The check’s in the mail. I’ll get back

                                                         

to you on Friday.  I’ll send you that

                                

update the minute it comes in from 

                                       

the home office. As soon as we get 

                                                                  

your invoice. When the shipment

                                       

arrives. But I never got your note.

                                               

Your email must have gotten lost 

                               

in Cyberspace. Oh, that? That was

                     

a warning? 

     You’ve heard it all, right? Maybe you’ve even said some of it yourself. But when your intentions are genuine and sincere, nothing can be more frustrating than hearing a pile of excuses . . . from a customer, a prospect, a supplier, an investor, an employee, a boss.

     So, what’s the magic answer? It’s somewhere within yourself. You may not be able to control the attitudes that give birth to replies like these, but you can control your own attitude. You, in fact, are the only one who can.

     And by controlling your own response to the excuses you hear, you are cultivating an opportunity for yourself to set a true leadership example. By setting an example, you:  

A) Keep your emotions out of the fray and

B) May actually influence the offender to re-visit her or his initial behavior or verbal representation of it, and reconsider a better, more productive, higher integrity avenue.

     Perhaps you’re not Henry Ford or Bill Gates or Mary Kay, and the idea of changing the world is not on your breakfast plate, but — as a small business owner or manager or entrepreneur — you are in an extraordinarily unique position to make a difference for yourself, for your family, and for those you work with, simply by choosing to respond instead of react.

Besides, if you never react, you can never over-react!

     People offer excuses to cover their own feelings of inadequacy. Most of the time, you can probably count on excuses being not so much intentionally dishonorable as a shortcoming of the person who’s offering them up in the self-esteem category. Some people who feel they can’t get positive recognition will opt instead for negative recognition because it’s at least some recognition.

     Humans crave recognition. And some recognition always beats indifference.

The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference!

     When you hear excuses, appreciate the insecurities behind them. When it’s possible to overlook them, do it and then make a point of offering (genuine) appreciation for instances of getting a job done without a presentation of reasons why it didn’t get done.

     Offer more encouragement than you might usually provide. Be kinder than you might usually be (because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle). Appreciate differences in perso0nalities and behaviors and help others to grasp the choosing behavior idea through your examples.

     Excuses are a way of life, but they are not always intentional or dishonorable. When you give the benefit of doubt to others, you may get bit in the butt a few times, but you’ll be serving the important purpose of minimizing anxieties and demonstrating productive leadership traits most of the time.

     The captain who keeps an even keel and balanced ship through stormy seas marks every journey with success.

 www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You. God Bless America and America’s Troops. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

Not getting quality from

   consultants? This may be why…

     Right off the top, if it’s not a life-or-death surgical, ocean oil leak, or rocket science need to fill, stop with the panic attacks about finding a consultant with industry-specific experience.

     What you need is to find a consultant who can get the job done. Period.

•      Give me a guy, for example, who sells railroad cars full of French fries and I’ll teach him what I need him to know about representing my fine linens products (or my precision computer parts, or my insurance policies). And he’ll do better at it than a fine linens (or microchip) manufacturing (or insurance) expert.
•      As another example, show me someone who maintains an efficient warehouse operation, and I’ll show her how to manage a shipping schedule better than the head of any trucking company.

     Why? Because sales and organizational skills are lot harder, more time-consuming, and more expensive to teach than the ins and outs of your business.

     Learning how you manufacture and package and sell your products and services is easy. Learning how to think and act like a sales or traffic management pro is not easy because it’s often an issue of attitude.

When you’re outsourcing projects and looking for consultants who can get the job done, don’t be making yourself crazy trying to find someone who has extensive experience in your industry or profession.

     Look instead for someone who has extensive experience in her or his consulting specialty. A good solid marketing person or writer or web designer or trainer or coach, for instance, doesn’t need to have ANY expertise in your specific business or professional practice in order to help you produce a significant difference in sales, sales leads, CRM, or staff development.

The same principles and dynamics that work for selling hot dogs also work for selling precision parts, accounting and legal services, heart transplant specialists, or (aaah, entrepreneurship!) “Silly Bands.”

