1) The Economy  

2) The E c o n o m y

3) The Economy  

4) The Economy

 5) The Economy  

6) The Economy

Standing 30 million strong, America’s entrepreneurs and small business owners are a force to be reckoned with. But we who own, run, and manage small business enterprises are all independent-minded. Who is there to pull us together? The SBA? A joke. The White House? A bigger joke. Corporate giants? HA! Unions? Right!

There’s no rocket science here: A strong economy requires new jobs from small business. ONLY small business (especially new small business) creates real jobs (vs. artificial ones created by government and unions). Innovation is the trigger. There is –and has been since 2008– ZERO support for small businesses to be more innovative to create jobs. Voila! Economic Quagmire!  

The only recourse we have for moving forward in a productive direction, that can make a difference is to grow our businesses to the point of stimulating increased innovation, comes in two assertive steps:

• Take the time out of our business lives to do something about prompting a change in our favor. [Government has made sure that there is no other choice. If we don't take the time, we will not have any business left to start with.]

• Prod ourselves to become more active voices in our industries and professions and in every community that supports our business, to speak up for small business.

But I don’t like having to be political, says you? Well, sadly, it’s another no-choice situation. More here on that. The point is you must behave as if you were a candidate running on the PP&N (Preserve, Protect & Nurture) Small Business Party ticket. No, you need not become as despicable, overbearing or annoying as the role models.

It’s all about speaking up for what we believe in. If you simply feel you cannot live with that option, then find someone who can fill the role for you.

Recruit an advocate. Look around your business associates, family members, and those who live in your neighborhood. Find someone who can help advance your ideas and thinking about small business enterprises to be your spokesperson. Ignite your own crusade for meaningful incentives for innovation and job creation.

Make sure the person or group you select supports your position and agrees with the need to vocalize your interests to others. You provide the road map for this effort. Should it include, for example, giving talks or presentations to local organizations? Being available for news release follow-up contact? Ghost-writing a blog?

Oh, I’m sure it goes without saying, but reminders can be useful: You won’t find someone to help with this by not looking. Start now so we can breathe more life into small businesses to make a difference on November 6th.

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Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Is Your Vision Statement

A Mission?

Does Your

Mission Statement

Have Vision?

You’re getting ready for 2012 and you’re confused? Gee, hard to imagine . . .

Just because the media and politicians tell us the economy is getting better? Just because we’re looking at a healthcare reform that has absolutely nothing to do with healthcare and everything to do with costing small business more? Just because enemy combatant terrorist situations surface from those we’re told are not really terrorists, and from circumstances that we’re assured do not exist? Just because global warming hoaxsters had us running to refrigeration investments?

~~~~~~~

We’re probably feeling like confusion is nothing new, right? So why not live with a little more?

Well, here’s why: The business you own or manage doesn’t need to be as misguided and convoluted as politicians and the media. Remember they get paid for creating confusion. Your success depends on keeping things simple.

Keeping things simple starts with attitude, awareness, and hard work.

First off, don’t let anyone tell you to work smarter and not harder. That’s baloney! Every business success comes from hard work. Next, don’t let people confuse you about the characteristics and values of Mission and Vision Statements. [No, they are NOT the same!]

A Mission statement is essentially a declaration of intent, challenge and pursuit. It is your goal statement that clearly and succinctly explains what you plan to accomplish over what specific period of time and by what means. It is action-focused.

And, like every meaningful goal, your Mission Statement needs t0 be specific, flexible, realistic and have a due date. [Without all four criteria, you've nothing more than a wishlist fantasy!]

A Vision statement is a summation of where you see your business in 5-10 years. It is a picture you paint in your mind and share with others. It answers the question: If you succeed in your mission, where will you be?

It’s a set of words that best describes what you imagine to be your future state of existence, and how you expect (hope) to be viewed by others: your employees, associates, vendors, customers, markets, industry or profession, and community. It is dream-focused. It’s primary value is to inspire pursuit of your Mission.

What’s your Mission for 2012? What’s your Vision for 2020?

Oh, and in the same fashion that it helps to start ANY mission with 20/20 vision, it is often most useful to put your 2020 Vision on the table (to keep focused on it) while you develop your 2012 Mission (or while you think up the ways to get where you want to end up).

~~~~~~~

More FREE insights on

 2012 “LEADERSHIP”?

Come visit me at TBD Consulting’s Jonena Relth’s site and comment on my Guest Blog posts:

LEADERSHIP TRANSPARENCY

“I” IS FOR INTEGRITY

and “T” IS FOR TRUST.  

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Updated From the Best of Hal’s Christmastime Business Posts . . . 

A toy truck, a stroller,

and pub coasters

strung with dental floss…

A few years ago, on a re-visit trip to Ireland, Kathy and I –romanticized by the classic Bing Crosby Christmas song, “Christmas In Killarney”– spent our first Christmas away from home at Killarney Country Club.

 Up a rocky, grass-between-the-tires dirt road from downtown Killarney, jockeying “the wrong side” car controls to bounce cheerfully along between the endless stone walls that separated farm from farm and cows from sheep, we drove under a brick archway and into an historic-looking brick complex that held captive about three dozen two-story townhouses.

There was one other car at the far end. We parked and followed the “Office” arrow. We found a smiling, green-eyed, freckled face and bubbling thick Irish accented young lady at the office counter. We registered and unpacked. We were shown to a spacious two-bedroom upstairs arrangement with living room and kitchen downstairs. Our windows overlooked the property’s main courtyard and pathway to the Country Club Pub.

It seems when I think back that (after the first day of dealing with the one other car’s occupants — a rude tourist family of six that commandeered the odd three-feet-deep indoor pool), we were actually the only guests there for the rest of the (Christmas) week.

We made the trek into town everyday, a beautiful, historic, bustling hub filled with happy holiday shopping locals, who seemed to visit a shop or two, then stop in a pub, then visit a shop or two, then stop in a pub . . . you get the idea. And we drove hundreds of miles of picturesque unspoiled (and unlittered) countryside during the week, meeting only pleasant, accommodating-to-a-fault natives all along the way.

Night driving seemed a bit perilous, so we opted for evening visits to the Country Club Pub (the alternative was staying in our unit with three tv stations, two of which were German!). The only Christmas tree we could find ($45 American) made Charlie Brown’s look like Rockefeller Plaza. Our scruffy pine was about 30 inches tall and had about 16 (or maybe it was 14?) scrawny branches.

We had no ornaments, but confiscated a wide range of cardboard pub coasters in our travels, punched small holes in each with a fork, and strung them up with pieces of dental floss. A homemade aluminum foil star found its way to the top. We stuffed two ”Season’s Greetings”-scrawled plastic shopping bags with small sofa pillows and hung them in our windows.

We grocery-shopped for the all-time elaborate brunch of Irish rasher (bacon), eggs, cheese, jam, butter, toast, fruit, crackers, caviar, coffee, tea–  and a bottle of asti that (being entrenched deep in beer and ale country, cost 11 gazillion dollars American) tasted a lot better than it was.

We exchanged gifts we had bought the day before, walking down opposite sides of the downtown, waving in between passing cars, trucks, buses, pedestrians, and shopfronts, a book for me, a piece of Irish crystal and a little stuffed Irish Christmas Bear for her, plus some other goodies. It was great fun and everyone wished everyone Merry Christmas!!

Every minute we spent there was great, even when fifteen native Killarney guys had us singing with them (at the Country Club Pub where they’d hiked to by flashlight from their nearby farms) until 3am which led us to the hilarious discovery that no one there had ever even heard of the Crosby song, “Christmas In Killarney”!!! (I tried to sing it and they all looked at one another like I was from Mars.)

With the rows of “y’got ta finish dem” topped-off pints of beer and ale lined up from one end of the bar to the other, planted there when 11:15pm closing time came, it ultimately mattered not that anyone heard of any song as long as you sang. And sing we did! When Kathy was asked to present a song, she sang “Zippity, Do-da, Zippity-A…” which brought the house down.

So much for that, but it was a wonderful experience. Just one thing was missing. Family. We spent half the afternoon trying to phone home, with circuit connections going from where we were on Ireland’s West Coast, to Northern Ireland, to Boston, to Florida, to New York, to the clan in New Jersey who sounded like they were in a tunnel.

It made us realize that all the happiness of the week there was momentarily lost to being lonesome for family. We managed to bounce back after that when the resort manager and his wife (who we suspect might have been listening in to our phone connection efforts) invited us to their home for a Christmas drink. 

We got to see the doll baby stroller Santa brought for their daughter. (Last Christmas, Santa brought the doll!). I think their son got a toy truck. One single present each and those children were in heaven! Uh, it might be worth repeating that: “One single present each and those children were in heaven!”

That certainly gave us cause for pause. We in America are blessed with so much, and family is, well, what Christmas is all about now, isn’t it? It was a Christmas of great learning that stayed with us.

I truly hope for you that you enjoy what you have today, and not take any of it for granted.

Oh, one last thing: Please remember to God Bless Our Troops for their eternal vigilance that grants us the freedom we have to celebrate this joyous day and season! Enjoy!

 Peace be to you.

The original of this Christmas story appeared on 12/25/08 on this blog site.

God Bless You One And All

And Merry Christmas To You!

