I learned the hard way. 

Burning bridges might 

 work for “isolationists,”

but . . .

But even if you’re the owner of the most microscopically small home business being run out of an empty closet, you cannot afford to be caught with a “smoking match.”

When you cut off communications with people or organizations –whether intentionally or inadvertently makes no difference–  you cut off future options and opportunities that you may never imagine being possible right now. And when you least expect it, it will surely come back to bite you in the butt. 

It should go without saying that this bridge-burning dynamic applies equally to all of us as individuals as well.

How did I learn the hard way?

At many levels, I had to fight my way through childhood poverty and abuse, through high school insensitivities, college insecurities, impersonal graduate school, and the disillusioning beginning-a-career years. I beat my way through the bushes and put on a happy face, but I used my struggling existence as an excuse for aloofness.

Former (far wealthier) classmates disbursed to all corners of the globe with pocketsful of parent’s money? What did I care? I’d never see them again anyway. They served me no immediate survival purpose. Screw ’em. I was preoccupied with affording clothes, a car, and often, a next meal. How could I relate to summers in Europe?

I chose to feel bitter. For awhile I held grudges. But those feelings never lasted because they left no room for me to earn my keep and work my way up the corporate ladders that I saw as my only escape route. It was something like a forced retreat from upset feelings because upsets didn’t pay bills. I had no room left for anger.

The end result was the same.

Burned bridges.

I never intended to sever relations with those in my various graduating classes, and in steppingstone jobs.

It just happened.

Yet the consequences of often having no place to turn when a turn was necessary were no less difficult to bear than had I actually set the connecting spans on fire.

Ill feelings can obviously (now, in retrospect) trigger a conscious or unconscious desire to disconnect from the circumstances or people responsible for igniting various upsets, but what I’ve learned the hard way (after losing many close contacts over time) is that effort invested in long-term relationships can often produce great returns.  

It’s water over the proverbial dam at this point, and my life has been graced so many times over with strong business and personal relationships (that I finally did learn how to hold on to and nurture and enjoy), that I can only be grateful for them and for what they have made possible. Yet, there’s still this twinge of regret.

Perhaps you or someone you know will be prompted to think twice before cutting ties or burning bridges after hearing this (true) short story from someone (me) who almost learned too late the deep values of long-term relationships — in life and in work. When did you last give someone the benefit of doubt? Forgiveness works!

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  Open Minds Open Doors 

   Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Here’s a “glue clue” for you!

Someone in your family or on your business or advisory team is the one who most holds you and the million little pieces of your business enterprise together. Who? How? Why? What have you done for her or him lately?

Did you know that small, frequent rewards (and typically inexpensive ones) are at least twice as effective as one large one? Did you know that cash –even in this struggling economy– is not always the best reward? Have you discovered (or been reminded lately to re-visit) Maslow’s Hierarchy?

After many decades, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory continues to be business’s most effective tool for motivating employees, partners, referrers and sales personnel, among others. No need for a degree in nuclear reactor dynamics to put this classic theory to work for your small business.

It simply takes a sense of diligence 

and a little detective-type methodology.

When you make a habit of taking ongoing temperature readings of, for example, employee hot and cold buttons, you gain a sense of what makes each one tick and how various life changes impact attitudes. This gives you leverage for better motivating because you can reward someone’s performance with what that person values.

All of us are located somewhere on the Maslow Hierarchy ladder (or pyramid as many management textbooks illustrate it. At any given moment in time we are either at a level of basic physiological needs, or safety needs, or social needs, or esteem needs, or we are at a point of self-actualization.

We move fluidly back and forth between these different need levels according to our daily (sometimes hourly)changing life circumstances. A person who has achieved a state of self-actualization, who is feeling self-fulfilled could tumble back down to a basic needs level in an instant.

Consider how fast your brain snaps back to basics as the result of a family death, a bankruptcy, an accident, a job-firing . . . from really, any kind of loss.

After years of having no financial worries, putting food on the table can become a sudden challenge. Having a neighboring home or business robbed can immediately cause someone at an esteem level, who is excited about winning recognition, into a security needs frenzy, shopping for insurance, alarm systems, new locks, a fence. 

If you can be aware enough of changing need levels for individual “glue people” who help hold you and/or your business together, you can reward each –at her or his personal level– for maximum impact. An esteem-needs person will often be more receptive to a plaque, a news release feature, or a certificate than to a cash bonus.

Someone struggling with car issues will appreciate new tires, an oil change or gas allowance. One successful business owner covers the cost of braces for a low-salaried employee’s teenager. Another sends top sales people on limo trips with spouses to shows and dinner (less expensive than permanent salary and commission raises).

The point is to pick out rewards that fit the person and the circumstances instead of making across-the-board judgements about what you think will motivate best. And don’t automatically assume it’s money. In fact, by targeting rewards to individuals, you can save huge amounts of money and earn great appreciation in the process. 

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  Open Minds Open Doors 

   Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

“Phone messages?

Pfffft!” said she, 

“Never do ’em anymore

 . . . text me!”

You gotta be kidding. Didn’t you ever hear the NY Lottery commercials that said: “Hey! Ya Never Know!”?

That deleted or squirreled-away phone message could be that your long-lost cousin has left you a big-time inheritance, or someone who wants to be your customer or client needs to know where to send you a fat retainer check, or that your dog was just diagnosed schizoid. Okay, okay, so you already knew your dog was a basket case.

The point is if you make a practice of not answering phone messages, or emails, you run the risk of not making the most 0f every opportunity. Real sales pros (and even a few accountants!) understand this. In the long run, opportunity losses can cost considerable time, money, and energy — not to mention some valuable relationships.

But you’re just too busy, right? Wrong! You can never be too busy to respond to someone’s question or greeting or information, even when you didn’t ask for it.

The reason should be obvious, but for for the benefit of those who get themselves caught up in their own clouds of dust, I would suggest that:

A) The message, though simple on the surface, may very well have more important –unspoken– information standing behind it. (Is it worth dissing a call from an old not-so-favorite contact who has referred you into a big-money project with her brother-in-law, but didn’t want to leave that piece of information in a voicemail?)

Hey, Ya Never Know!

B) Answering your messages isn’t just a “business life – whatever” deal. It’s a very large part of branding. Your responsiveness is read by others as a key indicator of who you are and what your business is all about.

C) Every communication is an opportunity. (Two $40,000 projects in a row once came to me because I took the trouble to call back a courteous response to some convoluted, almost-unintelligible phone message from a total stranger about my services

. . . I was tempted to dismiss it as a crank call or a time-waster, and just delete it. But I called back anyway, and was pleasantly surprised to connect with someone who had scouted me out, knew my whole background, had pre-determined to hire me, but who simply wasn’t very articulate on the phone.

Does this happen all the time? Of course not. But what’s to lose by responding? A couple of minutes? Sure, I’ve probably wasted a couple of minutes a hundred times before, but this 101st time earned me $80,000.

When’s the best time to answer your messages? If you are so busy, you feel you don’t want to spare a minute during busy hours, return non-urgent phone messages between 11:30am and noon, and again between 4:30pm and 5pm.

Most people are in a hurry during those two half hour windows — to get to lunch, or to get out and head home. You can bet on short, get-to-the-point conversations.  

Emails? Check regularly for and respond right away to ones you consider urgent, but don’t waste time deleting those that aren’t until –maybe– mid-day, and –generally best– the end of the day when you’re least liable to get hooked into opening junk.

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  Open Minds Open Doors 

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  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

No good examples from

the White House, but

  small business excels.

 My last post here, “A Sense of Urgency,” raised hackles among some visitors I heard from who all seemed to express the notion that “Standing Still” and former idealist President Woodrow Wilson’s failed “Watchful Waiting” policy toward Mexico should be dictating business and politics today. 

Don’t take it personally, but that’s sick thinking.

Doing nothing, as the White House appears to relish, has never been –nor ever will be– a policy or guideline for small business success. Standing still and watchful waiting may deck the halls of Congress and the Oval Office, but they represent the anthisis of what needs to happen to grow business and military strength.

Small business and military strength must be grown to preserve and protect the freedoms we enjoy in America, and to revive and revitalize our still sinking economy.

The government and big business continue to prove every passing day that not only do they have no answers to this incipient 2nd Great Depression (“The Obama Depression”), but –rubbing salt into the wound– they give nothing but lip service token talk to proclamations of supporting small business. Truth? They HATE small business! 

Small business hangs on in spite of the formidable clout corporations and the government have in tow — PRECISELY because small business owners, operators, and managers are responsive to market needs. There’s no time wasted studing market share and shifts, or testing stuff to death. A sense of urgency is ever-present.

As small business owners, we must –first let Mr. Romney know that it’s not just “Corporations” that “are people.” Small businesses are (to a FAR greater degree) “people” too! (And, BTW, DNC Chairperson Debbie Schultz in protesting even the “Corporations=People” equation simply demonstrates that her ideology is dumber than dirt.

Of course “businesses are people.”

ALL businesses.

Next, we need to teach responsiveness by

example within our business enterprises.

Acting responsively and responsibly with every interaction –customers, other employees, suppliers, even what may appear to be disintersested inquiries– means instilling and reinforcing awareness that EVERY person’s needs and wants are the most important in the world, with never an exception. 

Translation:

Cultivate respect and an action attitude.

Sales professionals know this instinctively and typically make a practice of attacking problems before they become disasters. Stop looking to Washington for guidance. Take a page from sales pros.

The US Government 

is presently leaderless.

Consider the total lack of urgency and response to The Gulf Oil Leak; Mid-West Floods; Moammar Gadhafi; Japan’s Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster; Illegal Immigrants Pouring Across US Borders EVERY night; The Debt Crisis; and 20 more calamities. 

Your business would fold if you practiced such laxadasical “take another vacation” attitudes.

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Unless you’re a surgeon

or bombsquad defuser,

 nothing gets done

  by standing still.

Yesterday we talked about constantly moving targets. We touched on the challenges presented by rapidly changing rules, attitudes, circumstances, and information access.

To impact consumer, employee, and supplier behaviors positively, entrepreneurs and small business owners must flex, adjust, adapt, and go with the flow.

We must also hustle.

When problems surface, pounce on them. I’ve actually seen unsavvy (and ultimately unscuccessful business owners and managers walk away, pass the buck, blame others, close up and go home, and –in one instance– put a “Gone To Lunch” sign on the counter at 11:55am, and literally chase out eight customers who’d been waiting in line

. . . oblivious, obviously, to the common knowledge that every unhappy customer tells a minimum of ten other people who tell ten other people. So, in this case that makes 800 bad-mouth comments. Can your business survive that? (“Quick like a bunny” was my father’s motto; it always earned him big tips.)

Having a constant sense of urgency communicates leadership, compassion, integrity, authenticity, and professionalism. Others will assign those values to everything you are associated with — your products, services, ideas, and all of the people involved with your business. Pretty good return for zero dollar investment.

Don’t be so afraid of making mistakes. Yes, “haste makes waste,” and “failing to plan is planning to fail.” But you can’t run a business cornerstoned by trite expressions. When you take reasonable risks, you are not betting the farm, or running off to the nearest lottery window, racetrack, or casino with your gard-earned dollars.

Unless the task at hand requires some Herculian effort (e.g., securing a king-size mattress onto the roof of a Washington Bridge-bound VW) or is intricately detailed (e.g., drawing blood, folding a parachute), be on the alert about when you can hustle your muscle and please your customer or employee or vendor with a prompt response.

All of this takes an action attitude and a determination to “Git R Done,” but, hey that’s simply a matter of sleeping and exercising enough, eating right, and making the choice. This starts to sound like some kind of training camp? It is. If you’re going to make this all work, you have to choose to keep yourself in good shape, and stay with it! 

Try walking faster. Oh, and keeping a journal of response times for various tasks and services will give you a sense of where you are, where you need to be, and give you the information you need to improve the sense of urgency you deliver. What every day? No, but maybe a day or two a week to start, then a monthly check-up. 

Remember the Chinese proverb: “Talk Does Not Cook Rice.”   

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   Hal@Businessworks.US

  Open Minds Open Doors 

 Thanks for your visit and may God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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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  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

If you own a small business,

then small business

politics owns you.

You can run but you cannot hide. 

Even if you are a one-man-band or one-woman-band with no internal politics, you have no choice but to deal with external politics.

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re an owner, operator, partner, or manager of an American small business or professional practice. You may own all or a piece of what you do, but the government (and politics) owns all of you!

~~~~~~~~~~

Regardless of all other influences in your life, when you own or run a business of any type or size, you still must face the fact that the massive amount of government controls and regulations alone can ruin more than your favorite breakfast, a good night’s sleep, and even a kaleidoscopic sunset. It can ruin your health and your family.

Since the government for the most part dictates what you can and cannot do; what you must pay for goods, services, and taxes, and when; who you can and cannot do business with and hire or fire; how you must treat and insure those you hire and how you must treat and pay off those you fire

. . . since it dictates what kinds of tools and equipment and forms and suppliers and shippers and transportation you must use . . . even how you state your business to others . . . and since government is born of politics, while somehow managing to also be its inseparable twin . . . There IS a breaking point.

It’s a never-healing small business stress fracture!

And now, clearly on track toward a Marxist dictatorship by way of the nonstop and sorely misguided Obama Socialism freight train, America’s small business community has reached that breaking point.

First off, there are 30 million small businesses in the U.S. Don’t believe the White House; they are patently and intentionally wrong; home-based businesses are conveniently ignored. The government doesn’t consider home-based businesses as worthy enough enterprises to allow them to be included under useless SBA jurisdiction.

You run an online business out of your closet, a jewelry-making business out of your garage, a cookie business out of your kitchen, or a grass-cutting business from your truck . . . you don’t count! The government only wants your tax dollars. Beyond that, you don’t exist! So, back to the beginning: there are 30 million of us!

If you are anything like the vast majority of small business owners and operators, home-based or otherwise, you clearly have a goal to make a difference with your life and your enterprise . . . for your self, your family, your community and hopefully –by the ways that you do what you do– for our nation as well.

That means taking some minutes out of your hectic schedule. It means putting down your tools, equipment, keyboards, dishtowel and whatever else you make a living with, for just long enough to take that step you dread into the sleazy world of politics. It’s time to do your part — show and inspire others to leadership.

It means taking just long enough to visit or write a couple of letters or emails to politicians about why you think small business matters. Take just enough time to support those who support your ideas about why small business matters. Why? Because small business does matter. And because it matters that we all step up.

Imagine the impact: 

THIRTY MILLION

visits and letters and emails calling attention to the economic recovery role of small business and why government must invest in small business –not with more wasted cash handouts– with tax incentives for innovation and tax incentives for job creation.

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  Hal@Businessworks.US  

  Open Minds Open Doors 

 Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Big-mouth

media muckity-mucks

bullying your business?

Is it just me or are you as fed up as I am with all those annoying, pestering, mean-spirited, arrogant, nasty, intolerant, rude, feeble, badgering excuses for news reporters and interviewers that we see on mainstream media TV?

1) They are stupid!

2) They need to shut up and listen!

These people –and “these” includes nearly all of the biggest network news anchors and interview specialists– should be (willingly of course, in the interests of media integrity) duct-taped to the wall (nicely, with no circulation cut off), socks (clean ones you can breathe through) stuffed (gently) in their mouths and made to listen for just a minute or two to the answers that the objects of their insults provide to their printed questions. 

(Gee, Hal, say what you really feel. Hmmm. Well, no need to call out the ACLU, Law & Order’s SVU, or a friendly neighborhood SWAT Team, but it is a way to finally hear someone’s complete uninterrupted response; hey, you can un-duct them and give them lemonade after the questions are answered; how’s that?)

TV interrogations (er, interviews) are so relentlessly overbearing and obnoxious that audiences never get chance to hear responses that could make a difference. Have you seen or heard a single interview of any politician who’s not part of the Obama regime who has not been talked over and pummeled in the questioning process?

Even waterboarding might be kinder. 

Are you unconsciously absorbing media badgering techniques and integrating them into your dealings with partners, investors, employees, suppliers, customers? Are you sure?

I have yet to hear a talking-head question that’s not a camouflaged accusation. Is that little bit of manipulation finding its way into your business dealings? Are media people making it seem like an okay way to conduct yourself?

I mean we’re not talking about the sharpest tools in either shed when it comes to news people interviewing politicians, but come on now; someone’s going to be representing us, and it won’t be a media prima donna, right? As for your business . . .

If you are buying into these methods, you’re being psychologically bullied.

If your ego is as big as the TV puppets you know we’re talking about here, so big that you have had to reduce yourself to bullying and badgering in order to create controversy and get industry or professional attention, for example, you are probably missing the defined purpose of your career.

News “Reporters” are. It’s their job to illuminate and enlighten . . . to report what happens. How many actually make that a priority? (I can name two out of thousands.)

The media people I speak of should only know what bitter, uninformed jerks they look like to their viewers. Clearly they have no regard for their own self-respect or anyone else’s who happens to disagree with the producers and owners who pull their puppet strings in order to win audience shares that attract corporate advertising dollars.

Too bad they’re so dependent, and so blindly convinced that they are digging for “the truth.” Nothing could be farther from . . .

Sure, everyone has heard their parents and grandparents start a sentence out with: “When I was growing up . . .”

And you know what? There’s enormous wisdom locked up in statements that start that way. 

But discovering those gems requires listening — opening ears, and minds, instead of rolling eyes.

So try this on: “When I was growing up, a “Reporter” was a respected observer, not a wise-guy loud-mouth more invested in self-promotion than in bringing enlightenment to reader/viewer/listener audiences. When Walter Winchell reported the news, he didn’t put an egotist spin into every statement. He was a professional.

Of course there were others. Just go to Bing and Google and find them. Start with Huntley and Brinkley, and Mike Wallace, and Paul Harvey. Oh, you say, but they weren’t 100% ethical either. Who says? Who is? And isn’t 90-something percent a whole lot better than single digits? What percent are you? What percent is your business?  

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  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 

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1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th Generation? . . . 

There’s no business

like family business!

