The Problems Start Tuesday!  

If you own or manage a business, you’d better sit up and take notice at the plans being made for the week ahead.  [And what I am about to say here is not out of bitterness or sour grapes.  It is out of common sense.  It is out of respect for those Americans whose vigilence and acts of bravery have given us the freedom to be able to speak out and challenge abusive leadership no matter its source.]

     So, Is it just my imagination (isn’t that a song?) or doesn’t it seem inappropriate (like taking poverty-stricken people to a casino) and inauspicious (not conducive to success) AT THIS PARTICULAR STRESSED-OUT TIME IN AMERICAN HISTORY to be spending so frivilously and lavishly for Presidential Inaugural celebrations? 

     Okay, maybe it’s just me.

     Am I dreaming that Joe-the-plumber Americans have been rocked back on their heels with worries about how to take a more fiscally responsible personal and business spending path right now?  Am I alone seeing that most Americans appear to be clutching their pocketbooks like never before?  Or am I just fantasizing all this?

Why would ANYone with a conscience (hmmm) who is about to take control of the planet’s most powerful country, including all the ingredients that determine our nation’s economic well-being –or state of dissipation as the case may be– think for even two (2) seconds that over-spending for such self-aggrandizement and self-serving ends is an okay thing to do? 

     Do you think it’s okay?  I certainly don’t.  I don’t believe your’re “entitled” to a honeymoon when your family is starving just because you ran a successful political campaign.  And I believe we are obliged to question the man’s judgement. 

     What would ever make the new president think he is endearing himself to those he’s been chosen to represent by pissing away (pardon the term; it’s the most accurate I could muster) their hard-earned taxpayer dollars? 

What makes it okay to lend mere lip-service and tacit approval-by-avoidance to skyrocketing forclosure and bankruptcy levels then turn around to hold an extravagant party to celebrate oneself with cash wrenched from our wallets and our children’s piggybanks and our aging parent’s fixed incomes? 

     You don’t believe it?  Here’s a perfect example (and you won’t hear much about this from the idolizing, fawning, he-can-do-no-wrong mainstream media): Teetering on the precipice of financial collapse, the State of Maryland is reported to be coughing up ELEVEN MILLION DOLLARS for inaugural expenses. 

     The list of how many millions of dollars are about to be wasted is exceeded in shamefulness only by the list of dire financial circumstances surrounding the States that are being arm-bent into donating. 

Here’s a question:  Given the sorry state of America’s economy, if it was YOUR inauguration, do you think YOU might forego some of the megamillions of dollars worthy of pomp and circumstance and direct some (or heaven forbid, all) of the funds earmarked for partying into some high need areas? 

     Small business incentives, for example, could serve to create jobs.  Many self-sacrificing, battered, struggling military families could use their own “bailouts” — cash for food, transportantion and heating fuel (with apologies to Internet inventor Al Gore whose global warming theories . . . well, you can finish the rest of that sentence) would take America a great deal further than a week-long bash!

     On top of the points I made in a recent post here. . . that we are now faced with the two top leaders of our country possessing zero (0) business experience between them and, correspondingly, no appreciation for entrepreneurs being the ultimate catalysts of change . . . we are also forced to stand by helplessly watching Tuesday’s shameless splurge of outrageous expenses that could be better used to save lives and buysinesses.

     You own or manage a business?  Beware!  Stay alert!  Don’t get hurt!  We are on our own more than ever before.  Let’s keep our shoulders together and move forward as a unit of influence.  We are, after all, here to leave our marks on the world, aren’t we?  We have to make opportunities from the problems we face, the REAL problems , , , the ones that start on Tuesday.   halalpiar

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 128 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

You will get what you want

if you help enough other

people to get what they want!

     Scenerio: You’re supposed to be an entrepreneur.  You got yourself into a business startup situation that’s cash short and you’ve got to make it work but can’t afford the tools you need, or even the workspace.

     Scenerio: You own or run an established business that has been steadily shrinking with the economy and the future is looking glum because you can’t seem to drive the customer base you need to buy your products or services.

Aw, those are two totally different situations, Hal. You can’t address them both in one blog and solve them with one solution.

Yup!  You’re probably right.  I also don’t pretend to have all the answers.  But I am pretty good at igniting sparks.  I mean, all ya gotta do is rub two businesses together to start a fire!  How about the two examples?

The entrepreneur thinks she needs cash to furnish an office and pay for workspace to start her computer seo consulting enterprise.  The old guy runs a 5o year-old lumber yard and his historically reliable contractor customers are at a construction standstill.

With the lumber yard so quiet, surely there’s a spare corner’s worth of office space somewhere that’s easily furnished with makeshift benches, shelves and tabletops.  There shouldn’t be any shortage of electric lines and even soundproofing should be readily available.

With all the belt-tightening going on, homeowners are turning inward to add onto and improve existing living space on their own, armed with do-it-yourself books, neighborhood teens looking to make a few bucks to support their text message and ipod habits, and a trial and error attitude.

The entrepreneur sees the opportunity and moves in for the kill — but it’s a mutual benefit kill.  With win-win as an objective, the strategy unfolds.  She barters for the space and makeshift furniture in exchange for email blasts to his homeowner database announcing free seminars run by local (out-of-work) contractor experts teaching attendees how to add a room onto their homes, how to convert an attic or basement into living space, etc.

Homeowners learn for free.  Homeowners purchase materials at the lumber yard and hire contractor/teachers for parttime on-site consulting.  The entrepreneur gets commissions on the referrals, makes numerous business contacts from among the homeowner classes, and helps pump up the lumber yard website by tying in a contractor blog site for helping unemployed roofers, framers, etc. find work.

Disneyland?  Not if you decide to make it work and are willing to try out new ways of doing business that help you achieve your goals without spending money.  It starts by opening your mind to possibilities, and by figuring out that you will always get what you want if you help enough other people to get what they want.  There are millions of scenerios out there.  Be one.       halalpiar

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After all the hoopla,

comes stark reality.

     You run a business?  You know what I’m talking about.  You’ve been there.  You get your 100th (or 1000th or 1000000th) customer and you pull out all the stops to celebrate.  But in the haze of the next day’s hangover, you realize the ugly truth that you need to confront reality by picking up the pace to double-speed. 

     After pausing to pat yourself on the head, you need to jump back on the ever-accelerating merry-go-round.  You also know that when I say I’m sorry to have to be the one to not pull the wool over your eyes, I mean it.   

     Really.  I know there are many masochistic media-gobbling types out there who actually like being duped and manipulated.  But the truth is that next week’s Presidential Inauguration–which may be historic for some questionable reasons– is not about to mark the turn of anything more monumental than its own celebration venues.    

     Those of us who have inherited or built business enterprises from scratch understand that we are facing a long and difficult road ahead.  In just a few days, we will be seating a new President and a new Vice President who have not only never run a business, but who have zero business experience between them and have never managed any entity of substance . . . not even a National Guard unit!    

     These two politicians haven’t a shred of experience with entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial spirit, entrepreneurial thinking, attitude, or commitment to pursuits of enlightened self-interest.  While they may acknowledge that entrepreneurs built this country, they don’t have a clue that entrepreneurs are the true catalysts of change.  And yet they talk change.    

     As an owner or manager, your business is on the line.  No matter how recession-proof you think you are, you’re not.  No matter how bullet-proof you think you are, you’re not.    

     The only changes we, as business leaders, need are for government to do better at providing incentives that allow businesses to grow and thrive and create jobs . . . to do better at sealing and protecting our borders, and at preventing terrorist invasions of our homeland and cyberspace.  All the rest is talk.    

     A word to the wise, Messrs. Obama and Biden: BUSINESS is what makes America go, not educator tenures, not employee unions, not unchecked and unenforceable immigration policies, not foodstamps, not welfare rolls, not frivilous deep-pocket taxdollar funding of the arts, and not tax hikes to cover all the give-aways.    

     Failure to support and nurture America’s businesses is at the peril of America’s people. 

halalpiar                               # # # 

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 126 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.   

“You see things; and you say

 ‘Why?’  But I dream things that

never were; and I say ‘Why not?’

— GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

     Sounds great, doesn’t it?  Inspirational as can be, right? Terrific motivational stuff, yes?  Easy thinking for any entrepreneur to buy into, isn’t it? 

     Therein lies the problem. 

     From the foundations of innovation springs disaster masquerading as the allures of conquest. 

