Nov 25 2012

Headed Down Your Business Homestretch

Help Jumpstart

                                 

My Kickstarter

                                                         

For many businesspeople, asking for help may come easy, but rarely is it easy for an entrepreneur.

For an entrepreneur, such a request can translate into “having to swallow my pride,” “getting someone to do what I can do better,” “having to trust someone else with my baby,” “admitting a weakness,” or “owning up to my own inadequacies.”

So what? Who appointed you as “Perfect”?

When you consider that all of the above suggested excuses (which I have heard often over my years of business and professional practice development consulting . . . and have admittedly tried myself on occasion) reduce themselves to unproductive ego-based thinking and behavior.

Remember your grandfather telling you:

“No man is an island”?

                                                       

Ego-maniacal thinking and behavior of course tends to dominate early-on entrepreneurship pursuits until experience and reality sink in and struggling entrepreneurs begin to realize that it’s the idea that’s important, and that any (legal) way to achieve success –regardless of others that need to be relied on– is the right way to go.

For entrepreneurs,

results tend to outweigh process.

                                    

Interestingly, the opposite tends to be true in government and corporate life where more relience is placed on analysis of available options than on getting the job done (e.g. deciding which committee to study an emerging market becomes folly in the face of an entrepreneurial spirit that simply drives itself into the heart of the market and adjusts along the way.

I have learned a great deal in the first half of my Amazon Kickstarter site effort that literally requires nerves of steel for me to implement in completing the second half of the effort. Stuff I forgot: Ask for the sale. Ask again. And again. Drive as many people as possible to visit or experience your message. Adjust and improvise. Switch gears. Ask for the sale. Ask again.

Why “nerves of steel”? I’m a creator, not Superman, not Zig Ziglar, not (Thank Heaven!) Steve Jobs, not an award-winning super-salesperson or winning candidate. I’m just a small business owner.

I’m me. I don’t like asking. I have to conjure up massive amounts of courage to approach my friends and family, and online contacts (even strangers) to buy into something I created. I know in my heart that what I have to offer is worthy. I know it’s a great dollar-value. And, yes, the Kickstarter race against the clock means it’s “make it or break it” time. It still feels awkward.

But –ahhh I’ve always taught that behavior is a choice, so it’s time to get over all that and step up to the plate, right? Okay, so here it is —

Will YOU please help me jumpstart my Kickstarter by visiting this site NOW and making a pledge of some kind  —EVEN JUST ONE DOLLAR!??

In the interests of your love for the arts and creative development, will you also please urge your friends and contacts to visit my Kickstarter site NOW?

I will be forever grateful for this very important bit of support.

Thank you!

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Hal@Businessworks.US    302.933.0911

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 16 2012

TRANSPARENT LEADERSHIP

Seeing through it all

                        

…maybe, maybe not.

There’s an awful lot of talk in top management circles trending to the favor-ability of transparent leadership, but reality often dictates the need to exercise the exact opposite, at least for certain situations. Two-facedness? Manipulative? Irresponsible? Lacking integrity? Ruling by exception? Well, even open windows do not always afford a clear view.

When every word you say and move you make is public to all around you, it can be inhibiting to decision making that might be for the good of all involved. Adhering to a policy of transparency can instead take on a neurotic life of its own which can prevent meaningful forward motion.

Consider, for example, the advisability of sharing content of investor or prospective investor discussions as they occur, with all employees. . . or, publicly airing the private meeting critique of an under-achieving employee. Actually, many if not most sensitive-type bits of information might best be kept private and only be shared on a need-to-know basis.

We badger government officials to maintain transparency because they are elected and paid by us to represent our interests, and we are entitled to know what they think and say, and how they behave. But business (thankfully, for the cause of cultivating entrepreneurial spirit and the capitalism that fuels our economy) doesn’t conduct itself that way.

Private enterprise shareholders are entitled to know how business management represents the interests of a given company, but not have a say in every issue. Shareholders are instead invested in the integrity of the management that represents the company they are invested in.

Effective transparent leadership may translate to open-door management for many, but even those who take their doors off the hinges have been known to beef up their effectiveness with periodic whispers and private notes. Because sharing everything with everyone can easily create more problems than it solves.

Another way to think of it is simply that not every organization member is capable of understanding areas of specialization beyond what she or he is directly involved with, and to expect that that’s the case is to invite confusion and delay that will block progress. It’s healthy to look at the total leadership picture before throwing all the doors and windows open.

To paraphrase Lincoln’s famous quote: “You can be transparent to all of the people some of the time, and you can be transparent to some of the people all 0f the time, but you can’t be transparent to all of the people all of the time.”

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Open Minds Open Doors

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May 18 2012

The Entrepreneur

“The entrepreneur is

                       

essentially a visualizer

                          

and an actualizer.

                      

He sees exactly

                                                                  

how to make it happen.”

                   
 — ROBERT L. SCHWARTZ, Founder, The New School for Entrepreneurs

                                                                                                                        

When I “graduated” from what was once The New School for Entrepreneurs in Tarrytown, New York, it was with my feet on the ground and my head in the clouds. I had the entrepreneurial success idea of all time percolating in my professorial brain all during the program’s intensive retreat-style weekends, but could bring only a Fortune 500 corporate background to the table.

I came away from the Entrepreneurs program experience with lots of material to weave into the college classes I was teaching. I came away with a better understanding of who I was and what I was all about, and that I was “an entrepreneur” of sorts for being so hellbent on making ideas work (and not the weirdo I was sometimes accused of being).

I ended up creating and copyrighting “Corporate Entrepreneurs” and “Doctorpreneurs.” I used what I learned to help start hundreds of successful businesses.

I learned that the Entrepreneur does not fit any definition. But being one usually means you share a number of characteristics and traits evidenced by other entrepreneurs.

  • You are first and foremost a catalyst of society.
  • In your own–usually underestimated–way, you are a “mover and shaker.”
  • You possess the unique combination of vision and follow-through.
  • You take reasonable risks.

You are the key —the secret— ingredient that’s missing in corporate think-tanks, and in every level of government.

A true entrepreneur running the U.S. Postal Service, for example, would be competing head-to-head with FedEx and UPS instead of folding up sidewalk mailboxes, cutting back offices, hours, and work schedules and raising prices. You would know that you have the world’s greatest address delivery database and network, and you’d figure out how to take over the world of email.

But what entrepreneur in her or his right mind would want to spend a lifetime untangling a 237-year-old pile of knots?

Entrepreneurship is not dead. It is lurking.

                                          

Entrepreneurs are sitting quietly in the shadows watching and waiting for the ever-dwindling opportunities that earmark today’s economic quagmire to show some signs of life. Entrepreneurship-driven activities are on hold waiting for revitalized and more encouraging government responses. Entrepreneurs are waiting for renewed trust in government representation.

  • Who, after all, wants to initiate (or pay for) an innovative new business venture that gets over-taxed and over-regulated before it even gets its startup feet wet?

Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial spirit will rise again. And when they do, they will usher in a new “Age of Enterprise” unlike any we have ever known. And besides revolutionizing the Internet and smart-phone worlds, part of the fallout will be that the U.S. Postal Service will no longer exist. Another part will be a new sense of self-enlightenment!

What are YOU doing now

to ensure that your business survives and thrives?

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Hal@Businessworks.US

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Jan 08 2012

You have 340,666 minutes left!

What will you do with

                             

your time this year?

 

