Well, HOPE never accomplished anything, but we DID get change . . .

Budget-Squeezed

Consumers,

Unemployment Line

Stampedes,

Fleeing lenders and

Investors,

Slithering and Sinking

Suppliers

The days are done of having stationary targets and goals to focus on. We are a civilization on the move. Some of the action, we asked for. Some, we didn’t. Most threatening are those that have been foisted upon us by a naive, incompetent American government that has zero experience with, or appreciation for, all things business.

Even before I give you the build-up, here’s the bottom line:

You cannot start a fire with a magnifying glass if you have to keep moving the magnifying glass because the object you’re trying to ignite keeps moving!

It’s a wonderful thing when your targets stand still for you and you have all the luxury of time to aim carefully before pulling any triggers. But that’s fantasy. Reality is that in today’s still sinking economy, everything is moving and changing — customers, employees, funding sources, referrers, vendors, and the competition are all in motion.

If you really want to put a fire under your ideas, your customers, your employees, et al, you’d be best advised to ditch the magnifying glass and figure out the best way to turn sparks to flames. You need to first explore the nature of the tasks and people involved, and assess your goal structure.

If your goals aren’t specific, realistic, flexible, AND due-dated, you’re headed into fantasyland and running on empty.

You are dealing in (with apologies to Mr. Obama) hopes and dreams: meaningless time-wasting, money-wasting, energy-wasting illusions that savvy entrepreneurs avoid like the plague.

Dreams, ambitions, and intentions are great, but only when they are followed promptly by action. Taking action is the mark of a true leader, and all successful entrepreneurs. And some action is always better than noaction. Why? Because –again– trimes have changed and the new old motto is:

“If it ain’t broke, fix it anyway!”   

Be careful to not misread the implications here that you should suddenly fly by the seat of your pants (which could undoubtedly make for an interesting journey, but highly questionable landing). Yes, do charge at your business targets, but remember that –even when they least appear to be– they are moving and changing.

Your ability to adapt effectively to changing, moving circumstances will determine your ability to succeed. How does one prepare for vigorous activity? By stretching of course. What kinds of stretches do you need to build into your daily routine to enhance your flexibility, elasticity, ability to adjust and respond?

Writers read. Language teachers do crossword puzzles. Designers go to the movies. Doctors and dentists invent gadgets. Actors “people watch” in crowds. Musicians hum. Drivers walk. Chefs try different restaurants. Shrinks join therapy groups. Figure out what works for you.   

The world’s greatest athletes –regardless of the sport– are those who practice and practice, and practice again, hitting a moving and/or changing target. The world’s greatest entrepreneurs do the same thing. Remember high school physics class and Newton’s First Law?. . .

“A body in motion tends to stay in motion!” 

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  Open Minds Open Doors 

 Thanks for your visit and may God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Dear Doctor . . .

Everyone who deals with

you –personally or  

professionally– already

KNOWS you’re a doctor.

Dear Doctor, On behalf of all those people who visit and speak with you, and who deal with you on a personal and/or business level –but who think they need to choose to be intimidated by you– please do all of them (and your professional self, and of course your healthcare practice) a really big favor:

Acknowledge, and act, and speak the truth.

Be a real person.

Don’t cast your title to the wind. You’ve worked hard for it. You’ve earned it. It’s something to be proud of. But you know what? Healthcare is serious enough. Lighten up a little and watch what happens!

Step down from the pedestal that those who surround you all day put you on (“Yes, Doctor”; “No, Doctor”; “Whatever you say, Doctor”). As you communicate with businesspeople, remember that –not very unlike many of them—  you are a regular person with special knowledge and special skills.

Those attributes do not make you a special person. This is not a come-uppance rant. This is reality. I have had the privilege of working personally with nearly 2,000 doctors in the last 30 years as a practice development consultant and as a personal and professional counselor. Here are some things I learned:

Doctors are bred to have their heads in the clouds. That they are all people who excel academically is not in dispute. That doctors who wallow in their achievements is not only distasteful to others, it also serves to undermine healthcare practice success by pulling the rug out from under the mainstays of patient and referrer loyalty.

Only you, dear doctor, can make yourself a special person by the ways that you communicate with your patients and their families, your office and professional staff, detail reps, practice development people, consultants, staff trainers, equipment and e-system suppliers, hospital personnel and affiliate operatives, insurance providers, local media people, and the communities you serve . . . oh, and perhaps the hardest of all entities: other doctors.

When a doctor is called “doctor,” it is more out of habit and fear than out of respect. Doctors who gain the most respect are those who introduce themselves by their first names. Many people unconsciously process the ways they size up doctors who flaunt their titles as being insecure, self-indulgent, and insensitive.

Well, yes, doctor, you do make a point: it is true that you deal with human lives and with issues involving physical, mental, and emotional well-being and so need to separate yourself as a professional in the patient’s eyes.

But you also know as well as anyone that the less stressed a patient and family tend to be, the quicker the path to healing and recovery. Titles are pompous and unnecessary barricades to free-flowing communications. Anything that short-circuits communications flow can create stress and anxiety, and misunderstandings..

Excel instead at the ways you present yourself and your ideas and findings and suggestions and recommendations. Excel at “bedside manners.” Excel at how you present yourself to the outside world, to how you are (forgive the crassness) “packaged.”

Find people who are as professionally skilled at marketing and writing and persuading as you are at medicine.

Straight from the shoulder: Do NOT rely on the ideas or execution of ideas put forth by loving, well-intrentioned spouses or office managers or in-laws, or parents, children, med-school classmates, your neighbor’s 17-year-old computer whiz or some SEO “expert” who jumped into your Facebook page.

DOCTORS: Want some free tips? Seeking help fining respectful experts? Proven practice development steps? Call or email me and let’s chat. No fees for getting acquainted.

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  Open Minds Open Doors 

 Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Do your part for the planet!

Sell your local products 

and services worldwide.

~~~~~~        

Now we know for a fact (in spite of Mr. Gore’s ranting and raving), that there simply is no such thing as manmade global warming (which has clearly proven to be a figment of the man’s imagination), it’s probably time to turn up the planet’s heat with our businesses.

There’s no need to defend that global warming discrediting statement, by the way, just ask any credible scientist instead of the pseudo ones Mr. Gore carries in his pocket.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is no greater opportunity to market your goods and services outside the neighborhood, town, county, state, or region that you’ve been limiting yourself to . . . than now . . . with the Internet (Oh, and thank you again, Mr. Gore; where oh where would we ever be had you not invented it?).

Why “now”? Because, as my mother used to say, there’s no time like the present. How to do it? Like what are the steps?

Step number one is to cast aside the political creeps behind creeping Socialism (November 6, 2012). 

Step number two is to extract the small-mindedness from your brain that’s been locked in there, afraid to let you step outside your business comfort zone.

With inexpensive –often free— media options to exercise (from emails and texting to Twitter, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn), you will gain by exploring (or expanding your mastery of, if you’re already dabbling) the market opportunities for what you sell. Now is the time to Action Plan your way into marketing your offerings worldwide.

Exactly where are those opportunities for you and your business? Odds are you know what they are and where they are, but you’ve simply not been willing or motivated enough to consider their pursuit. Be willing. Be motivated. Make that choice for yourself.

Stop thinking you need to be limiting local services and products you sell to the neighborhood or town that supports you.

If you truly care about your neighbors, help stimulate your local economy with global money!

Illegal aliens have been doing it for years. They work in the U.S., typically tolerating inhumane living conditions in order to wire maximum amounts of American dollar wages earned to their desperate families in countries whose governments intentionally keep their people in poverty.

How about bringing other country’s money into your town? How about working to help change the opression of other countries’ governments to make them do a better job so that their people won’t want or need to come to the U.S. for their families to survive? Isn’t that a better, more permanent solution? 

Does it mean cracking down on illegal border entries and drug lords and war weapon distribution channels?

Absolutely, but isn’t that a smarter, better thing for our grandchildren than to continue with the Socialism “share the wealth” mentality that strips away America’s freedom that small business job creation built, and that America’s servicemen and women have preserved?

I’m talking about the freedom that we have all earned and enjoyed, that strengthens core family values and that serves to undermine the terrorist acts, threats, and organizations that rise from the rubble of America’s economic weaknesses. 

It all comes back to the economy. And job creation. And America’s 30 million small businesses.

With government support in the minus zone, there can be only ingenuity, innovation, self-reliance,  guts, and gumption. Are you up to it, or ready to go down without trying?

There are no limits except

those in your mind.

And those limits are a choice.

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  Open Minds Open Doors 

 Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

What Makes You Think

You Can Wing It?

 Farmers, carpenters, doctors, lawyers, firefighters, pilots, seamstresses, stylists, realtors, even Cub Scouts do it.

So what makes you think that you can wing it? Now I’m not talking any hundred-page document with 37 pull-out spreadsheets and an annotated bibliography featuring a gazillion itemized resources. Who cares? I’m talking about an Entrepreneurial Action Plan.

Yes a plan of any kind needs a goal.

And that goal has to be realistic and specific and flexible and due-dated. If it’s not all four of those criteria, it’s not a goal, it’s a wish. Wishing may work in Disneyland, but business success comes from taking action. Taking action without a goal-based action plan is like trying to control a rudderless ship in a storm.

Your Entrepreneurial Action Plan

Like any good news release, your Action Plan must answer the questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? And be realistic, specific, flexible and due-dated. It’s always a worthy endeavor to include a Mission Statement and a Vision Statement at the beginning of your plan to set the stage.

A quick market assessment, a marketing plan, a management approach and/or team lineup, an operational outline and a financial plan and projections — that all answer the questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? (and that are realistic, specific, flexible, and due-dated) will do the trick.    

                                                                                                          

Is this over-simplified?

No. It’s actually very simple. An Entrepreneurial Action Plan is simple and quick to execute. It is not a formal business plan. Many of the same ingredients are in both, but business plans are primarily done for the purpose of raising investor or lender money. Action Plans are to get things going, and build momentum; they are not fancy.

An Entrepreneurial Action Plan can be scribbled on the back of a large envelope.

It is definitely not for the feint-hearted crossed-t-dotted-i perfectionists or analysis-paralysis corporate types. The best results come from those who chunk up their plans and adjust them frequently. This doesn’t take thousands of hours or a rocket science degree. Oh, and what a great amnd illuminating collection the saved scribbles make.

BUT your Action Plan does need to capture.

It needs to capture the five “W” questions and one “H” question above, and it does need to target goals that are realistic, specific, flexible, and due-dated. Otherwise, you are captaining a rudderless ship in a storm, and are bound to have schools of lawyers circling you, closing in for the kill.

Yes, put it in your pocket, not a spiral-bound or 3-ring binder.

It’s a working document for the day, week, or month. I do daily scribbled Action Plans for each blog post. I do weekly versions for my writing/consulting/marketing business. In the end, it’s all about why you are an entrepreneur in the first place . . . to make your idea work by exercising the freedom to continually adjust it.

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Hal@Businessworks.US

 Open Minds Open Doors

 Thanks for visiting.     God bless you.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone

Welcome, and thank you

for joining me on this

personal milestone of

  1,000 posts at this site.

Before I take you on my quick-read path of lessons learned, which I unabashedly believe includes something of value for everyone, let me offer up my heartfelt appreciation for the first 400 visits I had in April of 2008 when I started, and the millions of visitors who followed over the last 3+ years.

~~~~~~~~~~

Please continue your visits, comments, and free RSS Feed subscriptions.

And please note that this blog will now publish new

posts 5 days a week, every Sunday through Thursday.

But the Search Window is always open, and content is always relevant.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you

for your confidence,

trust and loyal support.

Special thanks to Kathy — the wind beneath my wings for 25 years, and to the wonderful dogs we’ve been blessed with, who surrounded my feet as I posted each night — our Black Cocker (“Tuckerton“) who left us last year at 6 years old and our Golden Retriever (“Barnegat“) who lived six months longer than him; she was 13 . . . and our new one-year-old-this-week Cavachon (“Breezy“).

For the endless stream of writing encouragement and feedback (regardless of agreement or disagreement with my representations, and there’s been plenty of both!), please indulge me long enough to use this space for special thanks to my: son, Christopher; daughter Haley; oldest granddaughter, Talley; brother-in-law Tim; mother-in-law, Marian; brother, Rick. And: my Aunt Dorothy and sister-in-law Claire; Melanie Adair, Angela Current, Doyle Slayton, Jonena Realth, Dr. Ian Fries, George Kanuck, Kevin Bousquet, Meredith Bell, Jeff Banning, Danielle-Dixon-Moyle, Peter Leeds, Jim Haines, Dr. Jeffrey Alpern, Michael Infusino, Ken and Sara Kraft, Bruce Burchell, Andrew Jackson; Jim Oliviero, Ken Poppele, Andy Larrimore, Laura Pritchett, Jeff Shactman, Barrie Proctor, Brian Smith, Dennis Forney, my friends, neighbors, Twitter and LinkedIn followers, former students, past and present clients, three special friends lost this past year: Butch Taras, Paul Harp and Ernst Dannemann, and my 150 softball league buddies in Delaware and New Jersey, and their families.

Thank you also to the young men and women of America’s military service whose devotion and courage make the freedom possible that allows me to choose to write, and to be able to write freely.

. . . and thank you, God!

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is some of what I learned that you may find helpful to be reminded of . . . to think about . . . to try, apply, expand, adjust, enjoy, and to just pick up and run with:

1)  Never assume that no one (or that no one who matters) is “out there.”

When you write and post something on the Internet, someone, somewhere, is always reading what you write . . . every thing you write! So make it count.

2)  Be gracious with your insults.

Criticize the behavior –words and actions– not the person! When you feel you must take someone’s behavior to task, take it to task, but try to “sleep on” what you write before you click Publish.

3)  Take lots of deep breaths. 

More frequent deep breathing will channel stress productively, to stay in control, to be focused on the “here-and-now” present as much as possible, to ensure that you respond instead of react. Remember, if you don’t react, you can never over-react!

4)  Be kinder than necessary

 EVERYone you meet and re-meet every day is fighting some kind of battle.

5)  “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”

(Thank you Mark Twain) 

6)  “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.”  

(Thank you again Mark Twain)

7)  “Time waits for no one. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.”

 (Thank you B. Olatunji)

8)  Ask yourself the following 4 questions:

 Why?  Why Not?  Why Not Me?  Why Not Now? A few times a day is not a bad idea.

9)  Accept the fact that the news media no longer “reports” anything.

Literally every story breaks down into some stress-filled level of disguised political opinion. If you think that’s exaggeration, try testing your willpower to not watch or listen to or read any news or news-related presentations of any kind for just one week, then see and feel the results. You will be happier, healthier, less-stressed, more productive, and making a bigger difference in the world, especially if you combine this effort with #3 above. (3 weeks of it, by the way, will literally transform your life!)

10)  “To Thine Own Self Be True!”  

                                         (Authenticity + Passion = Success)

(Thank you, Shakespeare)

   11)  “There is a time for everything under heaven.”

(Thank you, God)

   12)  “Open Minds Open Doors.”

(Thank you United Technologies)

   13)  “The journey to discovery consists not in having new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

(Thank you Proust)

    14)  “The only thing that’s permanent is change.”

(Thank you Greek philosopher Hericlitus, 2500 years ago)

    15)  “Happiness is a journey, not a destination.”

(Thank you Alfred Souza)

    16)  Great blog posts only happen because of great blog followers.

If you like what I write, thank your self because I write it only for you, and only with your input. I am grateful for your every visit.

Have a wonderful week ahead, filled with everything you want.

Best regards – Hal

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 Open minds open doors

 Thanks for visiting.     God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone

How can you ever get where

you’re going if you don’t 

know where you’ve been?

You’ve heard me a zillion times about the importance of focusing on the “here-and-now” present moment if you seek success in any form — and it’s a particularly embracable idea if you’re a leader, a small business or professional practice owner or manager, an entrepreneur, a parent, teacher, in military or community service, or unemployed.

I’ve belabored the point that dwelling on or in the past, and worrying about the future, are mentally, emotionally, and physically unhealthy places to be. They are fantasyland locations and are at the core of neurosis.

 BUT when you can make use of the past or future from a present-moment mindset, so that you control past and future thoughts . . .

You Win! Don’t believe it? Follow this:

• Think for a minute, from your present-moment level of awareness, about where you’ve been in life (not  on a map, but where your thought patterns, performance levels, relationships, and business experiences have been). When you think about those things, what value do you give them in the here-and-now? 

• Are these experiences that led you to where you are? So reaching back into them, which ones yield you the greatest value in the present? Which can most dramatically, most effectively, launch you into the future? Where exactly do you want to go in life? What in your past can most help you get there?

• What roadblocks have you chosen to put between past learning experiences and future plans? What are the 3 most important steps you can take right now to start getting over or around those roadblocks? What excuses are you choosing to use to keep yourself from taking the most important of those 3 steps?

• Take some deep breaths and mentally stand back from yourself, in a vacuum, without feeling past guilt or future worry, and describe you as you imagine yourself to be 10 years from today, August 3, 2021. What would you tell you to do NOW to get yourself on a more productive, happier, healthier, more rewarding path?

• Go ahead, tell yourself –maybe in a mirror? Take some more deep breaths. Imagine, see yourself as the person you most want to become. Try to visualize your physical appearance (clothes, jewelry, skin, hair, teeth, brightness of eyes) and your attitude (how you walk, talk, carry yourself).

• You have the ability to choose now, today, tonight, this hour, this minute to start on the path that will take you where you want to be. And this moment in time will be your past when you achieve that new goal for yourself. Will you look back to it then and commend your decision to move forward or wallow in self-misery for not choosing?

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 Open minds open doors

 Thanks for visiting.     God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone

So, right about now,

you’re swimming in

tears, beer, or red wine,

 and trying to leave last 

 week in a cloud of dust?

Does it sometimes feel like you can’t even find the tunnel, never mind the light at the end of it? The promise of yesterday is simply not happening tomorrow? The positive, hopeful feelings you had for your business last Monday simply dissolved away on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday? And here you are: in a weakened weekend. 

Take heart, dear business owner, manager, entrepreneur. It’s really not the end of the world. It’s actually the beginning of a new awareness and a new opportunity that didn’t exist all week last week. The special occasion I refer to is your great awakening! Look in the mirror. Take a deep breath. Snap your fingers. and–viola!–be a new you!

Yes, it IS that simple. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. That’s a choice. Stop feeling defeated. That’s a choice. Stop beating yourself up. That’s a choice. Stop making excuses. That’s a choice. Don’t give up on yourself, or your people, or your business. That’s a choice. Choose instead to do what you know you’re capable of. That’s a choice.

When work overwhelms you, get rid of the “over” and zero in on what’s real and what’s right smack in front of your face as opposed to what you’ve been imagining. You’re reading this so you’re probably not in jail and you probably haven’t boarded up the windows yet. You’ve just a few bloody knuckles and are perhaps feeling nauseous.

What is the basic premise, idea, belief, conviction, desire with which you started your business? Is it still there? Does it still dominate your brain? Have you a mission and vision statement worked out that serve as the underpinning of your every daily performance, or have you lost sight of those ideals as economic stress set in?

RSVP your regrets to the media circus debt ceiling party and take a stroll through your own wallet. It’s renewal time!

It’s time to step back BEFORE you step up. Look around and take inventory and sort out priorities and renew your commitment to yourself and your family and your employees and customers. It makes no sense to get up to bat if you don’t know the inning, the score, the pitcher, your capabilities, and if you even have the right bat to swing. 

How do you know when it’s renewal time? When the week behind you feels like a failure. When you’ve struck out with the bases loaded, you need to not bang your head on the dugout bench. You need to look in the mirror. Take a deep breath. Snap your fingers. and–viola!–be a new you! Because you CAN and you need only to C H O O S E  it. 

DON’T choose for others to drag you down or under. Only you control your brain, and only you have the power to rise up above the rubble and make this next week a record-breaker that will lead you into the sunrise. Just a bunch of fantasy talk? No. Actually, it’s a bunch of reality. The question is how ready are you to put reality to work? Now? 

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 Open minds open doors

 Thanks for visiting.   God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Economy-crunched small businesses, stampeding to reduce payroll, need first to pull back the bells and whistles.

S C A L E   I T   B A C K.

Ideas, Proposals, Recommendations, Products, Services

Stop to think about it: If YOU are having trouble affording employee costs, your CUSTOMERS may be having trouble affording your product and service “extras.” [Restaurants have been scaling back since 2008 by offering better quality in smaller portions on slightly smaller plates!]

Let’s say you’re a consultant, and know in your heart of hearts that a client organization you work with needs to develop three new levels of consumer goods and services to stay competitive, but you also know that their naive management has failed to get its arms around the budget stranglehold that White House pressure has put on them.

You can lay it all out for them , knowing they will never pay your fee, and go down with the ship . . . or chunk up your recommended action plan to address just one new level, leaving the other two to simmer until the first of these can produce enough revenues to cover the investment and your fee, setting the stage for a level two proposal.

It’s worth the reminder that, as my father was known to exclaim and as Giovanni Torriano was first credited with recording the phrase in his Second Alphabet in 1662, “You can’t get blood out of a stone.”  And while we’re on the subject of hard subjects and difficult feats, you may want to accept the inevitable and just agree to “bite the bullet.”

In other words, when you can see that your proposal carries with it the hand-wrenching anguish that forces your client to back away from the table, scale it back. What can be accomplished by eliminating the bells and whistles and still manage to develop a new first level that’s acceptable, that can be expected to perform adequately?

Does this put a burden on you? Of course. When you may have been thinking you could do a $15,000 fee project, you find yourself settling for a smaller $4,995 fee project. What’s the answer? Do it with a $15,000 fee attitude, and use the extra time to get out and sell another client or two on projects that total $10,000.

So, now what? You lose $5? Ah, but now you have three clients and can more safely hedge your bet. If you work at it you may also generate $45,000 total a short way down the road, instead of just the opening effort for $15,000.

You can do this. The point is that everyone in business has reached a point of struggle (or at least substantial concern). How much further can this go? Will we have to go belly up? How can we pay the bills? 

Bottom Line: WE HAVE TO RISE ABOVE THESE KINDS OF THOUGHTS AND FOCUS ON HOW TO GET INCREASED SALES NOW BY OFFERING DECREASED FRILLS.

Force yourself to take a good hard look at what you’re selling and to whom. Can it be streamlined and priced lower without losing value or impact or safety? Can the excess packaging be eliminated or relaced less expensively without risking damage? Can you use 2-day Priority Mail instead of more expensive overnight shipping? 

Can you make arrangements to package the cars you sell with a gas or routine servicing giftcard? Some lawyers are doing reduced price packaging of basic family and couple’s wills. Some chiropractors will do basic 2 for 1 adjustment visits. The travel and hospitality industries constantly offer discount incentives that strip away luxury cost extras.  

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 Open minds open doors

 Thanks for visiting.   God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Guess what today is?

It’s Wedsssdaaaaay!

Wednesday is business panic day.

The orders, checks, and promises that haven’t yet appeared need to be nudged to get them in before the weekend and the house will be crawling with friends, neighbors, and in-laws all weekend so Friday is dead-in-the-water day on the job, which means –YIKES! –the orders, checks, and promises have to be in by tomorrow.

Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my!

So what’s the short story version? If you’re the typical entrepreneur (I know, there ain’t no such thing, but there are typical entrepreneurial behaviors), you have been running by the seat of your pants (or skirt) so long that you get yourself under water without a snorkel because you simply skip over that ugly time-consuming task of planning.

Then midweek brings crisis . . . brainfreeze without a Slurpee . . . om top of the usual Wednesday collision course, there’s also that REALLY important project you’ve been putting off that needs desperately to get done, and now it has to stay on the back burner for another week. Will there ever be enough time?

Truth? No. There’ll never be enough time. 

