Those who knew her knew they had a friend.

She never had just acquaintances, you see. 

Her helping hands were always out.

Her heart was always open, and

worn always on her sleeve.

     Honey left high school (and the beloved field hockey team she captained) at age 16 to be both Mother and Father to her three younger sisters and two troublesome brothers. Teacher, cook, housekeeper, breadwinner, nurse, and homemaker, she brought them up without fanfare or recognition, and usually without thanks.  

     When Honey married Harry and finally raised her own family—two sons five years apart with a third, a stillborn, in between—she never gave up mothering her orphaned siblings.

     When Harry ended up drinking half his mailman’s salary, Honey never complained; she simply accepted it as her due, and scraped together enough to barely pay the rent. She scrimped on groceries, stretched meals, and afforded clothes for everyone but herself.

     When Harry had beef for dinner, the boys got his leftovers; Honey had soup (usually tomato, sometimes ketchup stirred in hot water). When her sisters needed a roof over their heads, she took them into her tiny three-room apartment and made them thank Harry.

     When her sons were grown and her husband had passed, she continued looking after her brothers and sisters, and adopted all her neighbors too . . . cooking and cleaning and lugging groceries down the street and up the two or three flights of stairs, for those who were older, ill, or handicapped.

     How do I know Honey was such a honey? How do I know all this self-sacrifice to be true? Because, you see, Honey was my Mother! Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! How proud I’ve always been of you. How much I wish you could be here to enjoy your loving sons and daughters-in-law, and all your grandchildren and great grandchildren too. But, then, perhaps you are . . .

     “Start with a billboard!”

I was told this in my first writing job a zillion blank pages ago. It took a while for that suggestion to settle into my neophyte, know-it-all demeanor, but reality is that it’s one of the most important pieces of advice I’ve ever received.

No matter what you are writing, no matter the audience, the medium, or desired result, when you can write a billboard first—even if you never use an actual billboard—everything else will flow easier and quicker, and have greater impact.

   And why is that? For an outdoor billboard to be effective, considering average passing rates of speed (and website billboard responsiveness, considering online attention spans plus trigger finger impatience), the total number of words should not—as a rule of thumb—exceed seven!

And those seven words need to tell a story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end . . . AND be persuasive! “You deserve a break today … at McDonald’s” is a perfect example. Look around; you’ll see others, and hopefully from some more health-conscious businesses than fastfoods. [Please post or send me any good examples you run across.]

Even working with a noncommercial entity like the Pennsylvania Heart Institute and a two-dozen member team of heart surgery and transplant specialists and cardiologists, it was enormously helpful to establishing the Institute, and to growing the affiliated physician practices by coming up with a billboard to start things off.

     “Put Your Heart In The Right Place!”

[especially as caption to a graphic with a big red heart on the right side of a blue-outlined Commonwealth of Pennsylvania] best captured both the rational competitive spirit and emotional sense of sentimentality in a single seven-word statement.  It served as a successful inaugural theme for their branding and community relations programs.

     Think about how to write an effective billboard before tackling your next letter, business plan, chapter, email, advertising campaign, sales pitch, poem, speech, short story, editorial, script, sermon . . . and do it! 

It will force you to encapsulate the essence of what you want to communicate, help you be more persuasive, and ensure you of getting the most impact value from your efforts.

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY/ CONTENT/ CONNECTION

931.854.0474 Coaching for Higher Branding Impact

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

Personal & Professional Growth/ Creative Entrepreneurial Thinking

     It’s no secret that Demarva Power stands accused as being the #1 cause of pollution in the State of Delaware, and one of the top polluters in America. 

     No one with a brain eats fish from the Indian River (or, for that matter, lets their dogs swim along the riverbanks), where the fossil fuel plant is located.  Even putting incomplete but suspicious cancer cluster studies and conclusions aside, many of those living within a few miles of the power plant find themselves having to scrape and vacuum wayward coal dust layers and mounds off their ceiling fans and window sills with some frequency, monthly some report. 

     This is for real, and no study is needed to support homeowner findings that coal dust accumulates everywhere.  One needs only to look with her or his eyes!  Imagine how much soot is not visible that makes its way into the lungs of residents and visitors?

     Delmarva Power’s coal cleaning and burning processes have often been reported as examples of something considerably less than state-of-the-art technology.  The smokestacks appear to spew out toxins 24/7.  But instead of spending the money to upgrade technologies used, and act like responsible State and community citizens, the company simply turns its back and casually responds that they’re “not the only ones” polluting Delaware’s environment.  Duh. 

     Delaware’s Governor and the State Government act like they’ve been shell-shocked into a catonic stupor as Delmarva Power’s management and attorneys have relentlessly barraged the public for over two years (in customer-paid radio commercials and professionally-crafted news releases among other means) with every conceivable argument for rejecting alternative energy sources driven by renewable wind power proposals. 

     In fact the power company had the audacity to at first suggest that it would instead be better to expand its already-flawed operation, claiming that windmills that were proposed to be located over seven miles offshore would ruin water views, then that too many birds would be killed (by the slow-moving blades), then that it would interfere with boating enthusiasts, then that costs to consumers would be prohibitive, and on and on. 

     Now, in seeing that public outcry was starting to turn the tide against them, they’ve taken up the mantle of out-of-State onshore wind power alternative firms, using out-of-State employees, which they would presumably have a hand (and no small amount of control) in working with.  The power company claims that these choices would be better and more economical than the original proposers, Blue Water Wind, a company that appears to be a capable and responsible in-State provider and employer.  Blue Water was of course one of the first stating opposition to power plant activities. 

     And where have Delaware’s political types been hiding after originally approving Blue Water Wind’s plans?  Instead of taking some steps forward and launching a trial project, the Governor and State Legislators have had a sudden change of heart (supported by virtually no one except Delmarva Power people). 

     State government leaders have been led to believe that all forward movement should stop because they need to study the situation to death.  As coal dust continues round-the-clock to blacken homes, waterways, and critically-needed State farmlands, they may be doing exactly that!          halalpiar

     A basic tenet of organizational development is that the solution to any group or organization problem lies within the group or organization that has the problem. 

     When your objective (which is simply the flip version of the problem) is clearly defined, the strategies (or thinking avenues for achieving the objective, whether business or personal) must come from inside the individual or inside the organization that’s in pursuit of the goal.  It’s unreasonable to expect an outsider to understand enough of what has prompted the goal that’s been set to be able to step in and produce meaningful strategic results.

     If you had a marital problem, would you depend completely on a step-by-step solution plan that’s handed you by someone who neither you nor your spouse has any history with (even if that someone has professional credentials)? 

     Businesses that rely on strategies put together by outside consultants—strategies based on research and analysis done by outside consultants—are not making the most of their own organizational and management team strengths.  And I promise you the odds are that they are probably wasting large amounts of time and money in the process. 

     Some of the most highly-credentialed and most reputable marketing and advertising firms in the world would readily admit in moments of weakness, that huge amounts of client research is done and has been done not to discover directions to take in creative and media development, but to justify what they have already dreamed up and have hidden away and plan to parade out at the appropriate time . . . all as part of an overall scheme for expending more hours to justify increased fees. 

     Yes, I know this for a fact. 

     The bottom line:  No one knows you better than you.  No one knows your business organization better than your business organization’s management team.  Knowledge is strength.  Take advantage of your strengths, or find a good coach who can help you take advantage of your strengths.  But do it!                            halalpiar            

     Remarkable though it may seem, there are some golden people still out there. 

     I recently wrote wrote a combination fanmail inquiry letter to Dean Koontz, author of more than 75 books published in 32 languages totaling over 250 million copies sold in the last 35 years (reported in a five year-old article, no less, from The WRITER magazine www.writermag.com). 

     He’s one of only a dozen writers with ten #1 New York Times bestsellers. Does this sound like someone who’s about to respond to any of the thousands of letters he reportedly gets every few months? Why even bother, right? Wrong.

     In two weeks time, he sent back a thoughtful and personal two-page response, which included a personal handwritten closing P.S. paragraph, a seven-page article and four-page folder that specifically addressed questions I had posed about finding a literary agent and some other points. 

     Mr. Koontz even included a twelve-page newsletter featuring golden retriever talk because—having just finished reading his latest novel, The Darkest Evening of the Year dedicated to his recent doggie-heaven-bound golden, Trixie, and which includes a heavy story focus on rescued golden retreivers and —I mentioned sharing his love and enthusiasm for the breed. [My golden, Barnegat Girl, now ten, is under my desk as I write this, smiling happy dreams and keeping my feet warm.] 

     The point is that Mr. Koontz reached out when he didn’t have to, and he reached farther than good sensible public relations might dictate. He actually showed interest in my pursuits and quite literally made my day a golden one! 

     Thank you, Dean Koontz.  Applause!  Applause!                      halalpiar 

     Why “Bah! Humbug!”?  Because life, I’m convinced, as I reflect on my birthday, is not a commodity that’s just “good” all by itself.  Life is neither good nor bad.  It simply is.  And each of us chooses to make the experience of life a good one, a bad one, or something in between. 

     The point is that behavior is always and everywhere a matter of conscious or unconscious choice.  “Good” and “bad” and “in-between” is never dropped on us from the ceiling or the sky; it is not something that “happens to” us.  We somehow choose to act and feel great, or to act and feel lousy. 

     Well, I remind myself, guess what?  That I can just as easily choose to act and feel great as I can choose to act and feel lousy?  So why would I choose misery?  I’ll never get back the time I waste feeling miserable, the “here and now” time that passes me by while I wallow in self-pity or anger.  It’s simply a waste of time and energy and life. 

     “Great!” you say, “but HOW do I get myself out of the doom and gloom upsets and move onward and upward in spite of myself?”  The answer may be simpler than the action, but even that’s a choice!  The answer is to get and keep youself focused on the present moment as much as you possibly can. 

     Upsets breed in past thoughts that become unhealthy dwelling attentions, and on future thoughts that become anxious worries . . . focusing attention on past and future can quickly transform into nonproductive fantasizing.  Worrying about what’s over and can’t be changed or what’s not yet happened and may never happen is a colossal waste of energy, and life, and totally loses the “here and now” that’s right in your face!

     LIFE IS GOOD WHEN YOU CONTINUALLY CHOOSE FOR IT TO BE.  HOW?  BY STAYING AS TUNED IN AS YOU CAN TO THE “HERE AND NOW” OF EACH NEW EXPERIENCE EACH NEW DAY.  You’d need a pretty big shirt for all that, so just write up your own version and carry it in your pocket for a week!    See you soon.      halalpiar   

     Yes, I am the same Hal Alpiar you knew years ago but, under the influence of modern technology and for inexplicable blogging purposes, now better known as halalpiar. 

     I am the same writer, only better; the same cynic, only softened; the same lover of Golden Retrievers; the same liberal-turned-conservative-born-of-conservative-once-turned-liberal until I saw the light. You may have known me under different labels and banners, but ALWAYS and forever only under one proud American flag.

     I’m hopeful you’ll see something here on one of these pages under one of the tabs you click on above that will strike you like buckshot in the butt! 

     It would be a great thing for me to know that something I wrote sends you up into the air off your feet and screaming out of the room, or able to rest your weary head on your keyboard and dream of sunshine, passing clouds and bumbling puppies.

     Whatever response you have or don’t have, please take a minute to let me know, give me subjects to attack or food to eat, or feelings to drink. I’m anxious to hear back from you today. Hugs to one and all (and even a few trees, here and there).  – halalpiar  

     Staying with this topic, and in all fairness to squirrels, literary agents DO receive hundreds of query letters and manuscripts a week; some get hundreds every day! 

     I guess the point here being that because all of us can read and tell stories, all of us think we can write and write the stories we tell. We also all think we can write the stories we tell and make a living at it, or at least create a sizeable boost in income. So we write a story and send it off to literary agents who will undoubtedly make us rich. 

     Okay, let’s put that aside for a minute and look at the fact that literary agentdom may have a disproportionate share of inconsiderate literary agencies and prima donna literary agent individuals. 

     If you’re a writer, you already know this. If you’re an agent, you may be somewhat shocked to find out how pervasive the inflated sense of self-importance is in your profession, and that many rank and file agents (and some top ones) lack even the most basic instincts for courtesy and sense of customer satisfaction. 

     Ah, but I do not wish to bash the hands that will one day soon hopefully feed me! 

     So let’s instead attack the real problem: society’s breeding ground for incompetence, neuroses, and wannabes also referred to as “The Media.” 

     After all, were it not for the nonstop bombardment of media crap and crappy media people we’re exposed to, writers might be more realistic in their expectations of agents.

     What? Yeah, we get killed all day by people who claim to be reporting and providing facts who are simply opinionating and giving us garbage. Does it really matter what some news anchor thinks about what one Presidential candidate says about her or his competitor? Does it matter whether a “reporter” thinks lies and truths are convenient or inconvenient?

     Please, people. How is a writer to write with so much irrelevant fantasy as a backdrop? No wonder we all enjoy escaping into Harry Potter’s adventures. If you’re a writer, see you again soon. If you’re an agent, please do come back . . . but not as a squirrel. Thanks.  halalpiar   

     Want a job? Show us your experience! Need a loan? Show us your assets? Looking for a literary agent to sell the book it took you 67 years to write? Study squirrels! 

     You’re young with no work experience and looking for a job, and all you have to do to get one is have some experience. Jeeze, why didn’t I think of that before? I mean I’m sure I would have gone out to get some job experience in order to get a job, right?

     Oh, yeah, and God Bless Banks! Sure, they’ll give you a loan. All you have to do is show that you have enough money to not need one. Well, that’s simple; just get yourself rich and then march right into that friendly neighborhood bank of yours and toss a few thousand on the manager’s desk; you’ll get an instant loan for a few hundred almost without even trying.

     Now that we’ve set the stage, write a book! 

     Take a good crispy chunk of your lifetime out to do it. Edit and rewrite it dozens of times. Then write a synopsis– a few versions of course, probably a single paragraph, a single page, and a 4-pager will do.

     Then try a chapter outline. This is always fun to do, especially after the book is done. I mean the only people who write book outlines before writing books are atomic scientists and English teachers. But, that’s okay; do it anyway; piece of cake; just start re-reading everything you’ve done and then explain it all! HA!

     Oh, and did I mention a “query” letter? That’s a killer letter to try to get an agent interested in asking if she or he can read some of your work, but of course it’s only as good as your research of which specific agents are most interested in your specific type of book, assuming you are able to categorize what you’ve done to start with. 

     And be sure to include a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) with everything you do. Actually, you may want to consider replacing your business cards with self-addressed stamped envelopes so you can always be sure of getting all your belongings returned. And remember to be humble when you assert your credentials (that may not get returned without an SASE) because having an agent, after all, is a privilege not a right!

     Then, it’s also a good idea to write an “author-driven-marketing-plan” in case the poor overburdened agent doesn’t have enough time or energy or marketing expertise (that he or she takes 15% for) to figure out the best ways for you to sell your handiwork. 

     Okay, so you’ve done all the above. Now study squirrels! When you figure out how they hide themselves and their stashes of acorns you’ll have the beginnings of understanding literary agentdom secret-keeping.

     That knowledge alone will boost your odds for success 1000% and launch you into that new John Grisham/Stephen King/Dean Koontz career that will sustain you and your family forever . . . assuming your witing is brilliant and your personality is mesmerizing and you end up in the right place at the right time with the right story! 

     Hey, go for it!   halalpiar