Startup Fever

Welcome to the world’s first SMALL BIZ Alphabet Series of blog posts!

Who knew?

You can end up going 

under when you’re

too over-the-top!

The boy who cried wolf… the lady doth protest too much… the sky is falling. Doomsday attitudes breed doom. We become what we think about!  

The more we think it, the more we bring it on. We become what we think about. We all know the type: the doom and gloomer — no matter what we say or do, it’s “poor me!” and “the business can never survive.”

Well, guess what? If that’s what we believe, we can bet our butts that that’s what we’ll get. We become what we think about. Why do we make it so hard on ourselves to unravel the tangled web of negativity that’s wrapped around our brains? We know better, don’t we? I mean this ain’t rocket science. It’s attitude. It’s a choice. We choose it!

So why do we choose negative thoughts and pessimism when we can just as easily choose positive thoughts and optimism? But it’s not “easy” we say. Well, then that too is a choice. We can choose to make it easy. Sounds good, but a whole lot of the problem is that the tangled web is full of then and there and if and when instead of here and now. 

Choosing to focus our minds on the here and now present moment as much as possible throughout the day (and night) is the healthiest place to be — physically (to prevent accidents, mentally (to prevent errors), and emotionally (to be able to respond instead of react!). It’s not possible 100% of the time, but it certainly can be more than it is!

We’ve all seen examples in every walk of life of unlikely people performing majestic feats only because they believed they could. We become what we think about. Believing in our selves, in things, relationships, sales, profits, innovation, productivity, and performance delivers the goods where hard work alone cannot.

I am now writing my second commissioned memoir. Both books are about a believer who has surpassed all odds –including threats at gunpoint– and succeeded by every life’s measure:

Both men believed so hard in what they were doing (and curiously couldn’t have been farther apart in their pursuits — home fabrics and public service for one, driving faith-based reform into the rough and tumble trucking industry for the other) that, without even trying, they put themselves in the right places at the right times and became winners!

Either of these men could have easily quit at any time, and lived a comfortable life, but both believed there was more to it than that. Both believed in service to others. Both had a here and now focus. Both choose prayer and faith as primary tools to nurture and support their belief systems.

Neither ever ventured “over the top”in their words and deeds, or in the ways they treated and respected others — employees, customers, suppliers, advisors, referrers–  and most importantly, their families. They were models of humility, trustworthiness, self-confidence and, though neither would admit it: inspired leadership.

In both cases, the fact that their competitors put their businesses under by talking too much and performing too little proves the point that over the top attitudes can drive business under. 

More on success? No compensation involved, but I heartily recommend Malcolm Gladwell’s book, OUTLIERS. Short. Fascinating. Challenging.

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Hal@Businessworks.US  302.933.0116 

  Open minds open doors. 

 Thanks for visiting and God bless you. 

   Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

What you see is what you get,

and with Txt Msgs,

you see nothing!

In-person meetings are most telling. Phone calls? At least you can “hear” a smile or gasp or snort. And, if you’re paying attention, you can usually tell if the person on the other end is paying attention. Even emails give you a clue. Texting? Fuggetaboudit!

According to my friend Jeff Banning, president of award-winning third-party logistics provider, Trinity Logistics, Inc. in Seaford, Delaware:

“effective communication is only 7% verbal. 38%, is (transmitted) by your tone of voice, and 55% is through non-verbal body language.”

Are you taking note, sales professionals?

In other words, more than half of effective communication is not spoken!

With hundreds of employee “teammates,” Jeff oversees more than seventy successful offices across the country, so I believe what he says.

Because we are humans (or is that too presumptuous?), we get fooled sometimes. But we all know instinctively that we are less likely to be fooled when we can take stock by looking someone in the eye.

Eye contact of course is hardly within the realm of txt msg textability.

. . . Or emails. Ah, but emails at least do provide us with some clues . . . I’m not referring to the chit-chatty ones or quick one-sentence back and forth emails. I mean significant emails — ones with proposals. reports, attachments, outlines, strategies, plans, applications, etc.

Someone who doesn’t use spellcheck, for example, or avoids greetings and sign-offs, or who clearly never takes the time to read what she or he wrote, and specifically to read it out loud to her or himself (which all great writers do, by the way), tells us the sender is likely rude and/or insincere.

How can you tell when someone is lying? Teasing? Taunting? Smiling but angry? In a superiority mode? Anxious to leave? Eagerly interested? Tolerating? Bored? Ready to explode? Thoughtfully considering? These and other responses are right in front of you, staring you in the face. The “eyes” (with apologies to Parliament) have it!

This doesn’t mean you must always be in some one’s physical presence in order to “read” the meaning or intention of his or her messages by checking eye movements and facial expressions.

If you’ve read enough of my blog posts over the last few years, you know when I’m kidding or serious. You know when I’m sad or angry or frustrated by the words I use and how I present them. You can generally discern other people’s “tone of voice” even when you can’t physically hear them.

But when situations and/or people involved are important, nothing beats the unspoken messages that come from other peoples’ eyes. Yes, like the song, there are indeed “Lyin’ Eyes,” but paying careful attention (not staring or glaring, mind you) to what you see in the eyes of a speaker or presenter will minimize being taken advantage of.

The only way on earth that you can be effective at “reading” others is by keeping yourself grounded, and focused on the here-and-now present moment as much of the time as possible. Aside from monitoring your pulse or heartbeat (which can get a bit awkward under some circumstances), this no-fail approach is worth your one-minute review.

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

“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!

Leave “Back To

The Future”

in the dust and

the old movies!

Leadership’s a funny thing, especially when running a small business. The more we try to figure out what went wrong, the less we move forward. Big unionized companies and government agencies can afford the luxury of assigning task teams to look back and determine who did what to whom and why and wherefore.

Small businesses can go broke while their heads are turned.

More than any other organizational entity on Earth, small businesses must remain the most flexible and the least concerned with exploring, assessing, and resolving old problems. In other words, if it’s broke (and not impacting the lifeblood of our business), we need to step over or around it and move on. Fixing stuff takes too much time that is better spent with forward motion … innovative leadership by example!

We need to remind ourselves that anything longer than a minute-old is:

1. Fantasy (because it’s not in the here-and-now present reality of time and space) and
2. Over with and impossible to change.

HOW do we keep our minds focused on the reality of what we’re dealing with day to day —  instead of what happened last week, or yesterday, or an hour ago? The fastest and most effective way that tens of thousands of successful business owners and managers use to accomplish this (and, by the way, that’s free, and takes all of 60 seconds!) is to simply take a couple of deep breaths.

     For specific reinforcement on this, take a quick side trip with your mouse and click here to take some deep breaths.

     The bottom line is that no matter what method we use . . . checking our watches, turning up the music volume, pinching ourselves, playing with a puppy or a baby, taking a slug of ice water, rubbing our foreheads briskly or rubbing our hands together briskly, phoning our desk lines with our cell phones and talking to ourselves (well, okay, maybe just let it ring once!) . . . if it works and it joggles our brains into the present moment, it’s a good method. We need to keep using it.

Recalling past incidents, problems and solutions, accomplishments can have a positive effect on our here-and-now decision making as long as we are consciously managing those “Back to the Future” visits from our present existences.

We get ourselves in trouble when we choose to allow ourselves to get lost with past thoughts, reveries, daydreams, nostalgia … whatever we want to call these experiences. Why? Because getting stuck in those mental journeys  is rarely if ever productive and — in a work setting — will almost certainly not help us establish or maintain the forward motion we need to grow our businesses.

   Is it very unlike running down the field carrying the football, and suddenly stopping to think about the circumstances surrounding your last touchdown?

Small business leaders must prompt, promote, and maintain continuous forward movement, be prepared to “turn on a dime” as the expression goes, and stay focused as much of the time each day as possible on the customer, supplier, employee, market opportunity that’s smack dab in front of our faces, not dwelling on history. Save that journey for your accountant.

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hal@businessworks.US

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Entrepreneurship & Expansion Coaching    931.854.0474

Go for your goals, thanks for your visit, God Bless You!

You have all the

ingredients, but 

it depends on how 

you bake the cake!

[…and you KNOW what happens if you put the egg in at the wrong time!]       

      Okay, so you came here expecting maybe a magic sales solution to make up for not getting a government bailout? Well, maybe you guessed right. Maybe this is the blog post that will change your life…the one that will make a difference in your future by holding your head still for three minutes and getting you to focus on the present.

     First, recognize that if you’re a salesperson, you are an entrepreneur. If you’re an entrepreneur, you’re a salesperson. The two functions and categories are not mutually exclusive. Consequently, Voila!

Salespreneurship is You!

     What does all this mean?

A) You cannot abandon the management and administrative tasks of running your sales rep business. Why? Because customer lead generation, product and service knowledge, customer communication and presentation skills (especially active listening) , closing skills, and building a strong enough relationship to generate repeat sales will all mean nothing.

Without accurate, attentive data entry and paperwork follow-through with every encounter, you are investing in disaster!

B) Likewise, you cannot dismiss the critical responsibilities of salesmanship and selling just because you’re a free-spirit entrepreneur flying from project to project. Why? Because without sales and a properly-performed sales function, there is no business ship to captain.

     So your job #1 mission is to accept that sales and entrepreneurship are joined at the hip. Your job #2 mission calls for acknowledgement of goals (like knowing where the finish line is in a race) and then abandonment of that acknowledgement! 

“If you dwell on the finish line while you’re running the race,

you’ll trip yourself up and fall on your face!”

–HAL ALPIAR

     True success in selling and in entrepreneuring comes with being able to focus on the here-and-now present moment every passing moment of every passing day as much as possible. You’ll never do it 100%. But the farther you can push the envelope and be consistently conscious of what’s right in front of your face, the happier, healthier and more productive you’ll be…the more rewarding will be your success.

     How to do this? The #1 Solution : Go to http://bit.ly/cMoqHf and practice the 60-second exercise offered there as often as you can. The #2 Solution: When you feel yourself drifting off into events and situations and conversations older than one minute ago OR imagining something that’s more than one minute into the future (the approach to the finish line), recognize you are headed into nonproductive fantasyland, and return to Solution #1.

     Salespreneurship. Bah humbug? Sure it’s harder work than being a halfwit entrepreneur or a slipshod salesman, but remember this mindset adjustment is all a matter of choice. It’s your behavior and it’s your choice. History proves that choosing a here-and-now orientation is always a healthier, happier, more prosperous place to be.

Comment below or reply direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day!  Blog FREE via list-protected RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Great VALENTINE for GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF