You really have 20 seconds!

A back alley. The front seat of your truck. A corner of your garage. Your kitchen counter, A fancy reception room or hotel lobby. A sunroom, chicken farm, TV room, airplane hanger, cornfield, Grand Central Station, a website, or the excavated mud puddle of a construction project

. . . How it looks and how it feels must be appropriate to your business or profession and represent the image you seek to project. You already know that, right? But do you remember to stay on top of it? And did you know that whatever your waiting area may be, it gets “scoped out” in 10 seconds!

YOU get scoped out in the next 10.

There you are: 20 seconds to make it or break it.

Much is said about the first ten seconds of a sales encounter with someone, or group, but little is made note of about the surroundings, environment, and setting of the place where those first interpersonal seconds actually come across, or have the stage be set.

The set and setting of the place people wait is critical to creating a mood of receptivity in the minds of those who wait for you –even if it[‘s for less than one minute. If the place is a mess, so are you, and so are the products and services and ideas you have to offer (in the mind and eyes of the beholder).

If everything is neat and clean and organized, so will what you have to offer be pre-judged to be that way.

It can’t be emphasized enough that regular ongoing (preferably daily, even hourly in some high-traffic areas) taking of inventory will make a big difference in how people assess you and your business . . . to the extent it can give you a positive and competitive edge in that first ten seconds of personal interaction.

Consider the last 5-6 business locations you visited (including doctors’ offices), and what do you come up with?

What, in your waiting area, needs tending to —ongoing maintenance? Start with torn and ragged old magazines and newspapers (trash them!), and dead bugs in overhead lighting units (especially bad if you’re a dentist, massage therapist, chiropractor, OB/GYN, or shrink!).

Dead leaves on plants? (Plastic plants are just as unacceptable; no matter how great they look, they communicate phoniness and lack of reality.) Dirty carpets? (How hard is that? It’s called a vacuum.) Dusty countertops, outdated calendar pages, inaccurate clock time?

Here’s the biggy: KILL YOUR TV and radio if:

A) They are staticky

B) They are tuned to mainstream media networks (it’s not about what you or your receptionist think people want to watch; it’s about the mood you want to create)

C) They are tuned to news channels or channels that offer regular news updates (blood and gore and tragedy are not particularly great graphics or content to be filling people’s heads with while they wait for you, or eat a meal, or are medically stressed)

Put the radios on elevator music. The more relaxed visitors are while they wait for you, the more receptive and less-stressed they’ll be when you step into the spotlight 

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

 Reported today on satellite radio news . . .

Nearly 20% of all U.S. income

now comes from the

government!

Why bother working

anymore?

WITH GRATEFUL (Cough! Cough!) APPRECIATION FOR GROWING THIS PREDICAMENT INTO A FULL-BLOWN SMALL BUSINESS QUAGMIRE . . .

• THANKS TO: Our never-ending bad economy that we’ve been hearing for two-and-a-half years has repeatedly “turned the corner” and is “getting better” (uh, do politicians ever fill their gas tanks, notice foreclosures, or artificially-inflated unemployment rates?)

• THANKS TO: The complete absence of decisive leadership in the White House (which serves among many other things, to facilitate the evaporation of America’s world leadership posture and respect, and actually set us on a track of anxious retreat in the eyes of emerging nations). 

• THANKS TO: Mr. Obama’s incessant efforts to create boundless dependency on government incompetence (dramatically marked by government’s ever-present lack of business sense, business experience, businesslike conduct, and entrepreneurial spirit . . . the same entrepreneurial spirit that made America great to start with!).

• THANKS TO: The reckless government spending sprees that embrace idealistic socialist agendas at the expense of citizens losing their jobs, their homes, and their dignity (and front and center is the utter insanity that’s responsible for continuing efforts to ram a cataclysmic-ally extravagant and dibilitatingly expensive healthcare plan down the already constricted throats of small business).

Now you perhaps know more than you want to know, but –ah– what’s behind this leading of lambs to slaughter?

Could it possibly be that we have a government intent on gaining voter control by making all citizens and businesses beholden and grateful for the survivalist handouts that ooze out of wasted government programs?

And how do we initiate a great escape? How do we ever return to the solidity of national purpose and world respect and the high human standards this nation has been built on?

The answer, my friends, is NOT “blowin’ in the wind.”

The answer is NOT in redistributing the wealth, nor in providing safe haven to all illegal immigrants, nor taxing small businesses –literally– to death.

The answer is in taking action now. The answer is in standing tall for your small business enterprise and ambitions. The answer is in voicing your objections to increased and increasing government control and over-regulation. The answer is in doing the very best you can possibly do every day to strengthen and anchor your business interests.

The answer is to fight corruption and politics

with integrity and heart,

The answer is to light your own fire and keep it burning in the minds of all those who support you and the work you do — your employees, customers, suppliers, advisors, investors, and the geographical communities where your business lives.

The answer lies within the purpose of your business soul.

Take your opportunities and run with them.  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

ALL THERE IS

FOR CERTAIN

. . . IS YOU!

Becoming an entrepreneur is not like becoming a corporate guy or (thank heaven) a politician. In Entrepreneurville, there are no rules about how to think, or operate, or create, or market, or finance.

All there is for certain is you!  

Why is that different from corporate life? You may have your own team, but you’re not part of somebody else’s.

All there is for certain is you!

And surely you haven’t the time or inclination to indulge in the under-pinning of all corporate existence: analysis paralysis. By the time your corporate counterpart initiates some market study, you could introduce your product, service or idea, take it back, adjust it, re-introduce it and be making money!

What makes entrepreneurship different from politics? For openers, winning popularity contests seldom has any value. And, for closers, truly successful entrepreneurs only win by exercising consistent integrity. In between the openers and closers is a vast wasteland of propaganda, distortions and outright lies embedded in every election.

It’s making your ideas work that counts. It’s finding ways –channels, roads, avenues, strategies– to get from where your ideas are now, to where you want them to be.

Sometimes that “finding” process needs the help of others. But if you’re an entrepreneur with great ideas and no ability to engage and manage others to provide the help you need, you’re not likely to ever get where you want to be.

The number one reason for new business failure is “poor management.”

So start at the beginning. Realize that having great ideas, and being driven with burning desire to achieve results with them is paramount. But knowing how to manage things, people, systems, and operations to get your ideas on the launchpad is an equally critical challenge.

Spare yourself false starts.

When you jump the gun, rush to judgment, make assumptions, take shortcuts –even though these steps might be well within your comfort zone because you’re an action-oriented kind of person– you are setting yourself up to take huge (and probably expensive) unreasonable risks.

True entrepreneurs take only reasonable risks! 

It is the utmost and arguably most important of all reasonable risks for an entrepreneur to take: to expend the time and energy to gobble up every available shred of information about how to communicate clearly with and motivate others . . . how to be a leader and exercise productive leadership that’s followed eagerly.

Of course there are many behavioral and personality traits associated with entrepreneurial instincts, and those are not to be underestimated for the values they bring to the table, but genuinely successful entrepreneurs are historically those who cut out and apply big chunks of management expertise and leadership know-how.

If this subject matter gives you queasy feelings, or you start to hear your knees knocking when someone suggests that a management psychology or professional growth and development or therapeutic group experience might serve your entrepreneurial pursuits big time, take that road less traveled. It pays the biggest dividends.

All there is for certain, you know? 

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 931.854.0474

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

HAPPY EASTER AND

HAPPY BLOGBIRTHDAY!

For you who have been with this from the beginning (April 24, 2008), and those who have joined and visited along the way, thank you so very much! I hope you will continue to visit, comment, subscribe, and urge your business, personal, and professional growth-minded friends and associates to stop by. And please comment or email me anytime: Hal@Businessworks.US. Following is an updated version of a post from April 24, 2009.

— ————————————-

“I am me. In all the world,

there is no one else

 exactly like me. 

I am OK!”

–Virginia Satir

     Run your own business? Post the above 18 words on your dashboard, mirror and refrigerator . . . Why? Because even entrepreneurs need reassurance, and especially when economic uncertainties have a way of making us all feel like too many things–often including our selves–are sometimes NOT okay.

     Have you ever felt like that, or am I just imagining it? Have you felt like that more in recent times than in the past? Do you sometimes think maybe the news media is trying to sink your ship by heaping negative economy stories on your already overburdened shoulders?

Does it start to feel suffocating?

Do you step back every once in a while and start to question your own self-worth?

Get out of it!

Rattle your cage!

Change the channel!

Shut down the news!

     Do you really need to take the murders, muggings, accidents, freaky and bizarre incidents and people, and the incessant dwelling on negativity to bed with you every night? Do you really need to wake up with it every morning? 

     What would happen if you shut it all down for a few days and used the time instead to relax your brain and remind yourself how truly special and unique you are? Do you really think you would miss much? If you have doubts, take a quick trip (to the library or on Google) through past newspaper headlines.

Go back 20, 50, 100 years!

Surprise!

The names and locations change, but the stories are mostly the same.

It will be like missing a week of General Hospital.

Nothing new goes on.

     As a sort of sports version of the old expression to do reality checks by pinching yourself, I don’t recommend the method former baseball slugger Bobby Bonilla used to practice, but the idea worked for him; every at-bat, he hit himself on his helmet with his bat just before stepping up to the plate. You can be sure it helped him focus his attention.

     SOMEthing that only you know about can be a “focus trigger” for you. Take a minute and think about that one thing. What snaps your awareness back when your mind starts to drift? Figure it out and use it more.

     Snap your brain back to the reality that YOU ARE UNIQUE. That awareness, and following the path of reality that it conjures up, is discovering that YOU are your own best Small Business Stimulus Package.

     In other words, get yourself cranked up, and keep yourself cranked up. It’s catching, and others –internal customers (like associates, employees and vendors) as well as external customers will respond in ways that bring you more business.

     Remember that what you love doing best is what you do best, and appreciating your self more will help you succeed at doing what you do best. Now THAT’s a stimulus package!  

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

As a national book award-winning author, a national marketing award-winner, and two-time university Professor-of-the-Year award winner, I can deliver the sales you want. 

Don’t believe it!

But if I tell you that I’ve created client programs that have delivered over $1 billion in sales, believe it! (Actually, all of the above is true. But if it’s sales increases you seek, “sales produced” is all that really matters, right?)

I am a writer so (for more than thirty years) I read approximately 1.5 books a week. Fiction. Nonfiction. You name it. I have my favorite books and authors, but I am always trying out new ones.

I rarely if ever choose to do any kinds of “reviews” on this blog, but —and I really should know better by now as I look back at bogus past big-name “Prize” recipients like Carter, Gore, and Obama-– when a Nobel or  Pulitzer Prize winner of any kind comes along, I am still (unfortunately) mainstream-media-conditioned to snap to attention.

Hence, to make a business point at the conclusion of this post, here is my 100% subjective review of Pulitzer Prize-winning book TINKERS by Paul Harding, MFA (who taught writing at Harvard and The University of Iowa):

First of all, considering that the speed of reading this meager (183-page) book could be equated with underwater page-turning, and that the torture of the story offered –which literally tells you how a clock is made when you simply want to know what time it is– Water-Boarding might have been a more fitting title.

If it doesn’t put you to sleep, or drown you in the author’s sweat (which he surely poured forth trying to polish and perfect every overkill shred of every word), it will make you so thoroughly depressed you’ll want to run to the nearest cliff to swan dive into the rocks below.

Even if your genes have been handed down from Socrates, you’ll be bored to tears at this writer’s heart-wrenching effort to draw you into a totally unremarkable story of death and dying.

If, by the way, the subject intrigues you, look up Elizabeth Kübler-Ross for a real education minus all the fluff.

But my advice? Don’t waste your time with TINKERS (or your $14.95/$16.95 in Canada) unless word craftsmanship and belabored descriptions get you excited.

If it’s a great read you’re looking for, you may rather want to go directly to Jed Rubenfeld, Nelson DeMille, Cormac McCarthy, Kent Haruf, or E. Annie Proulx.

Now, why is this like business? What does this have to do with entrepreneuring?

Lots of business service people out there sport big-name awards. But the odds are pretty good you’ll never relate to their missions. And, even if you do, they’re not likely to produce sales for you!

It’s probably a best bet to disregard what business elitists think, and direct your needs to those providers with real-life performance track-records.

If you’re brave enough to ask, I’ll be happy to tell you endless tales about creative groups, ad and PR agencies, marketing firms, management consultants, SEO “experts,” website designers, media moguls, and incompetent but well-intentioned relatives who have won major awards, charged a fortune in fees, and produced nothing!

Generally speaking, the classier and slicker the presentation (or book cover), the more award-conscious (as opposed to sales or productivity-conscious) a given provider tends to be.

As a business owner or manager, this translates to:

• Exercise extreme care when hiring outside consultant or service providers to make sure they are more committed to producing what you need than to serving their own pursuit of awards.

• Be careful about appearances. They are rarely what they seem.

• Ask for samples and examples. Put genuine effort into the screening process.

• Remember that awards of any kind are (like my review above) totally subjective. Sales are real, tangible, and measurable.

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Businesses, like people, get

their faces locked in to 

negative expressions  

You think those who are considering a purchase of your goods or services are not paying attention to how the “package” of your business facade is wrapped? You think it doesn’t matter?

You think” the face of your business” has no power of suggestion? If you’re engaged in professional selling (who isn’t?), do you think no one notices your facial expressions? (You do of course know they’re contagious?)

Try this one.

I’m going to give you a single word that sums up my total customer experience at a business I visited recently. It was something that the receptionist did.

And you will likely do the exact same thing the minute you read this word, which should –all by itself– be a  clear enough demonstration that every business “face” communicates.

My guess is that odds are within one minute, you’ll be hooked.

You will prove to yourself that the power of suggestion is far from imaginary. Are you ready? Okay:

Read the following word and think about it for five seconds. 

Ready?

Here it is: YAWN 

Think about the word now for five seconds.

Well? If you didn’t yawn yourself, did you at least feel that queasy little tremor in the corners of your jaw where upper and lower teeth come together?

No? Well, maybe you just woke up, or just took some amphetamines or someone just put some ice down your back.

How about this word?: SMILE

                                                              

Who is “the face” of YOUR business? 

Does that person pass along smiles or stretch and yawn most of the day? (And, no, this is not intended as a corrective action seminar for air traffic controllers . . . who, by the way, it’s worth noting, get paid $160,000 a year to NOT sleep on the job; it’s stressful and requires special skills? So what! What about truck-driving and mothering!)

Similarly, a health food store clerk or medical clinic is hardly well represented by even the most smiling individual if she or he looks like a walking billboard for some local tattoo and body-piercing parlor. The face of the business is locked in a negative expression.

Credibility registers in the eyes of the beholder in less than ten seconds. There are no second first impressions.

So you get the WHO part of this, what about the WHAT part? What is “the face” of your business? I know of a physician’s office with an absolutely filthy-beyond-belief office front door. You need antiseptic wipes just to touch the handle. One pint of paint and a teaspoon of metal polish would do the job. It’s been that way for many years.

It probably goes without saying that this doctor is not considered the town’s gift to healthcare, and has been struggling financially for probably as long as the door has been hinged. The face of the business is locked in a negative expression.

If you’re in construction or landscaping and pull up to a prospective customer in a disgusting truck full of muck, don’t think your slightly lower estimate will land you work. The truck tells people that you’re a slob. People don’t hire slobs. The face of the business is locked in a negative expression.

Computer techies who can only communicate with their thumbs and say little more on the phone (if they answer it at all) than  “Uh” and “Huh?” OR who rattle out stuff about SEO and Mashables and Tweets to another business owner who doesn’t want to know how to make a clock when she asks what time it is, will not get hired. 

In this case —on the phone or on the screen– the face of the business is locked in a negative expression.

You have the key. It’s in your head. It’s called consciousness. Open minds open doors! 

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Like Nero with Rome,

Obama Fiddles

While America Burns

And not unlike one of Aesop’s Fables, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, mainstream media talking heads reported once again today that the U.S. economy is on the road to recovery. How nice. Do YOU believe it any more?

Some of these feeble excuses for “reporters” need to talk to the plummeting dollar, soaring fuel costs, unemployment lines, and some of the Americans I’ve felt saddened to see rummaging through fastfood and convenience store garbage pails and dumpsters for food scraps.

Has your business been interviewed? 

We have of course heard this type of hype (floating somewhere between make-believe and outright lying) every day since Mr, Obama moved into the White House.

Checked the gas pumps lately?

I mean, really folks. First of all, we who visit this blog are small business and professional practice owners and managers. We are entrepreneurs. We are professional salespeople. We represent the leading edge in business, technology, education and healthcare.

We–to use Mr. Obama’s own “words of the week”—are not stupid!

$4 a gallon and rising? 

Even IF gas pump prices were simply a fuel-for-our-vehicles issue, we might live with it. Unfortunately, it’s Dominoes! Skyrocketing fuel costs mean skyrocketing delivery costs and skyrocketing food costs and skyrocketing travel and airfare costs. All these “burstings in air” and it’s not even July 4th!

And to top it all off, the grand tsunami of costs that are tangled up with “Obamacare” will be paid by small business for decades to come, providing free healthcare for those unwilling to earn it, including (unbelievably) illegal aliens!

If you’re trying to figure all of this out, think politics. Reality is that we do not have a national leader who understands or practices or even cares about leadership. He fiddles while our nation’s reputation and respect dissolves away. What would happen if you tried to get away with that in your business?

He fiddles while his reckless socialist agenda spending disregards the lives of small business owners and managers who work hard for a living, who contribute most to society to begin with, who have the most promise to offer for real economic turnaround. Why? Because he doesn’t care and he doesn’t get it. All that matters is politics . . . 

Voter dependency delivers voter votes!

(Listen to his speeches. They are A~L~L campaign speeches. A~L~L.) 

The more that government continues to intercede in our lives and businesses, the greater the dependency on government that’s created.

The more dependent on government we become, the more beholden we become for what government decides to give us, the more we vote for government generosity in order to live.

Is that sick or what?

Sorry, fellow business owners, but I doubt this is why any of us are in business. Lured by The Great American Dream, and the rights granted us as “We the people” by the Constitution of the United States –and as one nation under God– we are in business to help ourselves, our families, those for whom we can create jobs, and our communities.

We are in business to create opportunities to give back to the communities that support us from the only place that makes sense — from a position of strength. 

Our present government seeks to be THE ONLY source of strength.

Frustrating? Inconceivable? This is why I will not let go of these issues. They are at least as important for each of us to deal with as our our own employees, customers, balance sheets, income statements, brands, operations, revenue streams, and innovative leadership. Our federal government is over-stepping its bounds every single day.

Isn’t it time to step up to the plate and make your voice heard? There are 30 million small businesses in America. Just imagine what’s possible if each of us would just speak up . . .  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Is your business on thin ice, 

racing around in circles,

bashing competitors in the

teeth, and getting nowhere?

If your answer to the headline question above is “YES,” then it’s probably time to pack up your puck and hang up your skates, or look for a different sport for your business.

The problem is not how you got where you are, nor is it –at this point– knowing where you’re going. Like extracting an accident victim from under a car or caved-in roof, concern one needs to be: How to get yourself out.

Entrepreneurs often dig themselves into holes (especially financial ones) while they have their heads down and are charging forward trying to make their ideas work.

The tendency is to grasp desperately at the first straws offered by the first investor who comes along and seems willing to plunk down enough rolls of quarters to post bail and get the new business venture out of the penalty box. Oh, sorry, back to hockey. (I never did like fighting with sticks, and on skates no less.)

The point is that jumping at an expression of interest from a venture capitalist, who may want to own 51-75% of your business is never a good idea . . . unless you’re a serial entrepreneur and looking to get in, make a quick killing, and then get out. And even then, it may not be a wise move. S~L~O~W yourself down. This is marriage.  

Venture capital (VC) deals are particularly risky if you know down deep that the business is teetering (no, not Twitter Tweeting) on the brink of bankruptcy (which is not always evident on the surface . . . and which many entrepreneurs refuse to accept or think about even when it’s staring them in the face!). 

First off, most VC professionals don’t make a practice of investing in incipient bankruptcies, so –even though our unprofessional federal government has proven that it thinks nothing of throwing good tax-dollars after bad business operations– a floundering business startup is not likely to see any real bailout options come along.

Unless money comes from an “Angel Investor.”

An Angel Investor might be Uncle Louie or Auntie Oprah or some recently re-acquainted long-lost college or Army buddy, or a wealthy next door neighbor who’s been watching the business take over the garage and who figures he can always foreclose on your property if a loan isn’t paid, and become a serious land-owner.

Before a struggling venture surfaces long enough to search for financial relief of any kind, it makes the most sense to look first INSIDE to see if overhead and/or operations can be trimmed or scaled back first without sacrificing the essence of the business’s product or service offerings. Note the word “essence.” (“Quality” and “Value” are variables.)

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

If what’s inside

isn’t shining outside…

your business is in trouble.

You’ve known this since you were a kid and first became interested in business. Your lemonade and comic book stands sold more when you gave that missing tooth smile. Well, you might still be missing a tooth or two, but hopefully you haven’t allowed yourself (chosen) to get lazy about wrapping your bright light around your venture.

I’m not going to lecture you about taking stock and personal inventory and making the most of your charm and all that other stuff that I’ve already printed here at one time or another. You can find it with a couple of the links here and in the search window. I AM going to tell you that there’s no room in entrepreneurship for (choosing) laziness.

If you’re not feeling charged up every day when you jump out of bed, something is not right. 

Have you lost touch with your mission?

With reality?

With those who support you?

With why pursuit of your idea must outweigh your pursuit of money?

Have you become (chosen to be) sidetracked with issues that pull you away from the burning desire you once had to make your ideas work? A family situation? Health problem? Staffing upsets? Investor edginess? Sales failings? Equipment not performing? Well, hey, you got trouble, right here in River City.

Now you can see why “poor management” is the number one reason for business failure? Why, sure: management of personal life, management of employees, management of financial support, management of marketing, management of operations. Trouble is only YOU can fix the ways you deal with any of these issues. And that takes focused energy.

You can never start a fire with a magnifying glass as long as you keep moving the magnifying glass.

Neither is it likely you’ll start a fire by keeping the magnifying glass fixed on a huge fresh-cut tree trunk. Your grip and wrist will give up first. Keep your focus steady. Keep it on paper or kindling and gradually build your fire by adding more and bigger pieces of wood or coal, a little at a time. Keep your energy channeled. Use patience.

Entrepreneurship –contrary to popular belief– is not about leaping wildly from one fire to another. If you could ask Ford and Gates and Oprah and Edison and Jobs and Carnegie, you’d be reminded that they each succeeded by: 1)staying focused, 2) by taking one step at a time, and 3) by believing in themselves!

Can YOU do all three of these things consistently, tenaciously, without giving up on yourself?

If you can–and here’s the simplicity of it all– you will succeed. Period. If you cannot (or are not willing to choose to), don’t whine and cry. There’s plenty of good space for you in government work, and with corporations, where loyalty and CYA behaviors are rewarded over innovation and taking action. Weird, isn’t it?

It’s weird considering America runs (with apologies to Dunkin’ Donuts) on Entrepreneurship, and we have a White House that doesn’t get it. Ah, but less than 19 months left to change “the change.” As for changing what you’re dealing with right now, choose forward motion, then take a step. Now. You can, you know.

# # #

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STRATEGY/ CONTENT/ CONNECTION

Higher impact. Lower costs.

——————-

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

Entrepreneurship & Expansion Coaching    931.854.0474

Go for your goals, thanks for your visit, God Bless You!

OPEN  MINDS  OPEN  DOORS

Make Today A Great Day For Someone!

Before you throw all your

  tech stuff on the BBQ . . .

Recognize, first and foremost, that your greatest assets are your people. If you’re a one-man-band, maybe “your people” are a loving spouse, partner, children or parents who assist you, or a reliable friend or two who consistently refer(s) others to you . . . or a hotbed of talented interns.

If you’re the owner of a small to medium-size business, perhaps “your people” are account or department or office or branch managers.

The point is that I am NOT suggesting you run around torching these folks, or even giving any of them a baseball-dugout-style “hotfoot.”  I AM suggesting that you ask yourself (and answer) the following questions:

Can you readily identify and easily separate your internal and external customers?

What percentage of each day are you actively marketing to each group?

In other words:

• How much and how often are you (externally) marketing your people?

• How much and how often are you (internally) marketing TO your people?

• How much and how often are you (internally AND externally) marketing THROUGH your people?

Do you think the meaning of Customer Service is to have a Customer Service person or department?

• If each and every one of your internal customers know how to relate to and respond to external customers, why would you have to pay someone or a group to perform this function?

• Ideally, anyone in your organization whom I might reach by phone or meet in-person should be able to handle my customer service needs.

Your marketing people or your own marketing sense tell(s) you how to motivate external customers. You surely have a strong idea of what sells and what doesn’t sell them on your product(s) and/or service(s). Do you have a sense of confidence about the best ways to motivate internal customers?

Do you apply Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

If you try (or have tried to) apply Maslow’s Hierarchy, are you (or have you) doing (done) it from a position of strength — by first being a detective to understand individual “hot spots”? Has this approach helped you to realize that the best internal customer rewards are not (in spite of all popular beliefs) not always cash, raises, and bonuses?

As a leader who is heavily invested in growing the loyalty, respect, and receptivity of both internal and external customers, are you making a conscious effort to breed entrepreneurial thinking accompanied by reasonable risk-taking behaviors? Or are you breeding investment in the status quo?

Are you fostering and nurturing innovation. Do your people come to you with just ideas, or do they fully exploit the ideas they propose with well thought out paths for implementation that include all possible operational, financial and marketing applications? Do you get a thorough and complete picture instead of just a quick sketch? 

Having great people behind you is great for your ego. Having great people behind you who are inspired and highly motivated, who deliver comprehensive plans of attack, is great for your business.

Which is more important? 

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