“It Don’t Matter To Me!”

     That song title should be your answer (aside from the ungrammatical “don’t”) to any question about who’s to blame for this economy. All that matters in the end is what you are doing about it for your own business or professional practice.

     Whether you’re a doctor, a retailer, a small-size manufacturer, a distributor, agent, or service provider, it’s time to take a hard look at how you are dealing with your current spending plans. This, for example, is NOT the time to fold up the sales and customer service training rug and store it in the basement. Besides the fact that basement-stored rugs attract mold and mildew, there are better solutions.

     Check in with your local community college or adult education program for an inexpensive training option. Or, do it yourself! Or round-up a team of masters or doctoral students from a nearby university to put a program together for you.

     Many internship programs across the country award academic credits for firsthand real-life experiences. A combination of business and education or psychology majors should be able to package a good motivational training program for your business. Some training is better than no training!

     Just be sure you present such a program in the right light and discourage over-the-top expectations. Help your people to see such an occasion as an opportunity to foster idea exchanges and teamwork, instead of setting up training quality judgements. Point out that what they will get from any program is what they end up putting into it.

     Speaking of motivation, remember that small frequent rewards (like family entertainment arrangements and lunch invitations) are more meaningful in the overall scheme of things than high-priced permanent rewards (like salary/benefit increases).

     Look at ways to promote your business without having to bite the media advertising bullet that will undoubtedly break a tooth if not your wallet. www.BizBrag.com is a terrific free site to register with and post free news releases and newsy photos — every day if you like!

     People are selling everything under the sun on Twitter these days. Also for free. You need tenacious endurance to make Twitter work for you, but it will if you will. Didn’t tenacious endurance get you to where you are anyway? 

     Are you asking people in your family to help you with certain tasks that will help free up your time so you can be more focused on sales, for example? Maybe retired Uncle Harvey wouldn’t mind at all coming in a few times a week to do some light cleaning (in exchange for some sports tickets or a couple of dinners out) to help offset custodial service fees?

     Cover the tax-deductible cost of some business books for your college student son, daughter, neice, nephew, or cousin in exchange for some office, fieldwork or factory floor interns? Combine expenses with neighboring businesses? Shared transportation and shipping costs, even direct mail postage, advertising, clerical and website maintenance sharing are possible.

     Think it out. Tough it out. But stay focused in the process, and stimulate your OWN budget!    

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      . . . I’m open to your input anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thank you for visiting. Good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

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The 25-Hour Day:

Work, Sleep or Play?

     I am about to find more hours in the day to get something important done that I’ve been choosing to backseat since December. I know, I can almost hear all those sharp little skeptical, sarcastic comments now. But, you know what? I’m going to make more time anyway.

     Here’s the background: This is my 311th blog post in the past 370 days, and almost all of those missed were in the first couple of months. It takes me 1-2 hours every night to write, edit, post and cross-promote visitors to the blog through posts on other sites and networks.

     Kathy gave me a webcam for Christmas, and I haven’t made the time to use it or play with it enough to make it be a useful tool. Fridays are the slowest nights for blog visits. Makes sense, right? Who sits around on Friday nights reading blogs?

     Beginning tomorrow, Friday, May 1, 2009, I am going to stop writing Friday blog posts and use the time to start mastering the webcam and applications of it so that I can develop and deliver a series of video clips that will slowly replace Friday night written posts over the next 4-6 weeks, and serve a myriad of other business and educational purposes as well.

     I am working with a range of topics to help:

• Jumpstart entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ventures without investors 
• Offer step-at-a-time tight-budget marketing how-to’s for business owners and managers 
• Boost professional practice development for doctors and allied medical science and health professionals 
• Spell out proven personal and professional growth and development strategies and tactics for small business and corporate executives that will increase sales 
• Provide little-known proven job-hunting (and hiring) tips 
• Reveal the secrets of keeping “family” in the family business during hard times 
• Lay out a complete menu of practical and realistic ways to grow business in a stagnant economy

. . . among many other “here-and-now” subjects.

     I am planning to create and produce a few series of fast-paced and provocative 3-5 minute video clips. 

     I will greatly appreciate your ideas and feedback about the 3 top topics you would most like to see addressed, and the kinds of input you think would be most helpful to you. The more specific you can be with your suggestions and questions, the more specific I can be with my suggestions and answers. I look forward to hearing from you (email address below; phone number and mailing address at www.TheWriterWorks.com

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      . . . I’m open to your input anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thank you for visiting. Good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

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“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 these 18 words on your dashboard, mirror and refridgerator . . . 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 All My Children and 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 The Ultimate 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!       Good Night and God Bless You – halalpiar

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HAPPY FIRST BLOGBIRTHDAY!

For those of 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 and comment and subscribe, and urge your business, personal, and professional growth-minded friends and associates to stop by. I am always open to your ideas and suggestions. Please comment or email me anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (“Businessworks” in the subject line).

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HOORAY for the good guys!

     It’s not every day that a consultant like me can nominate a client (like i.g. Burton & Company) for an annual Better Business Bureau award as most outstanding family business in the state…and see them win!

     Even after my project engagement with the company ended, I had the good fortune to see this business be honored (tonight at the DuPont Hotel in downtown Wilmington, Delaware) at a formal reception dinner hosted by the Delaware BBB and Governor Jack Markell.

     Now if you’ve read this far, you may be wondering who is i.g. Burton & Company anyway? And there’s little doubt that if you don’t know, you will most definitely be surprised to learn that we’re talking about –of all things– a car dealership!

     i.g.Burton & Company is 101 years old. The company maintains five locations in Milford and Seaford, Delaware. They are one of the nation’s leading dealerships for Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep,  Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and are the world’s oldest Blue-Bird Bus dealership as well.

     They didn’t stand in line behind the automakers they represent, looking for bailout money. They didn’t pull in their rugs and move out of town when Chevrolet and Chrysler hit the rocks.

     In fact, they actually INCREASED their charitable contributions to needy organizations. They INCREASED their customer service training programs. And they went ahead and completed a 6 year-old monster construction project that helped keep hundreds of employees on payroll.

     Of course they have strong financial backing. But why? How did their backing become so commited? BECAUSE i.g. Burton demonstrated commitment to their customers, their employees and their community.

     They didn’t get to be 101 and win an Outstanding Family Business award in a faltering economy by being the stereotypical car dealers. They are fifth generation owned and operated. A great many of their employees have worked there for 15, 20, 25, 30, and more years! (This, in a day when most car dealers seem to keep employees just for those numbers of DAYS!)

     What’s the secret? i.g. Burton & Company has built a long-standing reputation for overkill customer service and for contributing to and supporting wholeheartedly the Delmarva Peninsula communities they serve. The have earned the BBB award, and statewide respect as business leaders.

     They will earn your respect too anytime you’re driving through Delmarva Peninsula (The 2nd biggest peninsula in the U.S., thank you, if you’re not counting Florida). Stop in. Say Hi. Congratulate them on their award. They’ll make you feel proud of it just for having visited. Well done, Burton Family. And well done, Burton Family of Employees!  

Good Night and God Bless You!  halalpiar     

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CLICK ON MAGAZINE ARTICLES TAB ABOVE FOR NEWEST PUBLISHED WORK ON “REDEFINING LEADERSHIP” STORY ABOUT 101 YEAR-OLD, BBB-AWARD-WINNING AUTO DEALERSHIP IN DESK MAGAZINE

“Your success in life will

depend on what you do

after you do what you

are expected to do!”

— FROM A STORY TOLD BY INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED

AUTHOR AND MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER BRIAN TRACY

     In its heyday, upstart computer giant IBM had a rallying cry that reverberated throughout the entire sales and customer service industry. The words, “The sale begins after the sale is made!” set the tone for an entire generation of customer service based sales and customer relationship management that followed.

     IBM support people were said to literally descend from the sky in parachutes within an hour of any service call. In fact, we are still following this tenacious, persistent, kill ’em with kindness, build-that-database, get-that-return-sale attitude. And actually, it’s more pronounced now than ever, ushered in by lightening fast advances in hi-tech and media communications, and the rapid advances in consumer savvyism.

     What does this mean for you, the entrepreneur, you the small business and professional practice owner/manager? Here are some thoughts to think:

     Brian Tracy’s quote at the top says it best. The point is that you who own/run a business are of necessity, engaged in sales. Keeping sales and production (that’s service production as well as product production) in balance is part of the alltime great entrepreneurial challenge. The whole world admires a one-man-band, but that doesn’t make producing the music any easier.

     Going the extra mile is what it’s all about. Moving forward even when you think you can’t is what it’s all about. Greatness has only ever come from those who pushed onward in the face of major losses, and who did it again and again.

