Happy Christmas

Recovery Time!

     SO … Answer these 10 questions for yourself about your SELF, and then answer the same 10 for your BUSINESS.

     If you are totally honest with yourself about your SELF and with yourself about your BUSINESS, you will positively gain some important insight!

•      What didn’t work this past year? (Not “why?” which may take another year to answer)

•      And what, pray-tell, is working NOW? 

•      What needs to be eliminated? 

•      What will work going forward? 

•      What needs to be reevaluated?  

•      What needs to be fixed?  Adjusted?  

•      Completely overhauled? 

•      What needs to be attempted? 

•      What needs to be planned? 

     Remember, this is YOUR business and YOUR self we’re talking about here, so ONLY YOU can decide where to go next and ONLY YOU can choose how to get there. ONLY YOU know the real answers to all the questions about growing your self and your business! 

     And you can take hours researching and surveying, but the bottom line is –dear entrepreneur, dear business owner and manager– that in the end, YOU must charge forward by experience, instinct, and informed subjective judgement. 

     YOU must take REASONABLE risks to improve your SELF and your BUSINESS!

     What you choose as a course of action may be wrong, but:

A. SOME action is always better than no action, and

B. YOU are the captain of your ship, and YOU can adjust the course you’re taking at any hour of the day or night. Or, simply put into port for a short lay-over to get yourself more focused. Just choose what you want  (since all behavior is a choice!). 

     No excuses here. You need to be your own consultant. Step back. Take some deep breaths (For your SELF, for your BUSINESS, for your SPORTS performance, for your SALESMANSHIP, for your LIFE!) Oh, and after you breathe, get hopping! 

     The New Year’s bell is ready to ring. Are you ready to run? Have a Happy! 

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Your card must speak

for itself in 2 seconds!

     Do NOT underestimate or undermine the value of your business card. People will size you up and decide if they want to do business with you in the first 7-1o seconds that you meet. If your first impression isn’t crispy sharp AND warm and friendly at the same time, you lose.

     Your business card is as important as the genuineness of your eye contact, smile and handshake. A business card will often be a 2-second focus of attention out of that first 7-10 seconds! [Many similar characteristics accompany your email signature; be careful with what it says and how it’s used; it may sit in a file for years before being re-visited!] 

    Your business card is probably more important than any other factor in making a favorable first impression, because once your meeting, encounter or presentation is over, it’s your card that customers and prospects take away with them. It’s your card — and sometimes your email sign-off — that people will remember you by (or not).

     It’s your card that must stand on its own two feet and command acknowledgement over the trash basket. It will not succeed if it is bent, dog-eared, faded, coffee-stained, dirty, boring-looking, or failing to present as many contact options as possible. The all-time worst scenario (and you’d be amazed at how many business owners do this) is to have no cards available.

It should be sufficient to say that the only thing business cards sitting in a box will succeed in attracting is dust! 

     Take your cards everywhere all of the time. There are no boundaries for discussion openers or follow-ups that prevent you from discretely handing a card to someone at a wedding or funeral with just the suggestion to “please contact me here when you get a chance” instead of a sales pitch. Take them on vacation, on your honeymoon, to family gatherings. Laminate some for beach and gym visits. Timidity never made a sale.

     One standout tactic for using cards, by the way, that many successful salespeople practice, is to intentionally not print their cell phone number on the face of the card and to instead hand write it on the back.

     This practice gives the recipient a feeling of having an “insider” contact option; this is especially effective at a trade or professional show where time is at a premium for establishing a sense of confidence. And the extra couple of seconds to do it rewards the recipient with an iota more personal attention than 99% of your competitors and other exhibitors will bother with.

     Oh, one other thought: The famous theatre producer David Balasco always made a practice of requiring salespeople to write their “story” on the back of their business cards before he would consider seeing them (most reportedly failed at this task!).

     It has always seemed to me that this is a good practice for every business owner, manager, entrepreneur, and sales professional to do on a regular basis as a “brush-up” for themselves. It’s what some corporate gurus have called the “elevator speech” or one sentence explanation of “what your business is all about.” The exercise might surprise you! 

