Jul 01 2010
Archive for the 'Time Management' Category
Jun 16 2010
Married to your business?
And now . . .
DANCING TOGETHER
for the first time as
Mr. and Mrs. Business
. . .
Okay, the honeymoon is over (thanks to our business-deficient federal government leadership that is relentlessly trying to drive small business into the ground). The envelopes of cash have been spent. The champagne has fizzled away and been replaced by more economical tastes: a “cupala brewskies” we tell the bartender.
As we settle into the kind of more serious and more revealing relationship that matrimonial vows give way to, we discover reality!
BONG! I’m married to my business! OMG, what’s next? Please don’t tell me we’re expecting a new baby business. I’ve hardly figured out how to get my arms around the big one. Sound familiar?
The real problem is that marrying your business has a tendency to overwhelm and upset, and some-times replace, a real husband and wife marriage.
The business “family” (customers. employees, suppliers and vendors, investors, referrers, business associations and organizations, trade and professional groups and pursuits, and the business neighborhood and community) can readily –by stampede or by creeping isolation– become more demanding, and ultimately more demanding than your real family.
Hopefully, you saw or will see this coming in time to reinvent yourself and patch things up, or seek professional help. Many do. Some don’t.
You’re an entrepreneur? It comes with the territory that your life has to suffer at the hands of your business spirit. Or does it?
Plenty of successful business owners have found marriage partners and family situations that allow them to strike a balance with and harmonize their lives. Seeking and winning this balance should be the first thing students learn in entrepreneur school.
Unfortunately, very few actually go to school to learn what has historically been a predominantly inherent skill set. Entrepreneurship thrives among those with predictable personalities and character traits.
Almost universally, entrepreneurs dislike and rebel against authority, discipline, and organizational detail. They are innovators and dreamers with burning desires to see their ideas succeed. They are not –as popularly believed– in it for the money. They do not–as popularly believed– take unreasonable risks.
And if you are one, you well know that personal life is a challenge that often gets in the way while trying to build a business life.
Having worked with many hundreds of entrepreneurs over the years, I would suggest that business quests will be easier and quicker to achieve and much more productive when you can first build and strengthen the authenticity of the personal relationships and family that will support your lamebrain ideas and schemes during the tough times that will surely come. And you will be healthier and happier for their love.
Don’t take my word for it. Take your own. Look in the mirror and remind yourself that your behavior is your choice. Choose first to be a person with a mission to make a difference in life, before running off to chase your vision to make a difference in business.
302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US
Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!
God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]
Make today a GREAT day for someone!
Jun 08 2010
The Soft Side of Business
Helping the needy
doesn’t mean
competitors will
eat you for dinner
In fact, quite the contrary. When you slow down or stop your business-wheels long enough to reach off your merry-go-round and help some of those who can only afford to stand off to the side and watch you calliope-music your way around in circles, you are investing in your community . . . and ultimately in your own business, if you’re smart enough to make it newsworthy.
“Charity starts at home” isn’t just a sarcastic jab at humor.
But most businesses either fail at trying to make newsworthiness out of nothing, or at thinking that efforts to proclaim newsworthiness out of acts of generosity somehow taints the integrity of the charitable offerings. Both are wrong. First of all, the public is not stupid. People can see through thinly-veiled acts of self-proclaimed greatness with one eye shut and both hands behind their backs.
Don’t invent situations in order to gain favorable news exposure and publicity. Editors typically reject such self-serving efforts, and even when something does manage to slide by and end up getting attention, the public sees it for what it is.
But when your business does something heartfelt to help someone or group of someones, don’t be overly timid about spreading the word. Why? Isn’t that too much like bragging? Doesn’t that rub people the wrong way to be tooting your own horn?
The truth, since you asked (okay I asked for you) is that the more exposure your business gets for having sponsored an employee fundraising for some worthy organization or situation, the more you will have primed the pump to prompt others to follow suit. Then what? Then you will have shoe-horned (have you ever seen a shoehorn?) in even more helpful acts than your own.
The soft side of business — whether it’s charitable fundraising, or giving an employee or supplier or community family the support it needs to get through a crisis, or sponsoring a neighborhood clean-up project, or donating products or services or time, or providing technical or administrative back-up to a local or regional nonprofit organization — can work wonders for business reputation.
People (your customers, clients, patients, and prospects) BUY reputation! Connect the dots.
