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

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!

Operating

a small business in 

times of personal trouble…

The most frequent consulting calls I get are from business owners who are experiencing personal emotional trauma, and who are trying to either ignore or bull their way through the upsets without acknowledging them.

Many talk and act as if they’re sizing up my marketing experience, but what they really want to know is if I can help them personally.

They throw little test questions out: “Uh, have you ever worked with partners who don’t always get along?” or “Have you had to deal with older family members who started a business, then turned it over to younger relatives?” or “How would you increase sales in a business where the boss’s wife had alcohol or drug problems?”

Some, of course, cut right to the chase: “I just got out of rehab and still have panic attacks, but nobody else can run the business; what can you do to help?” or “My partner is the money behind this business, and he’s an idiot and we’re on the verge of breaking up; can you help pick up our sales while we divorce?”

I have a little reminder note pasted on my workstation:  “Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.” You may have to become as old as I am to really appreciate the truth of this, but if you ARE less than 150, I can assure you that truer words were never spoken.

And there’s no discrimination that disallows business owners. We all carry our own burdens through life. How we strike a balance with the businesses we run makes the difference between success and failure. Dealing effectively with the whole mess, time after time, depends on how effectively we balance our own emotions.

Dismissing, or disregarding the reality of what we face accomplishes nothing, and often makes things worse. Jumping headlong into upsets is a get-screwed-up-quick formula that can wreak havoc on both the business and your personal life. Balance means holding the ship steady through stormy weather regardless of preferences.

In other words, this isn’t football,

and acting headstrong can get

 us sacked on the one-yard line 

We need to be able to put aside our emotional attachments; we need to be able to let go of some of the ties that bind. We need to accept that we don’t always have all the answers and be willing to go with the flow when problems overwhelm us. Can it be God or an inner spirit challenging us to rise to the occasion? Is it a test of your mettle?

“If you can get through this, you can get through anything,” my wise old uncle used to say, but he never mentioned that there would be a least hundreds of “this” times.

Life is about challenge. So is entrepreneurship. Just make sure you keep your personal life in balance with your family and those around you. If you stand tall in troubled waters, the business will heal itself. Where to start? Try some deep breathing for openers, and then begin to sort out and prioritize before you take action.   

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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!

It’s the middle name for

most entrepreneurs, but

is it the source of

real solutions?

Multi-tasking –as in walking post haste to the men’s or ladies room, chewing gum, texting your accountant while cell phone conferencing your lawyer and signing off on a major customer delivery form on a clipboard being held by your assistant . . . and all the time knowing that in just a matter of seconds, you’re going to need at least one hand free.

Yes, entrepreneurs live in the fast lane, and yes multi-tasking is a way of life for the small business owner. But does the end always justify the means? Surely you’ve heard more than once from a filled-with-wisdom grandparent type that “Haste Makes Waste!” and have no doubt proven the truth of that to yourself a few times, true?

But now you have passed all recollection of those life experiences into the deep, dark, dingy caverns of your mind and no longer carry the need to heed such warnings anywhere near your front burner, and in fact probably harbor them back in that little storage area that holds memories of a flunked course, a failed romance and poor toilet training when you were three.

Though –aha!– the more you try to do in a hurry, the more likely you are to screw something up. Why? Because it’s been scientifically proven many times over that the human brain (though many protest the thought with what they believe to be contradictory examples) cannot do more than one thing at a time, meaning in the exact same moment.

Unconvinced?

Sit in a chair.

• Lift your feet off the ground. turn your ankles so your feet make small circles (any direction you like — one in one direction and the other in another, or both in the same direction; it doesn’t matter).

• Next, get your hands moving in sync by turning your wrists.

• When you start feeling like a well-oiled machine, try to reverse direction with your hands while maintaining the original direction your feet have been moving. Or switch and reverse foot direction from your hands.