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Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US or comment below.

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

Make today a GREAT Day for someone! 

Holiday Gloom and Other

Economic Bushes To Beat

     There comes for many business owners and managers a point in time — that inevitably seems to fall in the middle of holiday season — where you can no longer cut back business staffing or compensation, and other overhead expenses loom ominously over your head, like a guillotine, ready to drop.

      Uh, sorry for such a merciless graphic thought, but there ARE still options to exercise, and you ARE still reading, right? Use this “SQUEAKSMANSHIP”© checklist to prompt your brain to more closely consider your circumstances and determine some alternatives that can work for you now.

• Strategic Alliances. Even with or without exchanges of commissions or time, there are many ways to work together with allied businesses that can save money for all involved. Explore.
• Cooperative Advertsing and Marketing. Many manufacturers provide matching dollar and similar programs for retailers that represent their products. Many trade and professional associations and membership organizations provide discounted rate arrangements. Ask.    
• Shared PR. Jointly-issued news releases and cooperative events that promote participant businesses equally strengthen impact and minimize expenses. Poke around. 
• Barter. ANY combination of goods and / or services represent mutual benefit when traded. Local radio stations will often trade commercial air-time for products they can give away in listener contests. Make some calls.
• Shared Employees. Receptionists? Clerical? Contractors? IT? Programmers? Retail? Think. 
• Shared Services. Delivery? Maintenance? Bookkeeping? Look for what’s accessible.
• Shared Vehicles. Cars? Trucks? Construction equipment? Plows? Planes? If it moves…
• Shared Expenses. Mortgage? Rent? Insurance? Purchasing? Memberships? Hmmm…

YOU CAN ALSO…

     Put more marketing reliance on (less expensive than traditional media) Websites, Social Media, Email Campaigns (which don’t have to be spam, btw), News Releases, Captioned Photo Releases, Postcards, Business Card Distribution Displays, Newsletters.

     Put more sales reliance on commission + expenses and/or + advances (vs. salaries) … virtual sales force use … retail street performers.

     Put more emphasis on minimizing travel expense with less exotic, fewer frills regional and centralized meetings … minimizing energy use (Some major outlet stores are cutting back on lighting with customer explanations of fuel and community savings affected.

     Make this holiday season a half-full glass for YOUR business! Oh, and remind your people to NOT cut back on wishing customers and suppliers “Merry Christmas!” Merry Christmas!  

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Pity all you want, but

nothing happens ’til you’ve

put yourself in other’s shoes.

     Okay, you’re a leader. You own and/or operate and/or manage a business, or part of one (or you’re a sales professional, which is essentially the same thing!). You need to wear many hats, day to day, and probably one of the most difficult of these to keep balanced on your head (and for most leaders) is the one that dictates your role when serious, draining emotional problems arise.

     Odds are you have no training as a shrink or you would be one, and it’s bad enough being constantly looked upon by others who think of you (and sometimes openly treat you) as a surrogate parent … then along comes tragedy, or calamity, or personal, or family, or community, or even a company upset or grief period.

     And it’s often hard to know how to respond.

     First of all, respond. When you can respond instead of react, you can never over-react, and you will more likely than not help others to also respond instead of react too. That’s a good thing. HOW do you make that happen? First recognize that responding instead of reacting (like all behavior) is a choice! Next, try:  http://bit.ly/Bb1Tw 

     When you can focus your response energy on empathy and being empathetic (which the dictionary defines as “understanding and sharing the feelings of others”), you can help yourself and others to be immensely relieved, productive, positive, and motivating.

     When you focus instead on sympathy and being sympathetic (which the dictionary defines as “feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune”), it’s rare to experience an outcome that’s anything more than one that has simply piled on more pity and sorrow.