     The art and insight of writing an effective news release, advertising campaign, or website, doesn’t change in the slightest.

     The target markets change; the media selections change; the technical details change. But benefits are still what need to be emphasized.

     All products and services are purchased because an emotional buying motive is triggered — not because a laundry list of rational features has been presented. Skilled marketing consultants know how to plan and create and activate emotional buying motive triggers that get results.

     Your job is to teach them your business, be a sounding board for their recommendations, and help bring about action.

     You can follow the advice of headhunters and placement services and counselors and job trainers all you want, and puppy-dog behind every leader in your industry or profession, but I’ll put my money on you finding the best outsource consulting service teams and individuals based on your own instincts and your own judge of character and chemistry. It got you here. It works.

Trust yourself.

     The minute you’re able to find people who can fill the role(s) you have in mind, who have a track-record of success in many diverse fields, don’t hesitate to engage her/him/them simply because you think your candy company is so unique that only someone who is a candy business expert can appreciate you and your business enough to do justice to it. A sweet idea, but unrealistic. 

Informed fresh perspectives don’t

    come from clones or ostriches.    

 www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You. God Bless America and America’s Troops. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

The face of your business

 is second only to the guts!

     The first person(s) to encounter your business visitors, customers, clients, patients, prospects, sales reps, suppliers and vendors, delivery people, and solicitors in person and on the phone is(are) “the face of your business.”

     Exercise caution in not underestimating the value of this position. It comes second only to your own and the operational guts of your business. However genuine each individual projects him or herself in that role directly equates with what outsiders will think of you and your business. Gum-chewing, short-skirted bimbettes may not always be in your best-image interests. ;<)   

You get only one chance at a first impression and one chance with each encounter after that to maintain it, so why nickle and dime your selection, placement, and nurturing process for anyone who will serve as your business face? If yours is a start-up or home-based business, that individual could be you, or your spouse or other relative. Most of what follows still applies. 

     Many business owners and managers find it hard to avoid the temptation to tangle up business face job responsibilities with cost-cutting leftovers from someone else’s task pile. Multi-tasking is useful, but be careful about keeping the workload balanced. Being the face of the business is a primary responsibility that requires an authentic and engaging personality as criteria one.

     For some of the same kinds of match-up reasons that –for example– MacDonald’s prefers farmers for franchisees (because of their regimented approach to seasonality and discipline in maintaining consistency) – or that many popular restaurants prefer actors and actors for food-service people because they have a stage presence which typically renders them less inhibited, more outgoing and more entertaining (which can make the difference in upgrade meal and beverage orders, and customer add-ons as well).

Recruiting  process questions to keep on your front burner

and to be able to answer affirmatively and assertively:

• Does this person have an inherent interest in other people?
• Does this person appear to withhold judgment of others?
• Is this person engaging without being overbearing?
• Is his or her tone of voice consistently calm, pleasant, and respectful?
• Any evidence of this person being patronizing or condescending?
• Has this person a natural instinct to be helpful? (Subtly dropping something near him or her gives you a scenario to assess)
• Does this person’s host or hostess skills transcend turmoil situations? (Creating one during an interview will provide some clue) 
• Can this person stay on track with time schedules? (Ask candidates to sort out some typical priorities)
• Does the person you’re considering evidence a good memory for names, faces, and voices? (Are visit #1 intros remembered on visit #2?)
• Does he/she offer to find help that can’t be immediately provided?
• Is the candidate gracious and polite under fire? (This may be hard to determine without considerable contrivance)
• Do you think the person you’re considering will readily acknowledge those waiting in line or on the phone and report delays?

     Selecting candidates who excel at these personal skills is almost always a “best bet” situation because business-related skills can be taught, and human interaction skills usually cannot. In other words, changing some one’s knowledge base is easier than changing some one’s personality. For the face of your business, be less caught up in the resume and more focused on the person. Others will be.

 www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You. God Bless America and America’s Troops. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

A job half done

is half UN-done

     Like the proverbial half-full or half-empty glass debate, businesses and business projects are often left UN-done. When this happens, the entities can usually be expected to unravel completely or take a giant step toward miserable failure.

