-experienced government running the show, it’s going to be quite a while!).

     Unfortunately, the environment has become a scapegoat excuse for many businesses to cut back on expenses. It’s ludicrous to think that electric lighting cutbacks are substantial enough to offset the reality of lost business, or to think (and proclaim no less) that lower electric usage is benefitting society, and that customers should applaud shopping in the dark and hiking up stationary escalators.

     Here, ladies and gentlemen, is what’s at the heart of this blog message:

Utility cutbacks do not produce sales!

     Sales are what make business go. Sales are what stimulate small business to create jobs. Some may think it sounds good, but the truth is that GREEN is OUT right now. No one — outside of a ten-minute ring around Washington, DC, or Hollywood, cares. Show people how they’ll benefit by your products and services, and don’t allow others to make feeble excuses for their own incompetency in value-adding and catering to customer service initiatives.

     Or let your people focus on cost savings instead of sales … and die on the vine.

# # #  

 LOOKING FOR LEADERSHIP? See Hal’s 12/30 Guest Blog Post at TBD Consulting’s Jonena Relth’s HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED site http://bit.ly/XhN1h

 WONDERING WHEN NO is Better Than MAYBE? See Hal’s 1/6 Guest Blog Post in BonMot Communications’ Angelique Rewer’s FREE HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED e-zine www.thecorporatecommunicator.net 

# # #               

“Customer service begins

after the sale is made!”

–IBM, the early days

Is it just me? I hate the put-stuff-together, 46-fold-road-map-style directions printed in fading gray ink on tissue paper (but in 27 languages!) for products I purchase. Like the Christmas toys that even your child can assemble that kept you up half the night, HO! HO! HO!

And then there are those great power tools from Mexico with instructions that challenge your English-Spanish pocket dictionary left over from trying to deal with the landscapers last summer, when you offered them –por favor– a bowl of eyeballs instead of ice cubes.

You got the tools for putting together that great “Early American” furniture set from China, with instructions in broken English and diagrams to match? Oh, and only 89 of the 92 parts?

Or how about those “E-Z Steps” that accompany the new services you signed up for? You know, the “techy” ones with 11 disclaimer paragraphs of .4 type that protectively entomb a microscopic 800 phone number to call for further information about account activation?

Right! It’s that number you’re allowed to call between 9am and 11am or 2pm to 4pm, Pakistani time. Yup, the same one included in the box of Mexican power tools and Chinese-American furniture, that by now you’ve learned to not mind being left on hold for 45 minutes for the privilege of finally connecting with a non-English-speaking, unintelligible “counselor.” 

Of course by this time, you full well know where you’re going to plug the thing in, and what your plans are for the new drill and saw set as soon as you can Google the counselor’s phone number to get a street address and take the next flight out.

I’m not being multi-cultural-diversity friendly, you say?

Sorry, I don’t think it should have to be a huge time-wasting political struggle just to be a customer… a paying customer no less!”

Don’t underestimate the sales power of product and service directions. You need to exercise at least as much care in thinking through and writing (and printing) instruction information as you do for your marketing, advertising, promotion, and sales materials.

A well-written business plan might help you wrangle some financial backing, and some super website content and marketing materials might help you drive customer traffic to your products and services, but customer service (the real thing) starts the minute a customer settles in to figure out how to best use and care for your products and services.

Customer service doesn’t mean you smile and handshake and backpat people through the orientation period that needs to frollow every purchase. (Why do assembly and activation instructions have to be more complicated than frozen food package directions?)

Whatever credibility, integrity and branding value you may have worked hard and spent much to achieve will go out the window in a heartbeat when your customer spreads out the paperwork and finds small-type loopholes in the warranty, a missing or damaged part, no clear diagrams or explanations, stickers that don’t come off…

Make it hard for customers to not be thrilled!

If manufacturers or suppliers aren’t doing their jobs, don’t represent them, OR do their jobs for them because–in the end–your customers are your customers who will boost your repeat sales numbers when you boost your attention to after-sale details, like directions.

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Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US 

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Just because you’re a hotshot,

don’t blow off doing your homework!

      I recently noticed two free-standing specialty coffee kiosks gone from two strip mall parking lots I regularly pass. The business owners — a franchise I believe — are no doubt fretting that they made a bad investment decision, probably blaming the economy. 

     But the truth is much more obvious. They simply didn’t do their homework. They thought they had an idea that was so spectacular that it would work anywhere: Starbucks-style coffee on the go at drive-up booths in busy shopping areas. You do know the word “assumptions” is spelled “T~R~O~U~B~L~E” ? Apparently, they did not.