~~~~~~~~~

Nothing can compare. Quarrels, in-fighting, misunderstandings and manipulating. Pulling rank and playing of the grandparent or favorite son card. And, oh yes, the hidden card trick, where one never knows which in-law is behind which cousin’s back. Someone almost always does all the work, and someone else does almost none. Teamwork is often  just a facade. And no one dares to “jump ship” even when the engines seize up, the bilge pumps fail, and the deck is ankle-deep in water.

~~~~~

There are 30 million small businesses in America. My best guess is that at least half and probably two-thirds are some form of family business. Please correct me if you think this is way off base.

A husband or wife gets fed up with his or her job and quits (or is downsized out) and recruits full or parttime help from a spouse to venture out into some entrepreneurial venture. They work out of their kitchen or garage, secretly aiming to be the next Bill Gates. (But there’s always a little anger present.)

I’ve seen hundreds of kitchen/garage businesses. Here’s just a handful:

• “Clear Windshield Wiper Blades” that prevent accidents in the rain (Uhhuh!)

• Interlocking Plastic Bottles that allow twice the shipping space (But collapse the truck!)

• A revolutionary new accounting system that questions you daily (Daily?)

• The world’s greatest non-literary cultural magazine (Quite a feat!)

• A never-before, unheard-of approach to leadership training (Maybe “proven” would be more desireable?)

• A no-fail-no-lawyer-needed-do-it-yourself last will and testament (Who cares after they die?)

• An online course: “How to Make a Million Dollars in 24 Hours!” (Right. Rob a bank?)

Or, with some good fortune, there’s an inheritance involved — staring you straight in the face. A business someone in your family launched (or carried over from a prior launcher), and now –voila!– it’s yours. Except you didn’t want it, know nothing about it, and have little choice except to step in and keep it going, at least until you can plan an escape!

Or, you’re simply buried under excess relative tonnage doing a job you don’t care about but that puts food on your table, and with the current lunatics in the White House, you just never know when some real job that actually suits and challenges you might ever surface (probably not until long after November 6, 2012).

Here’s the deal, spiel: If you are in a family business and everything is copacetic and chugging along to your satisfaction, God has been good to you. You are a rarity. Click off this site and go watch TV. Thank you for visiting. If you are struggling with a struggling family in a struggling family business, know, first of all, that you are not alone!

You must decide if you are going to stay with it and take advantage of the guaranteed job opportunity that very few people ever get, and make it work. Or pack it in. If you choose to leave , you owe it to those you leave to make it as easy for all of them as you possibly can. They have tolerated you just as you have them. And they’re family!

If you’re going to stay and make the effort it takes to get things moving, you’ve got to get things moving. You can’t screw around with a family business —any family business– in this economy. Make it go. Or go! Staying the course means reassessing where you are and how realistic your goals are. It means becoming a sensitive leader.

You are not captaining an atomic submarine. There’s no need to push. Relatives move more productively when they’re pulled gently in directions that best suit each individual’s strengths. Charm and personality belong in the customers’ faces. Organization and discipline in operations. Creativity in marketing. Financial skills . . .

You get the picture. Be careful as you start any new exercise to go slowly at first and to listen carefully to other’s suggestions and ideas. Bring in outside experts when necessary and shop carefully for consultants and suppliers who show you that they think like you do and that they understand the sensitivity and trappings of family dynamics.   

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  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

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