Feeling Invincible? . . .

Think Only Wussy Types

Fret Over “What If” Stuff?

Perhaps consciousness of the fragility of life has never struck you or your business full force. Perhaps you’ve somehow managed to escape the anguish, angst, and fears attached to the reality of your own or the life of someone close hanging by a thread. Perhaps you’re too young or too lucky or too blessed to have ever known the stress of having machines do the breathing and feeding and medicating and pain management?  

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If that is even partly true of you, don’t let today pass without giving it at least a few moments of thought. Why? Because just as a business with no sign is a sign of no business, a business or business leader without good health — or a poor-health contingency plan– is the sign of a sick or unhealthy business.

“Nah,” a strong-willed 30-something entrepreneur responded to that idea, “My business is healthy,” he said, “and I have no provision for disaster because I work our regularly and I’m in good shape, we have a long-term lease, our customer base is growing steadily, and prospective investors are standing in line!”

“But surely,” I offered, “you have some kind of insurance coverage? Fire and theft? An office policy? Collision? Life? Health?” He cocked his head as if I’d hit him with an illegal punch, “Sure, but so what? THAT is MY contingency plan. Things go south? I just file claims and collect enough to start something else!”

“That’s good,” I said, “because burglaries and fires and tsunamis and earthquakes and hurricanes and tornados do happen, but I’m talking about catastrophic illness. That happens too.” Ask around. You’ll find plenty of people who’ve experienced sudden ill health, who suffered, and whose businesses suffered because they had no contingency plan.

When that “CLOSED DUE TO FAMILY ILLNESS” sign goes up on the front door (or website), dwindling (sometimes plummeting) customer loyalty and support follow. We live in a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately? society.

Are you ready to face critical damage to your revenue stream and threats to the life support system your enterprise has routinely fostered?

What steps will you take and in what order? Or who will pinch-hit for you? What impact can your suppliers and customers expect, and how –specifically– will they be dealt with to accommodate their needs and to keep things running and moving forward? What gears will need to be shifted? By whom? When?

The time to deal with contingency planning is now, and to re-visit the plan at least once a year. The cost to plan is time. The cost to cope without a plan can be annihilating. It’s certainly true that expectations breed disappointment, but it’s equally true that having no plan is like captaining a rudderless ship.

And then there’re storms . . . 

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Hal@Businessworks.US  302.933.0116

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

You got ideas?

You’re ready to trade in

that corporate career?

Don’t be too quick!

Created by cover-your-butt, tunnel-visioned corporate types, who are busy going nowhere, the “Small Business Career Trap” puts a stranglehold on reentry to the corporate world once someone has “defected to small business life. It’s like deportation. Change your mind? Oh, no, that’s not allowed. Make a come-back? No way, José!

“Tunnel-visioned”? Well, sure– because the assumption behind that label is that you can play either football OR baseball, not both, and that once you switch sports, you can nevermore capture the credibility in the field of expertise you left behind. Ridiculous? Of course. Michael Jordan isn’t the only athlete to master multiple sports.

The kind of corporate mentality narrowmindedness that fosters (and nurtures) this kind of thinking discounts the wealth of unique contributions a small business-experienced individual can potentially make to stimulate the prevailing lethargy of so much corporate life.

And paradoxical, don’t you think, that the attitude strikes at the heart of the very same types of entrepreneurial contributions that no doubt accounted for launching every corporate entity to begin with?

As long as the political climbers at corporate giants refuse to honor the value of small business experience, and continue to fail to take advantage of the opportunities to integrate and cultivate more entrepreneurial spirit in their organizations, there is little hope that the big boys of business will ever favorably affect the economy.

And adventuresome entrepreneurial wannabe’s need to accept the reality

that big business-to-small business career moves probably have no return route.

This can be pretty disconcerting whenever you (the traitor) reach the point in small business (and you surely will) of realizing you are indeed smarter and more talented than corporate counterparts, MBAs and all.

It will become transparently clear that you could bring greater success to corporate productivity and profitability pursuits than people presently responsible for achieving these goals. Nonetheless, if no one will open the door, your only choice may be to return home and keep looking (Good Luck!) or break the door down.

Not many welcome mats are

laid out for forceable entry.

Will this ever change?

Short of revolution, it’s not likely.

If you should have any doubts, by the way, that corporate mindsets are so deeply entrenched in fears of recruiting and hiring entrepreneurial thinkers and doers, just scroll through some corporate help wanted ads. Find just one that addresses small business expertise, a sense of urgency, and the ability to respond and adjust. Good luck again!