     Unless you, Mr. and Ms. Entrepreneur, are engaged in the birth of a business, or a new way to do something more effectively and more efficiently, your innovative spirit may be courting notions of self-destruct.  In other words, if you are trying to build a better looking mousetrap when you’ve already got one that works, you may be taking your business enterprise over the falls without a lifejacket or even a barrel. 

     There’s nothing wrong with promulgating the policy of “if it ain’t broke, fit it anyway!”  BUT there’s a lot wrong with innovating just for the sake of innovating.  And knowing how and when and where to draw that thin line is a talent best left to those with genuine frontline experience and a sense of fiscal balance . . . those who understand the difference between self-centered “low trust” and consumer-driven “high trust” performances.  

     Perhaps you don’t agree, but manufacturer presentations by Samsung and Panasonic at this past week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas took on the role of “profitability unconsciousness” one-upmanship in their relentless (and brainless) pursuit of thinner and thinnest TV screens (now measured at cardboard thickness of 6.5 millimeters!). 

     “YYSSW” as many of our kids might text message in response (“Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, whatever”).

     I call this misguided, unrealistic, over-the-top entrepreneurial ambition run amuck.  How can big successful companies possibly think that inspiring and nurturing the kinds of entrepreneurial brainstorms that produce the world’s thinnest TV screens has any relevance in an economy-squeezed marketplace that really doesn’t give a damn?

     It’s hard to call successful businesses like these mismanaged, but the truth is they are fostering fantasy at a point in history where only realism and “high trust” corporate developments count for anything. 

     Oh, I’m wrong?  You can’t wait to run out and buy the latest thin screen TV?  And then there’s the new top of the line Apple laptop for $2,800.  Give me a break, people!  Are you planning to fall in behind the automakers in search of government bailouts for 2009?

     You, dear electronics industry executives, may think that because the general public has now come to view your products more as necessities than luxuries, that it’s okay to commit consumer rape and armed robbery.  If you’re not working on your resumes right now, you’re dumber than any of us non-techies ever imagined. 

     The public is not stupid.  And when you ignite entrepreneurial explosives with the goal of taking advantage of the public, that’s when entrepreneurial spirit kills, and that’s when you’d better doubletime it out of town!  halalpiar   

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 125 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

BEAT THE BUSHES (NAW,

NOT GEORGE AND JEB)!

     If this economy is strangling your wallet, step back and take an honest look at what you’re doing to make a living.  A major dinnerware store closed this week.  Duh!  The most expensive special events photography business in the poorest town around just folded.  You gotta be kidding; there must not be many special events!  The local tuxedo store is on its last legs.  REEEAlly?  (When was your last tuxedo?)    

Well, there’s always the cliche path: If the bullet you’re biting is starting to hurt your teeth, it may be time for you to climb down off your high horse (yeah, the one on drugs!), beat the bushes (Naw, not George and Jeb!), and think about pounding the pavement (Ouch! The vibrations!))))) for some new way (with apologies to Porky Pig) to bring home the bacon!

     Serious that the time may have come when it would be smart to take a hard look at whether what you’re doing right now can survive tough (or tougher) times. 

     If you’ve just, for example, finished years of writing your first book that you expect should bring you millions (or even thousands!) and you’re thinking about giving up the day job to find a literary agent to help you sell it to a big-time publishing house (Shazam!  That sounds so easy, doesn’t it?), I hate to be the one to tell you to stay with the crummy day job, but the agent/publisher pursuit could take years also… stay with the crummy day job!     

     If you’re selling the latest in fashionable men’s dress clothes, pay attention to the dwindling supply of fashionably-dressed men.  You might as well be selling CB radios and 8-track cassette players (whatever those are). 

     Consider moving your career path (or business direction if you run your own business), toward a market or industry that is more recession-proof. 

     Now I realize that not all of you will want to leap into the air shouting, “Aha! That’s the suggestion I’ve needed.  Now I can go apply for a job with the funeral home; THEY’LL never run out of customers!”

     No-sir-ee-bob!  This is definitely true.

     But, aaah, I DO know that there are a few folks out there clinging to their liferafts and the seas are getting more turbulent.  It may mean having to adjust your marketing messages to fit a better, more productive, more stabilized niche.  Or it may mean having to scramble and take a second crummy job as a quick-fix solution.  

     Sometimes, it may be simply a matter of switching gears, like the old lemon/lemonade advice.  Or maybe somebody else in the household needs to start tossing a few bucks in the kitty!  Whatever you need to do, do it!  Don’t stand around thinking and talking about it for weeks on end.  Those few weeks of opportunity losses could be enough to sink the liferaft. 

     Oh, and just in case you are that writer I alluded to, you might have to give up your great American novel dreams for now and do some other kind of work, but guess what?  You’ll be gathering experience for your next book!  

     It may not, when all is said and done, actually be the exact right time to find a need and fill it as the headline suggests, but it certainly is time to consider the alternatives.          halalpiar

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 121 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

Have we boxed ourselves

into an Internet corner?

News stories posted yesterday and today recount the equivalent of a meteorologist “Storm Watch” from an FBI Assistant Director who has issued warning statements that there is strong reason to believe the United States may be moving closer to the next 9/11, in the form of a massive terrorist attack on government, business and personal computer systems.  

     Alarmist tendancies aside (and doubtless, we all cringe at the thought), it is probably needless to say that the impact of such an event could be total devastation, and horribly crippling at the least, to life as we know it.  Or would it? 

     Would a “Cybergeddon” destroy our nation?  Hardly.  If anything, such an event would instead steel our commitment to root out and punish these evil impersonators of human beings.

     Surely, Americans are–and have always been–first and foremost, fighters and survivors.  It is in our blood to serve as defenders of freedom, and protectors of the free world. 

     This will not change no matter how sick and ruthless our nation’s enemies become.  This will not change no matter what President and Congress are captaining our ship.  This will not change no matter what loss of power nor amount of suffering borne.

     We need look no further than the freedom we enjoy from the vigilence of our brave young men and women of our armed forces to know the spirit of our country and all of what’s right about our citizens. 

     If indeed an attempt at Cybergeddon is imminent, so is the resistence of Americans everywhere, so is the spunk and gumption and resilience and resolve that runs through our veins, so is our faith in God and country and in friends and neighbors, faith that will –in the end as in the past– win out.

     We are a people of determination as fierce as our compassion. 

     Our ingenuity is as pervasive as our vast entrepreneurial resources.  

     Let those who would seek to undermine and murder and be mindless, also be served the same fair warning that was once before unfurled as the rally cry for The American Revolution:

Don’t Tread On Me!            

halalpiar

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 119 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

You’ve only one year to live.

What do you do with yourself?

Your business?

     Far-fetched?  Hopefully, yes.  But possibly, no.  It’s often been said that all of life is simply preparation for death, and that all we ever do from the moment of birth, is begin to die.  That’s admittedly some pretty heady philosophical stuff that many of us shy away from thinking about. 

     But is it worth considering? 

     Of course (unless, that is, you have little or no regard for yourself, your business, your family and friends, in which case –assuming you are reading this– you are probably a hermit in a cave with a laptop, and it’s probably time for you to rub some sticks together and begin thinking about what’s for dinner!) 

     Okay, back to serious for a minute, what are the first three things you think of in answer to each of the two headline (in dark red) questions above?  What do you think about your answers?

     What about if those questions followed a revised headline statement that said: You’ve only 6 months to live . . . ? 

     Would your answers change?  How?  How much?  And what if the headline statement only gave you one day? 

     This exercise can be very useful in the thinking process of establishing both life and business priorities (as well as delegating, and decision making) because whatever your responses may be, they serve to push the envelope.  It’s hard to imagine choosing to spend time doing tasks of avoidance, and harder still to imagine assigning lesser values to the tasks that are most important. 

     By forcing your focus on this for a minute or two, you can almost always prompt yourself to assess and evaluate situations and options (especially stressful ones) more realistically.  You will certainly make yourself more productive (the way you are the day before you leave for vacation?) more often. 

     Yes, yes, I know, you might rather join the hermit hunting down some berries and a squirrel to BBQ.  (I’ve heard the furs can actually be quite warm, assuming you’ve managed to save them from a few dozen meals’ worth, and sew them together. Okay, Gorilla Glue.)

     So, give it a chance (not the squirrel fur!).  For a grand total of about 2 minutes of applying your mind to such a “what if” circumstance, you stand to gain a finely-tuned and highly accurate appraisal of what’s important and what’s not, and what should be tackled in what order.  It sure beats dusting file tops, alphabetizing your DVD’s, and counting out-of-state license plates in a parking lot!

     “Bah!  Dis exercise is nuttin’ so revealin’,” you might exclaim. 

     Okay, so take it one more step.  You with me?  Get a piece of paper out (I know, you don’t own any paper; well, borrow a piece!) and write out your own obituary notice.  Ah, now there’s a challenge.  Notice what you mention first and second and third (and last) about your life.  Pay attention to what you have to say about you.  THAT’s what’s important!                halalpiar  

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 114 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

CRM=?

CRM=Customer Relationship Management, on the one hand, and CRM=Customer Retention Management, on the other.  Which is it?  Why does it matter?  Who cares?  Aren’t they both the same anyway?

Whoa!  First of all, there’s a remarkably big difference.  I heard a major sales muckity-muck from a humongous corporate entity–who really should know better–give a presentation today to one of my clients, and he tossed out the terms interchangeably before finally parking himself in the retention garage.

A careless miscue methinks.  Something about that ambivalence represented his whole attitude, which was essentially to laugh and smile his way through misleading and oh-one-more-thing half-truth price quotes that seemed to change with each clock tick closer to New Year’s.

Managing relationships with customers and attracting new ones by virtue of positive-oriented, proactive processes that involve some give and take, some sharing, the development of “high trust,” and mutual respect based on consistent demonstrations of integrity is where best-practice, leadership companies continue to move.

On the flip side, managing to retain or keep customers is a negative-oriented, knee-jerk reactive, desperation-based process that amounts to clinging-on-to-customer behaviors and seeking to appease at all costs . . . even giving away the store (or farm, or horse, or youngest son or whatever)because customer RETENTION programs are driven by insecurities and fears.

Ah, yes, well there is that little economic suffocation pit we’re thinking we need to be crawling out of.  Bull!  If you think that, you show that, and you won’t sell stilts to pygmies.  Get off your knees and out of the hole and stand up tall and sell value and sell your confident self!  Focus on the relationship!

And customers, by the way, get this.  It’s easy to spot people selling their wares from a position of perceived weakness, compared to those who register in the strong zone as they present themselves.

Think about it.  Would you rather have someone level with you and work to cultivate a relationship with you, or speak to you with crooked mouth and work to retain you?  There’s a much bigger difference in the RE words (RElationship and REtention) than most probably stop to think about.

The differences though account for the both the personality and the character of a given company.  Because the difference is a matter of attitude.

Attitude, we might want to remind ourselves is what accounts for the difference between success and failure, on the athletic field, on the stage, on the factory floor, in the farmland, the office cubicle, the great outdoors (to make sure we cover all you forest rangers, lumberjacks, truck drivers, lifeguards and ski patrol people out there), the boardroom, or the computer workstation.

It’s all about attitude.  All. 

What’s YOUR business ALL about?                  

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 931.854.0474    Hal@BusinessWorks.US

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Is what you’re doing right this

very minute taking you to

where you want to go?

     You run your own business, or a number of businesses.  You know who you are.  You know you’re an entrepreneur but you don’r readily admit it.  (Why?  Some other time.)  Right now, what matters is that you step back for the couple of minutes it takes to read this, and pat yourself on the back.

     What’s the reward backpat for?  You deserve to appreciate yourself for believing in yourself.  And you should probably get a medal for keeping your ego in check enough to engage the “missing ingredient” help you need from those with the expertise to excel at the tasks you never mastered.

     You haven’t been squirreled away this holiday season assessing your past business moves and decisions and carefully designing your next gameplan strategy for 2009.  I know this because I know if you are truly the stuff entrepreneurs are made of, these are things you do weekly, if not daily or hourly. 

     While others are racking their brains with planning exercises, you are busy testing and trying new ideas and new twists on old ideas.  You do this trial and error thing all year long because there’s just not enough time to take your advisory board on a retreat weekend, or lock up in some hotel room for days on end talking each other’s brains out. 

     That’s time that could be spent doing it, right?   

     In fact, odds are you hate to think about or plan anything farther out than about 60-90 days.  You prefer not thinking past 30!  And you’d rather get in and out of a convenience store with breakfast to eat while you drive than to sit down in a restaurant for more than 15-20 minutes, or at home where you’d have to waste time cleaning up after yourself, except maybe on Saturday or Sunday, when you can move a little slower. 

     Shopping excursions you actually enjoy are probably limited to Staples or Office Max, and to Lowes or Home Depot.  I say all this just to let you know I get it.  I got it.  And, you, as independent a cuss as you may be, are not –surprise– alone.  I’ve been working with entrepreneurial whack-o’s like you most of my life because I love the challenge, high energy, enthusiasm, and turn-on-a-dime response level.

     What’s important to know is that YOU, and others who fit chunks of this profile I’ve outlined, are the catalysts in society that in fact make the world go around. 

     If it was not for you and other dreamer/doers we would surely no longer be a (at least partly) civilized nation on this fragile planet.  There would be no industry or marketplace or culture or technology to speak of.

     Now with all this positive fluff floating around, it’s also important that –to be and/or continue to be successful– you maintain a balance with reality.  This means you need to be forever vigilent about  recognizing one extremely critical entrepreneurial business factor. 

The foundation of your business rests squarely on shifting sands, and the stability of your enterprise is only as strong as your ability to remain flexible enough to shift when the sands shift. 

     Those who entrench themselves thrive only in corporate environments that lack this balance and awareness.  And you can only maintain your own ability to go with the flow by staying focused on which ways the moving targets move. 

     Is what you’re doing right now with your business growth, development, and presentation of itself (how it communicates its messages) keeping a step ahead of the pace within the universe of business you’ve chosen?  Is what you’re doing right this very minute taking you to where you want to go?

     In other words, for example: Are you making the best possible most-in-demand kinds of pizzas with the best possible ingredients for the market you most want to capture and presenting them at the price and service level that will usher in the sales you need to generate the profits you want? 

     REMEMBER:  Shifting sands work just fine when you’ve got a four-wheel drive vehicle, can deflate and inflate your tires according to how packed the surface is, have a couple of pieces of planking with you in case you get stuck, and are constantly monitoring wind, tide and precipitation (where appropriate), temperature and other weather conditions.

     Stay alert.  Don’t get hurt.  Build bridges, but don’t burn them.  Make sure the risks you take are “REASONABLE.”  Always imagine a “worst case scenerio” before you act. 

Remember your energy and the people around you in your life are your most importanat assets. Protect them by keeping on top of your stress, not under it!

halalpiar

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See Nov 29th post (Nov Archives, far right) for New Year’s contest prize and rules – Then GO FOR IT!  Emails to Hal@TheWriterWorks.com with “SOUNDS OF THE SEASON” in the subject line.          # # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 108 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

     ‘Twas the day after Christmas, and all through the house, were new toys, new clothes, new computer and mouse. While I on my YouTube, Mama all a Twitter, forum posts on Face could make Rudolph jitter.

OMG!  What to our wondering eyes did appear but a pile of wrappings, half-filled glasses of cheer; some wine in this one; in the other, some beer.

Then out on the lawn, there arose such a clatter, it was junior’s new pull toy descending the ladder that Santa had climbed to get up on our roof when Blitzen drank beer and twisted her hoof . . . Okay, okay.  Enough! 

     It’s back to business and personal inventory time. 

     It’s that time of year to itemize, sort out, assess, adjust and go forward. 

•      So, what didn’t work this past year? (Not “why?”; that might take weeks to answer, just “What?”). 
•      And what, praytell, is working now? 
•      What needs to be eliminated? 
•      And 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 after hours of research and surveying, 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!

     What you choose as a course of action may be wrong, but 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 layover to get yourself more focused if need be, simply by choosing!  (Since all behavior is a choice.) . 

     No excuses here.  Get hopping! 

     It’s YOU and YOUR BUSINESS that need your input and guidance and decision making as the 2009 bell starts to ring.  No one else can do it for you!                        halalpiar 

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See Nov 29th post (below) for New Year’s contest prize and rules – Then GO FOR IT!  Emails to Hal@TheWriterWorks.com with “SOUNDS OF THE SEASON” in the subject line.          # # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 107 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.