How To Boost Healthcare

Great Medicine is not

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

If you’re not rattling cages,

reserve your business

headstone now!

                 ~ ~ ~                  

C’mon, Hal, the Halloween season gettin’ to you?

Waiting with tricks instead of treats? 

Not me. I rattle cages.

But what about you? Are you depending on others to scare up some new business? Maybe you’ve seen too many stun-gunned tongues (say that five times fast!) and zombie axe murderers on late night TV? Too many ghoulish retail displays? Maybe you almost died? 

If every chainsaw you see reminds you of a massacre, maybe you’re running on (or from?) fear? No? Well if you’re not shaking up your business every week, it may be that you’re running on ambivalence and, in turn, leading the county coroner to your business doorstep.

Investing in the status quo with your business is a no-action action that –depending on how secure your finances are– will either provoke a knife plunge into the heart of your enterprise or cause business death by potato peeler. If 2012 means continued business life, it must also mean continuing dramatic action at every level.

If it ain’t broke, fix it anyway.

Stop being afraid of stirring up the competition. The most successful retail businesses are those located in the same geographical areas as their competitors. Competition stimulates consume traffic. Your website’s not up to snuff? Bite the bullet; get some cash out from under the mattress, and pay a professional to polish up your act!

Can’t afford the advertising you want? Stop advertising. Go to (free) Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn instead. Start doing (free) public relations instead — newsworthy news releases, captioned newsworthy photos, special events (e.g., charity-based, combined with other businesses, educational programs).

Are your employees, suppliers, referrers, investors, community supporters challenged enough? Are you putting out strong motivational incentives to get the (free) word-of-mouth going? Are you running contests that provoke fun and prompt action? (Hint: No need for elaborate or expensive prizes if enough imagination is exercised).

Shake it up!

Have you given presentations at local colleges, high schools, community centers, and then promoted them and followed up with news releases and unusual photos? Have you compiled a media “hit list” of appropriate editors and writers and publishers who would have a natural interest in your business and business pursuits?

Do you have an “elevator speech”? Do you carry business cards and a notepad with you at all times? Do you ask questions 20% of the time and listen to answers (and jot them in your notebook) 80% of the time? Have you collected email addresses everyplace you go? Are you using them to send worthwhile info out?

“Business As Usual” means inactivity, nothing changing, no excitement, no hustle. It will take you straight to the business burial grounds up in the sky (or somewhere?) and you might want to stop off at your lawyer and accountants’ offices on the way to fill out bankruptcy papers. This economy has no mercy.

If you’ve got guts and gumption, nurture them. Stimulate them. Ignite them. Explode them. Make them work for you. 

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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!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, 

and Clients and Patients

and Customers Too!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My! As different as each creature may be from one another, all are considered equally dangerous, equally entrancing to watch, equally exciting to find in one’s camera lens, equally cuddly, equally threatening, equally enthralling. In other words, sometimes they can all fit the same category.

As marketing targets, it’s often all for one and one for all. Professional practices (doctors, lawyers, accountants, management consultants and trainers) are small businesses with special skills and special interests. They have clients and patients. But clients and patients are customers too. They just have special needs.

All this specialization stuff, however, makes little if any difference in marketing plans, targets, approaches, strategies, or branding programs. Perceived differences matter only to professional practice principals. No one else cares. The bottom line is that we each spend our money to get a product or service.

And each of us wants to know:

“What’s in it for me?”

Whether a product or service is life-saving or life-threatening has nothing to do with whether a client or patient is considered a client or patient — or customer. All that matters is product or service performance, and the integrity and authenticity of the person(s) representing or standing behind the product or services purchased.

The issue, say some, revolves around the concept and delivery of “high trust” vs. “low-trust.” Marketing people will be quick to recite the five criteria of effective programs, campaigns, and messages. Regardless of what name is used to define a target market (customers, clients, or patients), marketing must:

1)  Attract Attention

2)  Create Interest

3)  Stimulate Desire

4)  Bring About Action

5)  Provide Satisfaction

. . . and it really must do ALL of these to be effective.

On top of that, the rule of thumb applies to ALL FORMS of marketing – print, broadcast and outdoor advertising; sales; public (industrial, professional and community) relations; promotion; merchandising; pricing; packaging; labeling; website content; social media content ; business and appointment cards; stationery and invoices.

It applies as well to direct mail, bumper stickers and building signage, plus a hundred other uses. It applies to branding themes, logos, and jingles as well as trade and professional show banners and exhibits.

When you want to know how your business or practice is coming across to others, ask. Measure people’s responses and each marketing implementation against the five criteria. 

If you’re looking for prime examples of marketing that fails because it fails to deliver all five criteria, you need go no farther than your local hospital. Hospitals breed marketing mediocrity because they refuse to spend money on outsourced creative services and convince themselves they can handle it all in-house!

Most professional practices seem to think in similar terms. The problem is that their products and services are justifiably more expensive than the local coffee shop and must carry messages that appeal to a higher level of audience needs, but that doesn’t eliminate the need to trigger emotional buying motives.

Sophisticated products and services are not sold with dumb slogans or rational, logical appeals that push features instead of benefits. Humans are humans are humans. Market from the heart. Market benefits! Pay attention to corporate advertising for Mercedes Benz.

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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!

Success seldom surfaces

when creative service

providers are squashed

. . . or does it? 

Show me a writer or designer who thrives on being torturously pushed and prodded to stressful deadlines, and I’ll show you someone who is likely to be a do-nothing PR agent or brain-dead news media person, but don’t expect to find great advertisers, marketers or creative service people thrive in angst-ridden  pandemonium.

With rare exception, creative development work that’s “rushed” breeds mediocrity (and costs more, which makes the engager a double loser!). Truly remarkable talent, it is said by many, is born of free spirit, and ample time.

Do I know exceptions? Plenty. But exceptional creativity is the product of unconstrained imagination and self-discipline. The exceptions I know –ah, including myself (!)– coulda/shoulda/woulda produced more outstanding creations if they’d (we’d) not been pushed, prodded, intimidated, threatened, and time-pressured.

My best writing has surfaced during both

great duress and great relaxation. So

maybe the rule is an exception?

My national boo0k award effort was done at my leisure. Its underperforming predecessor took two years under pressing deadlines. My worst book was written under crushing due dates. My best book –now almost ready to market– was ten years on the drawing board. My best award-winning jingle was done in one all-nighter.

My worst ad campaign took six months to research and justify and another six months to finalize and launch. My national award-winning, record-sales marketing program took three months start to finish. I have a future award-winning children’s book series ready to launch after 40 years in hiding.

And only heaven knows how many hundreds of new business startups have benefited by my rushing attacks on their website content, news releases, packaging, media positioning, and strategic planning. Yet the most successful, sales-productive efforts I have made have come only with major investments of time.

The trouble is that upstart business owners want what they want when they want it and time is not a worthy commodity to offer when they’re sitting on a hot idea and investor dollars.

Neither patience nor perfectionism has ever been a trait of entrepreneurs.

Neither has analysis, which is typically the province of corporate muckity-mucks. 

Okay, so knocking this subject all over doesn’t settle the issue of business time pressures and the creative product. That, however, is the issue. Pushing and prodding and time-pressuring creative people may not always produce the best or most productive work, but it gets the job done.

Depending on circumstances and the marketplace and the economy (and who can depend on the economy?), a judgement must be made about whether you want to win awards or customers. Without a lot of room for awards on the walls of a crushing economy, the bottom line should be to insist on results, not pretty words and pictures.

Design awards only produce sales for designers. Copywriting awards only produce sales for copywriters. You can stop paying for your creative service providers to get more sales by putting some heat on their abilities to perform for you, the client.

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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!

“That’s me! That’s 

just the way I am!”

Yup! and that’s also a choice – to avoid telling the truth or avoid offering an explanation that feels awkward. 

Do we hear this kind of excuse with regularity, or am I just imagining things? It almost doesn’t matter what the question is that triggers this response. Asking why a person did something, or failed to do something can be equally responsible for getting that shoulder-shrug, palms up answer. Because it’s an easier “out” than admitting an error.

Notice, btw, that the keyword that sets off these (“That’s me,” “That’s just the way I am,” ”Hey, whadda I know?”) kinds of retorts is WHY?

“Why” is a terrible word for anyone except a scientist.

All it does is provoke excuses.

“Why were you late to work the last three days?” will get you ”My car broke down” or “My dog has been throwing up a lot” or “I had to give my neighbor’s kid a ride to school this week.”

Entrepreneurs don’t spend their energy analyzing.

It wastes too much time.

Better to use “HOW?”

How? forces excuse-makers to deal with reality. It begs the question of process. What specific steps can be taken, in other words. “How can you avoid being late beginning tomorrow?” Effectively followed by: “Please give me a 3-point list of specific steps (HOW?) you will take to be on time/restore the dog’s health/leave earlier for school?” 

“That’s me. That’s just the way I am”

. . . is the classic response from those who are lazy, yes, but more telling than that: from those with low self-esteem. Today’s society is literally plagued with low self-esteem. Children are not taught that they are okay. Parents rarely reinforce what they believe is obvious. Employers have stopped back-patting.

And social media is nothing more than an avalanche of token compliments and empty promises.

Many have come to accept social media exchanges so readily that they convince themselves that their 14,000 Twitter Followers are actual friends, and that their Facebook Friends are far beyond acquaintanceship.

Self-esteem reality is being dwarfed by ego fantasy.

I find this trend disconcerting because I (and many psychologists) believe success in life and in business has more to do with a person’s sense of self-confidence than almost any other factor. Self-confidence is a by-product of self-esteem. When someone feels good about her or himself, he or she becomes confident in her or his pursuits.

Of course there are exceptions to the above, but generally speaking, the best thing we can do for our loved ones (especially for the malleable minds of our children and grandchildren), and for our employees and associates, is to plant and nurture as many seeds of esteem-building words and actions as possible, as often as possible.

The return on investment can be enormous, and there is nothing more self-satisfying you can give to others than your sincere compliments and encouragement. Try looking for opportunities to “accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative” (a song my father used to sing). The more it works, so will your business, and your life. 

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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!

Books, billboards, news

releases, website content, 

magazines and magazine

articles, posters and

displays, newspaper

 columns, surveys, signs,

 postcards, brochures, 

commercials, promotional

 emails, direct mail, photo

captions, jingles, branding

themelines, package labels,

training curricula, promo

literature and exhibit

 materials, webinars, sales

presentations, seminars 

lyrics, booklets, speeches,

 ebooks, blog posts, scripts

  business plans, marketing 

 strategies, love letters,  

manuals, greeting cards,

and matchbook covers

Ever write any of these yourself? How’d it come out? Did you get the results you wanted? What happened? Are you a skilled writer? An experienced wordsmith? Probably not. If you’re reading posts on this blog site, it’s because you’re an entrepreneur, a small business or professional practice owner, manager, or principal, a student, or a leader.

If you fit any of those kinds of career descriptions, odds are that you are marketing a product, service, or idea (or some combination) and the daily challenges of keeping your business or organization moving forward leaves little room for you to indulge in fantasy of seeing yourself as a talented writer. And you’re smart enough to know when to get help.

One telling characteristic of successful entrepreneurs, in fact, is that they know how to pull their ideas forward while leaving necessary professional services up to professionals they engage — CPA, attorney, management consultant, and more often than not: creative services, especially writers and designers.

Entrepreneurs, after all, are the catalysts of business and the economy, and serve as mirrors of society wants and needs. They alone are responsible for new job growth (not corporations, and certainly not government). As a result, entrepreneurs are also the most sensitive of business people, and the quickest to recruit outside expertise when they see the need.

Small business owners are far more in touch than their big business counterparts who are obsessed with analyzing with what message content and structure communicates best, and sells.

They recognize that one dot or small sweep of a design line, or one word can make the difference between sale and no sale.

They respect and appreciate the value of expertise.

So the list above is not just a teaser or composite of writing applications. It is a list of real business-related (yes, even love letters!) writing needs that most entrepreneurs are confronted with at one time or another. It is also a list of writing applications that anyone you hire to write for you should have experience with, at least most of them.

I know. I’ve written all of the above many times over. And I can tell you that a marketing writer who hasn’t written a book doesn’t know how to tell a story, and stories sell. A website content writer who hasn’t written radio and TV commercials has no sense of writing concise, punchy stuff that’s short and sweet, and short and sweet sells.

Someone who’s never written a billboard hasn’t even a clue about how to write branding lines because the discipline is the same:  Aim for 7 words or less and tell a story in those 7 words that has a beginning, middle, and ending . . . and is persuasive. And in direct mail, the more you tell, the more you sell — that means, literally, a blanket of billboards.

Writing emphasis must always be “you” focused (not “we”). It must attract attention, create interest, stimulate desire, bring about action, and deliver satisfaction. All writing –even an instruction manual– represents an opportunity to make a sale and/or create a favorable impression. The writing you have now? Does it work as hard as you do?

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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!

Marketing, advertising,

PR and sales

industry-specific 

experience?

Worthless.

An Opinion 

SALES

Give me a guy who can sell ketchup, propane, decorative plants, dental insurance, or rubberbands any day over a techie geek to sell your iPads, TVs, Wii programs, or Kindles. Geeks sell geeks. Sales pros sell people. Why think small when your opportunities are big? The geek market is small. Find people who are experts at serving customers, and teach them product/service knowledge.

Looking for an exceptional salesperson for your new snack products? Stop looking in the snack product industry. Find someone who sells railroad cars full of dorm furniture to universities. Surgical supplies? Get your search engine out of the med school dropout arena and find a classy cosmetics presenter with a sparkling, eager-to-learn  personality.

Oh, and remember that great salespeople don’t make great sales managers. Only great managers make great sales managers.

PR

Find a freelance writer who has some psychology background and who can write some slam-bang persuasive headlines and sentences for all kinds of products and services– someone who is tenacious in follow-up efforts. Forget about established, specialist PR firms and groups who tend to be more interested in their names than yours. 

The public relations field is a breeding ground for con artists. I’ve seen top PR firms charge $25,000 a month and produce zero. If they can’t make what you have to sell be exciting, you lose. If they can’t follow up fanatically to get writers, reporters, editors, producers, and publishers pouncing on your story, you lose. You can teach someone with diverse quality PR experience about your industry media. 

ADVERTISING

Skip right over any provider who claims expertise in your field, unless you’re willing to spend lots of money to make no impact. Hospital advertising is a great example. It’s pathetic. Does “Excellent People” and “We Care” float your boat? Hospitals and banks are the perfect examples of advertising waste.

Get a person or small team on board who want to help you make a difference, who know how to ignite and cultivate creative thinking applications that get results. Just because something looks nice and is clever or informative doesn’t mean that it works. It may only mean that the agency is seeking to win a design award.

Don’t settle. Do your homework and due diligence. Then teach her/him/them about your business and industry.

MARKETING

Not “marketing” like healthcare people think: physician office visits with armsful of popcorn, candy, 6-foot subs, sports and concert tickets. That’s called payola, as in bring ‘em gifts and they’ll prescribe or recommend or buy your products. It’s also called bribery, and it borders on STARK Law and other ethical violation issues. 

And not marketing like Fortune 500 companies hellbent on analysis paralysis before even considering a potential packaging design, pricing structure, promotional flyer, merchandising gimmick or ad headline. Part of why big companies have too much at stake to be entrepreneurial has to do with the astronomically wasted expenses involved in frivolous product and service development and meaningless market research.

You don’t need an army of “experienced (Fill in any specialty here) marketing pros.” You need a person or small team who have a proven track-record for producing results in a variety of fields. Diversity, flexibility, and common sense abilities to work with an Objective/Strategy/Tactics framework in all types of media are what count more than “industry-specific.”

P.S. Beware “Social Media Marketing Experts” who don’t understand marketing. There are plenty of them. 

THE KEY

It’s easy to teach experienced marketing/advertising/sales/PR people what they need to know about your product or service to most effectively represent it. But it’s nearly impossible to teach industry and professional practice-specific experienced people how to market, advertise, publicize and sell.

Specialization Closes Minds 

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  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

   Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Unless you’re a surgeon

or bombsquad defuser,

 nothing gets done

  by standing still.

Yesterday we talked about constantly moving targets. We touched on the challenges presented by rapidly changing rules, attitudes, circumstances, and information access.

To impact consumer, employee, and supplier behaviors positively, entrepreneurs and small business owners must flex, adjust, adapt, and go with the flow.

We must also hustle.

When problems surface, pounce on them. I’ve actually seen unsavvy (and ultimately unscuccessful business owners and managers walk away, pass the buck, blame others, close up and go home, and –in one instance– put a “Gone To Lunch” sign on the counter at 11:55am, and literally chase out eight customers who’d been waiting in line

. . . oblivious, obviously, to the common knowledge that every unhappy customer tells a minimum of ten other people who tell ten other people. So, in this case that makes 800 bad-mouth comments. Can your business survive that? (“Quick like a bunny” was my father’s motto; it always earned him big tips.)

Having a constant sense of urgency communicates leadership, compassion, integrity, authenticity, and professionalism. Others will assign those values to everything you are associated with — your products, services, ideas, and all of the people involved with your business. Pretty good return for zero dollar investment.

Don’t be so afraid of making mistakes. Yes, ”haste makes waste,” and ”failing to plan is planning to fail.” But you can’t run a business cornerstoned by trite expressions. When you take reasonable risks, you are not betting the farm, or running off to the nearest lottery window, racetrack, or casino with your gard-earned dollars.

Unless the task at hand requires some Herculian effort (e.g., securing a king-size mattress onto the roof of a Washington Bridge-bound VW) or is intricately detailed (e.g., drawing blood, folding a parachute), be on the alert about when you can hustle your muscle and please your customer or employee or vendor with a prompt response.

All of this takes an action attitude and a determination to “Git R Done,” but, hey that’s simply a matter of sleeping and exercising enough, eating right, and making the choice. This starts to sound like some kind of training camp? It is. If you’re going to make this all work, you have to choose to keep yourself in good shape, and stay with it! 

Try walking faster. Oh, and keeping a journal of response times for various tasks and services will give you a sense of where you are, where you need to be, and give you the information you need to improve the sense of urgency you deliver. What every day? No, but maybe a day or two a week to start, then a monthly check-up. 

Remember the Chinese proverb: “Talk Does Not Cook Rice.”   

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  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

 Thanks for your visit and may God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone!