Archive for the 'Theory' Category

Jun 04 2020

IS YOUR BUSINESS A BLANK BILLBOARD?

IS THIS BLANK SPACE

 

YOUR LATEST

 

  BUSINESS MESSAGE?

 

 

INSTEAD OF LOSING SLEEP, torturing your friends and family, and spending money you don’t have… Instead of spending every waking minute trying to cope with one crisis after another …Instead of having no genuine, reliable plan to replace your investments or feeling like you’ll have to close your business, or (like many healthcare professionals) feeling pressured to merge with more securely-financed competitors — Don’t Jump!

 

 

EVEN IF YOU ARE FEELING DESPERATE, there’s much more that’s possible if you’ll just step back and clear all your “yes/but” thinking. Close your eyes for just one minute while you take some deep breaths and imagine a 2-year-old giggling toddler running into your arms . . . a child who thinks you are the greatest thing since milk, sunshine, mirrors and puppy licks.  Go ahead. Do it! Close your eyes. Take deep breaths. It only takes ONE MINUTE for you to rattle your own cage, regain control.  

 

NOW BEGIN SOME NEW THINKING with pen and paper (keyboards fail physiologically to prompt the same level of commitment) by drawing an upsidedown triangle. Draw two horizontal lines dividing the upsidedown triangle into thirds. Top third, label “OBJECTIVES.” Middle third, label “STRATEGIES.” Bottom third, label “TACTICS.” [Keep taking those deep breaths!]

The OBJECTIVES are the two or three realistic goals you would like to reach that you think possible if you can get your act together. The STRATEGIES are the avenues you take to reach your objectives [and deal with roadblocks that may suddenly pop up!]. The TACTICS are the methods/steps you need to take to activate the STRATEGIES to reach your goals [the OBJECTIVES].

 

IF YOU CAN DO THIS MUCH, YOU ARE WELL ON YOUR WAY out from under the suffering, the COVID-19 pandemic, the UNpeaceful demonstrations and rioting, the merciless political rampage that is more preoccupied with stirring up new problems than in solving existing ones . . . and, most importantly,YOU ARE WELL ON YOUR WAY TO: 

 . . . Revitalizing your own energy

. . . Refreshing your thinking  

. . . And taking firm action with steps forward on your own behalf and on behalf of your friends/ family/employees/customers/and community. 

 

Once you have a better grasp of where you want your business to go, and what you need to do to get there, just make it happen! Yes, you CAN do it!!

 

If this last step is difficult to digest, call me (Hal)

 at my desk (CT/M-Sat): 1.931.854.0474 and I’ll use

my experience (with helping to straighten out over 

600 businesses and professional practices) to see 

if I can suggest some next-step thinking for your

pursuits. If I’m not answering, leave callback

number, time zone, and best times to reach you.

(NO FEES ATTACHED TO THESE CALLS) 

 

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Aug 20 2019

DOES YOUR BUSINESS GO BEYOND “BUSINESS”?

DOES YOUR BUSINESS

 

  GO BEYOND “BUSINESS”?

 

Is it time to take a breather in your creative business quest? “NEVER!” is what most entrepreneurs would respond. 

In fact, I would go so far as to say that

MANY TIMES NEVER” is what those who are truly creative entrepreneurs would actually think!

 

 

This week brings one of those rare-breed individuals I’m describing: Valerie Connelly. She has come to the point of taking a breather long enough to present 35 years worth of dedicated creative focus on refining and building one single product to the point of readiness — delivering genuine women’s empowerment!

This experience includes: writing/producing/acting in three original stage musicals, creating CD albums and hundreds of original songs, backed by 16 years of publishing/editing/ designing 225 books of every genre for both US and foreign authors (plus six of her own!). . . add 17 years of classical piano training, 2 years in the Peace Corps in West Africa, 25 years of teaching high school French and (often on the same days) entertaining in Chicago nightclubs, being an award-winning painter, acclaimed block-art artist, patented inventor, and a “dog whisperer” . . . all while raising two life-success daughters and inspiring her two grandchildren.

Thursday night, the Watkins Theater at the Watkins College of Art in Nashville, Tennessee, is hosting Valerie and many of her supporters to a long-awaited professional actors’ “Live Readers Theater Performance” of her totally-original, full-length, pre-production musical film: LOVE IS…” 

Click HERE to see the sizzle reel!

