Jun 15 2015

MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!

MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESSBeing critical and judgmental of other businesses does nothing but get us a bad rep and (believe this!) make it harder to succeed. What we get back isn’t much different than the return on our investment for putting down other people. At some point, it all comes back to bite us in the butt!

When you feel a judgmental statement winding it’s way up your throat, suck it back down with a deep breath before it ever gets to your tongue. Use your teeth like gates in case it actually does get that far. Hold your tongue. Shut the gates. And mind your own business. (Oh, uh, it might hurt if you hold your tongue while you close your teeth.) If all of this is too hard to swallow, you should not be in business to start with.

Anyway, we all like to criticize. We all think we can do better. And, guess what? Maybe we can do better, but remember that no matter how great we think we might be at something we’re good at (like running a business?), it’s a no-brainer bet that someone else is even better.

It should be needless to say, but those few folks who’ve been holed up like hermits with no outside world awareness’s beyond their smartphones and tablets (is that like everyone under the age of 25?), this tidbit of caution goes –in spades–for Customers! They are the people who are NEVER wrong . . . even when they’re not right!

Real entrepreneurs exist for their customers.

Just because corporate muckity-mucks make a lot of “Love the customer” noise doesn’t mean they really care. But customers are literally the lifeblood of entrepreneurial enterprises.

I mean, just imagine:  If corporate employees were properly trained, and –no matter who called or answered whatever phone– everyone would know how to deal with every customer and no Customer Service Department would even be needed.

Companies could literally save fortunes that could be reinvested in their people . . . and their customers! Sadly, this bit of entrepreneurial thinking has not yet met with acceptance as the effective antidote it is for corporate career contamination.

So just because the corporate guys delegate Customer Service to others, entrepreneurs cannot. Entrepreneurs don’t have that luxury. Entrepreneurs, true entrepreneurs, are who they are because they–always and everywhere–tend to their customers and mind their own business.

Do you?

# # #

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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Jun 09 2011

It’s Patient Loyalty, Doc!

Businesses have customers.

 

Shrinks, lawyers and CPAs have clients,

                                   

But you, Doc,

                     

have patients!

                                           

—————–

If you have a doctor-friend in your life, you might want to share this post. Useful, straightforward “business” posts for healthcare professionals are not typically or readily available. You may also want to consider how these same dynamics apply to you in your business or non-medical practice.

———-

                                                                                        

So what, you say?  Here’s what: Given that healthcare has now become even less predictable (than the plights of business, shrinks, accountants, and lawyers) as we edge ever closer to that Obamacare precipice, you may already be starting to lose patients as you lose patience.

I mean, businesses, CPAs, and lawyers already see the staggering new costs handwritten on the walls. And shrinks? Eh, who ever knows about shrinks?  Anyway, it’s all about you, Doctor. You are being called on as never before to rise to the occasion and bite the business bullet. You must grow your practice in stagnant times

This means riding out the economic storms and going with the insurance provider flow even when all you want to do is practice medicine and be fairly paid for your expertise, training, experience, and compassion. Ah, but there stands Obamacare in your path! And you can’t get over, under, or around it. 

So, you’ve got to get through it!   

The only way to “get through” it –to survive and thrive in the next few months and years ahead– is to build and strengthen patient loyalty.

Patient loyalty is the single most critical component of practice growth, especially in hard times. It triggers increased  patient volume and stimulates referrals faster and more cohesively than any other factor.

———-

Here are the five key sets of values that determine success in acquiring and strengthening patient loyalty:

  1. Your professional skills, resource network, and “Google-ability”

  2. Your training, experience, and regional word-of-mouth reputation

  3. Your patient-centric care approach and reassuring “bedside manner”

  4. Your office staff’s abilities to communicate clearly and pleasantly, and to handle insurance reimbursement tangles quickly and simply

  5. Your effectiveness in managing patient support, diagnostics, and referrals

Notice that the first four value sets above are ones that you should control and/or that should rely almost entirely on you. The fifth one, however, depends on others. This distills down to the reality that you must first attack the first four and fully capture or re-capture them into your control before moving into value set five territory.

Why? So you can strengthen the area that’s not in your control by coming at it from a position of strength in the four areas you are able to harness.

Take a hard look at the ten qualifiers suggested in the first four numbered value sets above. Can you rate yourself a “9” or “10” in each? In which areas are you weakest? What do you need to do –specifically– to get to those ratings in each suggested category? Can you identify three steps you can take next week to lead yourself there?

When you can honestly give yourself those 9-10 ratings, move on to #5 above and ask yourself what specific actions you can take now to improve the ways you manage patient support, diagnostics and referrals. Are you, for example, using resources that keep you in case management control over each of your patients?

The farther away from Med School and Internship and Residency you are, the more vulnerable you may be to economic invasion, and the more important it becomes to self-assess on a regular basis. Quarterly works. It might be the most rewarding investment you can make in your practice . . . or the most costly one to avoid.

# # #

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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!

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Mar 12 2011

Stop Running Scared!

This is an attitude message, not a sign-up or recruitment decree

                                                                                   

Don’t let the media  

                               

and the White House

                           

bully you around!

 

                         

It’s your business.

You’ve captained it through rough seas before.

You’ve made it this far.

You know in your heart that –as bad as this economy continues to be (in spite of all the White House and media protestations to the contrary)– you can survive the present turbulence by holding your ship steady and running the engines full ahead.

                                                                  

Why this message now? Because I see and hear about many small businesses getting weak-kneed and starting to actually consider caving in to all the psychological bullying messages that continue to run rampant out of the White House and the federal government’s puppet media, who have abandoned reporting for propagandizing.

Political manipulating has clearly replaced the reality of what it takes to turn around the economy. Don’t be bullied into buying all the nonsense spewing 24/7 out of the army of talking heads. Small business holds the only key to economic turnaround with genuine new job creation — real jobs that provide real career opportunities! 

I’ve had conversations with three business owners this past week (one retail, one manufacturer, and one service) who are claiming to be on the verge of abandoning most if not all marketing efforts to save money. “So board up your doors and windows too! Just toss in the towel now!” I was tempted to exclaim, but realized I’d simply be fueling the fires.

The L~A~S~T place to cut corners is marketing!

T h e   L~A~S~T   p l a c e.

No marketing, no prospects.

No prospects, no customers.

No customers, no sales.

Is that rocket science?

“Oh,” they say, “but we just can’t afford it anymore; marketing costs a fortune.”

                                                                        

No marketing doesn’t cost a fortune! Maybe the kinds of marketing you’ve historically done is proving too expensive to keep afloat in this killer economy, but good marketing does NOT have to be expensive.

In fact, really great marketing can be done for free or close to free when someone knowledgeable and experienced is handling it.

“Yes, but then there’s the expense of retaining those kinds of services!”   

First of all, the “Yes, but’s” run in the woods with the “Rabbuts.”

Secondly, and most importantly, there are VERY many resource people out there who have the know-how and the experience and the creative talents to put together a marketing program for you that is free or minimal expense, and that works, for far less money than you’ve been pouring into your earlier-days efforts.

Stop running! Stop doubting! Start searching! Be a detective!

If you are intent on marketing your business successfully for minimum expense and you are willing to focus a chunk of energy in finding the right individual or team who can do this for you, you will succeed!

And won’t that surprise your competitors? And (ahem!) the White House?     

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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! 

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Feb 14 2011

Mind Your Own Business!

Failure to achieve

                 

can often be traced to

                                        

one’s own big mouth.

 

 

What’s the old German expression? “Vee ist too soon alt und too late schmart!” (…or something like that). Well, combine that truth with the tendency most of us have to shoot off our mouths about what we expect to achieve —often before we even get started— and what have we got? A situation in which we are too late being smart enough to realize we should have kept our goals to ourselves.

Other than a genuinely-shared pact with your soul mate or trusted long-term business partner, it’s just not ever a good idea to tell anyone else about what it is that you’re aiming to achieve. Others are not in your shoes and do not have the same energy or confidence levels. You, after all, own or operate or run or manage or partner in a business. You’re an entrepreneur.

Many others (including some close to you) may –for down-deep-inside resentment– simply not want you to succeed, and will discourage and undermine your efforts. For whatever their reasons, don’t allow those confrontations to occur. Keep your goals secret.

Perhaps you believe you have personal and or business “goals” in mind. I would respectfully suggest that the odds may not be very great that these pursuits are worthwhile. The truth is that all of history has proven goals are only worthy of pursuit to start with if they meet all five of the following criteria:

GOALS MUST BE

  • Specific

  • Flexible

  • Realistic

  • Due-Dated

  • In Writing

If what you’ve been thinking are meaningful personal or business goals, and they don’t measure up to solidly meeting five out of five of these requirements, they are not goals. They are wishes. Wishes are what people who wrap their lives around “hope” end up with. Wishing and hoping are the empty promises that empty people make to themselves and others. “Fantasizing” isn’t “taking action”!

Not only are each of us at the doorstep of success when we choose to quietly set and work toward goals that are specific, flexible, realistic, and due-dated, we can also measure the sincerity of others’ intents by applying these criteria to what we see them attempting to do with the major life tasks that face them. And from that kind of assessment, we can often determine another’s integrity.

Say, for example, a customer tilts his head, shrugs, faces his palms to the sky and says, “Sorry we’re taking our business elsewhere; it’s strictly a money decision; nothing personal; your prices are just too high for us; we can pay offshore operations half of your costs for the same results!”

This is a knee-jerk, marketplace-ignited decision. Otherwise, you’d be hearing about quality and service and deadlines and willingness to work out payment terms and exact shipments involved. A customer who simply up and leaves with an armful of flimsy excuses was probably never a good customer in the first place, right?.

Replace him with one that demonstrates by her attitude and conduct and the choices she makes that she is working with goals. You don’t need to know another’s goals or share yours. But when you look below the surface of smiles and handshakes and illusionist promotions, you’ll see that those who set and function with goals behave in certain committed ways. You know the difference.

These are the business and professional people

to choose to associate with.

They make the best customers and partners and investors and employees because relationships start from a position of honorability and support for one another in traveling on the high road. More quality work gets done more often, and besides moving in more profitable directions, it’s also more fun.

# # #

Hal@BusinessWorks.US

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

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals!

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Dec 08 2010

Are You Selling What You Think You’re Selling?

If you didn’t know you,

                               

would you buy

                             

what you have to sell,

                                    

from you? Are you sure?

                               

MacDonald’s sells consistency, not hamburgers. Golden Arches customers know they can get the exact same fare prepared the exact same way at any of their “I’m Lovin’ It!” locations in the world. It’s like a security blanket for your stomach (assuming your stomach can stomach what’s served up!)

Revlon’s founding family president Charlie Revson was often quoted as saying “We don’t sell cosmetics; we sell the promise of sex to single teenage girls!” Airlines don’t sell seat rentals; they sell destinations. Churches sell redemption and hope. Disney World sells brain escape. IT businesses sell “solutions,” but often just add more problems.

Self-appointed SEO and Social Media “experts”? They don’t seem to know what they’re selling. But –by now– YOU must have a pretty clear idea of what works for you, or maybe not . . . 

How about YOUR business?

  • Are you putting out “mixed messages”?

  • Do those people you seek to attract as customers get it?

  • Are you presuming or have you actually asked them?

  • Do your customers buy what you have to sell, or what you claim to be selling?

  • Are you selling real products and services or images of what the benefits are that one gets from buying your products and services?

  • Have you made your marketing effort an exclusively online production?

 

If you are selling benefits (and you SHOULD be, by the way), does that represent some sense of ethical compromise to you? If you’re not doing that (and instead emphasizing and selling features, for example), has it occurred to you that your competitors surely are or will be selling benefits?

Do you think you would have lasted long in the passenger airline industry selling short-term rentals of seat manufacturing components while competitors sell happy couples skipping through the Caribbean surf or exploring Mediterranean fishing villages, or visiting Hawaiian mountain waterfalls, or diving off Mexican cliffs, or singing and dancing in Austria’s Oktoberfest?

When did you last sit still long enough to really take apart your sales message and examine the pieces?

 

Do the words work? Do they sell? Is there one word too many or too few? What you think you’re saying and what in fact communicates may be two separate things. How does your sales message look? How does it feel? What’s the intent? What did you discover by answering these questions?

How can you tweak or adjust or revamp or update what you have to make it better? To make it sing? To make it reach out and grab? If any of this leaves you puzzled and you are earnest about improving the process of selling what you’re selling, call me. No telephone fees. No strings attached. I’ll give you ideas. If you want more than ideas and I can’t help you, I can point you in the right direction.     

# # #

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!

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Jan 04 2010

THE RAPE OF SMALL BUSINESS

“We cannot afford another

                                         

year like last year, and survive!”

                                                                                                             –A farmer, a doctor, and two retailers

     Whether America’s Federal Government is small business ignorant, or small business hostile –and surely it has proven to be at least one of these — makes little difference.

     In the end, you need to accept that politicians with zero business experience surrounded by advisors with zero business experience are on the cusp of running America’s businesses into the ground.

     Accept it, dismiss it, and get on with life.

     Why? Because this isn’t football. The more energy you expend worrying and fretting about the opposition — the more attention you divert from growing your own business — the less effective, less productive, and less efficient you and your people become.

     This isn’t football. It’s rape. Over-dramatic? No.

     Small business people are being violated every day by political zealots who haven’t a clue about the daily outpouring of blood, sweat and tears that go into owning and operating and managing and growing a business.

     We are about to be overrun by a healthcare reform plan that forces increased government control on our lives, even to the point of imposing fines on those who don’t buy in and that force us to see providers we don’t choose.

    This so-called “healthcare” plan in fact addresses just about every subject under the sun except healthcare. And it fails to foster (or even acknowledge) the necessary lifeblood of effective healthcare reform: free market price competition. Oh, and we’ll all be paying for it for decades. 

     We are looking at a cap and trade plan that forces increased government control on our lives, even to the point of preventing us from selling our own homes unless they measure up to expensive and meaningless government imposed standards. Oh, and we’ll all be paying for it for decades.

     We are days away from an utterly meaningless Senate jobs bill which pumps up government jobs and puts some totally confusing tax-credit bait on the end of the fishing line for all those small business owners who have nothing to do except pour through paperwork trying to figure out how to qualify (or who will have to pay through the nose for CPAs and tax attorneys to do it for them).

     Maybe small businesses should get subsidized for creating work for CPAs and lawyers?

     So, what’s the way out?

     There’s one way out and very little choice involved. Here’s the solution: Charge forward with your head down and work your butt off at customer cultivation and customer service. Remember how you felt when you started your business or manager job? Kinda like that.

     What else? You need to take even more innovative approaches to developing your products, services, markets and ideas.

     Anything more? Yes, you must continually add value to everything you sell.

     And, above all, you need to do whatever is necessary to maintain high-level trust and integrity reputations with every customer, prospect, associate, employee, vendor, referrer, visitor, and community you serve … with every encounter, every day.

Your personal authenticity and the authenticity of your business will rise above the tumolt and threats and deceptiveness and empty promises. And when you succeed for yourself, you will be succeeding for many. 

                                                                                  # # #

More on 2010 “LEADERSHIP”? Come visit me and comment on my Guest Blog post at TBD Consulting’s Jonena Relth’s site http://bit.ly/XhN1h

# # #               

Reply Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US (Subject: “Blog”) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day!  Blog FREE via list-protected RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon KindleGreat 2010 Gift for GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

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Nov 10 2009

CUSTOMER DIPLOMACY

Blow the sale or

                                                

hold your tongue?

                                                                                        

Diplomacy: Skill and tact in dealing with people

It’s comin’ ’round agin… the ole trainin’ ground fer dip-lo-macy. Yup! Thanksgivin’ gatherin’s.

Now if you can get through the entire dysfunctional-family -Thanksgiving-experience this year (especially this year with the sucky economy and your brother-in-law crabbing about the price of gas to drive to your house to eat), you will have earned a medal.

But –more importantly —  you will have completed the qualifying round for your annual refresher training on how to deal diplomatically with your internal and your external customers! (Internal: associates, employees, referrers, alumni, key suppliers; External: customers / clients / guests / patients, other suppliers, industry and community organizations, and the media) Maybe missing someone here, but you get the idea.

IF you can deal with your in-laws,  little kids terrorizing your dog and spilling unknown fluids on your furnishings and floor coverings, your uncle ranting about his adolescence (which he’s still in), your aunt Tilly reminiscing about her last 47 Thanksgivings, the neighbor’s kid revving up his overhauled Mustang next to your only broken window, and having to step over eleven spastic bodies glued to some idiotic football game on the TV that separates you from the only available bathroom, while hearing that four hours into the roasting process, the turkey still has ice inside of it

… YOU are ready to sell (No, not your house! Your products and services!)

How do we know this?  Because you’ve managed to deal with all of that and not be in jail, or the nuthouse! Somehow, you’ve risen to the occasion, kept the peace, swallowed your pride, bitten your gums and held your tongue (doing the last three items at the same time, by the way, is a pretty good trick!)

So what will you have learned  on the Thanksgiving firing line? There are times to speak and there are times to listen. EVERYONE is a prospective or repeat customer. EVERYone. Your appearance and demeanor and receptivity will determine whether others have a good time or not. Too much alcohol can undo the best of intentions. Too much food will give you a stomachache. Not stepping outside into the fresh air periodically will give you a headache (but avoid the side of the house with the revving Mustang!)

Every day is a new opportunity to do the best that you can do.  Thanksgiving, besides being a truly great opportunity to appreciate family and friends and all the brave young servicemen and servicewomen who make it possible to be able to gather together in the first place. It is also a great day to practice diplomacy and carry that renewed spirit forward in returning to your work.

OR, hey, don’t wait ’til the end of the month;  just read about it here, today, and start holding your tongue tomorrow! Sales are only made by listening! 

# # #

Hal@TheWriterWorks.com  Thanks for visiting.

Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day!

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Jun 20 2009

Make a living AND a life!

 “We make a living

  

by what we get,

  

but we make a life

  

by what we give.”

–Winston Churchill

Dedicated to one of my softball league buddies, Jimmy Travers, whose great sense of fun and spirit left us this weekend for his next life…… Thanks for the laughs and the hustle…Hit ’em where they ain’t, Jimmy!
                       

     How you make a living may determine how you live your life, but how you live your life will determine how the rest of the world sees and experiences you and your business.

     What’s unique and exciting about this is that you can change either or both at the drop of a hat!

     Making the change, any change, is a choice…your choice, a decision made on a dime, in a blink, in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, or lickity-split. Reaping the rewards may take a little longer. 

     It might, for example, take a little while to gain acceptance and appreciation and trust and credibility, but the end result is as permanent as your diligence.

     Have you ever quit smoking or started exercise? Neither produces results overnight, but the more you stick to it, the more you see that the change works. And the easier it gets to make that choice every day.

     Not only that, one positive change fosters others…a chain reaction that breeds success and satisfaction. Being in better health attracts others who share your pursuits. It attracts happiness too. Health and happiness attract financial success, business success, family success.

     And that’s when you can really “make” your life by giving back to others what you gained in wisdom from those who came before you, who also came and conquered.

     No, I’m not talking about some of the more popularly-publicized (and extremely naive) notions of socialistic wealth-sharing. That kind of destructive thinking never works.

(Dictating healthcare choices for everyone unfortunately appears headed to be the next proving ground for this point.)

     Donating money is a wonderful thing when it’s affordable and a free choice! I’m speaking here though—beyond money— of treating family, friends, neighbors, customers, clients and patients, employees and suppliers–all–with increased respect. Every day. Persistently. It comes back to you AND your business!

     There’s a small sign hangs over my desk for it seems a hundred years that says  “Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.” Or, as Churchill said, “…make a life by what you give.” That choice made again and again will make your business grow.

# # #

Input welcome anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com  (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar # # #   

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Jun 17 2009

Networking Begins After Networking Is Done!

“Don’t I recognize you

                                        

from my last job?”

                                                       

(OR, “An employee today could be a customer tomorrow!”)

     There are not many pages that small business owners and managers like ourselves can take from universities or big business owners and managers, but here’s a new one that’s worth paying attention to…we like to think (being small and flexible and aggressive and innovation-driven) that we have a lock on the whole notion of networking.

     I mean when’s the last time you saw campus or corporate executives at Chamber of Commerce mixers or Better Business Bureau networking events? Ah, but they (academic hot-shots and corporate type muckity-mucks) are mainstays in the job search networking arenas. Yes, you might say, but that’s not real networking; that’s just exploitation of another job search tool.

     Who’s to say? After all: whatever you network for is what you network for. Hmm? If, in other words, you attend a networking event cranked up to meet and greet prospective employers, then job search is indeed your purpose. If you bring six pockets full of business cards with the idea of getting everyone you meet to visit your blog, or follow you on Twitter, then your purpose is to build an audience.

     The point is that we all network everyday with associates, employees, vendors, customers, referrers, prospects, even friends and family. Sure, so what’s this big page from big business (and academia, which hasn’t even a clue about business reality) all about?

     Many major corporations, which themselves have stooped to conquer unsavvy academic methodologies are now seeing great sales and business growth opportunities from networking with former employees! Aha! So, it’s not all of academia here that’s lighting fires? Correct.

     The ignition points are lodged in the sacred college and university halls of alumni associations, alumni directors, and development officers. They started it. Corporations are following it. Small business is next and starting to happen! The corporate social networking we’ve all heard about is now beginning to add a new dimension: employee alumni programs.

     A 2009 article by Mary Hall identified a few representative companies that have already entrenched themselves in commitments to build successful alumni programs: Microsoft, McKinsey, KPMG, Booze Allen, BearingPoint, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Bain & Co., Dow, Coca-Cola, Accenture, Agilent.  

     Hall’s article poses the question: Why would a company want to focus its attention on a group of people who are no longer employees? Because, she says, “whatever path former employees choose, they are likely to be expanding their personal networks and getting to know new people. Why wouldn’t a company want to do the same? An employee today could be a customer tomorrow or have in their network a future hire.”

When ALL is said and done, isn’t it true that ALL of business

is ALL about relationships?

Alumni associations are here for small and mid-sized business. Many already recruit employees from them. Many hold annual reunions that produce payloads of workable i9deas because they come from those who understand how the business works to start with.

# # #

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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!

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Jun 10 2009

Management & Staff Training Program Tips

Good Trainers Are Actors.

                                       

Make Sure To Set The Stage!

                                                                                 

     More and more companies and organizations that have tightened their belts the past couple of years have begun to loosen their training budgets because they are recognizing that investments in training must be ongoing regardless of how crunched revenues become.

     Without continuing training efforts, competitors move in and take charge of sales, customers, markets, communities, quality employee candidates, vendor relations, and entire industries. Status quo is not an option. 

     Having designed, delivered and facilitated nearly 2000 training programs, seminars, and workshops, I feel uniquely qualified to offer forth some wisdom to companies and organizations that are planning or setting out to conduct sessions of their own.

     Following is informed, free advice—small stuff that adds up to big bucks—that will save you time, money, energy, and aggravation. It will help insure that you get your money’s worth out of your training dollars:

     Give program facilitators (especially “outside professionals” you’re paying fees to) advance access to training facilities, rooms and equipment. Allow them adequate (by THEIR definitions, not yours) set-up and workspace “psych-up” time prior to actual scheduled sessions. Insure their privacy during these periods by keeping access by others restricted, including locked doors and covered windows.

     Much of what a facilitator does that’s effective depends heavily on presentation staging, on having familiarity with the setting and the equipment, on having comfortable and uninterrupted rehearsal time, on being able to set up a room and seating and control devices and practice session agenda steps.

     Conscientious leaders, teachers, facilitators like to do “dry-runs” with the use of easels, tripods, display tables, computer and screen projection equipment. They want to make sure of not tripping over a tripod leg as they walk backwards to emphasize a particular point.

     They don’t want to get to the board and find no markers or chalk. Laptop projections and sound system connections can be critical. Some who conduct programs require special lighting, chair and desk arrangements, wall display areas.

     BOTTOM LINE: Don’t expect a professional facilitator or trainer or workshop/program/seminar leader to simply stroll in at the appointed session time and conduct an effective session. You will positively NOT be getting your money’s worth if you do.

     THINK GREEN: Ask for or prepare 2-sided copies of printed handouts whenever possible. Use or encourage note taking and written exercises be done on the backs of typed scrap paper whenever possible. Maintain room temperature slightly cooler than the usual level throughout the session (vs. constant back and forth adjustment). Active sessions generate more heat.  

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Input welcome anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

FREE BLOG SUBSCRIPTION? Click on ”Posts RSS Feed” (Center Column), or now on your AMAZON Kindle for just $1.99 a month after a free trial. FEELING CREATIVE? Add your own 7 words to the end of the daily 264 days old growing tale! Click under “7-Word Story” (center column)

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