     We need only to turn to what’s probably the greatest exampleof our lifetimes — in the defining behavior, for example, exercised by “America’s Mayor” Rudy Giuliani after the infamous terrorist attacks of “9/11” — for inspiration and a lesson in the values of using empathy in leadership. His ability to put himself in other’s shoes, and to help a panicked nation be there with him by virtue of his acts and words, sprouted calm and order and honor and harmony from the chaos.

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Leaders who fail to sell

fail as leaders.   

     No, not everyone is out there selling, every minute of every day … just those who are leaders!

     Leaders of the world, and of every nation, region, state, county, city, town, neighborhood, household, and business, department, institution, team, crew, organization, task force, office, store, studio, construction site, laboratory, factory floor, and professional practice are the ones who are out there selling with every waking breath. 

     Well, now, that certainly includes most everyone, doesn’t it? Not really, there are armies of followers (in the military and in Twitter, to name just two), and there are hermits. Okay, that’s being evasive for the sake of prompting a smile. Truth is we are ALL leaders of SOMEthing. It it’s not a rock group, classroom project, family, or community group, it’s SOMEthing. What are you a leader of? What do others think you’re a leader of?

     Most of us mix it up: leaders of some things, followers of others. The point is that whenever we are actively leading ANYthing, we are selling. And whenever we are NOT actively leading something, we are — at the least — a hair trigger away from selling, and will pounce into a sales mode at the mere mention of anything that even suggests the focus, issues, or activities of the thing(s) we lead, stand for, and believe in. 

     So, now that that’s all cleared up, let’s examine the flipside:

     Short of threats to perpetrate physical harm, how can anyone expect others to “buy into” ideas, directions, and recommendations that the leader has not enthusiastically endorsed and demonstrated value for? If we as followers see no benefits to the leader’s plans, do we suffer through the process or seek new horizons? Does it depend on circumstances?

     Without getting into all the side issues of parental control, HOW do we choose to provide inadequate leadership and expect others to follow? (Remember that selling is helping others solve problems, and it is 80% listening!)

     Unlike the tokenism we see in politics, truly effective salesmanship ushers in substance. It does that by proving performance, by instilling trust through demonstration, and by acting from a posture of authenticity.

     You are most certainly a leader of something, perhaps many things, and your effectiveness can only be measured in terms of results. Results only happen when others are motivated to prompt or get them.

     Others are only motivated when you have been effective in selling them the benefits they will realize by their efforts. And this applies to volunteer and charitable organizations as well as entrepreneurial ventures, “Mom and Pop” bricks and mortar stores,  virtual online enterprises, and global corporate entities.

     It applies to households, classrooms, scouting groups, and sports teams. Notre Dame University’s most famous football coach, Knute Rockne, was a worldclass professional salesman.

How and what are YOU selling? The answer defines your leadership skills.

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You’re going to work for a

living SOME where, right?

Recommended: Print & pass to a business hopeful attending or considering college

     So you’ve earned a PhD, an MBA, LLB, MD, MS, MA, and all kinds of bachelor and associate degrees. You are Mr. or Mrs. (maybe “Dr.” ?) Joe (Josephine?) College, in the flesh. And the academic credentials got you a decent job. Now what? Do you seriously believe your 4.0 grade average means you’ve got what it takes to thrive … even survive?

     After your punishing (and expensive!) labs, coursework, exams, thesis papers and consulting with so-called “Academic Advisors,” if you have learned anything less than HOW to put ALL of the following to work, you’re in big-time trouble, and college put you there.

     Can you honestly say you have learned how to practice (and hopefully excel at) ALL of these attributes?:

• Making Decisions
• Managing Stress
• Managing Time
• Managing Customers
• Communicating Clearly
• Being a Leader
• SELLING
• Delegating
• Innovating
• Being a Team Player
• Listening and Giving Feedback
• Organizing
• Empathizing
• Respecting Others
• Being Genuine, Honest and Transparent
• Valuing Experience
• Accepting Criticism
• Setting and Pursuing Goals
• Being Accountable and Cultivating Trust
• Avoiding Political and Psychological “Games”

     Give or take perhaps a couple of the above items, these are the attributes that add up to being effective in business or professional practice (ANY business or professional practice) and without which, your road to success will be a long one indeed, especially if you aspire to a forward-moving or productive management position.