The live narrated script-reading presentation includes big-screen video representations that accompany each of the film’s 16 original songs

The planned movie, with a view toward 2020 production, has been endorsed by world-famous-and-respected  performer, Kelsey Grammer through his production company (Grammnet Productions) crediting LOVE IS… script, music, story, and plans as follows:

“A truly inspirational

 

and touching journey

 

of life, love and laughter,

 

with a timeless message.

 

Delightful!”

 

NEWLY “ATTACHED” TO LOVE IS…

 

— As Film Music Composer and Selective Music Arranger, GEOFF KOCH brings 22 years of high profile music composing expertise to LOVE IS… He is President, Nashville Composers Association, and President of SCORE-COM, working in tandem with FILM-COM. Geoff is at the forefront of composing for productions in all genres that take place in planetarium domes worldwide . . .

 

— As Music Supervisor, ANDY HILL is a 9-time Academy Award-winner in film music. He led the “Disney Renaissance Decade” as VP of Music Production for Walt Disney Studios, including direct music supervision of The Lion King, Beauty and The Beast, and Sister Act, and subsequently for his own firm: Message In A Bottle, Ed Wood, James and the Giant Peach, and Happy Feet… before winning a Grammy Award for Best Musical Album for Children for Elmo in Grouchland.

We wish Valerie and her team

great success in their pursuit

to “go beyond” and “rise above”

in their quest to prove that

BUSINESS WORKS.

 

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Jun 09 2019

YOUR BUSINESS STAR… FILM INDUSTRY LESSONS

YOUR BUSINESS STAR…

 

FILM INDUSTRY LESSONS

Just brought my “think out of the box” business life and teachings back from the Cannes Film Festival.

The experience opened doors. New insights planted themselves in the middle of my pursuit path. The surroundings of this venture, highlighted by a breath-taking daylong drive from Geneva through the Alps to the French Riviera, were amplified by the seemingly endless clamber of the 12,000+ Festival participants who each in their own way sought the spotlights and camera lenses… often, while pretending not to.

 

The experience literally seemed to stun-gun my mind. What did I learn that might be good food for thought for every business and professional practice owner and manager?

Working smarter, not harder is no better than working harder not smarter.

Business success come only through a strong sense of balance.

A good place to start improving your business balance is to take inventory of your commitment to never cease searching for ways to improve your product, your service, your attitude, your story, your people, and the lives of your customers, clients and patients.

Serving as a makeshift Executive Producer for an emerging  (pre-production) original feature musical film (LOVE IS… Click on logo above for the less-than-2-minute “Sizzle Reel”) has been a major chunk of my life since helping to launch the forerunner stage version three years ago.

I’ve learned –sometimes the hard way–  that with every tiny aspect of a film –from words, music, and sound effects, to direction, production, gestures, budgets, lighting, cameras, film-editing, marketing, branding, promotion, legalities, you name it:

Everything changes every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year.

It is changing me as I write this and will no doubt continue to as long as I keep open-minded enough to accept that. It will change even as the movie is being filmed and recorded and edited and even after it’s done in the ways that it is branded and promoted.

WOW!, you might say, that sounds nerve-wracking!

Well guess what else I learned? Every business has the same dynamics. We have simply come to accept that many of the businesses and practices we own and manage never change. We often just accept that our businesses follow specific rules and that those rules limit change.

BALONEY!

Each of us changes every minute of every day in some way. We simply turn ourselves off to being receptive to that thought because it somehow threatens our existences.

Rising above that “being stuck in the mud” mindset is key to achieving record growth with our business pursuits and ourselves.

Think about all that next time you watch a movie… maybe even before that? It’s called renewing your own sense of self-awareness. What have you got to lose besides a false sense of self-security?

 

Want more?

Text 1.302.752.8505 or phone 1.931.854.0474 or write: 370 S. Lowe Ave. A-148, Cookeville, TN 38501 or free weekly podcast: www.newstalk941.com/podcasts (scroll down program sections to BUSINESSWORKS and click on any of 60 business topics. Feedback always welcome!

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Apr 21 2018

1PM (CT) Every Sunday Every Week!

1 pm (CT), Every Sunday, Every Week . . .

 

BUSINESSWORKS

 

Broadcast Podcast Blast Off!

 

BUSINESSWORKS begins a year of free, weekly, stimulating  “business-expansion-how-to” input offerings for business owners, managers and operators, and for  professional practice owners and managers, and entrepreneurs.

 

The information source?

Two unique, and vastly different business leaders with hugely successful backgrounds:

 

HAL ALPIAR & JOHNNY STITES

 

 

Hal and Johnny are a proven, experienced, unlikely pair of highly active 70-something business success MBA mentor/coaches.

They decided they can have greater impact on business and professional practice growth and development by working as a team.

And they agree that weekly broadcasting and podcasting best allows them the flexibility to help others get things done.

Visit weekly with Hal and Johnny on News Talk 94.1 Middle Tennessee Radio AND, from anywhere else . . .  

CLICK HERE:  newstalk941.com 

FOR PODCAST

Or go to www.newstalk941.com . . . ANY time and Click on “Podcast Center” tab at top then scroll down to BUSINESSWORKS and (with volume on) click the little white circle!

“See You Sundays 1 pm on 94.1 Radio Cookeville, TN or ANYtime via podcast!”

 

BusinessWORKS

GROWING BUSINESS & PROFESSIONAL PRACTICES NOW

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Aug 13 2015

I KNOW WHO YOU ARE

uncle sam GOTCHA!

 

The other day, I received a “How Your LinkedIn Posts Are Doing” email and was curious enough to click it. I was fascinated to learn that YOU (yes, YOU!) are among those who sometimes follow my ramblings, and that when I put all the clues together — I gotcha! I actually know who you ARE.

I examined the subject matter detail lurking beneath the surface of some of my targeted posts and came up with a description of YOU. Uh huh, YOU. (Isn’t this better than your favorite suspense movie?)

In fact, if you’re still reading, you’re certainly getting more revved up from the intrigue of what’s to come than what may have been prompted by news of the latest tech discovery: that a new device can now “read your iris and identify you FROM 40 FEET AWAY!” Good Grief! Do we even want to imagine what’s next?

So back to who YOU are. Let’s start with some good adjectives that definitely describe you, at least in part. Stay with me now. We’ll work up to the good magical stuff in a minute.

Let’s see — by every indication, I have determined (and for the paranoids: no, this is not psychoanalysis!) that on numerous occasions you are: rambunctious, risky, frisky, focused, frenzied, ingenious, inventive, innovative, impatient, volatile, excitable, rebellious, and welcome growth over stagnation. How we doing so far?

Well, if even just some of that sounds familiar, I will venture to guess that you have a strong urge to change things up, but that your forward motion thinking has had a tendency to get somewhat muffled, distorted, stuck, or obscured along the way. Yes? Okay, so it’s get-back-on-track time, or not? Seriously? Of course!

Oh, almost forgot . . .

here’s what I deduct about you:

YOU ARE:

A “FEARLESS” 40-50-something

salesperson (or salesy person)

who’s hooked on SHARK TANK!

You might even be an entrepreneur!

 How’s that? Look at it this way, you likely visited at least part of one or more of the following LinkedIn posts . . .

. . . and/or you probably visited one or more of the hundreds of posts at www.BusinessWorks.US on the subjects of sales, salesmanship, entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurship.

SO . . . On target or way-far-away? If it’s on target, you are at least thinking like an entrepreneur, and maybe even acting like one. You might actually be one! If it’s way-far-away, you are probably way-far-away too (!), and lack the lightheartedness to even read the last two paragraphs — you might consider just clicking off this post now and finding some calmer, more regimented (like government?) career recruitment site.

You’re still with me? I hope so. Because if you are, you’re also tough and stubborn — great entrepreneurial indicators. Now make it all come together for yourself (that’s “for your SELF”) and make your ideas work! It just takes commitment and acceptance of the fact that your behavior is your choice.

You already have whatever else there is that it takes! Not sure? Throw a few business words in the www.BusinessWorks.US Search Window (Some non-business things like: “Are You Breathing?” work well too!) and check your SELF out! Go for it! Oh, and keep reading my posts, thank you very much.

# # #

Hal@Businessworks.US    931.854.0474

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

God Bless You and Thank You for Your Visit!

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Mar 20 2014

MOVING – ONWARD AND UPWARD!

“Got here safe & sound, Y’all!”

 

AND STILL UNPACKING AND SETTING UP NEW OFFICES . . .

GUESS WHERE?????  Email your guess: Hal@Businessworks.US  (“New Office” in Subject Line) Winning guesses entered in drawing for a FREE first edition signed copy of HIGH TIDE fictionalized account of America’s biggest drug deal! See www.HighTideNow.com

Thank you for your visit.

If you’re new to this blog, please mark your calendar to return on April 16th for the beginning of Tax Return Recovery, and to help kickoff an exciting new series of posts you won’t find anywhere else!

If you’ve been visiting here regularly since the birth of my blog in April, 2008 (and now closing in on 1500 posts), thank you even extra!

You, especially, will want to return April 16th to see what’s in store for innovative, spirited business and healthcare professionals. You’ll get  proven new ways of thinking to boost your sales and make the most of your leadership skills — for profit and nonprofit businesses and professions alike. You’ll get coaching that works in the office and meeting room, on the phone and on paper, on the smartphone and the computer. You will get specific how-tos for building and enhancing your leadership posture in your industry, your marketplace, and your community.

When you return here April 16th, you will get the beginning of an input stream that no one else dares to share . . . on ways to feel better about your SELF (no product or service sales pitches, no lectures, no gimmicks). You’ll get ways to be encouraged, ways to make a difference with your career and family pursuits, ways to rise above the clutter.

You’ll get solid substance based on more years of experience than you probably are old. Not just passive observations, you’ll get frontline/hands-on experience with over 2,000 business consulting and return engagements AND with more than 20,000 students and management training participants. PLUS –as incredible as it’s always been–it will be free on this blog. Try it. You’ll like it. Send your friends.

In the meantime, to better serve our Entrepreneurial Clients (Including Business Startups, SalesPropreneurs©, Doctorpreneurs© and Corporate Entrepreneurs©), BUSINESSWORKS.US and TheWriterWorks.com, LLC will be in the process of relocating to another State. You’ll get the details as soon as we’re settled. In the meantime, Happy Spring!

See you the day after taxes!!!

 # # #

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Hal@Businessworks.US

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Aug 23 2011

Who’s Your Glue?

Here’s a “glue clue” for you!

 

 

Someone in your family or on your business or advisory team is the one who most holds you and the million little pieces of your business enterprise together. Who? How? Why? What have you done for her or him lately?

Did you know that small, frequent rewards (and typically inexpensive ones) are at least twice as effective as one large one? Did you know that cash –even in this struggling economy– is not always the best reward? Have you discovered (or been reminded lately to re-visit) Maslow’s Hierarchy?

After many decades, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory continues to be business’s most effective tool for motivating employees, partners, referrers and sales personnel, among others. No need for a degree in nuclear reactor dynamics to put this classic theory to work for your small business.

It simply takes a sense of diligence 

and a little detective-type methodology.

                                                      

When you make a habit of taking ongoing temperature readings of, for example, employee hot and cold buttons, you gain a sense of what makes each one tick and how various life changes impact attitudes. This gives you leverage for better motivating because you can reward someone’s performance with what that person values.

All of us are located somewhere on the Maslow Hierarchy ladder (or pyramid as many management textbooks illustrate it. At any given moment in time we are either at a level of basic physiological needs, or safety needs, or social needs, or esteem needs, or we are at a point of self-actualization.

We move fluidly back and forth between these different need levels according to our daily (sometimes hourly)changing life circumstances. A person who has achieved a state of self-actualization, who is feeling self-fulfilled could tumble back down to a basic needs level in an instant.

Consider how fast your brain snaps back to basics as the result of a family death, a bankruptcy, an accident, a job-firing . . . from really, any kind of loss.

                                                                               

After years of having no financial worries, putting food on the table can become a sudden challenge. Having a neighboring home or business robbed can immediately cause someone at an esteem level, who is excited about winning recognition, into a security needs frenzy, shopping for insurance, alarm systems, new locks, a fence. 

If you can be aware enough of changing need levels for individual “glue people” who help hold you and/or your business together, you can reward each –at her or his personal level– for maximum impact. An esteem-needs person will often be more receptive to a plaque, a news release feature, or a certificate than to a cash bonus.

Someone struggling with car issues will appreciate new tires, an oil change or gas allowance. One successful business owner covers the cost of braces for a low-salaried employee’s teenager. Another sends top sales people on limo trips with spouses to shows and dinner (less expensive than permanent salary and commission raises).

The point is to pick out rewards that fit the person and the circumstances instead of making across-the-board judgements about what you think will motivate best. And don’t automatically assume it’s money. In fact, by targeting rewards to individuals, you can save huge amounts of money and earn great appreciation in the process. 

                                              

# # #

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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! 

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May 23 2011

GOT GUTS?

If you are Entrepreneuring

                                       

still –in 2011– you got guts!

                                                     

                     

Look at it this way, those of us who directly or indirectly choose to pursue paths of small business development –in the face of today’s upsets, intimidations, threats, and tsunami-like attempts to control every breath we take— probably deserve a medal!

The thing is there are 30 million of us and that’s an awful lot of medals. Besides, we didn’t choose entrepreneuring for fame and recognition. We don’t much care about being honored. We care about our ideas working.

We care about building our businesses to the point of creating jobs and reputations for customer service (the real kind, not some put-you-on-hold unintelligible “customer service department“).

Who does care about getting a medal? Why the very same types of self-serving, reckless spending, low life that work hard at creating all those roadblocks we and our small businesses are forced to contend with:

  • From our arrogant, get-the-votes-at-any-cost-campaign-obsessed, leaderless White House with zero business know-how and the global mindset of a two-year-old

  • And corporate giants (the antithesis of innovation, wallowing in incompetence and self-pity) with their deep pockets and greedy unions standing forever at the ready  

  • To artificial-do-gooder-preoccupied-with-“green” academia-land, which pollutes the world of small business with theory and complexity over reality and common sense

Loose accusations? No, deeply-documented fact-based assessments.

______________________

Small (and in-home) businesses, professional practices, small business owners, operators, and managers all. We are in the fights of our lives to overcome all the disproportionate tax burdens, all the government over-regulation and controls being shoved down our throats as we try to create jobs and make our ideas successfull!

Unions and academia? Not even a step up from Hollywood and mass media sensationalists: they just get in the way. Let them pester government and the Fortune 500 companies, or –perhaps even better– each other!

UNEMPLOYMENT is the worst it has been in the United States since the 1930s. Terrorism threats are at an all-time high. Natural weather disasters are running roughshod across America, destroying homes and businesses, killing and uprooting families. And America’s allies are being insulted instead of thanked.

GAS PRICES are still through the roof, and igniting skyrocketing costs for shipping, transportation, and now food–costs unmercifully and unavoidably being passed along to consumers who are made more dependent on government controls every passing day. And America’s enemies are being cajoled instead of chased.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS are pouring across our borders every night with drugs and weapons . . . and welcomed (!) in our schools, hospitals, and welfare rolls? America is on the brink of bankruptcy compounded by dollar devaluation, loss of global respect, and the compromising of our Constitution.

MR.. OBAMA is in Ireland toasting a pint of ale.The last catastrophe just weeks ago found him absorbed in worries about the Final Four basketball competition. And how long ago did he disrupt his golf trip to “dispatch” advisors to “review” the disastrous Gulf oil spill 30 DAYS AFTER IT HAPPENED?

THIS is leadership? Could your business survive this behavior from it’s leader? Like I said, if you’ve made it this far, you got guts! America needs you.

Keep it up!  Oh, and while you’re at it:

                                       

Mark your election day calendar

now for November 6, 2012.

                            

# # #

                                                   

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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!

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Dec 15 2010

MOTIVATION

 “I read a blog today,

                         

Oh Boy!”

                                                    

[With thanks for the unconscious melody, to The Beatles]

 

Contrary to a blog post I just read, MOTIVATION does NOT come from inside you!

It is DESIRE that lodges itself deep within each human being (and of course most animals).

Motivation is an influence that’s exercised and exerted from the OUTSIDE.

It is what activates or triggers desire.

To say someone is “self-motivated” simply means that person is in touch with her or his desires, and that some external things or events (or other person or people has) have activated, stimulated, or triggered those desires, increased awareness of them, and brought them to the surface.

                                                             

This little bit of wisdom is as important to marketing strategists, sales professionals, and online content writers and designers seeking to trigger emotional buying motives, as it is to business owners and managers.

  • We’ve chatted here often about the practical motivational applications of Maslow’s Theory of Needs Hierarchy.

Decades later, it is still a constant and still the most valuable motivational tool for business and organization leaders.

It requires leaders to pay ongoing attention to what things most make themselves and those around them “tick,” and recognize that needs can change instantly. 

  • Herzberg’s research adds yet another dimension of reality that we often assume that we know what other’s needs are, but are frequently wrong . . . and that financial and job enrichment rewards are important, but in motivating for true job satisfaction, gaining some sense of achievement is what really matters most.

                                                                      

Okay, now that we’re past all that textbook stuff, let’s take a closer look at leadership. Motivating and inspiring others to perform optimally is a primary challenge and responsibility.

Whether the prompts to action are directed toward problem solving or innovating (or producing innovative solutions), or selling (which may of course combine all of the above), there is an over-riding need to turn on the reality spotlight!

The point is if you are out there on the front lines of sales and/or management–and aim to be successful–you’re not likely to have the time or patience to mollycoddle (cool word, huh?) a bunch of theoretical approaches about how to do your job.

Theory talks. Reality walks.

                                                                                      

Now, here’s the killer: if you don’t do the reality booster-shots hourly or daily, your leadership effectiveness stands to suffer big-time.

Remember those on-the-job moments when a boss expected you to be internally-motivated and told you to do something “by the book” that turned out to be dumb, wasteful, irrelevant, insensitive, or ineffective (maybe all?)? Just a small example.

What about the boss who got you excited about doing something that you always wanted to try or to learn, but thought you’d never get the chance? THAT is external motivation of your internal desire! Also just a small example.   

How can you reach inside those you are responsible for leading, to locate and push those magic buttons that ignite their rocket launchers?

One good answer: 

Igniting people’s individual rocket launchers requires full understanding that the strength of your role performance as a leader is determined by how well you can get to know your SELF and others’ individual selves.

                                                                                                                      

Your ability to make great things happen depends on how effectively you size up other people’s qualifications, energy drives, interests, instincts, capabilities . . . and desires!

The more you can know yourself, the more easily you can know others. When you know what others want and need, you’ll know how, when and where to reward and challenge them most productively.

But keep it on your back burner that a personal crisis or even minor oversight on your part or on the part of any of those you lead, can change the dynamics of the relationship and the tasks at hand overnight or within the hour, even within the minute! And that can change what you need to do to help others make a difference. 

# # # 

www.TheWriterWorks.com

302.933.0116  Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

 

 

No responses yet

Aug 28 2010

CHASING BUSINESS DREAMS

Sounds like a plan . . .

 

There’s something in your mind that you

want to go after and try to make happen?

                                         

You’ve been dreaming about it for, it seems, forever. You’ve been careful about not telling too many others, but those you do mention it to give you the same 3-way response: a “that’s nice” smile, an agreeable nod of the head, and a pointed effort to steer the conversation in a different direction. They humor you. They don’t get it.

If you’re in big business or government work, those responses are enough to douse your fire. You get second and third thoughts and then back away and abandon your idea. You’re too invested in your own job security to dabble with ideas that will preoccupy your mind and lead you too far astray from your 401k and pension plan payoffs when you retire in twenty years.

If you’re an entrepreneur, you don’t much care what anybody says, nor with whether they “get it” or not. You’re going to make your idea work regardless of the odds, the opinions, the financial insecurities associated with developing things to a startup stage, and beyond. Retirement and payoffs –even profits from sales– are the farthest thing from your mind.

The corporate executives and government administrators measure their innovative thinking in terms of whether the ideas they come up with fit into the grand scheme of long-term and strategic plans that blanket the organizations they serve. Entrepreneurs innovate without plans. Entrepreneurs have goals. They seek only the “end-result” of making their ideas work.

The odds for reaching a destination point are dramatically increased when goal-setting meets certain requirements and, once acknowledged, the focus is on each step that leads to the goal —- instead of on the goal itself.

                                       

For goals to be meaningful, they must satisfy all four of these criteria:

 they must be realistic, specific, flexible, and have a due date.

                              

Many people give up on goal-setting because they don’t want to feel like failures if a goal is not achieved. If it’s flexible, that won’t happen. Flexible goals can be redefined and be given new dimensions and new due dates. A goal in concrete is not a goal; it’s just a pile of concrete. Those fear-of-failure folks also need to be reminded that fear is a behavior, and behavior . . . is a choice! 

Those who think they have goals, but don’t adhere to all four criteria, have only wishes. And wishes only work for Disney characters!

Reality dictates that what “Sounds like a plan” rarely ever is, and what trys to pose as a goal without being specific, realistic, flexible and due-dated is simply a self-absorbing waste of time and energy, and often of money. Reality calls for disciplined action backed by burning desire. Reality is the stuff entrepreneurs are made of.

Entrepreneurs, some would argue, don’t plan; they just act. This is often true when it comes to describing the ways entrepreneurs appear to function in their business activities, but when it comes to getting started, and their daily pursuits, those who are most successful will inevitably point to having and constantly adjusting genuine goals to make their ideas work! Sounds like a plan, eh?  

                                   

 Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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