And my best educated guess is that most small business owners and operators would almost rather have a tooth pulled than have to sit still for more than 10 minutes to map out a plan for the week every week. But, y’know what? Y’gotta!  Those who take a deep breath, settle into a comfortable chair and plan the week . . . win.

Think of it this way: If your competitors do weekly action plans, and you don’t, they win. If you both do them, you keep the playing field level. If you do them and they don’t, you take the lead. If neither of you do the,, someone else at your heels  surely will, and will surely win.

Ah, but where to start? Start with the old stuff that’s already in the hopper. Hit on it hard as you come out of the box on Monday morning. Make the calls, write the emails, motivate and inspire. Once the old stuff is moving, jump to the new tasks, contacts, ideas that are presently in the works and that need to get pushed into the spotlight.

Save the unexplored concept stuff for last. Yes, you may never get to that last category, but, hey, y;gotta eat, right? As the current Administration in Washington has conclusively proven, hopes and dreams don’t put food on the table. Let the experimental new ideas simmer. This is not the time to back away from what’s in your face.

Keep focused on the here and now as much as possible. List and combine (but chunk up) “to do” items, then prioritize them in order of immediacy. Cross them off with a highlighter (so you can return to see what was completed) as each task gets done. These pages (dated) are worth saving (like a journal), even for tax records.

Fast-paced status report review meetings are best held (with agendas distributed Friday afternoon) as early as possible on Mondays to help map out the week. (Friday is the worst day for this for a hundred reasons). Oh, and if you’re not both feet into the tech business, do it all in writing on pads. Laptops and handhelds distract attention. 

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Hal@Businessworks.US  302.933.0116 

 Open minds open doors

 Thanks for visiting.    God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

The best source of business

 is always existing and 

 past business.

What have you done lately about resurrecting contact with old friends and business associates? The amount of time, money and energy plowed into developing new business in new markets with customers and suppliers who’ve never heard of them is a phenomenal waste. Put the same effort and resources into those who already know you. 

Even brain-dead politicians know this. Why do they concentrate campaign efforts on those who have supported them in the past? Because to those people (voters), they’re known entities, and that alone is often enough to trigger contributions or in the case of business, sales. There’s no need to start the get-acquainted process from scratch.

“Go straight to the heart of the matter,”

(my father always told me!)

At the heart of winning more business in as catastrophic an economy as we’re living with, is the need to revisit, renew, and re-cultivate old friendships, old acquaintances, old customers and clients, old suppliers and vendors, old investors and lenders, old employees and employers, old partnerships and alliances. ALL former supporters.

These are people who you may have lost touch with (and perhaps on purpose), but with rapidly changing times often come changing more receptive attitudes. Someone who was an employee and left for a better career move may now be in a position of being a customer, or a referrer, or a supplier, or even an investor! How will you know? Ask.

Small business owners and managers typically avoid past contacts for many reasons, but none of those reasons (unless they would open some legal wounds) are good reasons for glossing over possible resources who have a favorable impression of you. Spend your time, money, and effort there instead of digging up new prospects!

When you communicate your message to someone who knows you, you can skip all the preambles; there’s no need to waste words explaining who you are and where you came from and how you do what you do. Go straight to the heart:  

• “I know it’s been awhile, but I thought you’d be especially interested in . . . because . . .”

Or . . . 

• “As soon as we put out this special (new product or service, warranty, price deal), I was reminded of how it would/might/does/could have great value/appeal/interest to/for you, and thought you may be interested in this ‘sneak preview’ of . . .”   

In the end, it’s all about consistently using the best sets of words to deliver your message, and targeting past and present business contacts which allows you to engage their interests without having to have them get past the preliminaries of who you are. That small difference puts you a giant step ahead in the sales or recruitment process. 

Oh, and a no-brainer by the way, you can also reach these people and get them to your website, store or office with personalized (free) emails or (inexpensive) postcards instead of extravagant network TV $pon$or$hip$.                                                                                                                 

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 Your FREE subscription: Posts RSS Feed 

Hal@Businessworks.US  302.933.0116 

  Open minds open doors. 

 Thanks for visiting. God bless you. 

   Make today a GREAT day for someone!