     Seldom do we see an enterprise or project be abandoned before maturity (except for examples in, for instance, the new home construction market and associated trades, where government incompetencies ushered in a full housing market collapse), and still make a difference at any personal, industry, or market level.

Q.

     What can you do to instill a stronger sense of stick-to-it-iveness in yourself and in your people, or your outsourced project managers?

A.

     Start with yourself! What you do others will follow. The best way to ensure that you finish what you start is to plan your approach and monitor your progress. Something as simple as keeping a nightly, just-before-you-leave-work Attack List (Hint: chunks of tasks work light years better than itemizing full-scale tasks) of things you need to do the next morning.

     When the list is done (and whatever doesn’t make it to the paper or task program screen before 3 minutes is up, isn’t generally worth remembering!), prioritize items with number rankings or multiple asterisks, and proceed in that order, making notations of other unexpected items that surface and perhaps even renumbering everything.

     Take that task list to task with a see-through marker every time a listed item gets done; that allows you to review what’s been accomplished, what’s been interrupted, and what needs more attention. 

     This is not as trying experience as you might imagine if you accept the likelihood that you will be interrupted and disrupted, and account for that inevitability by keeping your mind flexible enough to accept alternative routes and options on the fly.

     Yes, this is an entrepreneurial instinct, but anyone can make it work. It requires only that you keep open-minded. Easy? Yes, but for that to happen, you need to agree with yourself to suspend all judgments.

     Suspending judgments, prejudices, biases, is essential because these will otherwise get in the way of your progress. And of course if you don’t finish projects and communications and tasks, how can you expect those who report to you to do that?

     LBE (Leadership By Example) counts even more than transparency if there must be a choice for where to apply your energy. Transparency keeps your team bolstered, motivated, and challenged under all circumstances, but without you setting daily examples, it will be difficult at best to even approach the point of operating your business with complete openness.

     So, it’s . . . 

1. Open your mind
2. Set examples for others to follow
3. As more work gets done, completed and on schedule, begin moving your business to be more transparent. Note the implication of the words, “begin moving” which means taking it step at a time (instead of all at once), which is usually the best way to approach any business situation.

 www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You. God Bless America and our troops. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

Two Simple Examples:

“Do!” vs. “Say!” and

“How?” vs. “Why?”

     I’ll never forget the lesson I learned many years ago as a young college professor when I tried using a Gestalt Therapy “Empty Chair Role-Playing” technique with a disgruntled student in a business career development classroom.

     I used the wrong word. The angry student nearly injured at least two or three other students because I said “do” instead of “say.” 

     Facing an empty wooden chair I placed in front of him, I draped my jacket over the back and asked Tony, who was extremely annoyed with his boss, what he would do if his boss was in that jacket sitting in that chair facing him right now.

     Tony strode defiantly toward the empty chair, picked it up and flung it full force over the six rows of floor-divers and ducking heads, smashing it to smithereens against the back wall. Lucky for him (and for me) that no one was hurt.

     You’re the boss, right? Ask any employee WHY she or he was late to work or an appointment or meeting. What’s the response? Ask WHY some operational function broke down or WHY your best customer account had been gradually cutting back their orders while increasing competitive purchases. What are the responses you get?

     The word, “Why?” is a request for reasons. It is a set up for anyone to respond with excuses. Asking “Why?” will never solve a problem.

     The most current example of how this word mix-up fails, comes from a befuddled White House asking why the catastrophic oil drilling explosion and leak happened, instead of taking a genuine leadership position and asking “HOW?” . . . “HOW can we fix it?” would certainly have been a better approach and accomplished more. Corrective actions speak louder than analytical investigations. 

     Yes, of course there’s a bit more to this last example. It would seem to most businesspeople rather inconceivable that anything as potentially disastrous as an explosion and major fuel leak could be ignored for a month, and even then, still be preoccupied with where to place blame instead of how to solve the problem.

     So, yes, timing is a critical ingredient in word choice, but difficulties often start and end with the exact words selected and used. Before you might jump to conclusions about some issue in your workspace, you may want to respond prudently instead of react in ways that simply make the situation worse.