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Updated From the Best of Hal’s Christmastime Business Posts . . .

The quickest fix for

What’s YOUR nomination for a best business Christmas message? 

“…To face unafraid

the plans that we made…”

Today’s the day

to overhaul

your workspace!

Changing your daily routine can be just as stress-relieving as taking some time off.

I’m not suggesting that you abandon holiday relax time to keep working, but when the rest of your business universe slows down for Christmas and Hanukkah, it’s a great opportunity to clean up, dress up, reorganize, reassess, take inventory, take stock, plan, and set goals.

Rattle your own cage! Start by creating a better workspace. Move furniture and tools. Open drawers and clean out old stuff. File away work that’s done. Sort through magazines and newsletters; sticky-note items you want to read and toss the rest.  Reassess your lighting (and fixture bulb replacement status). Is clutter off your floor?

Can you actually get into storage areas without climbing and sucking in your gut to squeeze through? Are the backs of shelves and closets in easy reach or does access pose the need for Olympic prowess? Are your alarm systems all in good working order? Are window coverings and locks in decent shape?

Are too many door/truck/car keys, or computer codes/user-names/passwords floating around?

Does your waiting area match the level of professionalism you want to project? Dead bugs in ceiling light fixtures and dead or dying plants do not inspire much sense of confidence in professional practices, maintenance or medical supply businesses, florists, landscapers, or any kind of healthcare, food or food service businesses, among others. 

The dead bug/dead plant solutions, by the way, are not to be nurturing live bugs or plastic plants, both of which speak equally negative to your attitude and reputation. Go with no bugs, and if you can’t maintain plants to be permanently healthy, go with no plants as well! And the same goes for beat up outdated magazines!

If you think this is stupidly basic input, start to notice what you see when you visit other businesses. How many restaurants and coffee shops have you left with indigestion after facing mounted TV screens locked onto news channels? When you’re done cleaning up and reorganizing outside your self, step inside for a few overhauls!

You will never get this chance or this day back again.

Make the most of your opportunities.

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Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

You are NOT

“going into” 2012!

You are making it happen!

You’re an entrepreneur!

Thumbs up! Thumbs down!

 All thumbs! Thumb a ride! 

Thumb this!

Did you ever notice how many things you use your thumbs for? Did you ever notice how much you use any part of your body for tasks that you never stop to pay attention to, until that part gets sick or injured or stressed beyond functioning? And you wonder how you could have ever overlooked how critical all of your parts are?

Isn’t it the same with your business? Don’t you have tasks and functions to deal with, approaches to take, routines, habits and checklists to observe every day?  And when something goes wrong, breaks down, or isn’t where you thought you left it… or not performing up to snuff, or communications get muddled, you become an EMT?

Okay, so you’re good in emergencies,

 but you really can’t make a living in

 business functioning as a firefighter.

Being able to respond quickly and adapt quickly are genuine entrepreneurial strengths, but too often they become crutches and can readily lead the leaner into business failure and a nonproductive way of life. True leaders wear many hats and know when to trade off one for the other. Thumbs go up! Thumbs go down! Thumbs hitchhike!  

Cute, Hal, but what does that mean? It means that truly successful business owners and managers are those who exercise flexibility in the ways they move, the things they say, the leadership styles they exercise, the assignments and presentations they give and the WAYS they do these things.

Process is what matters most – HOW things get done, the steps involved, can often be more important than what is actually done. Isn’t that a lot like how you say what tou say is at least as important as what you say? Well, the key to process is flexibility… being ready, willing, and able to “turn on a dime,” as the old expression goes.

“Turn on a dime!”

Thumbs are a good example of flexibility. They can turn from up to down in an instant. Think of your thumbs as the gateway to flexibility and spontaneity — flexible fulfillment. Have you ever seen a thumb direction opposite of a facial expression (or an internal feeling?)?  Thumb direction is the harbinger of thought process.

Remember the childhood exercise of putting all your knuckles together as you interlock your fingers and close your palms together so that your fingertips are hidden (reciting “here’s the church!”), then point your two forefinger tips together in the air (reciting “here’s the steeple!”) and then guess what’s next… remember? 

Throwing out your thumbs and wiggling your other six fingertips (reciting “open the doors, and look at all the people!”)? So, even since being a tyke, your thumbs have been the doors that open your vision to what’s going on inside. What happens when you look beyond the thumbs of your day-to-day business?

“The journey to discovery,”

said Proust, “consists not in

having new landscapes,

but in having new eyes.” 

When did you last “Thumb Through”some of those pages that describe where your business has been, where it is, and where it’s going? Close your eyes for a minute and think that through before skipping off to your emails, or back to Twitter or Facebook. And remember it’s the process of how you think about it all.

Startup Fever