The point is that multi-tasking may look impressive to others who are easily impressed, but don’t expect that any kind of steady diet of trying to do more than one thing at a time is going to produce some miraculous level of off-the-charts productivity to write home about.

It is not better to do half a job well instead of a whole job not well. Doing half a job well simply means the job is only half done. Period. Doing a whole job not well means that effort and determination were present, and that, presumably, something important was learned in the process. Uh, this is true at least for most successful entrepreneurs. The rest? Who knows?

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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!

You already know this, but

perhaps you’ve forgotten:

  You and your business are

here on Earth to make a

d  i  f  f  e  r  e  n  c  e  !

Does that mean you need to revamp your food business to offer only organic produce, fruits, meats and poultry? No. You may want to consider a direction like that for business reasons, but making a difference for others is not a pursuit that –unlike government bills and riders– has restrictions attached.

Making a difference with your business doesn’t mean you must suddenly be a better Boy Scout or Girl Scout. It does mean holding to a higher integrity, and offering goods and services that don’t inherently harm people. Cigarettes come to mind. Oh, and don’t rationalize with raves about all the tobacco industry jobs and good deeds.

That’s a big business/government style-defense. Drive responsibly, say the alcoholic beverage companies. We grow forests, say the paper mills and logging companies that strip mountainsides bare of trees. You can add your own examples here. Hypocrisy has become a mainstay of corporate marketing, PR, and government control.

You can’t make a difference on Earth

by being two-faced.

(Politicians take note.)

And –TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-TICK– time marches on, so the amount of time you have to improve the business and personal lives of those around you and those who come after you are perhaps a whole lot less than you might have imagined (or maybe never thought about!) when you rolled out of bed this morning.

Bottom line: The time to act is NOW!

Start thinking about your legacy as you’re reading this, and take just one step in the direction of putting those thoughts to work by the time you walk away from your keyboard. Carpe Momento!

Recommended guiding words:

The old hit song lyrics from Seals & Crofts —

We may never pass this way again.

“There’s no time like the present,” my father always said. “Time and tide wait for no man,” my mother always said. “DO IT” says Nike. Now, entrepreneurs seem to know this instinctively, but they also seem to limit their hurries to business deals instead of to their own internal missions. Those little voices that point to reality.

What speaks to your ears from inside your gut? It may be different than the words that come from your brain. Words from the brain can be easily over-thought, manipulative, too rational, too unemotional, too logical — the stuff that corporate and government analysis paralysis is made of — What comes from your gut has no limits.

So maybe your gut instinct to meet your down-deep-inside legacy goals isn’t finding a platform in your business pursuits? Then set up something separate to make it happen. A new division, revenue stream, referral channel, product or service line extension . . . something that addresses your true life purposes.

Running a successful business is problematical enough; why saddle yourself with yet another entity? Because if the business isn’t satisfying your inner needs to, for example, help needy people and organizations, a nonprofit charitable or educational family foundation might. What’s the worst possibility?

You start a foundation and can’t make the time to run it? Find someone who believes in your purpose to step in, and you simply provide the guiding light. You start a foundation and the goals or mission become obsolete? Redefine them. You’ve already re-invented yourself and your business at least ten times over. Well?

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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!

If I had my life to live over

If I had my life to live over, I’d dare to make more mistakes next time. I’d relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously.

I would take more chances. I would take more trips. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans.

I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I’d have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I’m one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I’ve had my moments and if I had to do it over again, I’d have more of them. In fact, I’d try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day.

I’ve been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I had to do it over again, I would travel lighter than I have.

If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring, and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies.”

   

– Nadine Stair, 85 years old (in 1968), Louisville, Kentucky

(Links inspired by these words were inserted by Hal)

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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! 

“Phone messages?

Pfffft!” said she, 

“Never do ‘em anymore

 . . . text me!”

You gotta be kidding. Didn’t you ever hear the NY Lottery commercials that said: “Hey! Ya Never Know!”?

That deleted or squirreled-away phone message could be that your long-lost cousin has left you a big-time inheritance, or someone who wants to be your customer or client needs to know where to send you a fat retainer check, or that your dog was just diagnosed schizoid. Okay, okay, so you already knew your dog was a basket case.

The point is if you make a practice of not answering phone messages, or emails, you run the risk of not making the most 0f every opportunity. Real sales pros (and even a few accountants!) understand this. In the long run, opportunity losses can cost considerable time, money, and energy — not to mention some valuable relationships.

But you’re just too busy, right? Wrong! You can never be too busy to respond to someone’s question or greeting or information, even when you didn’t ask for it.

The reason should be obvious, but for for the benefit of those who get themselves caught up in their own clouds of dust, I would suggest that:

A) The message, though simple on the surface, may very well have more important –unspoken– information standing behind it. (Is it worth dissing a call from an old not-so-favorite contact who has referred you into a big-money project with her brother-in-law, but didn’t want to leave that piece of information in a voicemail?)

Hey, Ya Never Know!

B) Answering your messages isn’t just a “business life – whatever” deal. It’s a very large part of branding. Your responsiveness is read by others as a key indicator of who you are and what your business is all about.

C) Every communication is an opportunity. (Two $40,000 projects in a row once came to me because I took the trouble to call back a courteous response to some convoluted, almost-unintelligible phone message from a total stranger about my services

. . . I was tempted to dismiss it as a crank call or a time-waster, and just delete it. But I called back anyway, and was pleasantly surprised to connect with someone who had scouted me out, knew my whole background, had pre-determined to hire me, but who simply wasn’t very articulate on the phone.

Does this happen all the time? Of course not. But what’s to lose by responding? A couple of minutes? Sure, I’ve probably wasted a couple of minutes a hundred times before, but this 101st time earned me $80,000.

When’s the best time to answer your messages? If you are so busy, you feel you don’t want to spare a minute during busy hours, return non-urgent phone messages between 11:30am and noon, and again between 4:30pm and 5pm.

Most people are in a hurry during those two half hour windows — to get to lunch, or to get out and head home. You can bet on short, get-to-the-point conversations.  

Emails? Check regularly for and respond right away to ones you consider urgent, but don’t waste time deleting those that aren’t until –maybe– mid-day, and –generally best– the end of the day when you’re least liable to get hooked into opening junk.

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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! 

Well, HOPE never accomplished anything, but we DID get change . . .

Budget-Squeezed

Consumers,

Unemployment Line

Stampedes,

Fleeing lenders and

Investors,

Slithering and Sinking

Suppliers

The days are done of having stationary targets and goals to focus on. We are a civilization on the move. Some of the action, we asked for. Some, we didn’t. Most threatening are those that have been foisted upon us by a naive, incompetent American government that has zero experience with, or appreciation for, all things business.

Even before I give you the build-up, here’s the bottom line:

You cannot start a fire with a magnifying glass if you have to keep moving the magnifying glass because the object you’re trying to ignite keeps moving!

It’s a wonderful thing when your targets stand still for you and you have all the luxury of time to aim carefully before pulling any triggers. But that’s fantasy. Reality is that in today’s still sinking economy, everything is moving and changing — customers, employees, funding sources, referrers, vendors, and the competition are all in motion.

If you really want to put a fire under your ideas, your customers, your employees, et al, you’d be best advised to ditch the magnifying glass and figure out the best way to turn sparks to flames. You need to first explore the nature of the tasks and people involved, and assess your goal structure.

If your goals aren’t specific, realistic, flexible, AND due-dated, you’re headed into fantasyland and running on empty.

You are dealing in (with apologies to Mr. Obama) hopes and dreams: meaningless time-wasting, money-wasting, energy-wasting illusions that savvy entrepreneurs avoid like the plague.

Dreams, ambitions, and intentions are great, but only when they are followed promptly by action. Taking action is the mark of a true leader, and all successful entrepreneurs. And some action is always better than noaction. Why? Because –again– trimes have changed and the new old motto is:

“If it ain’t broke, fix it anyway!”   

Be careful to not misread the implications here that you should suddenly fly by the seat of your pants (which could undoubtedly make for an interesting journey, but highly questionable landing). Yes, do charge at your business targets, but remember that –even when they least appear to be– they are moving and changing.

Your ability to adapt effectively to changing, moving circumstances will determine your ability to succeed. How does one prepare for vigorous activity? By stretching of course. What kinds of stretches do you need to build into your daily routine to enhance your flexibility, elasticity, ability to adjust and respond?

Writers read. Language teachers do crossword puzzles. Designers go to the movies. Doctors and dentists invent gadgets. Actors “people watch” in crowds. Musicians hum. Drivers walk. Chefs try different restaurants. Shrinks join therapy groups. Figure out what works for you.   

The world’s greatest athletes –regardless of the sport– are those who practice and practice, and practice again, hitting a moving and/or changing target. The world’s greatest entrepreneurs do the same thing. Remember high school physics class and Newton’s First Law?. . .

“A body in motion tends to stay in motion!” 

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  Open Minds Open Doors 

 Thanks for your visit and may God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Guess what today is?

It’s Wedsssdaaaaay!

Wednesday is business panic day.

The orders, checks, and promises that haven’t yet appeared need to be nudged to get them in before the weekend and the house will be crawling with friends, neighbors, and in-laws all weekend so Friday is dead-in-the-water day on the job, which means –YIKES! –the orders, checks, and promises have to be in by tomorrow.

Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my!

So what’s the short story version? If you’re the typical entrepreneur (I know, there ain’t no such thing, but there are typical entrepreneurial behaviors), you have been running by the seat of your pants (or skirt) so long that you get yourself under water without a snorkel because you simply skip over that ugly time-consuming task of planning.

Then midweek brings crisis . . . brainfreeze without a Slurpee . . . om top of the usual Wednesday collision course, there’s also that REALLY important project you’ve been putting off that needs desperately to get done, and now it has to stay on the back burner for another week. Will there ever be enough time?

Truth? No. There’ll never be enough time. 

And my best educated guess is that most small business owners and operators would almost rather have a tooth pulled than have to sit still for more than 10 minutes to map out a plan for the week every week. But, y’know what? Y’gotta!  Those who take a deep breath, settle into a comfortable chair and plan the week . . . win.

Think of it this way: If your competitors do weekly action plans, and you don’t, they win. If you both do them, you keep the playing field level. If you do them and they don’t, you take the lead. If neither of you do the,, someone else at your heels  surely will, and will surely win.

Ah, but where to start? Start with the old stuff that’s already in the hopper. Hit on it hard as you come out of the box on Monday morning. Make the calls, write the emails, motivate and inspire. Once the old stuff is moving, jump to the new tasks, contacts, ideas that are presently in the works and that need to get pushed into the spotlight.

Save the unexplored concept stuff for last. Yes, you may never get to that last category, but, hey, y;gotta eat, right? As the current Administration in Washington has conclusively proven, hopes and dreams don’t put food on the table. Let the experimental new ideas simmer. This is not the time to back away from what’s in your face.

Keep focused on the here and now as much as possible. List and combine (but chunk up) “to do” items, then prioritize them in order of immediacy. Cross them off with a highlighter (so you can return to see what was completed) as each task gets done. These pages (dated) are worth saving (like a journal), even for tax records.

Fast-paced status report review meetings are best held (with agendas distributed Friday afternoon) as early as possible on Mondays to help map out the week. (Friday is the worst day for this for a hundred reasons). Oh, and if you’re not both feet into the tech business, do it all in writing on pads. Laptops and handhelds distract attention. 

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Hal@Businessworks.US  302.933.0116 

 Open minds open doors

 Thanks for visiting.    God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone!