A stupid sign is a sign 

of a stupid business.

With thinner wallets being a sign of the times, and a business with no sign being a sign of no business, there is something to be said for what other kinds of signs seem to signify. Dirty and dingy may work for a hog farm, but not a restaurant. Slick and expensive might lead you into a bank lobby, but not a nonprofit charity center.

I recently saw a sign for an orthodontist that had broken uprights for over a year. It was big-time crooked. It was big-time duct-taped.

Hmmm, not so sure about my kids going there for braces on their teeth.

Not to be outdone, a few miles up the road, another broken sign, but this one was sistered up with scrap wood which was nailed to the broken section

…for a spine surgeon.  No thanks.

Even with all things being equal in terms of sign construction, illumination, materials and craftsmanship, it’s still just the frame for the message. So what’s the message? Right! Now you’re on target. Like a website or an ad, it’s the WORDS that sell.

Your Sign Checklist. Does it:

• Attract Attention?

• Create Interest?

• Stimulate Desire?

•  Bring About Action?

• Deliver Satisfaction?

However it may do these things, it must do all of these things to be a great sign. 

For some, the message is clever. I saw this great sleuth-outfitted cartoon character on a truck today. The Sherlock-Holmes-plaid-hat-and-coat-looking guy held stuff like a magnifying glass, handsaw, marker, blueprint, and might have had a tape measure in his teeth…Take a guess???????

A genius business name:

COUNTER INTELLIGENCE

Custom Kitchen Counter Installations.

For others, stupidity rules. A smart red, white, and blue sign GOIN’ POSTAL – Your Neighborhood Shipping Center (sporting small logos for Fed Ex, UPS, and USPS to the right of the name) was leaning against the building, having just been replaced by the same red, white, and blue color sign, but THIS one in bigger letters said GOIN’ POSTAL – Our Neighborhood Shipping Center (with no logos).

They took over the neighborhood? It used to be Your Neighborhood, you the customer. Now it’s Our Neighborhood, we the franchise. From customer-centric to self-centric (Oh sure, that’s a different way to sell these days).

To top it off, must be that the big-name logos had no value to justify keeping attached to them!

If you’re going to upgrade or repaint or revise or re-word your sign, don’t wing it! It is more important than you might think. Your sign is your business 24/7. It must communicate the exact right message in the exact right way. There’s no room for error.

This is not a task to leave up to the sign company; they are all about frames and appearances; they know nothing of words. When you want a true medical evaluation of your eyes, you go to an ophthalmologist (a medical doctor), not an optician who is all about frames and appearances.

Get yourself a professional marketing writer to come up with the exact right words. You’ll have to live with them for a long time. Get them right, right from the get go.

The best signs you ever saw never came from any sign business. Guaranteed. They came from professional marketing know-how and experience. How can you be sure? Because they work! 

Does yours?   

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!

Inspiration can run deep,

but it’s what you make 

of it that counts!

Another Milestone. Another Published Book. This one a 300-page commissioned memoir that took me ten months to write and four months to edit and prepare for printing.

The first copy arrived today, and I am pleased. It is not for sale. It was done for a man with a heroic and inspiring life leadership story who wanted it for his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

He hired me (from a phonebook listing, no less!) to write his life story for him because he was 89-years-old and in punishingly failing health and because he worried his history on Earth would never get recorded while he was still alive.

The title of his authorized memoir is “GOOD LUCK!” Wisdom from a Life of Leadership in Turbulent Times. He died four days after giving the final text a rave revue.

I mention this here for a number of reasons, besides that I am proud to have known him and to have done him justice.

His final words to me were the highest compliment a writer could have:                                                       

“I always thought I had an interesting life, but I never knew it for sure until I read what you wrote about me; thank you for making my life so special for the children who could never know me otherwise.”

GOOD LUCK! is the story of a 15-year-old child who arrived alone in New York Harbor, speaking no English, aboard a ship from Germany, on the good fortune forefront of time, out from under Hitler.

A door-to-door salesman, egg farmer, opera lover, decorated U.S. Army Sergeant, U.S. citizen, multi-millionaire small business success, and trusted advisor to six governors (half GOP and half DEM) . . . yet a low media profile, even with walls-full of awards.                                                                       

He was a prominent yet quiet leader in government, military, business, academia, civil rights, and in service to his family, church, community, state, and his country.

He didn’t have to be any of these things.

He chose them.

I also bring this story to light because the successes this man achieved evolved from his commitments to himself, to live a life of rigid discipline interwoven at every corner with humor, a passion for excellence, and profound caring for and service to others. Enigmatic maybe but it worked.

Consider for a minute what might be written of YOU and the differences you will have made during your short stay on Earth.

Will your accomplishments be limited to small, confining wins because you’ve always been easily satisfied and quick to say, “Oh, I couldn’t do that!”? Or will they warrant a memoir for future generations to appreciate your life of rising to the occasion, and making your time really count for something important?                                                            

Is what you are doing right now

leading you to where YOU want to go?

Are you trusting and believing in yourself enough to stand strong in troubled waters? Have you ever thought about your legacy before? Are you moving in the direction you truly want to be moving? Can you make some positive mid-stream adjustments? How can you start doing that today? Tomorrow morning? It is, after all, your choice!   

www.TWWsells.com or 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!

When you attack

a person’s self,

there can be no resolve.

One of life’s hardest lessons for every business owner and every manager is to always criticize behavior, never the person at fault.                                                        

“I don’t like the way you handled that customer and here’s what I suggest . . .” is a lot more productive and easier to swallow than “You moron! Why did you send that customer to our competitor? I can’t believe you’re so stupid!”

The assumption here of course is that because you and/or your business is invested in every employee, it’s important to help keep those investments on track and growing.

Step ONE is to nurture and protect and ensure the individual human being that lives inside the employee facade or uniform. You will never achieve these ends when you are critical of the person.

It is indeed true that this process is not necessarily an easy one, particularly when you may be dealing with a hostile, or relatively incompetent individual, or someone who has just committed a colossal screw-up.

But keep reminding yourself that your behavior –as well as the one you criticize– are both the result of a conscious or unconscious choice.

You can, in other words, choose to make the situation a difficult, stressful and nonproductive one

. . . or choose for the approach and the outcome to produce a win-win for both parties 

But –again– if the employment investment is worth protecting, then you need to bite the bullet, take some deep breaths, and accept that your role must be as a calming influence, a patient and understanding teacher. Hand-holder? No! Warm, fuzzy pardoner? No! But not confrontational either.

Taking the middle road need not be a torturous trek. And, in fact, it can be a learning experience for both you and the person whose behavior you need to address. 

Look at the prospects of confronting some unwanted behavior as the unique opportunity it is to help a valued employee become more valuable and to notch off another credit level on your human relations resume.

Ask not WHY something occurred. Instead, focus the person involved with improving her or his process. Deal with WHAT can be done and keep it specific, and hand the problem-solving back to the problem-creator.

“What three things can you write down for me on  a piece of paper before you go to lunch that you think will be the best steps you can take to avoid this kind of behavior in the future?  

Oh, and keep the ALWAYS RULE in your back pocket: ALWAYS praise worthy employee behavior in public, and ALWAYS criticize unwanted or unworthy employee behavior in private.

Go to great lengths to insure this ALWAYS RULE and you will quickly gain or enhance the kind of reputation that will increase sales and business growth (yes, even in a bad economy!)

 # # #

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!

Tough or Tender?

You know what 100% of meat-eaters prefer, and what most lovers prefer, but when it comes to running a successful business in a near catastrophic economy, there’s little room for being tender. Is it like reaching the point with a drug addict to abandon “Tough Love” tactics?

Killer economy business owners have to be tough to hold on.

They also have to be tough to let go.

Either way–unlike government and corporate life or professional sports– there’s no one else to blame.

There’s no one else to step in and take over, and nobody else to pick you up.

Gloomy, huh?

Sure, there’s always the lottery, but real entrepreneurs don’t gamble because the risk is not reasonable. So what’s a struggling business owner to do, fire yourself? Maybe. Maybe not.

You probably won’t accomplish much by firing yourself, but you might accomplish a great deal by –instead– taking stock in yourself. Start with the assumption that you have what it takes to make things work. After all, you’ve already gotten this far, right?

1. Take back that attitude you had when you first started your business. Remember, that one where you relied on your SELF? You did whatever it took to nurture your ingenuity, persistence, gumption, stick-to-itiveness, determination…and all those other qualities?
2. Realize and accept that you can only rely on your SELF when you keep yourself in touch, day-to-day, with your own personal strengths and weaknesses. Be constantly on the alert to what they are and how they change. Adjust them and your SELF to fit changing times and situations, and to prompt opportunities to rise to the surface.
3. Remember that you have an important responsibility on Election Day to vote — and before that, to promote others to vote — for the kinds of sweeping changes nationwide that are clearly required and called for to recognize small business as the key to economic survival.

The current Congress and Administration most assuredly do not have your best interests or those of our national economy at heart. It does not require brain surgery expertise to see that small business creates probably close to 90% of all new jobs in the U.S.

Collectively, however, our political leaders lack business experience at every level, and have recklessly misspent and misappropriated billions of tax dollars in attempting to shore up misguided corporate entities, and bolster a social agenda that’s frivolous at best considering the continued plunge of unemployment, bankruptcy and foreclosure rates.

These destructive measures have been at the expense of a balanced budget, at the expense of the vast majority of Americans, and in the face of small business owners’ attempts to make things work. We need to get back on track –swiftly– with REAL tax incentives to small business for job creation (not SBA tokenism buried under reams of complex paperwork).

Your role in this is much more important than you may have thought.

Exert your influence to bring people into office –regardless of party affiliation– who will stop the tax and spend mentality in its tracks.

America needs representatives who will appreciate the sacrifices and values of small business ownership, and use that appreciation to see that jobs are created  . . . to begin to own up to the realities of what needs to be done to turn the tide of this devastating economy.

# # #

 931.854.0474 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!

Let it rain on your parade.

You get wet??  So what??

Rain. In life, it comes from the sky. In business? It can come from anywhere and everywhere, any time. It’s the “anywhere, everywhere, any time” part that gives most business owners ulcers, right? 

At least when rain always comes from the sky, we can duck for cover, use umbrellas, pull up hoods, wear hats, and avoid getting our eyeballs pinged by looking up!

But have you noticed that whether it rains in real life, or it rains on your business parade, it never makes everybody happy all of the time? That of course exempts those of you who live in Seattle, San Francisco, Ireland, or one of those preserved rain forests where you simply go with the flow (no pun intended).

Anyway, there’s always either too much or 

not enough… Or am I just imaging things?

We’re either in a terrible draught and can only wash the car on alternate weekdays, or we’re hiding under the covers, quivering with each cloudburst, and bemoaning the juiced-up local TV weather person’s bug-eyed flash flood warnings.

Oh, and we certainly know about how “hard” it can rain. We’ve known since kiddiedom that “When it rains, it pours!”… and Bob Dylan warned us that a “hard rain’s a gonna fall.”

People complain there’s not enough business,

or that there’s too much business.

Oh. . . such killer problems!

(You think I’m making this up?)

How do you handle too much or too little business raining on yourparade? Do you drown yourself, just wallow around in the muckity mud, or do a “Singing in the rain” routine as you tap dance around the nearest light stanchion?  

How often do you ask yourself, “What’s the worst that could happen here?” Hopefully, that’s the leading question that pops into your rained-on brain just before every decision you make. Why? Because having a worst-case scenario in your mind provides a platform of reality for forward motion, and helps prevent surprise…which most entrepreneurs stopped liking when they turned six.

Here’s the deal: You got into your own business by hook or crook, or by accident or accidentally on purpose. Or maybe you slid sideways into it through some family rainstorm or annoying drizzle, or slam-bam downpour. But it’s yours.

Like the old Toyota theme: “You asked for it. You got it.” So, by now, dealing with upsets is probably daily routine.

Dealing with your SELF though, may not be.

So, stop and take stock. This weekend is as good as any to look hard in the mirror and size up what you see there that’s upsetting. Ferret out the rain, and make your mind up to see it for what it is: necessary, refreshing, and routine in many places. Yeah, and wet.

Next, decide how you can reverse your own gears to back out of whatever upsets come your way. (Combat is not always the best answer!) And consider contingency plans based on (you got it) worst case scenarios. “Be Prepared” caution the Boy Scouts.

Choose to look at every problem as an opportunity, and get on with it.

Too much rain sells more umbrellas, slickers, ponchos, foul-weather gear, waders, boots, sump pumps, waders, hair dryers and flood insurance. Not enough rain, sells more watering cans, mulch, faucet washers, flush-efficient toilets, rain-dance manuals and videos, and ice cubes (for exotic drinks to enjoy while draught-watching!).

What’s the opportunity in your latest problem?

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!

ARE YOU ALL YOU HAVE?

You can hire (even borrow) others

 but you can only bank on your self!

Whether you function out of a home closet, garage, kitchen table, 100,000 sq. ft. factory or warehouse, a fancy corporate center, a retail storefront, or a truck, it’s one thing to find people or a person you can trust to help you with your business, and quite another to translate that find into responsibility you can bank on.

Reality check: No matter how much you love someone who works for you, no matter how conscientious an employee may be, you are ultimately the one who has everything on the line, and you are the only one who has to answer to investors, lenders, suppliers, and — in the end — customers.  

Short of turning to your family (and even that rarely works), it’s probably close to 100% true that people only accept responsibility commensurate with what they think is merited by their compensation. In other words, only business owners and partners practice an ownership sense of responsibility. This goes beyond turning off lights and taking out the garbage.

If you’re not ready to make your support team owners/partners, then consider these options:

• Teaching others to have ownership attitudes and sense of responsibility is not the same as cultivating it or making it happen.
  • Leadership by example is one way.
  • Small frequent rewards is another.
  • Reliance on Maslow’s Hierarchy as a guide for rewarding people at their need level is yet another.

# # #

 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 to Z and Soup to Nuts

…Maybe. But maybe not.

Are you trying to have your business

be all things to all people?

It’s easy to see why any business owner would choose, or be tempted to choose, a path of omnipresence.

First in the line of reasons is the motivation to survive a continually worsening economy (spawned by the federal government’s continuing business incompetence, and aggravated by its dumb and dumber insistence that the recession ended last June!).

Reasons enough to drive any entrepreneur scrambling up the wall of desperation.

Second, we need look no further for examples of others making “Sales Offering Sprawl” work, than to tune in to the examples offered by many product-based companies.

Traditional product specialization offerings have been sidetracked, integrated, absorbed, and demolished.

In retail and online businesses alone, we can barely keep up as consumers with where’s the best place to buy what.  

We’ve watched drugstores evolve over the past generation from independent prescription pharmacies supplemented by inventories of OTC (over-the-counter) drugs and some limited HBA (health & beauty aids) products, plus maybe a 6-stool soda fountain and some penny candy, into today’s behemoth supermarket and electronic warehouse (even furniture) chains that seem to sell everything under the sun.

Most notable of course is the inclusion of complete in-store professionally staffed medical facilities — and the forerunner of that: tucking entire pharmacies under the same roofs, as a number of industry-leading retail giants have done.

So why wouldn’t it seem appropriate to aspire to include a little bit of everything under your own roof?

Maybe it is appropriate, but don’t just think so and then do it. Entrepreneurs take only reasonable risks. That “Best Guess” path is not a wise or reasonable risk. Take the time and trouble and energy and expense to define, set up and run focus group discussions with target clients/customers to determine what they really think instead of what you think they think.

Design a strategic plan. It need

 not be fancy, but it needs to exist.

The good news is that if the November elections can produce enough upstart representation by people who understand that new small businesses are the nation’s only source of job creation and that job creation is the only way to turn the economic tide, business can be more free-market and free-wheeling and more competitive again.

But the bad news is that until that point actually occurs (probably 2-3 years away at best), decision making about what your business is in business to sell needs to be more cautious and needs to be based on more than opinion.

Service businesses are not product businesses.

B to B businesses are not B to C businesses.

Avoid getting caught in that tangled tidal wave of confusion by sticking to what you specialize in, by developing strategic plans for how to proceed and by encouraging more than SBA lip-service and make-believe assistance to small businesses.

# # #

 Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals!

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Stop trying to cut

the wrong corners! 

If you’re like many others who run a business these days, you are being extremely careful with operating expenses and have turned a deaf ear to literally any kind of investments. With respect to that attitude, I’ve heard that if something can go without saying, don’t say it, but I’ll say it anyway:

It’s great to be careful with your money for however much longer it takes government to figure out that small businesses, not monster corporations, are the ones that create jobs, and the ones that will turn the economy around (a year or two or three?).

But it’s not great to turn yourself into Scrooge McSkinflint with every cost that comes your way, especially professional outsourcing fees!. 

When you turn outside your enterprise to hire an expert consultant or performer — writer, designer, accountant, lawyer, staff trainer, turn-around specialist, management coach, programmer, architect, engineer, marketing whiz all come to mind — it’s because you’ve come to realize you can’t do it all yourself, that nobody is really qualified “in house,” and that you need some proven experience.

So there should be little question of value here, unless you haven’t done your homework screening prospects. Remember these are people whose entire lives are devoted to practicing the specialty you need help with. Professionals.

Bringing professional help to bear on your business needs, or to accelerate performance faster than it’s possible to do on your own, is not a decision that should be made lightly, but — once it’s made:

1)  Don’t expect outside providers to tell you how they’ll meet your needs or solve your problems as part of your selection process in order to have their services considered for meeting your needs or solving your problem (unless you pay them for that time and effort).

Do you give away time, talent, products and services to someone who says she or he might be interested in dealing with you

Professionals who are treated

professionally respond professionally.

2)  Don’t try to cut corners on fees because you’ll only be cheating yourself. Outsource consultants and performers deliver what they’re paid to deliver.

The old adage is true that you get what you pay for. If you truly can’t afford the expertise, don’t pretend you can and then haggle on price…unless you want to haggle on the results!

Outside professionals will not be upset with you wanting to cut a deal, as long as it’s a reasonable win-win arrangement.

When instead of $1,000 fee for a task, you try to nickel-and-dime it down to $500, even if you win, you lose; you’ll get $100 worth of effort. 

On the other hand, offering to pay $500 instead of $1000 with a measurable performance incentive of an additional $1000 is the kind of deal that will usually merit some good faith consideration. And isn’t it always worth paying one-X extra when someone’s efforts produce two-X extra? 

There are many places where it’s in your best interests to be a tightwad when reviewing your overhead and operations expenditures, but hiring proven, experienced, professional expertise is not one of them. I’ve been on both sides of the fence hundreds of times. People who reward performance well get exceptional performance.

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 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!

The Business That “Glows”

Together Grows Together

NO, power plant jokes aside, this is not just an empty little quick-fix message for entrepreneurial leaders, business owners, managers, and sales professionals.

First, it’s not “empty.” Second, it’s not “little.” Third, it will fix stuff quick, but it’s not a “quick-fix” remedy. And fourth, it’s not limited to  entrepreneurial leaders, business owners, managers, and sales professionals.

It’s something for everyone. In fact, please do share it with your family!

YES, like the classic stress management post take some deep breaths — this message works for families and friends as well as bosses and employees. No age limits, health restrictions, or strings attached. And, by the way, no charge.

Do some little thing that you usually

do every day in a different way…and

 see what you learn about your SELF. 

You typically start your daily shower, scrubbing under your left arm? Start under your right instead. Decide how it feels to be changing your routine. You usually travel the exact same route to work or school or a transit hub? Take a different route tomorrow. Note to yourself how it feels. What do you experience that’s different? New?

Perhaps you run straight to your emails or leave them until the evening? Try bunching them up a half hour before lunch and a half hour before quitting time. You’ll be more likely to make quick decisions and quick responses and not get tangled up with them for hours 

Why does any of this matter?

• Because the more you learn and can know about your SELF, and why you do and say the things you do, what feels right, what feels comfortable, and why, the more effective you will be at dealing with other people and interruptions and unplanned-for events (sounds like most of life?). Guess what the end-product is? Doesn’t self-discovery make you glow?                                                                  
• Because the more you can prompt yourself in small, seemingly insignificant ways to try new behaviors, new ideas, new directions, the more you are priming the pump in your brain to think and act more innovatively. Guess what the end-product is? Doesn’t being more innovative make you glow?                                                                             

In other words, changing your physical behavior — even just a tiny bit — can produce a tiny jolt in your brain that opens up some place where you have a crimped hose that is preventing free flow of information that can be holding back those great performances you are capable of, and those great smiles you have that you too often store in some closet.

You have the ability to make things happen for yourself every day, but are probably choosing to have other stuff get in your way. You might not be consciously making that kind of choice, but you can consciously choose to explore a new path or two. You can consciously choose to make more of the kind of difference in life you’ve always wanted to, instead of just talking or thinking about it.

When you choose to work at putting more glow inside yourself, you automatically transmit it to those you are responsible for leading —  and they will rise to the occasion more often and more productively. The business will glow. The business will grow.    

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 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!

A business wallowing

in its own culture is 

rapidly irrelevant, and  

moving toward extinction.

(Yet corporate giants need it to survive!) 

I just read somewhere (Twitter?) that “Company culture is the priority” for some business organization whose name I’ll withhold to spare them embarrassment. I never heard of the company, but no doubt it is either part of some corporate giant sprawl or, sadly, some idealistic young tech business that is tripping over its own inexperience.

Any company that devotes its priorities to promoting, maintaining, nurturing, and protecting its own culture is totally out of touch with the realities of doing business in 2010. Admittedly, “never forgetting where you came from” is a healthy, driving energy force for every business owner, but dwelling on it is exactly what is wrong with the ways corporate giants conduct business today.

If your business is not customer-centric in every application possible, it is headed toward the great business burial grounds up in the clouds. Developing pie-in-the-sky programs to attract and keep top industry performers is a waste of time and money unless you totally lack the leadership it takes to foster and cultivate top performance from within.

The short solution:

Stop wasting so much energy on trying to inbreed specific employee characteristics and allegiances at a time when the only ROI you’ll realize will be major deficits (you remember him?).

If you’re not running some incompetent government agency, heavily subsidized corporate entity, or dreamy-eyed inexperienced new venture, don’t think of a culture focus as your bailout.

Here’s the bottom line: You cannot focus on your company’s culture AND on serving your customers exceptionally enough to earn ongoing profits AT THE SAME TIME. There’s simply not enough hours in the day to devote your concerted efforts in both directions simultaneously. If you haven’t a treasure chest in the closet, stick to pleasing your customers.

What was it Abe Lincoln said about not being able to please all of the people all of the time? Yes, some self-absorbed employees will jump ship who are not catered to, but do employees who come to work with a daily “what’s in it for me” attitude do your business any good to start with?

Did you go into business to cater to employees or to cater to customers? Sure, employee recognition and motivational performance incentives are nice, warm, fuzzy actions. But don’t let them get in the way. If you do a good enough job of pleasing customers, you will automatically please employees as well…at least those who matter to your business.

Those employees who are intrinsically challenged to be outstanding performers, who want to build their careers on achievement will rise to the opportunities you provide when you set the example.

Teach them how to embrace your customer base, instead of constantly pandering to their requests for more social activities.  

Is that a thin line? Perhaps. Yet, business owners who understand communications, and who practice leadership by example, and management by wandering around, can substantially reduce the need for many employee recruitment and reward devices because they create an environment all by themselves that make others gravitate to serve their pursuits. Voila! “Counter Culture”!

Put the spotlight on the customer and teach employees how to focus it, how to keep it shining and how to change the bulb when necessary, then reward them for how well they do what they do instead of for the promises of their smiles behind their resumes.

We need only look briefly at the complete financial losses attached to professional sports team owners who buy into promises of greatness vs. those who make the long term investments of cultivating from within. A great team culture doesn’t matter if you can’t perform in the clutch.

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 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!