C’mon . . .When was the last

time you ever remember 

in your whole entire life

having a “trillion”

of ANYthing????  

Have you been listening to all the politicians talk about budget-slashing? They must be kidding!

Hey, it’s definitely no joke the economic mess we’re in. And TRUTH? Truth is -no matter who says what– truth is that we’ve got to live with it all for at least another three years. It’ll take a year and a half or more just for the new White House to undo the reckless spending tangle that the great “Hope and Change” hero created.

Business Owners Beware!

If you own a business and you’re not already working at unseating the socialism plague that’s practically brought you to your knees, you must be part of that crowd that thinks it understands “trillions.” I just read somewhere that a million dollars a day every day since Jesus died wouldn’t even add up to close to a trillion dollars.

The deal is that you must protect your budget without tearing it out by the roots. Oh wait, that’s your hair. Well, the thing is that if your business budget isn’t bare bones yet, you may already be out of hair and roots!

Here’s an example of spending priorities

that smart business owners must consider:

• MARKETING – You should be spending money for a professional marketing or branding writer to create your sales messages, but you should NOT be spending money needlessly to get your messages out.

Maybe that sounds like a “Catch 22″? It’s not. There are plenty of ways to reach your target market effectively for free, but you’d better be saying something worthy of capturing attention, creating interest, stimulating desire, and bringing about action and satisfaction, or get back to your budget board and start all over!

• OVERHEAD – Of course you have to pay the mortgage or the rent, but can you sublet part or all the space to a business that operates when yours doesn’t? Many instructional program businesses operate in evening or weekend hours. Do you have extra space you don’t need that you can separate from your workspace?

A lumberyard office building barters one small corner of space to a moonlighting graphic designer who provides the lumber company with free brochure and flyer designs in exchange for the space, electricity, and computer hookup.

• PAYROLL –Maybe space-sharing’s not practical, but what about sharing people? A centralized reception area and receptionist can save two or three or four businesses money and afford to hire a hard-working quality employee.

There’s much to be said for the old entrepreneurial “incubator” days, where all kinds of services and workspaces were shared. These included common area receptionists, centralized booked-time conference rooms, cleaning supplies and maintenance services, delivery and fuel costs, security systems, office supplies. If you can think it, try it!

• PROFESSIONAL SERVICES – When did you ever meet an accountant or lawyer or consultant or creative service person who wouldn’t be please to offer a discount for two, two, two clients in one? (Oh, that was “mints”? Sorry.)  

This kind of arrangement is especially win-win when common elements or interests prevail. Adjoining physical therapy and occupational therapy offices that both require similar electronic medical forms maintenance for insurance coverage reimbursements. A publisher and designer who both need a copyright lawyer.

Dig out your imagination here. Do the railroad track warning thing: STOP, LOOK AND LISTEN. Look around at what you’re doing from the standpoint of sharing, bartering, co-sponsoring . . . and maybe you too can “slash a trillion” or so!

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www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or 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!

$200 Fill-ups?

No joke, business owners!

Obama pushes for $8 a gallon.

Do the math. 

Unable to succeed at squashing America’s entrepreneurial spirit and controlling small businesses and professional practices –though certainly not for lack of trying– the Obama Administration is now making the biggest mistake of its (hopefully half-over with) life.

Mr. Obama is quietly seeking to drive the price of gas to

$8 per gallon.

Average gas tank capacity means that

a fill-up will cost $200!

Crushing not only the travel freedom of the general public, $8 per gallon gas rates will put many of America’s 30 million small businesses out of business. Imagine the financial paralysis that will set in when shipping and delivery costs are doubled.

Who could think the skyrocketing fares of air travel, air cargo, taxicabs, buses, and every conceivable type of personal and commercial truck shipment will not drastically impact small business and professional practices.

Do we even want to consider the impact

on emergency services expenses?

Why, you might ask, would anyone (let alone Mr. Obama) be looking to undermine even further the only real opportunity that exists to restore health to America’s economy: small business job creation?

See if you can follow this path of crooked reasoning exposed in last night’s Washington Times Editorial. Here are some excerpts:

A perfect storm of foreign and domestic policy choices by the Obama Administration has paved the way for European-style energy prices to arrive on these shores. Far from being alarmed, President Obama sees the prospect of $8 a gallon gas as an opportunity.

When it comes to energy, the White House has sought to augment government controls to prevent the “long-term threat of climate change, which if left unchecked could result in violent conflict, terrible storms, shrinking coastlines and irreversible catastrophe,” in Mr. Obama’s words. Making energy more expensive is exactly what the administration’s “cap and trade” scheme is meant to do.

The theory is that pricier power will be used more frugally, which in turn will appease Mother Earth into blessing us with cooler weather. Mr. Obama expressed the same outlook in May when – with oil at $61 a barrel – he signed a memorandum dictating to automakers the kinds of cars they will be allowed to sell. At the time, Mr. Obama noted with trepidation, “The impetus for action would fade when gas prices started to go back down.”

It’s not possible for domestic production to relieve the pressure from international uncertainty. Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats have blocked drilling in places like Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in millions of acres of federal lands and in offshore locations. Mr. Obama even took advantage of the BP oil disaster to shut down operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mr. Obama points to the small amount of oil currently produced at home to conclude, “We can’t drill our way out of the problem.” That’s only a true statement as long as the current policies place 67 percent of America’s reserves off-limits.

The events unfolding in Egypt, Libya and throughout the Middle East are beyond American control but not outside our influence. Fear and uncertainty drive oil prices higher, and Mr. Obama has done nothing to restore confidence that the United States will act firmly to promote stability in the region.

Instead of addressing these concerns openly, pledging support for the remaining U.S. allies or deploying military assets to show that this country will not allow an interruption in the flow of goods through the Suez Canal, Mr. Obama has calibrated his tepid response to ensure no Muslim mob is offended.

We’re now paying the price for weak leadership, but it’s about more than just paying a few bucks more at the local Chevron station. Every product and service depends on the price of oil and the price of electricity. The vast majority of goods hit the shelves after being transported by aircraft, ships and trucks powered by fossil fuels.

That’s why, as economists note, there is a direct correlation between the number of miles vehicles travel in a year and the nation’s Gross Domestic Product. Unless there’s an immediate U-turn in the domestic and international agenda, we’re headed for rough economic times.

BOTTOM LINE: Should stampeding gas price increases be a concern of small businesses and professional practices?

If you’re not sure, I respectfully suggest you consider re-reading the nine excerpted paragraphs above.

If you disagree, you are surely a few quarts low on entrepreneurial spirit, or you are so rich that a couple of thousand extra dollars a month to keep your gas tank filled makes no difference.

If you agree, remember there’s strength in numbers, and there are 30 million of us.

Well? 

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

“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!

 “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!

Is what you’re doing

right this very minute

taking you to where

you want to go?

You run your own business, or a number of businesses. You know who you are. You know you’re an entrepreneur but you don’r readily admit it. (Why? Maybe it just sounds too fancy-pants?) Anyway, what matters right now is that you step back for the couple of minutes it takes to read this, and pat yourself on the back!

What’s the backpat for? You deserve to appreciate yourself for believing in yourself. And you should probably get a medal for keeping your ego in check enough to engage the “missing ingredient” help you need from those with the expertise to excel at the tasks you never mastered.

You haven’t been squirreled away this winter assessing your past business moves and decisions and carefully figuring your next game-plan strategy for the rest of 2011. 

I know this because I know if you are truly the stuff entrepreneurs are made of, these are things you ordinarily do weekly, if not daily or hourly. 

While others (government agencies and corporate types) are racking their brains with strategic planning exercises, you are just charging ahead — testing and trying new ideas and new twists on old ideas. You do this trial and error thing all year long because there’s just not enough time to take your advisory board on a retreat weekend, or lock up in some hotel room for days of chit-chat. 

That’s time that could be spent doing stuff, right?   

In fact, odds are you hate to think about or planning anything farther out than about 60-90 days. You prefer not thinking past 30! And you’d rather get in and out of a convenience store with breakfast to eat while you drive than sit down in a restaurant for more than 15 minutes, or –unless you’ve a home-based business– have to gulp coffee ‘n egg sandwich at home and then waste time cleaning up! 

Shopping trips you actually enjoy are probably limited to Staples, Office Max, Lowes, and Home Depot. I say all this just to let you know I get it. I got it. And, you, as independent a cuss as you may be, are not –surprise!– alone. I’ve been working with entrepreneurial whack-o’s like you most of my life because I love the challenge, high energy, enthusiasm, and turn-on-a-dime response level.

What’s important to know is that YOU,

and others who fit chunks of this profile

I’ve outlined, are the catalysts in society

that in fact make the world go around. 

If it was not for you and other dreamer/doers we would surely no longer be a (at least partly) civilized nation on this fragile planet. There simply would be no industry or marketplace or culture or technology to speak of.

Now with all this positive fluff floating around, it’s also important that –to be and remain successful– you maintain a balance with reality. This means you need to be forever vigilant about  recognizing one extremely critical entrepreneurial business factor. 

The foundation of your business rests squarely on shifting sands, and the stability of your enterprise is only as strong as your ability to remain flexible enough to shift when the sands shift. 

Those who entrench themselves thrive only in corporate environments that lack this balance and awareness. And you can only maintain your own ability to go with the flow by staying focused on which ways the moving targets move. 

Is what you’re doing right now with your business growth, development, and presentation of itself (how it communicates its messages) keeping a step ahead of the pace within the universe of business you’ve chosen? 

In other words: Are you making the best possible, most-in-demand kinds of (for example) pizzas, with the best possible ingredients, for the market you most want to capture? Are you presenting them at the price and service level that will usher in the sales you need to generate the profits you want? What do you need to do differently?  

REMEMBER:  Shifting sands work just fine when you’ve got a four-wheel drive vehicle, can deflate and inflate your tires according to how packed the surface is, have a couple of pieces of planking with you in case you get stuck, and are constantly monitoring wind, tide and precipitation (where appropriate), temperature and other weather conditions.

Stay alert.  Don’t get hurt.  Build bridges, but don’t burn them.  Make sure the risks you take are “REASONABLE.”  Always imagine a “worst case scenario” before you act. 

Your energy and the people around you in your life are your most important assets. 

Protect them by keeping on top of your stress, not under it!

~~~~~~~~

302.933.0116 or 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!

Here you are, set to your own music, on a blog platter:

THE GREAT

SPUNK & GUMPTION

RECOVERY INITIATIVE

Looking back into this site’s archives, I ran across a couple of posts I wrote titled, “What Sport Is Your Business?“ and “What’s Your T-Shirt Say?“ Both are still timely and both are worthy of your quick review – if you actually get through this post!

An hour later (after looking back on those earlier posts), I found myself sitting in a parking lot playing with my new satellite car radio, and noticed a string of song titles that seemed to accurately (and often humorously) describe many past, present, and future business situations.

Here’s a sampler to kick your brain into gear enough for you to come up with your own songs that best represent your past, present, and future business (and yes, believe it or not, all of these were once big hits!):

• Spooky

• Those Were The Days

• These Are The Days

• Let It Snow

• Let It Rock

• Let The Sunshine In

• Just A Dream

• Dreams

• Dreamin’

• Trouble

• Rescue Me

• Slow ‘n Easy

• Thin Air

• Over My Head

• Sailin’

• Step Right Up

• Animal Rights

• Comin’ Under Fire

• Up Against The Wall

• Gone

• It’s A Grand Night For Singing

• Bad Luck

• Hey Hey Hey

     . . . Add your own here:___________

Good job! Next, let’s start to explore if where your business is right now is where you want it to be. How did it get to this point? When you started it or picked it up or inherited it, did you infuse piles of energy and time and money into it? Are you still doing that? If you stopped somewhere along the way, when? Where? How?

Are you still “stopped”? (or pretending not to be, even though you know you are?) 

HOW are you choosing to stay there– stagnant, dormant, status quo? (In other words, what specific steps have you chosen to take, or are continuing to take every day, that have left your competitors little choice but to pass you by? What are you willing to do about that right NOW? What CAN you do right NOW?)

Where’s that spunk and gumption

that you started with?

It doesn’t take a fat bank account or 20-hour workdays or “breakthrough technology” to be able to pick up most businesses that have grown lethargic or have quietly given in to our stress-breeding economy in order to turn things around and/or get re-focused.

It takes acceptance of where things are, determination to get things moving again, recognition that it’s all a matter of choice and leadership (employee leadership, industry and market leadership, customer service and community leadership), and re-ignition of that burning desire to succeed to make it all work.

Can you? Of course you can. You got this far didn’t you? You’re reading this blog post, aren’t you? You want to, don’t you? Then, do it! Stop listening to negative, woe-is-me songs in your head (and on the radio!), and replace them with positive, upbeat tunes.

HOW?

Just CHOOSE to change the channel!

Disney wasn’t far off base when he had

The Seven Dwarfs sing “Whistle While You Work!” 

~~~~~~~~~

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!

Thank you! I am grateful

for you, for your time, your 

attention, your visits here,

 and your ongoing support!

Please join with me in adding the following to the grace you say at your family gathering Thursday:

… and special thanks for all those whose 

courage and vigilance allow us the freedom

to celebrate this great family day together”

And please click on the link below (and turn your volume up) to enjoy this terrific smile-making (G-Rated) video from Business Week that you can share with everyone (except perhaps devoted vegetarians!)

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR0OrgKtgsM    

Have a great Thanksgiving weekend! I’ll be back with some big-time small business observations Sunday night.

In the meantime, please take a cruise through the Archives (or by Search Window topic) here, and be sure to see the scoop on my latest new book, “GOOD LUCK!” by clicking under the  ”Literary Agents” heading at the top of the right-hand column. See you Sunday!

~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or 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!

Robbing Peter to pay Paul is

not a long-term survival policy!

And here we have the government, forcibly seeking control and injecting its uninformed, inexperienced naivete into private industries.

Here we have federal “leadership” essentially robbing businesses that should instead be receiving tax incentive support to bail out the government’s reckless spending sprees that have accomplished literally nothing except pile up additional deficit burdens.

Once again (or more accurately, “still”), SMEs (Small and Medium size Enterprises) stand quivering on the cusp of business-survival-threatening, ill-conceived, politically-motivated federal healthcare legislation.

This impending healthcare doom affords business owners and managers one of the greatest opportunities for self-destruct since before the Industrial Revolution. But before you jump from the roof, consider how to avoid last-minute meltdowns.

BESIDES the fact that major Medicare funding will be redirected to Medicaid coffers because . . .

(it has been strongly suggested – but not dared to be openly acknowledged — that “Medicare recipients are mostly seniors who will die anyway”)  

. . . the bulk of the program will be supported by contributions from businesses, which will be forced to provide coverage for those who don’t earn it! 

A seven-year-old recently confided that “it doesn’t sound like there’s much care in the healthcare thing!”

Well, there’s most certainly not any “care” for the world of small and medium-size business. Let’s remember, and not incidentally, that entrepreneurial venture job creation is repeatedly pushed to the forefront of economist agendas as the most important key to economic recovery. So why the government’s deaf ear? Politics.

Tax and spend, and more government control, apparently beats life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

So what’s a small business owner to do?

• First, fight back! Work with other businesses and local organizations to promote the need for government to support meaningful job creation tax incentives for small business.
• Do everything you can to influence government representatives to repeal the mandated national healthcare plan and to override any veto of that repeal. Support free-market competition healthcare. It’s the only way to choose your own physician and treatment plan. It’s the only way to keep talented physicians working as physicians.

(A 5-star heart surgeon I know is considering being a horse trainer because he can no longer afford skyrocketing malpractice premiums!)

You need a consequence?  You will pay for it

 many times over in the coming years! 

It offers you no benefits.  Is that enough?

• Second, do NOT rob Peter to pay Paul. Just because Washington is trying to get you to think that way, it is not healthy business. It’s like taking loans to pay back loans.
• You are playing with fire if you decide, for example, to ante up the no-chance-of-winning healthcare dollars you don’t have by cutting back, for example, on your marketing budget. Marketing is (or should be if it’s not) a bottom line accountable expense.

Marketing is your only chance to drive the business in the front door that the government is pickpocketing the revenues of from you and taking out the back door. At this point, economic survival is all about cash flow. Bring it in faster than it goes out!

If you’re forced to cut, take your scalpel elsewhere! Simple, huh?      

~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or 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!

Do All Web Designers, Editors,

SEO “Experts,” Digital

Managers, and Webmasters 

Own Stock in Optical and

Eye Surgery Centers?

Speaking of Eyes, here are a few I’s for you — just in case you’re looking for good “I” words to characterize the work performance sections of your resumes (which I hope for your short-term well-being that you have up-to-date!).

Let me not beat around the bush.

Here’s my Top 20 List of Words to describe the efforts(?) of those of you who appear to be part of the vast sea of non-communicative business (and especially BIG -time Corporate) websites:  

Irksome. Irritating. Infuriating. Insulting. Invidious. Inconvenient. Incompetent. Irrational. Insolent. Inapt. Impudent. Immature. Insouciant. Inflammatory. Incorrigible. Implacable. Inconceivable. Idiotic . . . Ignoramus Internet Imbeciles!

And that’s just the I’s.

I dare you to tell me the last website you visited that was physically readable. It’s bad enough you’ve butchered the English language and that you remain out-of-control-convinced that all of humanity speaks only via txtmsg language, now we all read your proudly-designed sites, and need glasses.

Do you really think that:

type this size

. . . is for normal, healthy eyes? And then you have the audacity (we’ll leave the I’s behind for awhile; I like “audacity”) to do the damn type in gray, and Italicized, no less?

like this

What are you all nut cases?

Did you ever consider that site visitors become prospects and prospects become customers and customers’ purchases of the products and services promoted on the site are what pay for your existence?

(Oh, and please don’t start telling me about ways to adjust my screen size to accomodate your lack of customer service and marketing savvy!)

Sometimes, I might expect to see some brand new business attempting –with, obviously, the communication expertise and guidance of one of you– to spout its message with a touch of class that no doubt came from having once visited a high-priced attorney’s office where everything is gray, including the invoices. But I’ve come to expect better from long-established enterprises.

Or, well maybe I’ll give you the benefit of doubt, maybe it’s just that if you use .6 and .7 font sizes, you figure you can get more stuff on a page and jam it into little corners so you can design Internet castles in the air with all that leftover space. And, shoot!, if you make it gray and hard to read, nobody can criticize your attempts at copy content without having to visit their ophthalmologists, right?

What touched off this avalanche? Check around a few corporate giant sites, especially pages with unimportant junk — you know, things that just don’t mean anything, like instructions, or policies, or payment terms. I have.

In fact, I’ll return to the A words for long enough to say that it is beyond ANNOYING to find evidence of work done by people who really should know better (and who are typically commanding huge fees) that fails 100% to communicate. And somewhere up there is a boss who clearly hasn’t a clue about how to be a leader, who has let droves of techie superstars commandeer their own marketing programs.  

So, in case you’re still reading this (and with apologies for catching up the more honorable among you in my wrath), I have this to say to you:

Don’t give up your day job!

~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or 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!

If your marketing has gone 

online-exclusive, your business

 may very well fold in 24-36 months!

Ah, but there’s still a chance to save yourself from killing yourself.

• FIRST: Get rid of the person who talked you into putting all your marketing eggs in one Internet basket. Even if it’s family, begone with him or her . . . as well as his or her ideas, which are costing you money, wasting your time, and depleting your energy!
• SECOND: Recognize that, in spite of whatever sales spiel you were fed by that person (or agency or group or team) that you listened to, the whole world –and your target market specifically (unless it’s 110% techie products or services)– has not (N~O~T) stopped reading newspapers, magazines, and direct mail!
• THIRD: The whole world –and your target market specifically– has not (N~O~T) stopped watching TV and listening to radio, or shut their eyes down while passing billboards. They have not stopped reading brochures, or responding to special sales and promotions, news releases, and coupons. They have not even (Aaargh!) stopped responding to telemarketing.

If you think for one minute that your entire universe of customers and prospects is maniacally text-messaging and spending every living moment on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube, you are sorely mistaken.  

And anyone who might have bamboozled you into thinking those things is much too short-sighted (and evidently too immature) to take responsibility for moving your business forward.

DO NOT abandon traditional marketing and think that it will be compensated for by a full-commitment plunge into online vehicles and media efforts.

Your website is important. Depending on the nature of your business, your engagement with social media is important. But anyone with even a little marketing savvy and training knows that these are simply ingredients in the total mix.

If you are not using every possible, affordable opportunity to market your business right now, you might as well open your window and throw the money out that you have been spending!

(Ah, and don’t pretend that online stuff is free . . . dig out that old magnifying glass and start discovering those hidden expenses! Prepare to be surprised!)

While most small and medium size businesses appear to have engaged so-called “Web Editors” or “Community Managers” or “Digital Marketing Managers,” fewer than 30% are reported to have a “Marketing Manager.”

Sadly for those misinformed business owners who dominate the 70%, these numbers should be the exact opposite!

Those who pretend to be business experts because they have some computer expertise will be the downfall of many well-intentioned but pathetically uninformed business owners.

“Web” and “Digital” people tend to know nothing of (and care less about) traditional marketing media, and so automatically discard traditional marketing management approaches they think are limited, but which are not!

                                                                                            

Even the teeny-bopper market that most uses handheld electronic devices (and most text messages one another), continues to watch TV and go ton the movies and visit arcades and read magazines and newspapers and attend sporting events and concerts, and open mail addressed to them.

It may appear to be all about hi-tech and emails and the like, but –even this market– indulges in traditional media. How can you confirm this? Run some quick and cheap focus group studies.

But, oh, your “Web Editor” might not know about how to do a focus group study because that requires traditional marketing experience. Okay, focus group some txtmsgs and see what you get!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or 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!

A good boss never needs 

 to thrive on emergencies.

Being prepared to respond to instead of react to emergency situations is the mark of a true leader. Just because you know CPR doesn’t entitle you to run around trying to stir up heart attacks. There is much to be said for running a business on passion. The mark of business greatness has more than once sprung forth from enthusiasm and commitment and high energy levels.

Henry Ford. Thomas Edison. Bill Gates. Steven Jobs. Andrew Carnegie. Mary Kay Ash. Frank Perdue. Oprah Winfrey. Walt Disney. Charles Schwab. Meg Whitman. Jeff Bezos. Add your own ___________.  

How many are or were full-time firefighters? Zero. How many could mobilize an effective strike force to handle sudden major upsets? All of them. While I believe it helps, one need not have been a Boy Scout to “Be Prepared.” One simply needs to be able to quickly sort through and prioritize options, mobilize and motivate others, and be willing to step up and take action.

Sometimes, of course, real life physical emergencies require taking action first.

It’s that little extra dose of instinct and clear-minded judgement that frequently makes the difference between –both literally and figuratively speaking– a saved life, a recovered fumble, a thwarted robbery, a prevented assault, or a ducked knockout punch.

Okay, you shrewdly suggest, then let me just work at developing my instincts and ability to judge people and situations clearly. Then I can go smooth sailing, downhill, in cruise control. (Oh, that it should be that simple!) Yes, that is indeed an admirable direction to pursue. And even partly attaining those qualities will take you far in most leadership circles.

But YOU are the key to YOUR success. For you to grow your sense of composure and self-control, which open the doors to instinct and judgement development, you need to become the world’s greatest student of your SELF! You can’t even begin to think in leadership terms –emergencies or otherwise– without first knowing yourself and understanding what makes you tick.

It might help to make a list for yourself of 

all the ways you can learn more about you

. . . and start tackling one item at a time.

From experience with many business and professional practice owners and managers, I can tell you with great certainty that just three weeks of solid commitment to do one thing each day to learn more about yourself will make you a stronger, happier, more effective leader.

Why wouldn’t it? After all, the more you know about you, the easier it is to figure out others. The easier it is to figure out other people, the easier it is to motivate and inspire them. The more you can motivate and inspire others, the greater the leader you become. Over-simplified? Nope. But it’s not easy either, unless you choose for it to be. Leadership is in fact, a choice!

And handling emergencies is a routine function for a strong leader… but it’s always a good idea to keep a fire extinguisher handy, just in case.   

~ ~ ~

 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

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