     Pause long enough before speaking to consider how the recipient(s) might perceive the words you choose, as well as the integrity of your timing.

     These examples and this discussion are not far-fetched by any means. Imagine such vast differences (as between “do” and “say” or “how?” and “why?”) in word choices you use – or overlook or let slide –  in your advertising, marketing, promotion, public relations, customer service, sales presentation.

     Was it your grandfather who said “think first and speak second”?

www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Ha@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You and America and Our Troops. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

Please excuse me for

not looking up, but I am

listening carefully… BULL!

     It’s the unconscious “game” we all play every day and most vehemently protest when we’re caught red-handed.

     Some who recognize the fallibility of its practice at least have the courtesy to acknowledge the shortcoming at the same time that they practice it in your face. Others just play dumb when you call them at it.

     Don’t let employees pretend they’re listening to you while they’re reading or writing or surfing the Net or watching TV, or –and here’s the biggy–  driving a car! It’s been proven conclusively time and again that the human mind simply cannot concentrate fully on two things at the exact same time. If the answer to your question, “Are you driving right now?” is “Yes,” set a call-back time and hang up!

     Yes, concentration can alternate rapidly, but there are no double-barrel brainwave tunnels that facilitate thought process focus on more than one item, idea, situation, person or place at any given split second. 

You can’t do 2 things at the same time!

     So what does this mean if you own and/or manage a business or part of a business? It means when there’s important information to share, you need to flat-out tell distracted employees — like many assertive classroom teachers tell students – that you will wait to speak until you have their full attention.

     By the same token, you need to return the behavior by facing the person who’s serving as a news source to you. (No, not network TV news anchors; most of them deserve less attention than a bad car commercial)

     It means you need to teach others around you — by example. It means you need to subtly demonstrate (preferably without making an issue of it) that good back and forth eye contact (not staring or glaring) enormously improves the accuracy of communication and also reinforces self-esteem.

     It means you could do no greater service to the elimination of errors by consistently paraphrasing (repeating in your own words what you understand others to be saying, as a way to check accuracy points with them). “Do I understand you correctly to mean __________?” is a highly effective verbal tool for that.

     It means that both you and the information source will benefit enormously in pursuing common goals and thought processes by asking for diagrams and examples.

     Ask the speaker to stop or slow down until you can take notes. Not only will this force a more careful explanation, and help prevent errors, it’s also a flattering and ego-boosting technique.

     Sure this all takes more time. Of course it’s more effort. But the results will launch your rocket quicker, safer, and more productively than those who trip over themselves rushing to light a fuse that may not even be connected.

      Just ask yourself if you want the job done right the first time. If the answer is yes, take the extra time and effort to communicate the who, what, when, where, why, and how.    

www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless:  You, America, and Our Troops. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

Does your marketing

Snap, Crackle and Pop?

     Do the words you’re using for your marketing pieces and programs toss off enough zing and sizzle to get through the clutter?

     Are you using the right words in the right ways? In other words, HOW you say what you say is at least as important as WHAT you say!

     Canadian educator/philosopher/futurist Marshall McLuhan, considered the first father and leading prophet of the electronic age, taunted us 50 years ago with his proclamation “The Medium is the Message!” Certainly there is no greater proof of that today than the Internet. Considering how visual the medium is, it’s astonishing that words stand alone as king of Internet sales.

     Or do they?

     If your homepage is still using lame old words like “Welcome to” and “Now introducing” and “Announcing” and “Therefore” and “However,” your Internet efforts are not king of much worth talking about; you might need to chat with some teenagers.

     You definitely need to throw down your walker and start listening to what the world’s most successful marketers are saying: NOTHING RUNS LIKE A DEERE and I’M LOVIN’ IT are about as close to self-talk back-pats as you’ll find.

     Take this YES/NO Test . . .