     Edison tried unsuccessfully to invent the lightbulb 9,999 times before defeating the darkness. Babe Ruth’s incredible home run record was matched only by his incredible strikeout record. We all know and have seen many of the great Olympic performance hero stories. Each has always involved taking the extra step, even when all hope seems lost. 

     When you’ve completed what others (partners, family, employees, customers, vendors, industry and community associates) expect you to do, keep doing! Starting in a half hour before others and staying a half hour later is a good beginning. Making better use of time scheduling and delegating is another.

     Regardless of the tools you choose, it’s what’s under your hat that makes the difference…and the overriding awareness that whatever you do to exceed expectations is 100% your own choice. No one else will choose success for you and make it happen. But you can do both! Starting now.   

 Good Night and God Bless You!  halalpiar     

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Here, Mr. President:

Take this and run with it!

     Okay, all you government and big-business corporate executives, take this! Everyone except you guys knows that small business is the lifeblood of America, and that small business is the single greatest and most important creator of jobs. For now, we’ll forget about why you don’t know this, and just move forward.

     Here is what we need to straighten out the crooked economic path that you folks all contributed to and nurtured and reinforced. We need to present every American small business (1-20 employees) with a choice of 5 stimulus options. Before you laugh up your respective sleeves, re-read the first paragraph.

Here’s the select-one-only choice that needs to be offered:

1) You choose OPTION A and receive an outright, no-strings-attached grant from the government for $5,000 to be used against pay off of bills over 60 days old from the date of application. I shouldn’t need to spell out all the resultant benefits; just think about it for 30 seconds!  OR…

2) You choose OPTION B and receive a $15,000 payment for $15,000 retail value worth of your products or services, which you deliver to any government agency you choose that can use what you sell, or any charity of your choice if no government agency can use your products or services. Surely you need not think about what this would accomplish.  OR…

3) You choose OPTION C and receive $30,000 in two $15,000 payments, six months apart for creating one new parttime (20-hours/week) job with no benefits, and—using pre-determined criteria—prove the job’s existence and value after twelve months.  OR…

4) You choose OPTION D and receive $70,000 in six equal payments for creating one new fulltime (40-hours/week) job with benefits PLUS one new parttime (20-hours/week) job with no benefits, and—using pre-determined criteria—prove the existence and value of both jobs after twelve months.  OR…

5) You choose NONE of the above, and receive a $10,000 tax credit.

     Oh, but how would this ever be administered? Use the Energy Department which performs next to zero value services at any measurable level. They have enough personnel to oversee and monitor such a program. 

     You don’t like the details of this proposal? Then change them. Do anything you want with them, but do SOMEthing with them. Show small business the respect small business deserves!                                                                                                          

Here, Mr. President,

is the bottom line:

     You want to reverse the economy? You want people to be happier and healthier? You want to see new jobs created? Then stop asking other government employees with no business experience and corporate executives with no realistic sense of business operations how to do it.

(These people are corporate management operations experts; corporate management operations has nothing to do with the kinds of day-to-day small business activities that made this country great and that hold the key to today’s present need for economic recovery!)

     These people haven’t a clue. Their ideas are lethargic and unrealistic, and just plain won’t work because they don’t understand the down-to-earth dynamics of how to dig out of a hole. It takes a shovel and an I-can-do-it attitude.

     In our country, the only people with these tools are entrepreneurs and small business owners. Give them shovels (the 5 options above) and they will dig! All the corporate and government resources in the world will not get down in the trenches and get the job done.

Why? Because you cannot dig out of a hole while sitting

in a tower or the backseat of a limo or private jet.

     We are past the point of pretending. Politics aside for just one minute, if that’s possible, why is it that the people most capable of turning things around are not being given meaningful opportunities to do exactly that?

     If you, Mr. President, are willing to take what is a more-than-reasonable risk and charge small business with the solution, you will be astonished at how many of us will rise to the occasion and get the job done. I hope only that this thinking makes it to your doorstep while there’s still time to act on it.  

Good Night and God Bless You!  halalpiar     

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Hope Is NOT The Answer.

(Neither is government spending nor business borrowing!)

     The old business adage, “NOTHING HAPPENS ‘TIL THE SALE IS MADE” applies more today than ever! I have noted here often that budget slashing, and save-on-expenses mentalities end up digging an even deeper hole because they divert energy away from what needs to be done to put the economy on a rebound and growth track.

     Economic recovery can ONLY happen when more businesses decide to make it happen. We have to blow off mainstream media’s efforts to drag the public into the maelstrom they’re busy creating in their relentless quest to sell more print advertising space and more broadcast commercial time.

     When businesses decide to focus on sales and entrepreneurial pursuits, we will see increased financial stability across the boards. Sounds simple, huh? Unfortunately, our own business-inexperienced government is essentially leading the blockade to progress on this front…token small business incentives don’t cut it!

     Add to the government’s misguided energy and maniacal spend and borrow and tax mentality the sad truth is that many business people have simply given up, and the saving-grace focus we’re talking about turns out to not be so simple after all. 

     Government spending and business borrowing? Digest this (following) quote made 5 days ago in a European Parliament speech by Daniel Hannon MEP who was targeting the English Prime Minister with some realistic advice:

You cannot spend your way out of recession,

or borrow your way out of debt!”

[See www.Hannon.co.uk for more.]

     If you are an entrepreneur or run your own business, you need to be resolute in your thoughts and actions. You need to be literally invulnerable in your convictions that hope may spring eternal, but it simply does NOT fuel or grow business in any way–never has, never will. ONLY sales do that.

     Like throwing two baseballs at equal velocity with both arms simultaneously, the most difficult task for any entrepreneur or business owner is to be running your business and selling your business at the same time. Yet that is what has to happen.

     This means, you must be willing and able to go the extra mile with customers, prospects, employees, vendors, your industry, your community, your family, and your own health and fitness. Dropping any one of these from the pursuit equation will collapse the energy around those that remain.

     Okay, HOW? you ask. By paying attention to having fun instead of feeling pressure (the feeling-pressure guys have already boarded up and left town). By paying more attention to exercise and eating and sleeping right, by laughing more, and by learning and using stress management techniques , by taking a yoga class, a jog, a walk, another walk, more walks. 

     As for help, what’s suggested here isn’t much, but–like everything else in life–suggestions are what you make of them. It’s always your choice about how to proceed. The rest of what happens is up to you.  

Good Night and God Bless You!  

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When the chips are down,

entrepreneurs switch to pretzels

     When a consumer product manufacturer or service provider needs to dig up more business–even in such a mainstream media created economic vacuum as we’re presently being sucked deeper and deeper into– there are literally endless resources spelling out a myriad of strategic avenues and approaches…not to mention equally endless tactical options, methods, and techniques.

     But let’s say you have a B2B business. You provide services to the product manufacturers and service providers. Maybe you’re a customer service training organization or a building custodial service or a website design and maintenance business. Where do you go?

     The big guys are choking. They’ve wiped out training budgets, they’re cutting back building cleaning frequency, and they’re making do with their internal IT people to keep their websites functionable.

     How do you get these corporate giants to stand still long enough to consider adding or extending your services when they are in this budget-slashing frame of mind? How do you tell a company that’s laying off employees that they need customer service training now more than ever because the best source of business is existing and past business, and they’d better step up those relationships? 

     The big product and service guyscan make it nearly impossible for the little B2B guys to survive. Ah, but that’s where entrepreneurial spirit rises to the top. When the chips are down, entrepreneurs switch to pretzels. And guess what? Entrepreneurial hi-tech-anchored businesses are not only breaking the communications barrier, they are pulling entire legions of small B2B businesses along with them…not very unlike the makings of the industrial revolution.

     So once again, it is small business to the rescue, even as big business is being rewarded with government trillions for having screwed up the marketplace beyond recognition, and then for having sidestepped the wiser path of bankruptcy

…wiser because it would have forced more efficient operations and more effective products and services

…wiser because it would have spared us all ten more years’ worth of beating our collective brains in, to raise the taxes and repay the debts that are being used now to feather union beds in return for their political support. 

     What a sad and sick commentary on society that we’ve come to this. How fortunate we all are that the entrepreneurial spirit does still live, and will ultimately bring us a return to respectability, assuming the White House doesn’t continue paying off political promises with our hard-earned tax dollars. But it’s what we must all want. We elected zero business experience.

Good Night and God Bless You!  

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Who Woulda Thunk It?

I’ve been running across so many situations lately I could only categorize as unlikely business bets that I’m wondering about this economy spawning an epidemic of them, and whether I might indeed indulge the sensibilities of visitors to this blog with periodic excursions into business unliklihood. What say you?

     First, though seemingly unlikely on the surface, is the speculative category of business that I’ll simply label as a “SHORE BET” because it goes like this: You can be sure (shore?) that all the weeping and gnashing of business owner, manager and entrepreneur teeth (alotta gnashing, right!) is taking place inland. Inland? What’s that supposed to mean?

     Businesses located on coastlines— oceans, bays, lakes, rivers –are more insulated from economic downturns I am told repeatedly by coastal business owners. What? Are you sober? You have research? No. I have instincts and experience. I have ears that listen to business owners and operators who have weathered some tough financial storms.

     An increasing number of (perhaps wishful, but) confident-sounding people are of the conviction that businesses that depend on waterfront industries and (especially) tourism, are actually gathering strength in anticipation of the further collapse of inland business cousins.

     They say that when people have fewer dollars to part with for vacations, they don’t cancel vacations, they travel closer to home, and they look for self-sufficient environments where thay can pay all-inclusive fees that include meals and other amenities. They look for areas that provide inexpensive assorted entertainment and amusement choices and full range food and beverage options.

     Naturally, I think about where I live in coastal Delaware, and the magnificent seashore here that is beginning to host more and more vacationers (and year-long weekenders) from NY, NJ, PA, VA, MD, and NC than ever before. It’s almost like our coastline has been quietly waiting to be discovered by nearby state travelers who are finding vacation rewards so abundant that they wonder why they ever headed for all those crowded Florida destinations to start with.

NEXT, is baseball mud!

     As long as we have baseball, we’ll have baseball mud…highly specialized “Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud” that has been helping professional baseball pitchers get a better grip on the ball…that comes from a special secret location in a hidden New Jersey swamp!

     Now, talk about an unlikely business bet! Imagine Mr. Blackburne coming to you for startup capital in 1938.

     “Well, I got me this magic mud that professional baseball leagues will be buying from me for over 70 years. They’re going to age it for a month and a half. We’re going to sell them three-pound vats, two for each team in the majors, and that’ll hold them a full season…”

     “Yeah, right, mud, uhuh, sure, okay, well I’m not sure that’s such a good investment, Mr. B…”

     The amazing part is it’s true! And the company is highly successful. [Who woulda thunk it?]

Good Night and God Bless You!  halalpiar     

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READY . . . SET . . .

Security? Check. Employee I.D. badges? Check. Food and beverage service areas? Check. Trash pails? Check. Entertainment and sound system set-ups? Check. Parking? Check. Clean up? Check. Handouts? Check. Prizes for drawings? Check. News conference agenda? Check…

     Tonight’s grand opening of a new (years-in-the-making) BMW and Mercedes-Benz dealerships state-of-the-art-one-of-a-kind building sets the stage for an entire regional business community journey into economic recovery.

     But nothing about coordinating two diverse and highly competitive luxury car-makers interests under one single roof has been easy or accidental. Tonight’s event promises to host over 700 people. Many of the RSVP’s came from BMW and Mercedes-Benz owners who want to see the new sales and service center firsthand because it is such an exceptional facility.

     The owner/customers will get a better understanding of the fiber optics communication systems that allow this unique building to be in instantaneous purchase, service, and repair communication with car-maker headquarters in Germany.

     They’ll see the green process that recycles used car oil into heating the huge service-bay area. Building tours will also highlight owner observation windows and closed circuit TV system that allow owners to monitor technician work on their vehicles, among many other features.   

So what are you getting from this special event announcement? 

1) Businesses that plan ahead for better customer service capabilities AS they continue to manage day-to-day activities, eventually come to the day of reckoning, and economic conditions need not have and negative or delaying impact on that day, or days that follow

2) Regarding the invitations, keep focused on the truism that the best source of business is existing and past business, and continue to knock yourself out to please your past and present customers above all other marketing targets

3) If you think this kind of razzmatazz is only worthy of pursuit by abandoning other functions like customer service, think again. Cherishing and nurturing long-term customer and community relationships all the while is what makes it all work. 

4) When you have something new and exciting to bring to market, turn your tendancy to brag into a commitment to share and show appreciation to the community that supports your business. What goes around comes around.  

BOTTOM LINE? Don’t let exaggerated media reports get you so focused on business survival tactics that you start to overlook the need for planning. Planning needs to stay in the mix. It will give birth down the road to those big “15 minutes of fame” type moments when your business can step into the spotlight and get the boost it deserves. If you’ve dropped this ball because of economic woes, pick it back up and run with it . . . before your competitor recovers the fumble!  

God Bless You and Good Night!  halalpiar     

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