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Hal@Businessworks.US   931.854.0474

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

 You’re an entrepreneur?

You’re probably the

 runt of the litter!

Ask anyone who’s made it big in the service business, and the odds –by my calculations– are roughly 9 out of 10 that she or he did it by staying small. Makes sense. Most runts of the litter have entrepreneurial zeal and instincts. They scrap, scrape, and battle for food and attention from the day they’re born.

And runts make great dogs but not always great parents, which raises a key how-to issue about staying small. From my experience, there’s hardly ever a good and reasonable reason for adding payroll employees when you’ve passed the point of generating strong revenues on your own..

At most, you may decide to put an assistant on payroll, but herein lies the secret to continued growth: The person you choose must be dedicated and loyal to you at all costs. He or she must be a super organizer since –as an entrepreneur– you’re probably not. This individual must have no greater purpose than to make you successful.

In other words, do NOT seek a creative thinker. That’s your job! Do NOT seek a super salesperson. That’s also your job! Find someone you can trust absolutely all of the time. Find someone who will be assertive with other people on your behalf. Find someone who will rise to the occasion, who does not need hand-holding.

You need a person with strong judgement skills, who can readily size up others (and situations) and who knows enough to know when to insist on over-communicating with you. In other words, if you need to hire someone, hire a leader. If you can find this individual, and it may take years of searching, you won’t need anyone else.

Anyone else you take on should be on a commission, performance incentive, or parttime basis. Once you add a payroll position, and get the wrong person involved, you commit to stagnation and foreclose your prospects to succeed; you commit to the odds of adding expenses without being able to cover them. You commit to status quo.

In a product business, you need only to add skilled labor on a highly selective and prudent basis. One person with know-how, and the drive and energy to do the work of two people at one and a half times a one-person salary is far better than two people doing two jobs for three-quarter person salaries.

The bottom line: Runts of the litter excel as entrepreneurs. They are more independent, inventive, industrious, and self-sufficient. Rather than waste time looking, they will use a coin for a screwdriver. But once in a while, they need to back off and do some hard thinking about where they’re headed and where the next bone is coming from.

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Hal@Businessworks.US   931.854.0474

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

What do workaholics,

delusionists, and grieving

friends and relatives

all have in common?

 Why is it that the people who are most in need of breaking out of their workaholic patterns are the ones most resistant to the suggestion? They’re afraid to let go. Well, logically, it makes sense. Fear is the single most destructive emotion (and sometimes, paradoxically, greatest motivator) in existence.

Letting go is life’s single hardest task.

Workaholics share this infamous platform with those who live in delusion as well as those who grieve the loss of loved ones. Letting go means giving up an important part of yourself in favor of moving on, or back into, reality. Many egotistically, and sadly, are convinced that the world and their business could not survive without them.

“Sadly,” because these same people will almost inevitably drive themselves into cardiac care units… or the grave… using the excuse as a rationale that they “never gave up the ship!” It’s a lot like being mentally retarded (and having a daughter who is, I can say this with some authority). The single difference is the awareness of having a choice!

Never-say-die workaholics

 simply choose not to choose.

They know they have a choice, but feel threatened by the idea of changing horses in mid-stream. So they instead invest themselves in maintaining the status quo at all costs. Or, as world renown family therapist Virginia Satir used to say, “they get dried up and shrivel up.”

And, Satir goes on to ask: “Don’t you think this affects the growth of their families and that of those who work with them?” See for yourself. Status quo seekers are everywhere, harboring pain and misery, and transferring their own inadequacies and choices not to choose to change.

How dim the lights that light these lives. How stagnant the businesses they run. How rebellious the children they raise. Choosing situations and leaders who make the choices for them . . . how unfulfilled the lives they live.

This picture is bleak indeed, and it permeates many corners of the corporate and union worlds and government universe but, thankfully, has rarely become the payoff of hard work and self-sacrifice that many entrepreneurs practice. How is that? Because most entrepreneurs play and sleep as hard as they work.

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Hal@Businessworks.US  

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Think “Shrink”!

Are you a basket case business owner?

What will you do with

your time this year?

Practice Volume NOW!

Hi Doc! You’re back? [See yesterday’s post for Part I] Well, that’s great because THIS post will get you started with a practice volume boost agenda that you will never get from a medicine world insider

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“Marketing” is a reflection of society. YOUR marketing is a reflection of you and what you are really all about. So it’s important to keep in mind that marketing is both external (websites, signage, traditional and social media, direct mail and email, promotions, PR events and news releases, and internal.

Internal is the most effective. I refer to it as “Quiet” marketing. It includes such things as the appearance of your personal self–neat, clean clothes and a scrubbed look, your office and waiting room, your equipment and staff, and the manner in which communications are conducted . . . on paper, online, in person, and on the phone.

This means active listening, clear simple speech, using examples and diagrams, soliciting questions and feedback, and applying this attentiveness to not just patients, patient families, staff, and associates — but to other doctors and nurses, lawyers, pharmacists, insurance providers, suppliers, detail reps, even cleaning and delivery people.

Quiet marketing also includes paying careful attention to the frequency and quality of communications with those in your networking resource and referral systems, and to your SELF. Why? Because Quiet marketing success at any level has most of all to do with how you conduct and represent yourself to others!

This translates to how you walk, talk, sit, stand, listen, touch, gesture, and treat everyone around you every day.

These actions add up to the statement you make about who you really are, and why you are trustworthy of the confidences and care of others.

Remember: someone is watching your every move, and noting your every word.

Effective marketing also requires consistency in looks, words, color schemes, traditional and online media use, branding theme identification. [You don;t need an “I’m lovin’ it” slogan or any less-than-professional statement, but some appropriate identity that patients can relate to is essential]

Your marketing messages surface through observations of your interior and exterior office decor, your business and appointment reminder cards, stationery and uniforms, promotional literature, educational talk materials, ads, signs, merchandising items, online content and access to you, newsletters, and news releases.

All of what you do and the message you seek to project must be absolutely and strongly reinforced by your staff in everything they do and say with every office contact, every minute, every day. No exceptions.

Professionalism in the eyes of a patient means more than training and skills. It includes appearances as noted and–most critically– professional empathy and reassurance skills . . . because every patient and potential patient (regardless of pretenses) is literally filled with fear. Fear is very real to 99% of the population.

Perceptions are facts.

What we perceive is what we believe.

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Hal@Businessworks.US    931-854-0474

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

always Great Healthcare!

[Credibility reference for visiting professionals: Hal is the author of DOCTOR BUSINESS for physicians and DOCTOR SHOPPING for consumers. As a 30-year advocate for both, overlapping his business consulting career, Hal served on national healthcare committees, won national awards and worked with over 1,000 physicians.] 

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We in America are headed down an astronomically-expensive healthcare road of no return for small businesses and professional practices. So NOW may be the best time to share some critical business insights with medical and allied health professionals.

And if you’re in any way involved with sales TO doctors,

stay with this post (and tomorrow’s, and be sure

to check out the link in the next sentence).

First, you do not know it all. Second, if you’ll pay attention to this short post (and tomorrow’s), you will know enough to get you through the leading edge of the oncoming mandated healthcare storm. Third, if the storm can in fact be sidetracked or beaten back, you will gain even more by digesting and using this information now.

Like it or not, the key to your survival and growth is rarely the medical training, skills and experience you offer… these great strengths of yours are merely “features” that patients will use to justify choosing you. With mandated healthcare, there will be no real choices to retain your services, but there may be choices to avoid your services.

More often than not, your success as a healthcare professional is tied to that word you may dread: marketing… but NOT “marketing”‘ as you have come to know it: office popcorn, candy and sub deliveries, event tickets, dinners, golf.  (Effective marketing that creates sales is the only way your practice can keep pace and grow right now!)

Most medical marketing is either noncommunicative because it’s too technical for the target audience or it’s too verbally bland, too visually sterile, and utterly meaningless — like virtually ALL hospital advertising messages!

How does this happen? Most medical skill development is rational, logical, analytical, unemotional left-brain activity based. Most effective marketing (which includes advertising, promotion, sales, and public relations) works because it appeals to right-brain emotions.

To achieve improved musculo-skeletal balance, physical therapists tell us a commitment to training, retraining, and ongoing exercise is required. The same kind of commitment is needed to achieve right brain/left brain balance… the root of stress management, self-control, self-esteem, and trust.

Trust is every patient’s

cornerstone of confidence.

No more than a radiologist is a good first choice for surgery, a technical thinker/writer cannot be expected to write marketing content that triggers emotional buying motives. Though I would hardly endorse the specialty, many cosmetic surgeons get it. They market benefits and results instead of features.

Someone seeking results (and in medicine that almost always means reassurance in some form) is not the least bit interested in what technique or instruments will be used. That person will want that information simply to justify the decision, but it is not what will ultimately “make the sale.”  Having a sense of trust makes the sale.

HOW to market your trustworthiness? Tomorrow. Here. The answers.

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Hal@Businessworks.US

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!