• What are your marketing messages all about? Are they busily pounding chest with repetitive references that use THE 6 KILLER WORDS: I/me/my/us/we/our?  (Instead of focusing on “you” and “your”?) ___YES ___NO
• Do your ads, brochures, web pages, on-hold phone messages, news releases and direct mail beat the drums with braggadocio about “how great we are”? ___YES ___NO 
• Is the message emphasis on how much we can do for you, why / how we earn our reputation, how reliable (trustworthy / attentive / respectful / courteous) our exceptionally trained and experienced professional people are? ___YES ___NO

     If you answered “YES” to any of the above, your website and the rest of your marketing program are positively not working for you in a way that’s even close to achieving your potential. In fact, they are likely to be working against you!

     Unfortunately for most business owners, this whole world of promotional text and copywriting, website content, branding, slogans, jingles, public relations news releases, mission and vision statements, ebooks and feature articles, might as well be the makings of another Harry Potter book . . . Cauldrons of Text Turmoil perhaps? 

     So what’s the answer? How can you give your business a “Snap, Crackle, Pop” dose of Rice Krispies to make more of what you already have, and to keep costs within reason? Start with using AIDAS as your yardstick. Do your marketing words attract Attention? Do they create Interest? Stimulate Desire? Bring about Action? Deliver Satisfaction?

     Where are they weakest? Now you have the groundwork for maximizing the creative development time and energy of an experienced, qualified business writer. Spell out what you need, and agree to terms. This is MUCH smarter than hiring and giving free rein to a marketing, PR or ad agency/group who will feed you many unnecessary and expensive steps to (maybe) get to the same ends.

     The medium IS the message. Don’t let service providers run you around in circles to discover the truth of it!

  www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless:  You, America, and Our Troops. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

“That honorable stop.”

- Shakespeare

“Leaving a few things

unsaid.”

- Elbert Hubbard

     Call it what you like, but having a mature sense of judgment, restraint, prudence, or tact is one of the world’s greatest measures of effective leadership.

     On a day when world news hovers over a General and a President who both apparently lack this quality, we are once again left to our own devices for finding leadership examples in our own businesses and industries and professions.

     We are bombarded today by many “progressive-minded” management gurus, trainers, coaches, consultants and self-proclaimed “evangelists,” with the need to practice “Leadership Transparency.”

     The notion is being hard-sell marketed that business owners and managers must emulate the open-door characteristics of Leadership Transparency in order to make a difference in this world.

     Advocates also suggest that the word, “transparency,” and transparent actions, need to take the high road of fostering full time open-and-above-boardedness.

     Yet it’s no secret that moderation in the form of exercising discretion will almost always cut us out a better, more productive, less hurtful path to take, than one that is completely and 100% clear.

Being able to see through leadership

can often limit its very ability

to produce meaningful results.

     It’s an instinctive behavior unique to human beings (and especially to all of us “Men Are From Mars” types) to indulge in analytical pursuits at literally every turn in the road.

     When management leaders spill their guts (beans? milk?) and put everything out on the table, they leave no room for analyzing alternatives. Analyzing alternatives paves the way to innovative thinking.

     Economic growth comes from watering and fertilizing and casting sunshine onto innovative thinking.

     One need not be a brain surgeon to qualify for having the awareness that businesses that nurture and encourage innovative thinking are those that survive and thrive. Those that don’t, don’t.

     Leadership effectiveness is dependent on the ability to motivate. Motivating others requires the right mix of challenges and opportunities. How challenging is it to provide complete access to clear open-door directions? Is that action dishing up an opportunity or quietly investing in the status quo?

     Exercising discretion amounts to holding back a little . . . giving followers their own openings, providing the chances to innovate and excel.

     Nobody said leadership was easy, but do we really think we’ll have booming success stories on our hands when we encourage everyone we work with both inside and outside our businesses to know everything that’s going on all the time?  

www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless:  You, America, and Our Troops. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

Business Wisdom Stuff

My Father (“Harry”)

Told Me 

Whether or not these “words of wisdom” actually made a difference is anybody’s guess, but I believe some of it did. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a gem, you’ll have to sort through it all yourself. Just because something did or didn’t work for me doesn’t mean it will or won’t for you. So — take it with a grain of salt? Perhaps, but know for sure that some of this old world advice from an arguably savvy father amounts to the kind of input that can make a difference for almost any entrepreneur and/or business owner.

 HE WHO HESITATES IS LOST!

(This message was delivered repeatedly to my right ear while Dad was teaching me how to “merge” into traffic, then again years later as a new app, when I vacillated between two job offers. “Lost” wasn’t something I wanted to be, so I found this prompt to action useful a few times over.)

You always want things to be copacetic, and the best way to get there is to have a sense of urgency about all that you do.

(Dad often supplemented this advice with reminders to “be quick like a bunny” and to do what you need to do “in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” I recall as well Harry’s contradictory “Haste Makes Waste” warnings, but eventually figured out a compromise behavior which was something like: think stuff out slowly and carefully then act like lightning to get the job done. Hey, it worked for me. And as it turns out, part of it wasn’t far from the motto for carpenters and heart surgeons: “Measure twice. Cut once.”)

NEVER CUT CORNERS WITH FOOD OR SHOES!

(You need, he would lecture, to take priority care of your appetite and your feet because you only get one of one and two of the other!)

When meeting others for the first time, always dress a notch higher than you think they will.

(Because “clothes make the man” and “you only get one first impression.”)

To be the best you can be, you have to practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, and practice some more.

KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN (Physically and financially!)

When all else fails to cheer you up, sing and whistle!

Go with the wind, but

always be ready

to turn into it!

If you can’t say something nice about someone, say nothing.

ALWAYS give people more effort and more attention than you think they ever imagined getting from you!

CHARITY STARTS AT HOME . . .

Don’t give up to others what you don’t have for yourself, no matter how needy they are because you can do more to help others when you do it from a position of strength . . . and be more generous than you think you should be when you get to the point where you can afford it!

And, arriving home as a kid, with a bloody nose, Harry said:

If you didn’t give the other guy a black eye, I’m gonna give you a sore butt!  

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY! 

www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless:  You, America, and Our Troops. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

The more you

“power-play” 

the more business

you lose!

     Customers, employees, suppliers, investors, referrers, service people . . . your trade, profession, industry, community, neighborhood, and environment, your family. Your SELF! These are your bread-and-butter individuals, groups, attributes, supporters, and biggest fans.  

     They alone determine if your business  sinks or swims. They will not stand around any longer these days (compared to past patience practices) waiting for your other shoe to drop. If you don’t feel you can be respectful and genuine in all of your dealings with others every day of the week, take a government job! (You’ll thrive there!)

     But if making your business work is what’s really important to you, if your associations, integrity, accomplishments, and reputation all play important roles, if your family is the end of your rainbow, you need to make sure that your business is not over-indulging in brute-force power play struggles with those who support your business and life interests . . . or even with competitors.

    Power plays may work in sports, but they don’t have a place in business or family life. The harder you push others or the marketplace, the greater the odds that you’ll be breeding porcupines. No one likes being in a corner. Hard-nosed billing policies and collection tactics that leave no room for reality will agitate a great many quill-throwers.

     A major propane gas company in Delaware makes a practice of tip-toe backyard visits, to slap padlocks on gas pipe feeders when they think they haven’t been paid on time. They don’t bother to tell families that wake up to no heat or hot water that there is no grace period for late payments, and they don’t even have the courtesy to inform them of the shutoff.

     The company is often wrong. But, when they are, they simply send someone back out to unlock the lock when they discover their error. That’s it. No apology. No anything. After all, they’re practically a monopoly. And they’ve already legalized deals that require changeovers to other suppliers carry forced removal expenses for existing underground storage that they struck deals with long-gone developers on years ago. Why should they care? 

     Because customers talk. And many are in the process of finding alternative power sources, even with storage tank removal expenses. And one day, down the road a piece, they’re going to find out the hard way that this is not how reputable people and companies do business . . . that power plays don’t work.

     Acting unnecessarily tough with employee benefit cutback explanations or time-off requests can make you a bad guy overnight. People (especially people who feel disenfranchised) talk. Words you may think you tossed off innocently can come back to haunt you quicker than you can even remember saying them. Sound familiar? You may want to step back long enough to reassess your present policies and re-set your meter (before it runs out!).

www.TWWsells.com or call 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!