If you didn’t know you,

would you buy

what you have to sell,

from you? Are you sure?

MacDonald’s sells consistency, not hamburgers. Golden Arches customers know they can get the exact same fare prepared the exact same way at any of their “I’m Lovin’ It!” locations in the world. It’s like a security blanket for your stomach (assuming your stomach can stomach what’s served up!)

Revlon’s founding family president Charlie Revson was often quoted as saying “We don’t sell cosmetics; we sell the promise of sex to single teenage girls!” Airlines don’t sell seat rentals; they sell destinations. Churches sell redemption and hope. Disney World sells brain escape. IT businesses sell “solutions,” but often just add more problems.

Self-appointed SEO and Social Media “experts”? They don’t seem to know what they’re selling. But –by now– YOU must have a pretty clear idea of what works for you, or maybe not . . . 

How about YOUR business?

• Are you putting out “mixed messages”?

• Do those people you seek to attract as customers get it?

• Are you presuming or have you actually asked them?

• Do your customers buy what you have to sell, or what you claim to be selling?

• Are you selling real products and services or images of what the benefits are that one gets from buying your products and services?

• Have you made your marketing effort an exclusively online production?

If you are selling benefits (and you SHOULD be, by the way), does that represent some sense of ethical compromise to you? If you’re not doing that (and instead emphasizing and selling features, for example), has it occurred to you that your competitors surely are or will be selling benefits?

Do you think you would have lasted long in the passenger airline industry selling short-term rentals of seat manufacturing components while competitors sell happy couples skipping through the Caribbean surf or exploring Mediterranean fishing villages, or visiting Hawaiian mountain waterfalls, or diving off Mexican cliffs, or singing and dancing in Austria’s Oktoberfest?

When did you last sit still long enough to really take apart your sales message and examine the pieces?

Do the words work? Do they sell? Is there one word too many or too few? What you think you’re saying and what in fact communicates may be two separate things. How does your sales message look? How does it feel? What’s the intent? What did you discover by answering these questions?

How can you tweak or adjust or revamp or update what you have to make it better? To make it sing? To make it reach out and grab? If any of this leaves you puzzled and you are earnest about improving the process of selling what you’re selling, call me. No telephone fees. No strings attached. I’ll give you ideas. If you want more than ideas and I can’t help you, I can point you in the right direction.     

# # #

302.933.0116   Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

A Wandering Mind

Gathers Much Loss

Every minute of every hour of every day, conscious and unconscious negative influences are fighting for your attention.

You own, run, manage, just bought, started, are planning to buy or start, or inherited a business. The last thing on your mind is your mind. You cast away all those inspirational quotes on Twitter and in church, and those gems of wisdom from your six-year-old.

You have no time for the “You become what you think about” writings and teachings of Napoleon Hill, Brian Tracy, Wayne Dyer, Zig Ziglar, Deepak Chopra, or the hundreds of other thought leaders. Yeah, you’ve heard the “As you sow, so shall you reap” line from the Bible. In fact, you have your own been-there-done-that style version: “What goes around comes around.”

But without being consistently grounded in this thinking, you run the risk each day of your thought-stream leading you down an unhealthy path. In fact, you can be obsessed with negative thoughts that create business loss and not even be aware of it.

Taking inventory might be a good suggestion. How can you find out if your mind has slipped over the top without you knowing about it? Try this illuminating exercise:

Ask some friends, associates and family members whose opinions you value to tell you what animal, what musical instrument and what song they most closely identify you with, and why.

They’ll probably laugh. Simply say you are doing a study and explain no further.

• Be clear that you’re looking for their straight-out opinions.

• Do not interrupt except to ask for clarification.

• Do not refute, rebuttal or defend. Just listen, and take notes.

• If you’re not sure you understand, ask for examples.

• Whatever you get back, take it on the chin.

When you have the input of five or six people, decide if there’s any pattern or overlap. For example, do four of them think you most remind them of a snake (or wild boar?), and a kazoo, and a song like “Angry Eyes”? Well. Organize the input you get to see if it makes any sense. Prioritize. Evaluate. Decide how to get more positive stuff and less negative stuff.

Feeding on daily TV show lineups can produce a steady stream of negative-related people and situations which can take a toll on  behavior and prompt offerings of defensive reasons and excuses for every action. Dr. Andrew Weil has been known to prescribe “No News” for a week to some distressed patients.

If all your mind does is think about cancer, or your weight, or your age, or your bank account or bills, you are going to (like rolling a snowball) generate more of that kind of thinking.

When some one’s thoughts are preoccupied with having an affair, it will be hard to pay attention to their spouse. A new baby or puppy in the house can drain your ability to stay focused.

Behaviors. Behavior is a choice. A negative mindset is something we bring on ourselves. Directly or indirectly (and often obscurely), we make lousy behavior choices. Regardless of the who, how, why, when, and where, if you’re feeling misery, failure, or frustration, accept that you are choosing it.

Take some deep breaths and choose instead to change the channel in your brain. Self-control leads to leadership control. The world’s greatest leaders are masters of self-control. Self-control means exercising compassion as well as passion, and being focused on the journey –not the destination– as the source of achievement.

When your mind is healthy and you’re concentrating on something, it –like a spotlight illuminating the outer edges– will be fully aware of what’s going on around you as well as what you’re targeting in front of you. You can do it. Choose it. Practice it. Keep choosing it! (Yes, you can call me for a little coaching!)

If you work at it sincerely and haven’t experienced remarkable change in three weeks, I’ll be astounded. Yes, after thousands of success stories with zero failures, I will be astounded!

~~~~~~~~

931.854.0474   Hal@BusinessWorks.US

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Follow, deliver, be urgent

and reckless

hardly sounds like a

success formula, but 

. . . NOTHING in business is more telling about the character and integrity of an individual or organization than the honoring (or not) of commitments.

1. Consistent follow-through and follow-up

2. Delivery of what’s promised when it’s promised

3. An all-pervasive sense of urgency, and 

4. The reckless pursuit of customer delight

. . . are the marks of true business leadership.

Underpinning those magical business attitudes are respect for others, and a mission to maintain quality and value at every turn.

Besides –that all by themselves– those qualities make for explosively productive marketing and branding programs, regardless of the nature of the business or the goods or services offered.

Humans buy benefits first, attitude of the provider or supplier second, and product or service features a distant third.

Who knew? Not most business owners (who continually insist on marketing features first, and who routinely dismiss attitude issues as ones that impact the bottom line, and that they have little or no control over).

In fact, benefits and attitude offered are the engines that drive the bottom line. They are also largely a matter of choice. Attitude is 100% choice. If product or service benefits are limited, it’s because someone at some point didn’t recognize or flex that 100% choice muscle in the process or decision making about what to offer customers. But choosing a corrected attitude can upgrade the benefits.   

The only problem is that I can just barely think of slightly more than a handful of businesses in my lifetime that actually deliver consistent follow-through and follow-up, delivery of what’s promised when it’s promised, an all-pervasive sense of urgency, and the reckless pursuit of customer delight.

You?

What happens when you put these four yardsticks up against the ways you think and the ways your organization is doing business right now? How do you and your business measure up?

Are your weakest-link areas ones you can correct/adjust/improve or boost on your own, or will you do better to enlist outside help? How big of an issue are the expenses associated with getting expert input? What’s your opportunity loss?

You could well be, for example, losing more dollars worth of business opportunities right now because your and your business’s emphasis are on the least productive points (like marketing features?) which could easily be costing you more than to bring in a professional specialist who can help you stop the trickle before it becomes a flood.

If you go this direction, be careful about who you choose to step in. Make sure that that team or group or individual exemplifies the four points identified above. Yes, there are plenty of earnest and capable individuals (especially) out there who can deliver the results you seek. Do due diligence. Ask for references and ask references for references. Use your gut instincts.

~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Maybe you never thought

it was coming

. . . but, yes, it’s time! 

It’s time for:

“The Entrepreneur Whisperer”!

First there was Monty Roberts “The Horse Whisperer” and then Cesar Millan “The Dog Whisperer.”

And now the time has finally arrived (arriven?) for all of us who own or run a small or medium-size business or professional practice to learn some big-time sales lessons from “The Entrepreneur Whisperer“ whose insights and advice come from those guys’ horse and dog experiences!

“Hey!,” you say, “what do animal trainers know about business?”

The answer: Probably more than we do! Keep an open mind here. Remember that open minds open doors!

Monty Roberts managed and trained wild horses by channeling their energy. A horse (by Cesar Millan’s account of Roberts’ underlying platform): “…does exactly what (a human’s) emotional communications has told it to do.”

DO read Millan’s book, Be The Pack Leader, which I highly recommend for everyone in a leadership position, even if you’re a “cat person,” even if you (hard to imagine) hate dogs!.

You will gain insights about leadership and teamwork that (except for Giuliani’s Leadership) all the textbooks on earth (including Peter Drucker’s Management, which I used for a textbook in my professor days) don’t even come close to touching.

“We as humans,”Millan says, ” have the power to turn our perceptions around and use them to our advantage.

“Instead of seeing the negative things we are used to seeing, we can choose to see something different.”

He proceeds to explain how researchers have proven that the human brain cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined.

“When people who fear snakes are shown pictures of snakes,” says Millan, “sensors on their skin will detect sweat breaking out and other signs of anxiety, even if the experiment subjects don’t admit to feeling fear.” He concludes, “If you are ‘acting’ tough, but inside still feeling terrified, your dog will know it instantly. Your boss might not,” he adds, “but your dog definitely will.”

But if YOU are the boss, your employees will know whether you are coming from a position of confidence or not. So will your customers. So will your suppliers and vendors. So will your partners and investors! All of them watch everything you do, and hear everything you say, even when you least expect they’re paying attention.

“We can’t change,” says Millan, “our instinctual feelings any more than our dogs can . . . but as humans, we can change our thoughts.” This point of distinction is also illuminated by Deepak Chopra, and by Dr. Wayne Dyer in his book The Power of Intention.

The bottom line for entrepreneurs is to accept the idea of trashing your ego!

The more you cling to your ideas about who you are and the less you honor your intentions about what you are doing that is leading you to where you want to go, the lower your odds of success.

In other words, stop second-guessing yourself, stop being insulted, and stop worrying about what others think!

Believe in your ability to channel your own and others’ energy in productive pursuits.

Then do it! 

~~~~~~~~~

Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

“But my sister

(substitute any relative here)

designed it!”

Besides the name, probably the single most important outbound marketing tool any business or professional practice can have is that little mark known as a logo.

A logo may or may not be, or may or may not include, the actual name. That single (seemingly insignificant to many) identifying mark or symbol is what consumes the first tick of the first second of the first ten seconds. It’s what makes or breaks a sale, determines receptivity, and sets the stage for the next step of doing business.

Your logo is your spotlight.

It attracts attention, creates interest, and shows the way to the second second of the first ten seconds (and you already know there’s no second first impression!).

What? You want research? Research this: When was the last time you EVER passed-over looking at a business card logo before reading anything else on the card?

What’s the last ad or website you looked at that you just turned your head away from when the logo popped into the corner of your eye? Think about the logos you remember. Odds are they tell a whole story.

“SWOOSH!” I say to you. That’s it. Just “SWOOSH!” And guess what? You can instantly visualize the logo, and the brand name, and can probably offer some experience with the product. How about a “Golden Arch” or a “Red and White Target”?

“But,” you might say, “but I don’t have a spare hundred million bucks to establish my brand and make my logo a household symbol.” So, should we understand that to mean it’s not worth the effort, that hot-shot logos are just for the big boys?

Okay, here we are, right at the very spot where many entrepreneurs drop the ball on the one-yard line.

A great logo identity is worth a great effort!

Notice, I said “great logo identity,” not “great logo design.” Some of the most beautiful logo designs in the world are NO GO LOGO failures because they fail to communicate anything of substance about the business or professional practice they’re created to represent.

If you can even imagine this:

I’ve seen a bloody in-surgery photograph of someone’s stomach serving as a logo for a doctor of gastroenterology that surely made most people throw up (maybe that was the idea. Hmmmm, throw up, stomach doctor. I get it!)

…or how about a high-energy exercise program logo with the drawing of a sleeping baby? (a bit of a stretch there, y’think?)

Patriotism? Sure, an orange line through a gray shadow for a company doing business with the U.S. Military? (Uh, what happened to red, white, and blue?)

Weirdness? Can you figure what a propped-up tree inside of a crescent moon has to do with orthopedic surgeons?

I’m quite certain you can add substantially to this list just by leafing through your local yellow pages or that stack of business cards in your desk drawer. 

The point is that while many business and professional practice owners manage to find a need and fill it, and work their brains off building their businesses, they miss the opportunity to make the most of their own business identities. Many pawn off their logo design work to the nearest (or pushiest) relative with a C+ in commercial art 101.

Others let (choose to have) someone sell them on using a riveting design of something that has nothing to do with the business or the message that needs to be communicated. Don’t let either of these things happen.

It’s your business. It’s your identity. You will have to live with it for a long time. Make it work for you. Take a pass on relatives, well-meaning staff, your local print shop, your high school art teacher-neighbor, and –almost always– your self!

Find someone who specializes in branding. It’s worth the investment to do it right. Then, there’s that apple with the bite out of it . . .

~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Overkill business efforts breed failure . . .

LIKE GREAT MARKETING,

GREAT LEADERSHIP

 DOESN’T TRY FOR A 

HOME RUN EVERY AT-BAT

The best creative marketing talent, plans, and campaigns — and the world’s greatest leaders — are born and inspired not by blood, sweat, tears, and insanely long hours, but by focus.

By adjusting the camera or rifle lens, the stage spotlights, the binoculars, the telescope, the magnifying glass, the microscope, and computerized zoom controls, we increase our visual focus for a moment, a few moments, maybe a few hours.

We do the same by adjusting volume, speaker, bass and treble, balance and other media controls to focus our hearing.

Ongoing mental focus, such as that which is evident in literally every leadership or creative marketing performance, is driven by adjusting and channeling powers of concentration.

It is not the product of (pay attention exam-cramming students!) working deliriously through the night, night after night.

Neither is it the product of entertaining others with razzmatazz and razzle-dazzle. (My father used to say, “Don’t give me a song and dance routine; just answer the question!” My father would have made a good Judge Judy.)

Most assuredly, great leadership and great marketing are not the results of political smoke and mirror acts that we see routinely practiced in virtually every local, state, and (especially) federal government-based and corporate giant-based entity in existence. 

Having a true focus means we can “see” and are aware of the actions and influences on the periphery of our focus targets, but that our minds are keenly tuned to the point of what we’re aiming for.

That demands concentration, but it is not necessarily “hard work.” It is what you choose it to be. And ease comes with practice.

Practice? Like what?

• You’re in New York City? Go sit in the middle of Grand Central Station at rush hour and write a three-page essay about your own leadership challenges and abilities.
• You’re in Delaware? Go sit in the middle of a 1,000-chicken chicken coop and read and digest and summarize two articles on industry issues that affect your business. (No ear plugs allowed. Oh, and I hope you like feathers!)
• You’re in Chicago? 1) Get as close as you legally can to O’Hare Airport (Car windows open! Chilly, huh? Dress warm. Bring coffee.) 2) Read and answer three days’ worth of emails on your plugged-in laptop.
• You’re in San Francisco? (What are you doing there?) Hop on the trolley to Fisherman’s Wharf at lunchtime and –while on the trolley– write (yes, with pen and paper) your own obituary (Now THAT’s an exercise that takes concentration!)
• You’re in Hawaii? Well, we all know about those cliffs over the ocean, and waterfalls, and . . . okay, you’re not reading this anyway. Aloha to you too!  

You get the idea. Challenge yourself (and remember to breathe)

Here’s the bottom line: Wherever you are, if you’re serious about wanting to radically improve your leadership and creative marketing skills, spend more energy learning how to concentrate and focus.

Uh, you DO remember The Karate Kid movies? Well, pay more attention to yourself and stop trying so hard. Working yourself into a frenzy with busyness that you think impresses others, doesn’t. All it does is blockade others by making you inaccessible to them.

If you’re actually trying to be inaccessible, you are not leader material, you will never be a creative marketing star, and you are probably best suited to run for political office or work in some government or corporate-giant dungeon for thirty years.

Hey, it’s your life! (And odds are pretty good that it will only happen once!) Do you really want to make a difference?

~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

P A Y     N O W !

F o o l e d   y o u,  h u h ?

(You thought maybe the two words were: %@~&  *#^! ?)

Well, consider this: The last thing small or medium-size professional practice or business owners or managers want, is a surprise!

Nobody wants a management or staffing surprise. Nor an operational or equipment surprise.  And –in my lifetime, and discounting the futile pursuit of a winning lottery ticket– I’ve never met or even ever heard of anyone in search of a financial surprise! 

News Flash . . .

Unexpected, unplanned-for immediate

payment is due on the spot!  “PAY NOW!” . . . OW!  

Unfortunately, with many (normally till-dipping) hands being forced by sputtering national and global economic crises, financial surprises have become all too common going forward from 2008.

The kinds of trigger fingers that pull off high-pressure instant payment demands are big-time stress creators. 

Listen,” he says into the phone, “your 4pm Friday order requested RUSH delivery; it’s 8am Saturday; if you can’t get here to open your business and pay the $742.37 due, I have no choice but to ship it back and you’ll get it in a week or two!” (AAaaack!) 

                                      

I’m sorry no one told you that the minute you sign this, like you just did, you are guaranteeing immediate cash payment of $27,000.

If you can’t come up with that amount by the end of the day, a warrant will be served requiring payment in full in ten days plus $5,000 in interest, late fees, and attorney costs.

So what’s it gonna be? 27 now or 32 big ones a week from Thursday?” (AAaaack!) 

                                             

The good news is that you have no outstanding delinquencies.

The bad news is that you have only until Friday to produce $38,579.46 in back taxes for the IRS Agents who called to say they’ll be here at 9am sharp.

No, the accountant didn’t know that the prior accountant had been withholding the withholding . . .” (AAaaack!)

                                      

Are you getting ulcers just from reading these? Okay, well, maybe at least a little lump in your throat?

How do you think YOUR customers, clients and patients feel about YOUR collection tactics? Are you leaving them breathing room? Have your policies stretched enough to accommodate today’s hard times?

Are you taking full advantage of the opportunities to strengthen your reputation for being a high-trust, integrity-based, good citizen business by helping out those who’ve been loyal patrons?

People who were there for you when you needed customers, who have returned time and again, who have referred others, who treat you and your staff like members of their community. (To borrow an old slogan from the world’s leading experts in product and service consistency and change just one word: THEY deserve a break today!)

You “OWE” it to them? Absolutely.

And when you SHOW it to them, sit back and enjoy the magic carpet ride it puts you on! Your business will fly over the competition and never slow down because everyone appreciates a business that proves its appreciation for the business it gets!

No need to give the store away. Simply do what you can to make it easier for your customers, clients and patients to pay for the goods and services they purchase from you. . . the same way you’d like suppliers and vendors to treat you.

We all need to lean a bit on one another these days, and surprise financial demands and pronouncements serve only to short-circuit those opportunities to cultivate and build a loyal following on human values.

Dignity and respect and helping others go the extra mile accomplishes more than shouts, pouts, threats, and late charges. Idealistic and naive? No, realistic and experienced.  

~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Here you are, set to your own music, on a blog platter:

THE GREAT

SPUNK & GUMPTION

RECOVERY INITIATIVE

Looking back into this site’s archives, I ran across a couple of posts I wrote titled, “What Sport Is Your Business?“ and “What’s Your T-Shirt Say?” Both are still timely and both are worthy of your quick review — if you actually get through this post!

An hour later (after looking back on those earlier posts), I found myself sitting in a parking lot playing with my new satellite car radio, and noticed a string of song titles that seemed to accurately (and often humorously) describe many past, present, and future business situations.

Here’s a sampler to kick your brain into gear enough for you to come up with your own songs that best represent your past, present, and future business (and yes, believe it or not, all of these were once big hits!):

• Spooky

• Those Were The Days

• These Are The Days

• Let It Snow

• Let It Rock

• Let The Sunshine In

• Just A Dream

• Dreams

• Dreamin’

• Trouble

• Rescue Me

• Slow ‘n Easy

• Thin Air

• Over My Head

• Sailin’

• Step Right Up

• Animal Rights

• Comin’ Under Fire

• Up Against The Wall

• Gone

• It’s A Grand Night For Singing

• Bad Luck

• Hey Hey Hey

     . . . Add your own here:___________

Good job! Next, let’s start to explore if where your business is right now is where you want it to be. How did it get to this point? When you started it or picked it up or inherited it, did you infuse piles of energy and time and money into it? Are you still doing that? If you stopped somewhere along the way, when? Where? How?

Are you still “stopped”? (or pretending not to be, even though you know you are?) 

HOW are you choosing to stay there— stagnant, dormant, status quo? (In other words, what specific steps have you chosen to take, or are continuing to take every day, that have left your competitors little choice but to pass you by? What are you willing to do about that right NOW? What CAN you do right NOW?)

Where’s that spunk and gumption

that you started with?

It doesn’t take a fat bank account or 20-hour workdays or “breakthrough technology” to be able to pick up most businesses that have grown lethargic or have quietly given in to our stress-breeding economy in order to turn things around and/or get re-focused.

It takes acceptance of where things are, determination to get things moving again, recognition that it’s all a matter of choice and leadership (employee leadership, industry and market leadership, customer service and community leadership), and re-ignition of that burning desire to succeed to make it all work.

Can you? Of course you can. You got this far didn’t you? You’re reading this blog post, aren’t you? You want to, don’t you? Then, do it! Stop listening to negative, woe-is-me songs in your head (and on the radio!), and replace them with positive, upbeat tunes.

HOW?

Just CHOOSE to change the channel!

Disney wasn’t far off base when he had

The Seven Dwarfs sing “Whistle While You Work!” 

~~~~~~~~~

302.933.0116   Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Robbing Peter to pay Paul is

not a long-term survival policy!

And here we have the government, forcibly seeking control and injecting its uninformed, inexperienced naivete into private industries.

Here we have federal “leadership” essentially robbing businesses that should instead be receiving tax incentive support to bail out the government’s reckless spending sprees that have accomplished literally nothing except pile up additional deficit burdens.

Once again (or more accurately, “still”), SMEs (Small and Medium size Enterprises) stand quivering on the cusp of business-survival-threatening, ill-conceived, politically-motivated federal healthcare legislation.

This impending healthcare doom affords business owners and managers one of the greatest opportunities for self-destruct since before the Industrial Revolution. But before you jump from the roof, consider how to avoid last-minute meltdowns.

BESIDES the fact that major Medicare funding will be redirected to Medicaid coffers because . . .

(it has been strongly suggested — but not dared to be openly acknowledged — that “Medicare recipients are mostly seniors who will die anyway”)  

. . . the bulk of the program will be supported by contributions from businesses, which will be forced to provide coverage for those who don’t earn it! 

A seven-year-old recently confided that “it doesn’t sound like there’s much care in the healthcare thing!”

Well, there’s most certainly not any “care” for the world of small and medium-size business. Let’s remember, and not incidentally, that entrepreneurial venture job creation is repeatedly pushed to the forefront of economist agendas as the most important key to economic recovery. So why the government’s deaf ear? Politics.

Tax and spend, and more government control, apparently beats life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

So what’s a small business owner to do?

• First, fight back! Work with other businesses and local organizations to promote the need for government to support meaningful job creation tax incentives for small business.
• Do everything you can to influence government representatives to repeal the mandated national healthcare plan and to override any veto of that repeal. Support free-market competition healthcare. It’s the only way to choose your own physician and treatment plan. It’s the only way to keep talented physicians working as physicians.

(A 5-star heart surgeon I know is considering being a horse trainer because he can no longer afford skyrocketing malpractice premiums!)

You need a consequence?  You will pay for it

 many times over in the coming years! 

It offers you no benefits.  Is that enough?

• Second, do NOT rob Peter to pay Paul. Just because Washington is trying to get you to think that way, it is not healthy business. It’s like taking loans to pay back loans.
• You are playing with fire if you decide, for example, to ante up the no-chance-of-winning healthcare dollars you don’t have by cutting back, for example, on your marketing budget. Marketing is (or should be if it’s not) a bottom line accountable expense.

Marketing is your only chance to drive the business in the front door that the government is pickpocketing the revenues of from you and taking out the back door. At this point, economic survival is all about cash flow. Bring it in faster than it goes out!

If you’re forced to cut, take your scalpel elsewhere! Simple, huh?      

~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Retail settings make it easy to

cherry-pick examples . . . but

the dynamics are the same in

every business and profession.

This really happened less than 24 hours ago

in a well-known U.S. resort town:

Checker at major-name crafts store cash register rings up $9.99 for a roll of artist’s tape (similar to masking tape, but pulls apart easier and leaves no surface marks (even on paper or cardboard) when it’s removed.

Customer: “Excuse me, but that price should be $6.99. It says $6.99 on the shelf.”

Checker: “Sorry, it’s $9.99!” (She takes the twenty-dollar bill on the counter, puts it in the register, slaps down a ten-dollar bill and a penny, throws the tape in a bag and quickly moves to start ringing up the next customer.)

Customer (to the checker): “Listen, I just told you that the price sign says that this tape is $6.99, not $9.99 and I want my $3 back. On top of everything else, even $6.99 is a rip-off, and if I didn’t need it now, I’d never pay that price, let alone $9.99. If it’s $9.99, why does it say $6.99 on the shelf?” (The checker nods and turns back to wait on the next customer)

Customer (now becoming annoyed and louder): “Excuse me, but I just told you that I want my $3 back, and all you can do is nod at me? Please call the store manager.”

Checker: “You’ll have to wait, Sir; I’ve started the next customer here!”

Customer: “Listen to me: Call the store manager NOW!”

Checker (on loudspeaker system): “Manager to register six!” (three minutes later, the manager shows up)

Manager (to checker): “What’s up?”

Checker (pointing with her thumb): “He says this tape is $6.99, but it’s $9.99 on the scanner!”

Customer (interrupting their exchange): “You’re the manager?” (Manager nods) “I picked this tape off the shelf and the shelf had a sign on it that the price is $6.99. Now your checker who, besides being rude, took my money and charged me $9.99. If this tape is $9.99, then your sign is wrong and I don’t want it for $9.99. Either I pay what the sign says or I want my money back.”

Manager: “Gimme the tape; I’ll go check it out!” (Then to checker: “I’ll be right back, but don’t ring anybody else up ’til we get this straight!” The line of now disgruntled customers grows and no one is around to handle the other registers. The checker hums, stares out the front window, and drums her fingers on the register. The manager walks to the shelf in question, which is all the way to the back of the store, and returns four minutes later to a huffing-puffing crowd of customers waiting not so patiently in line.)

Manager (speaking only to the checker): “He’s wrong! The price is $9.99 the way you had it!”

Customer: “Excuse me! First of all, would you please speak with meand not the checker? I am starting to get very annoyed here. The sign back there said $6.99 not $9.99 and I either want this tape for $6.99 or my money back. If I can’t get either, you can be sure of having a major problem for false advertising.”

Manager: “Sir, the tape you purchased is $9.99. It, and a few others, must have been put on the $6.99 shelf by mistake. There are $6.99 tapes back there.”

Customer: Great! I’ll go get one of those. I suggest you not hold up this line any longer.”

Manager: “Sir, that’s our decision, and we’ll wait for you to get back here.

Checker (after customer returns with a $6.99 tape): “We have to start this all over again, so give me back the $10.01 and I’ll give you back your $20 and then I’ll have to get the manager back here to approve the initial over-ring before…”

Customer (turning to walk out): “Screw it!”

Funny? Maybe if you’re reading it. Not funny if you’re the customer, or someone who’s waiting in line. Not only should the checker be fired on the spot, or at least put on probation, the manager needs a “straighten up and fly right!” warning (and both obviously need training). Every customer is always right all of the time, no exceptions, ever!

You own a business, and don’t agree? Bite the bullet and move on, or sell the business. By ALWAYS following the customer is right guideline ALL of the time, you will lose something sometimes, but the reputation you gain will more than compensate for the losses. People do business with businesses that consistently demonstrate respect and authenticity, that do what they say they will do.  

Surely, you know what SHOULD have happened in the incident described. Of course the checker and the manager were both at fault, but what could they have done differently? What would you have had them do? How would you have fixed the problem? How would you prevent it from happening again? Is YOUR business the next example?

Every dissatisfied customer tells ten other people about his or her bad experience, and each of those ten tell ten others. Can you afford 100 negative impressions? (And of course each of those hundred tell…)

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