     What they overlooked (by not doing their homework) was that you can’t set up shop for a retail establishment of any kind that specializes in expensive, exotic coffee in shopping areas (no matter how much traffic) that boast boarded-up storefronts and are primarily frequented by welfare and food stamp recipients, in a poverty-stricken state.

     Even in good times in a rich state (are there any of either of these left?), to charge $3-$6 for a cup of coffee-to-go approaches the cusp of gouging, and is best left to major parkway service centers and sports stadiums where captive audiences will pay the piper. 

     So these owners knew they had high-traffic areas, but never checked out shopper profiles. And even this would have been obvious had they had their scouting eyes open: junk-heap cars and trucks, and shoppers in Salvation Army-style clothing ear-marked the parking lots.

     Of course it’s possible that these owners might have thought they were so entrepreneurially sharp that they could sell ice to Eskimos.

     Compounding the issue was that perhaps they saw nothing off-putting about cars lined up at these one-person kiosks, having pulled up because there wasn’t time to stop at WAWA or 7/11, waiting in bumper-to-bumper lines for some tweep to order a fat-free, candy cane brandy latte with 3 shots of carmel splash espresso, and skim milk with real whipped cream sprinkled with cinnamon… 

     And even that bit of customer aggravation would be resolvable and — in some neighborhoods wouldn’t matter anyway — if some value-added benefits were made part of the waiting time (not unlike the idea of Starbucks laptop connections).

[Don’t get me wrong here, I am not endorsing Starbucks; I don’t like their operations, their rip-off prices OR the taste of their over-the-top coffees; they are simply a convenient example.] 

Bottom line: Realtors beat it to death, but they are right! Location is indeed critical for every (even in-home) business. But if you fail to do your (complete) homework and don’t think through the strengths and weaknesses of any potential location, you do it at your own peril.”

     If the business has promise, excuses don’t cut it when hotshot entrepreneurs run it into the ground. Specialty coffee –in the right locations — can still command big bucks in this economy. Stupidity cannot. 

# # #  

 LOOKING FOR LEADERSHIP? See Hal’s Guest Blog Post at TBD Consulting’s Jonena Relth’s HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED site http://bit.ly/XhN1h

 WONDERING WHEN NO is Better Than MAYBE? See Hal’s Guest Blog Post in BonMot Communications’ Angelique Rewer’s FREE HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED e-zine www.thecorporatecommunicator.net 

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Bosom-Bumping,

Chest-Thumping Websites

     Is your businessthe greatest thing since sliced bread and bottled beer? Do you consistently remind your customers and prospects that you and your business are the best there is and that your competitors should just fold up their tents, throw in the towel, take their footballs and go home to sit on the couch and eat bon-bons while they watch global warming creep in?

     Nah, you might say. Whaddayathink, I’m some kinda whack job? you might ask. I play it low-key with customers and competitors, you offer timidly, because, says you, your website does all that rowdy outta-control stuff!

     Well, if your website is bumping bosoms and thumping chests, it is BIG-time out of step with reality. Websites are NOT 24/7 TV commercials!

     Websites are your only round-the-clock opportunities to be engaging and deliver consistent sales messages, to stimulate 2-way interactive exchanges of information without prejudices or emotions getting in the way, without shooting yourself in the foot.

     Done right, your website gives you a dimension of control that’s not possible in personal selling. No, it comes nowhere near replacing personal selling, but it absolutely does enhance and accentuate the sales function in every industry on Earth if it has the right ingredients, especially (says all the research) great copy/text/writing/words.

     And if it does have the right ingredients, you need only to attract attention to it and generate visitor traffic (a task generally best left to Internet marketing specialists).

Here’s what your website should do: Educate, entertain, create interest, stimulate desire, bring about action, generate sales inquiries and leads, and promote increased awareness of how great you are not by saying it, but by demonstrating the benefits your products and services provide … not the features, the benefits!

     Does it matter that you’re a nonprofit organization or government agency? Of course not. It doesn’t make any difference if you’re the fading-off-into-the-sunset US Postal Service, the local community college, a church or service dogs organization. People buy benefits.

     Use your website to sell benefits. Do it serious or do it with humor, but do it by helping the customer solve a problem or address a need, not by bumping bosoms or thumping chests or telling everyone how great you are.

     Because when it comes to sales, except for maybe your mother, nobody really cares how great you are. And, in the end, integrity speaks for itself.   

# # #  

 LOOKING FOR LEADERSHIP? See Hal’s Guest Blog Post at TBD Consulting’s Jonena Relth’s HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED site http://bit.ly/XhN1h

 WONDERING WHEN NO is Better Than MAYBE? See Hal’s Guest Blog Post in BonMot Communications’ Angelique Rewer’s FREE HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED e-zine www.thecorporatecommunicator.net 

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