     Good leaders do all of these things well. So do good salespeople. All good leaders are also, not incidentally, good salespeople [SEE TOMORROW’S POST ON THIS SUBJECT!]  

     What’s sad about all this is that institutions of higher learning (other than a very small handful that do in fact address a number of these subjects as part of academic platforms on, for example, nursing and entrepreneurship and some behavioral sciences like human development) not only scoot around these issues; they outright reject them.

     Colleges and universities (again with rare exception) fail to value reality. They are invested in fantasizing on the past which will never come again, or the future which hasn’t yet arrived, and may never. They refuse to acknowledge their hands in front of their faces.

     So YOU end up losing out to an arcane system of learning that fails to deal with preparing students for life in the real world. It’s true.

How do I know? I’ve worked extensively in creative roles with Fortune 500 companies, as a consultant with entrepreneurial businesses and professional practices, as a management trainer for over 20,000 business and healthcare executives, and as “Professor of the Year” at a major university and two colleges. I’ve been in the thick of it.

     You DO have a way out. There IS hope. You need to first accept that you’ve been taught subject matter, not real life applications, not how to succeed. Second, you must commit to yourself to learn as much as you possibly can about yourself as possible.

The more you know about what makes you “tick,”

the more skilled and successful a leader you will be.

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Imagine This. Imagine That.

(Then Do It!)

     Sorry, but great ideas you fail to act on are not great. In fact, they’re actually lousy because they clog up your brain and prevent you from getting and acting on the truly great ideas you have. Am I saying that you’re holding yourself back? Yes. Aren’t you?

     I know, you’re overwhelmed right now…sucky economy, family holiday obligations, and you want to just slow down your business push (like past years), just sit back and relax with a nice glass of something warming…and relegate the whole “dreaming up new business ideas” thing to some back burner agenda.

     But guess what? (Yes, you knew this was coming, right?) There couldn’t be a better time to get your brain focused on making more of your imagination. While others are racing around trying to jam in end-of-year sales orders, and still others take vacation time, ACT BOLDLY!

DO AN “O.I.S.T.T.T.”

(Now! This Week!)

     Take 2 or 3 or 5 or 10 of your top people on an “Overnight Imagination Stimulation Think Tank Trip.” Build in a side visit or two for some gift-shopping along the way.

     Here, Try This:

1) Take your Team to breakfast and give them a pep talk. Then give them each some spending allowance or discount deals you work out for special shopping spots along the way to a special meeting destination (Cheap, good dollar-value deals are available everywhere right now!). Maybe offer an extra “Family Day” off to each for Christmas or New Year’s use? 

2) Then bus or limo the whole group to some mountain cabin hideaway, or some fantastic meeting center/resort kind of place. My personal recommendation for those in the Northeast… NY / NJ / PA / DE / CT / MA:  www.InterlakenInn.com because I’ve run dozens of “Escape” meetings there and can vouch for what a super place it is (and I just called them to check, and they assure me they’ll work with your budget).

Bottom Line: You won’t believe how much good the overnight “brainstorming” trip will do for your business (AND your Team!).

3) Imagination will flow from the first cup of coffee to the last, then you have some time left over to evaluate and assess the ideas, and determine the directions and steps to take.

4) POOF! You will start out the new year on the run, ahead of the pack, and with increased commitment and loyalty from your top Team, because they will be part of the action from the git-go.  

Assuming now that you might be serious about wanting to put some truly creative leadership to work, and you’re willing to test your mettle (and your braintrust) as to how spontaneous you can all be (because you realize that SOMETHING powerful has to happen with your business SOON), then check each of these quick blog posts on related subjects:

http://bit.ly/6VFJHL  ~~~ INNOVATING AND PROBLEM-SOLVING (“Has Your Brain Been Thunder-Struck?”)

http://bit.ly/85FlLC  ~~~ 5 WAYS TO BREED INNOVATION (“It Doesn’t Fall From The Sky … Innovation Needs Ignition!”)

http://bit.ly/5358lq ~~~ BEAT THE RECESSION WITH IMAGINATION (“Entrepreneurs Are Imagination Junkies”) 

 MY PROMISE:

THIS (PERHAPS RISKY-FEELING) SUGGESTION WILL POSITIVELY PRODUCE THE MISSING INGREDIENTS YOU NEED TO SKY-ROCKET YOUR BUSINESS INTO THE NEW YEAR!

(Or, if doubts and excuses get in the way, call me at 302.933.0116 to arrange a free how-to, same or next-day consulting session!)

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Think Big But Act Small!

     As small business owners and managers, we unfortunately have not much of a role model for success anywhere within the avalanche of daily government’s much ado about nothing, or the poor misguided mainstream media’s efforts to distort, opinionate and manipulate in order to sell advertising time and space.

     How could we expect, for example, to learn anything about decision-making from an Armed Forces Commander in Chief who takes three months to conclude what his own paid, experienced experts have told him from the outset the steps that needed to be taken with respect to troop deployment?

     And, to top it off, in addition to having put those who serve — and who are clearly committed — in harms way for that entire three months, the agonizingly slow decision and extent of unnecessarily prolonged delay now threatens to undermine the very determination that was finally and reluctantly made. This decision should have been made in one day.

     Odds are that if any of us practiced such poor (and critical) decision-making and failed to rely on those we chose to surround and advise ourselves with in our own businesses, we’d be out (or well on our way to being out) of business!

     Oh, and just imagine what kind of customer loyalty we might generate if our marketing programs and public messages were as intentionally contentious and provocative as the sensationalist “journalism” that flows from the fork-tongued mouths of mainstream media’s loose cannons. You know who and what make up this list. 

     Something about this desperate media pproach to doing business smacks of ramming a healthcare program down the throats of 63% of the population who do not want it. Could you do that with your business prospects and survive?

     We could forget about repeat sales. We could also give up our customer service pursuits (Who would ever believe in the dollar value and performance quality of our products and services when we’re fully preoccupied with putting down our competition or trying to produce sales by mental water-boarding instead of simply demonstrating the benefits of our business, our integrity, trust and authenticity?)

     And what have we in our poor excuse for a national leadership to follow? A hypocritical multimillionaire holding our feet to the fire to keep us honest while abusing tax-dollar-paid privileges? People with less business experience than your 2 year-old nephew, dictating business policy? People so entrenched in their own sense of political self-importance that they’ve lost sight of what they’re supposed to be doing and whom they’re supposed to be representing?

     You couldn’t count fast enough to guess the numbers of customers leaving your business if you started price-gouging while delivering inadequate products and services in the name of global warming scams designed to divert tax dollars to political causes, and self-aggrandizing delusional thinking about spreading wealth to those who haven’t earned it (because handouts work just fine).

     A helluva way to run a business. Any business. 

When you want to be big,

act small enough to make it clear

that your growth is not more important

than your customer.    

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Product/Service Knowledge

Does Not A Sales Star Make!

     What makes entrepreneurs and sales professionals successful is having the ability to go waaay beyond the point of just knowing about the products and services they represent.

     It takes a very rare “geek,” for example (e.g., Bill Gates, Steve Jobs), to be able to come up out of the techie hole and have a clear vision of everything else that surrounds her or him.

     I’m not suggesting the need to be an expert at everything, but to instead appreciate and value what’s there (in your market, in your industry, in your universe), and know when to call on (and how to manage) others’ skills.  

     This “failure shortcoming” is unfortunately not something that’s easily adjustable because it’s more a product of the system than of the individual. It is the single greatest failing of academia that students are rarely if ever taught how to use what they’ve been taught to know.

     While touching on our misguided educational system, I should add that the best college for successful business career preparation (besides the proverbial “school of hard knocks”) is the one that fosters student internship and cooperative education programs and/or real-life experience opportunities. A taste of reality always beats none.

It is the single greatest failing of academia that students are rarely if ever taught how to use what they’ve been taught to know.”

     Why should this matter? Having a single purpose and collective goals is one thing, but no business is successful that is run with closed-minded fantasy-land controls. Product / service knowledge is just one part of the success equation. Having the vision and organization skills to apply that knowledge is what counts.

     No sales professional has ever made it on having total command alone of her or his company product or service features. No one “buys” features. Buyers may justify their purchases by itemizing features, but what makes the sale are emotional triggers to benefits. Product and service knowledge can only serve as the launchpad for those triggers. 

     What are the answers? I believe they vary with each set of circumstances, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers … BUT:

     I CAN tell you that if you and your sales message have been heavily focused on what goes into a product or service and how it’s made, and you see all the guys down in the trenches (the scientist /technician / analyst types) smiling up at you and nodding agreement, you need to adjust what you’re communicating to the rest of the world!

     Like the dentist ads promoting mucosal blade inserts, which would only have a recognition factor and be a point of interest among other dentists, many businesses go down the tubes grasping for receptivity to jargon that only they and a handful of staff (and competitive!) “experts” understand.

     Real Business “Power”— the Power of entrepreneurial and sales success, comes not from merely knowing — comes from knowing who, how, when, and where to put the knowledge that you have to work.    

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Politically Correct Crap

Has Gone Over The Top!

     It’s really time for small businesses to rebel.

     It’s time to show the corporate giants standing in line waiting for another surge of taxpayer dollar bailouts that their small-minded insistence on following small-minded government politicians (and even smaller-minded, major-media wimps) is wrong because Christmas is Christmas is Christmas. Period.

     It is what it is: a Christian celebration of the birth of Christ.

     It is NOT a generic convoluted cluster of “holidays.” It is NOT Hanukkah, Ramadan and 39 other special celebrations all thrown together in one big New York City melting pot. This is the CHRISTMAS Season!

     You’re not likely to toss all your meat. fish, vegetables, bread, and dessert into one big bowl and call it dinner, right? So why should anyone insist on combining all religious celebrations into one and calling Christmas and the Christmas Season “Holidays” as indistinguishable from the others?

     The answer: Big business and government and the media have become so superficially multi-cultural and culturally-diverse conscious (and more sensitive to unfounded anti-discrimination lawsuits than to the Christian religious ideals and annual celebration of the birth of Baby Jesus) that they are petrified at the idea of calling Christmas by its name for fear of offending those who provide handouts and political favors.

     It’s not just time to put Christ back in Christmas, it’s time to SAY “Merry Christmas!” without being afraid of offending someone. Anyone who IS offended by that is as ignorant, insensitive, misguided, and self-righteous as those who would have us take “In God We Trust” out of our nation’s pledges, proclamations, and currency.

     Bottom line: Stand up to those who try to make you feel guilty (or who are simply too dumb to know better) by wishing your customers and suppliers “MERRY CHRISTMAS!”

     If those you do business with want to wish you Happy Hanukkah or whatever it is that one wishes for Ramadan, accept it and thank them and wish it back to them. But let’s not encourage any more “PC” thinking about something so sacred, and so much a part of American tradition … for even those who are NON-Christians!

     Be reminded that “MERRY CHRISTMAS!” carries with it implications of commitment to goodwill and to loving and respecting one another. Jews and responsible Muslims share that thinking. There’s no need to feel apologetic for wishing someone “Merry Christmas!” no matter what his or her religion. 

     I have had a great many Jewish friends (including quite a few who are orthodox) and never knew even one who took offense at being wished Merry Christmas. Most, in fact, have always replied in kind, or with a cheerful: “And Happy Hanukkah to you!” 

     Big business and politics have no place in dictating change in objects of religious respect, and need to butt out! Small business owners and managers can help make a difference by simply honoring the Christmas Season as they have since childhood in wishing one and all a “MERRY CHRISTMAS!” and by suggesting those employees who agree, to do the same. 

     It is the joyful spirit of what the message represents that counts.    

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