You haven’t time for all the solicitations at your doorstep? That’s like saying you haven’t enough time to learn time management. Ask for someone in your organization to follow a criteria list you hand off to screen applicants and make periodic recommendations for situations that fit inside the annual or semi-annual or quarterly budget you set and insist on.
When the tax-deductible budget is spent, solicitors go on a waiting list, or apply again next year. Make sure arrangements are made for news release announcements before and after (at least) every event, with content that’s always focused on the benefiting individual or organization, and always urging others to get on the bandwagon (or your merry-go-round!). Soft is good.
Hal@BusinessWorks.US
Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!
God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]
Make today a GREAT day for someone!
May 22 2010
ESTABLISHING PRIORITIES
“First Things First!”
I never figured out why my father always shouted this statement, but I guess it was because he was always in a dither when it occurred to him. Most of us don’t think much about prioritizing until we’re feeling overwhelmed with no place to turn. It’s kind of a “force your hand” type of response. OMG, I’ve got 3 hours to do 27 hours worth of tasks and then the world ends. Right. I’d better prioritize.
Here’s the deal: Let’s work backwards at this. One of the life-goals most of us share (beyond not having any IRS surprises!) is to avoid last-minute panic situations and 11th hour rush jobs, right? And it doesn’t matter what business you’re in; that’s an unspoken priority for most of us who are not earning a living by participating in extreme sports. So, okay, the target here is to be –and stay– organized.
Establishing priorities means, first and foremost, that you have a busy agenda, or that maybe you’re too busy to even have had time to put together an agenda (which makes me suspect of why you’re even stopping to read this, but nice to see you all the same). Either way, implications are that what you really need to address as Step One is to do a Quick Risk Assessment.
Nothing magical here. Simply list all the burdensome tasks on one piece of paper (or txtmsg2Urself) and then run through each item with a 1,2, or 3 ranking. It’s a 1 if you just stepped in something brown and gooshy on your way into a building for a big meeting. It’s a 2 if your shoelace broke. It’s a 3 if you just realized your socks don’t match. Determine the relative risks.
What on your list absolutely positively cannot wait until tomorrow (or the end of the day, or next week, etc.)? Each of those items gets a 1 assigned to it. Let the rest fall by the wayside for the moment and focus 100% of your time and attention and energy on getting your number 1 issues resolved before even looking at the rest of the list to decide if the remainders are 2s or 3s (many will migrate up to a 1 ranking by the time you finish the immediate 1s).
When a couple of someone else’s have both “assigned” tasks that are battling for THE number 1 position, go back to those someone else’s(bosses or customers or lawyers or spouses or whomever) and ask them to talk with each other to sort out what exactly you need to put next on your runway for takeoff because there’s only one of you to go around! Hand the responsibility for deciding back to the sources!
Restaurants may be in the food-service business, but cleanliness has to always be Priority One or there may not BE a food-servicebusiness if food poisoning prevails. Maybe you’ve been focused on a date for printing materials for a client when the reason for the materials is more important . . . having finished documents ready to travel with for an out-of-county trade show, needs to dictate the prioritizing for print preparation schedules.
The undercurrent throughout the prioritizing process is that you need to have a grip on time management (and never get into the position of not having enough time to do time management!) and — aha! — Our old friend: stress management take some deep breaths!
Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US
Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless our troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] Make today a GREAT Day!
May 17 2010
You REALLY Outdid Yourself This Time!
Are you rounding
the turn,
up against the rail,
or (Aaah!)
headed for the
home stretch?
Have you ever equated owning and managing a business with being in a race? Aren’t most of us in fact so busy galloping over, under, and around the 37 zillion entrepreneurial business obstacles-to-success, that we seldom make the time to assess our own progress? When did we even come to appreciate what market position we’re in, let alone what racetrack we’re on?
I was reminded yesterday by the simultaneous running of The Preakness (horse race), and The Dover Downs (NASCAR) Race Weekend of how rare the occasions are that we business owners race around and soundly outperform our own and others’ expectations. How evasive that winner’s circle can be when we just charge forward with our heads down!
Don’t we ALWAYS outperform ourselves the half-hour before lunch? The hour before closing? The days before vacation? The week before a holiday weekend? The days before a major sales or service event? The days before retirement? The days before the end of the month? The quarter? The year?
WE EXCEL IN THE HOME STRETCH!
Who doesn’t run fastest between third base and home plate? Between the 20-yard marker and the goal line? Or in the final lap of a race of any kind? And why is this? Okay. Here’s the place to insert all that profound motivational and psychological reasoning we all carry around on the tips of our tongues:__________________________.
It seems to me, though, that when all is said and done, each of us protects the need to preserve some level of self-proclaimed legacy. Down deep inside, we want to make a difference! We want others to say “WOW!” and “Whew!” and “HOLY #%&*!” and be impressed and astonished with our performances.
But why oh why do we have to punish ourselves by limiting our exceptional performances to occur only when we’ve reached some mythical last hurrah, when we’re at a point where every thing’s on the line, or the proverbial eleventh hour is upon us?
What prevents us from thinking and acting at maximum productivity EVERY day, all year long? Why is some artificial prompt necessary to justify and prompt exemplary performance? Can’t we simply CHOOSE to have this winning attitude NOW? Today? Tomorrow? Everyday? Isn’t it a choice? Of course it is. SO . . . HOW to make it happen is the question.
Try falsifying our calendars. Let’s put some major event that demands extraordinary production results in the third week of May. Why wait ’til two days before Memorial Day weekend to get cranked up? What about pretending our vacation is a month before it’s actually scheduled? Can we trick yourselves into believing that we have only a week (vs. a month) left until departure day?
Our kids could do this in a flash. Maybe we can learn something from them about how to loosen up and be flexible and do stuff now that we may have thought we were not ready to do . . .?
Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US
Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless our troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] Make today a GREAT Day!
May 05 2010
MANAGING TIME AND CIRCUMSTANCES
“Is what I’m doing right
this minute, leading me
to where I want to go?”
I kept this sign above my desk for many years. It helped keep me focused. It prompted staff and visitors to think twice about how we were using time. It’s hard to justify much water cooler chit-chat while appointments, online research and paperwork pace around your workspace awaiting your return.
Running a business is a balancing act to begin with. The mercilessly ticking clock demands even more. Business owners and managers are only as effective as their ability to manage and productively use time.
Mail carriers sort, doctors triage, retailers catalog, military personnel classify, librarians alphabetize, and the rest of us stumble through –organizing, arranging and categorizing– as a preamble to prioritizing.
The process of taking what you have and organizing it, combining appropriate interests along the way, then ultimately determining the rank order of importance is a lifeline to action! It sets leaders up to attack the first most important task first, and the second most important task second, and so forth. All good, logical, rational thinking here.
Unfortunately, unless you’re an accountant, life is not logical and rational. Stuff inevitably happens that pushes all the logic out the tenth floor window. If you’re not prepared for such uproars, you’ll get dragged out with it. And ten floors is not enough time to open your chute, but enough free-fall to play smash-face.
If your past solution approach has traditionally been to start listening to your LED watch and –as if it was a doomed rabbit– giving it violent hound dog shakes with a startled look on your face, you may want to consider some alternative that involves a booster shot of proactive planning.
Motivational guru Brian Tracy tells us that for “every minute spent in planning saves ten minutes in execution.”
Planning is only a waste of time if you choose for it to be and fail to follow the path you cut out, or fail to adjust it to best fit the circumstances.
One major key to planning and time management success is to always have a contingency arrangement thought out. Why? Because you can almost bet there will be interruptions, and often unexpected emergencies. Just as fire drills have often been credited with saving lives, contingency plans often save businesses.
In other words, stay tuned in to what’s happening in real time, but always be prepared to be sidetracked. Thoreau once talked about being “forever on the alert.” Not bad advice all these many years later.
# # #
931.854.0474 Hal@BusinessWorks.US
Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals!
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]
Make today a GREAT day for someone!
May 02 2010
LEADERSHIP JOB ONE: RESPONSIVENESS
J & J Leadership
Lessons
Go Far Beyond
BandAids!
We are witnessing now one of the world’s worst oil leak disasters. It could have been drastically minimized with immediate action.
Instead of responsiveness, however, we had eight days of Presidential foot-dragging in order to be preoccupied with more important issues, like trying to push Goldman Sachs over the edge of the political cliff without toppling in over them, and hosting a reception for the New York Yankees, among other such critical demands.
Ah, but after eight days, when the White House finally did decide to step up, determined to save a token pelican or two, some key federal-titled muckity-mucks were actually “dispatched” with orders to report back in 30 days.
Right, 30 days! How long would it take anyone you know who lives on a coastline to tell you that on top of 8 days of hundreds of thousands of gallons a day worth of leaked oil, we are destined to inevitably see that oil along the Eastern Shore? How about 30 minutes?
WOO HOO . . . a little too little too late! Imagine taking this approach to respond to a business problem. You’d be out of business. Or, you’d be big-time up to the tops of your hipboots in debt with expensive apolgetic and advertising media expenses. Ask Toyota.
Either way, the problem multiplies exponentially when responsiveness is not present. Without a sense of urgency built into your leadership position, your business is only as strong as the last time you took swift positive remedial action.
The classic textbook example was, of course. when Johnson & Johnson handled “The Tylenol Scare” of 1982. They acted poste haste and authoritatively.
J&J management breeds leadership. It doesn’t matter that you might have a mom and pop grocery store (are there any of those left?) or a 3-person home-based business, there is much to be learned about crisis management from the way J&J dealt with this potential disaster:
- Apologize immediately and completely.
- Act immediately.
- Tell ALL.
- Follow up.
- Stay invested in the solution and be transparent.
Bottom line: RESPONSIVENESS.
When you tackle a major problem head-on and immediately, the biggest risk you run is being accused of being over-zealous. What’s that compared to lost lives, lost environment, lost trust, lost credibility? The important distinction to remember here is the difference between reSPONDING and reACTING.
When you reACT, you run the immediate risk of OVER-reacting, and that puts you out of control. When you reSPOND, you are acting with control, and you are ensuring increased odds of success. Seeking a practical control tool? Take some deep breaths!
Click Here to work with Hal NOW!
Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US
Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless our troops because “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] Make today a GREAT Day!
Apr 20 2010
ARE YOUR NEIGHBORS UP IN ARMS?
“Break out the
tambourines,
Boss. It’s time
to collaborate!”
Okay, ready? Take some deep breaths Here comes a long question:
Are you and your business standing quietly on the sidelines, like celery stalks in search of a Bloody Mary…while others in your building, block, town, county, state, region, profession, industry are taking action to improve community well-being?”
Maybe your answer has to do with how you define community? So here’s a short question: How DO you define “community”?
And while you’re beating your brains in trying to answer that, you may want also to consider how you and your business typically interact with other businesses and business owners within the community you ultimately define. I know this is getting mind-boggling, so here’s a little historic help from your friends:
First we had affiliates, then we had partnerships, next came alliances, and then –so no one would construe these deliberate arrangements as involving money transfers during economic times of question-ability– we gave rise to strategic alliances. Now, however, living in the age of social media (which we have slathered on top of a deeply troubling economy), we have all become collaborators.
DID YOU HUG YOUR COLLABORATOR TODAY?
Actually, collaboration as you know is nothing new, but its prepon-derance in today’s txt msg literature brings to the surface a more cooperative spirit. Like it used to be “What have you done for me lately?” and then “What has your business done for me lately?” and now it’s “What has your business done for the community lately?”
Well, that kind of all comes full circle back to how you define “community.”
Wherever your business is located — basement, garage, ware-house, office building, construction site, the cab of your truck, your hall closet — it comes packaged with a geographic community.
Whatever type of business or profession you practice, it comes packaged with a business, industrial, trade or professional community.
That means that you and your business have a responsibility to others around you besides your customers, employees and suppliers. Ah, but acceptance of that notion that doesn’t have to be burdensome if you pick and choose your community involvements carefully.
You and your business have a responsibility to others around you besides your customers, employees and suppliers.”
Being a good business citizen doesn’t always have to mean undertaking charitable crusades, though that’s a wonderful thing when it’s possible. Actively standing up on behalf of those around you who can’t or won’t is itself an act of charity. And regardless of what it achieves, it inspires.
When you can collaborate with other businesses, you can, for example, share marketing expenses and perhaps use the savings to afford to offer better customer discounts or higher employee bonuses, or both. When you can collaborate by sharing employee talents, it serves to broaden every one’s horizons and presents opportunities for enhanced customer service.
Best of all, it need not cost a penny. And you thought you had no cause to celebrate? Break out the tambourines, Boss!
Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day!
Apr 19 2010
HALF-HEARTED LEADERS
If you’re not gonna
finish stuff,
don’t start it.
I’ve seen guys who are so slow, you’d think they were going uphill in molasses, backwards, in the middle of a blizzard. And the flip side brings out the best in frenzied, knee-jerk, entrepreneurs with maniac schedules. Then there’s the workaholics who barricade themselves off from the rest of the world to avoid dealing with feelings of intimacy.
This is, curiously, also one of the main (usually unconscious) reasons for obesity: it’s hard to express feelings when food is going down the throat. So, here we have those who want to work themselves to death, those who prefer death, and don’t those who don’t want to work at all. What a choice!
My father always told me,“If you’re gonna do something half-assed, don’t do it at all!” and I guess that stuck, but I must admit there have been times when I sure wished I had the capacity to choose to just wing it, instead of seeing a task all the way through to the end. Well, I suppose that sets the stage for taking a brief look at quitters.
Who cares? I do. Okay, well maybe I don’t anymore; but I did. I always believed in learning something from everyone. Quitters were no exception. What I learned from these partly-pregnant people (and that, believe me, is one very big feat!) is that they shouldn’t be functioning in today’s business world. But they are.
-
I have had no fewer than four clients I can recall who hired me, paid me, put me through the wringer with meaningless changes, told me they were delighted with my work, and even paid the next level of application (printer, website designer, and media people), but never finished the job. Two even paid extra for “exceptional” work!
-
One guy delayed printing a brochure I wrote for him for ten months. He paid me and he paid the printer nine months ago. Then one day he decided to finish the job which was — by then — practically outdated, but that didn’t matter.
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A website client had me write ten pages on a “rush” basis, hurry to get the site designed, pay everyone involved, put the site on a disk, and pack it away. Now, a year and a half later, she decided she wants to launch it. Go figure.
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Another individual contracted me for writing his business plan, which he said he loved, and then put it on the shelf to collect dust. I could go on. It simply amazes me that people do this.
Having a sense of urgency about your business will carry your business through the lean times. Foot-dragging will simply be a ball and chain affair in trying to address business ambitions (if there are any). Who could ever know what goes on in these minds? I’m happy to report that most clients I’ve had, have made great successes of the materials I’ve created for them.
They take the marketing plans and programs and materials and run. And when more business comes in the door, they come back to me for more. That’s the stuff that makes it all worthwhile.
The other stuff? The stuff that never gets finished? Don’t bother to start it. And if you do, start it somewhere else where people appreciate lethargy and indecision. I’ve learned all I can learn from those folks: that half-hearted leaders get half-hearted results!
# # #
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Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0116
Open Minds Open Doors
Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.
Make today a GREAT day for someone!
Apr 13 2010
Watch What You Post!
The Cyberspace
World Bank
is saving our
beat old posts
for just the
right occasion!
Maybe it’s too late to count ourselves out of the award-running for the World Cup of Stupid Internet Comments, considering how dumb that snippy-snappy email or website post was that we angrily tossed off a couple of years back when we were more irate and quick trigger-fingered . . . but we don’t have to have it start an avalanche.
Remember that comment we posted on some website way back when? You know the one. It went something like:
“If you knew even the first thing about business, you dumb geek, you’d get out of that garage of yours and get a real job while you return to the college you dropped out of, and furthermore, Billy Gates, if you think I would ever consider hiring you to even sweep my floors you’re sadly mistaken. You’ll never succeed unless you can stop dreaming and finish your education!”
Like an elephant, Cyberspace never forgets. The comments we make today on mover and shaker sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, BizBrag, Salesblogcast, iSALESMAN, Google, PoorIrishman, TBDConsulting and InterlakenInn are being watched and talked about. But so are the posts we put on downscale, disreputable sites like those commandeered by network media, incompetent government agencies, and porn purveyors — where what we have to say is given no more credibility than what’s said by the hosts.
Almost all of what we have to say today that has any substance to it, carries with it the promise of coming back to haunt us (if not bite us in our respective butts) ten or twenty years down the road.
Never before in history have we the people subjected our innermost thoughts and most volatile expressions to such states of accessible public permanence. Today’s passing thought will not land in a ribbon-tied bundle of letters socked away in a shoebox on some closet shelf or in some attic trunk waiting for discovery by distant generations.
When we hit that email “Send” click, or website “Post” button, we are literally donating our private thoughts and feelings to eternal public scrutiny. It’s taking some time for this to sink in, but the reality of it is striking. Where else in history did people set themselves up to make scathing, heat-of-the-moment remarks only to have them be dissected and subjected to overkill, out-of-context evaluation 24 hours a day, every day for lifetimes beyond their own?
The trick here is to:
A) Think before we click
B) Realize that anything we say, can and will be used against us in a court of public opinion (and having the right to an attorney won’t make a hill of beans difference!)
C) Trash our computers and never look back!
D) Overwhelm all of our friends and followers with a tsunami of upbeat messages that even our severest critics can’t help but cry tears of joy at our transformations. (“Kill ’em with kindness!” me mother usedta say.)
So, uh, before you comment below . . .
Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day!