FACT: As of January 10, you will have already spent 14,400 minutes of this new year that you’ll never get back. QUESTION: On a scale of 1-10 (10 being best), how would you rate the value of your 2012 accomplishments so far?  ONE MORE QUESTION: What will you do with the remaining 340,666 minutes (511,000 minutes minus 1/3 for sleep) in 2012?

~~~~~~~ 

                                         

Can the last question really be answered? Of course not. How could you possibly know what situations and circumstances will impact your intentions? So maybe intentions are not such a great thing. We’ve heard, after all, that they pave the road to hell, hmmm? And they’re kind of like expectations, right?

And don’t expectations breed disappointment?

                                                             

So where does all this quibbling over semantics actually leave us? Hopefully . . . (aw, wait a minute, isn’t “hopefully” like an intention and expectation combined?). Well then, is this an end to planning as we know it? Do we throw the goals out with the posts? (A little pun there for football fans.) Do we stop having objectives to pursue?

Planning is essential, but it is not a trigger for compulsive pursuit at all costs.

                                               

How do we know this? Because planning (i.e, goal-setting) has been long proven to be successful only if the process of goal-setting adheres firmly to specific criteria, and one of these is flexibility. The less flexible, the more stress. The more stress the greater the odds for failure.

There is something to be said for the thrust and direction of many, if not most, entrepreneurially-spirited engines . . . something that is most succinctly put as “living for the moment.” Entrepreneurs instinctively seek immediate gratification and are more focused on the “here and now” present moment than those in other careers.

It’s that old thing grandpa used to say about not putting off ’til tomorrow what you can do today. Entrepreneurs are business junkies. They have a powerful need for a quick fix when things start to flounder or deteriorate, or when last week’s “high” begins to wear off. Sound familiar? It’s true.  Look around. Ask around.   

Small business owners and operators have mostly learned the hard way –through trial and error and intuitive “street smarts”– that ongoing quick-fix actions are the only ones that get results, and keep businesses moving forward when the tide is changing or the current is a backwash.

But swimming upstream for any period of time can be exhausting to say the least, so the idea of taking immediate corrective/adjustment action needs, in reality, to be tapered only with the commitment to take only reasonable risks in the process, and to always imagine the worst case scenario before proceeding.

Try repetitively asking yourself the following question all during any crisis or critical period, hourly if need be:

“Is what I’m doing right this very minute

leading me to where I want to go?”

                                   

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Open  Minds  Open  Doors

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Aug 01 2011

It’s About My Wallet, Stupid!

Okay, Politicos, 

 

now we have

                       

a debt ceiling

 

but guess what?

              
            

there’s no FLOOR!

 

 

 Is there anyone left in America besides politicians and some really dumb, leftwing extremists who think that having a compromise solution to the debt ceiling crisis will suddenly and miraculously eliminate the economic quicksand beneath our feet?

SOLVING THE ECONOMY IS A BUSINESS PROBLEM THAT HAS BUSINESS (not social-reform) SOLUTIONS.

The economy is not a political football for manipulating votes. It is not a feel-good or politically-correct issue. It is not going to be resolved through compromise. It is not a this or that side of the aisle affair. It is ready to explode on every side of every aisle. And in your wallet! 

I have never been a “sky is falling” Chicken Little alarmist in my life, about ANYthing, but now? Well, it’s become increasingly harder to ignore the warnings. We have reached a point in our nation’s economic history where we need to stop fantasizing and start facing reality.

At least one leading economy guru is warning that 2012 can begin to bring 50% unemployment, a 90% drop in the stock market, and 3 successive years of 100% annual inflation. This is not a “loose lips” guy. The voice belongs to Robert Wiedemer. Dow Jones calls his work a “bible.” Standard & Poor says his “track-record…demands attention.”

Yeah, well, so what? you might say because you’re an entrepreneur and you don’t own any big deal stock market stock anyway, and your business has made it this far so you know you won’t be unemployed. Besides look at the talent pool you’ll have to draw from. Okay. Maybe. But how about the good odds of getting to $28 a gallon for gas?

You fill up your 18.5 gallon gastank sedan

at the pump… Cha-ching! Okay, let’s see,

that’ll be $560… uh, cash or credit card?

No, huh? Do the math.

And hope you don’t own anything bigger than a mid-size sedan.

                                                   

The point here is that Mr. Obama inherited a mole hill and has made it into a mountain. In the process, he has done everything humanly possible to avoid solving this business problem economy with business solutions. The Congress hasn’t done a whole lot better but at least they’re trying to cut spending and taxes. That’s a beginning.

As small business owners and operators, we need to accept that the range of the survival options continues to shrink, we must rise to the occasion, face reality, and –in the same entrepreneurial spirit that launched our businesses– begin to fend for ourselves.

This government is 100% unreliable, 100% incompetent, and 100% committed to the destruction of our free enterprise system. We can’t change the fact that we’ve been stupid in the voter booths, or that we’ve failed to play more active roles in influencing others. But we can choose to change that right now. Right this minute.

And the more of us who are willing to step out of our hectic lifestyles to help others see the oppression that’s driving record unemployment and record inflation, that threatens to continue undermining and ultimately destroy the cornerstones of our business and family existences, the better our chances of averting impending disaster.   

                                      

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 Open minds open doors

 Thanks for visiting.   God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

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Jul 02 2011

The Civil War II

The Second Civil War

                      

is coming:

                         

Obama’s left-wing

                       

liberal socialists

                                      

vs. thirty million

                            

US small businesses.

                                                                                

Happy Birthday America!

_____________

As we celebrate our “E Pluribus Unim” and “In God We Trustheritage, as we pause to value the freedom that comes–as Thomas Jefferson said–at the price of eternal vigilance, we need also to take stock in the reality that for nearly three years, we the people have been trapped and sold up the river, by none other than our own President.

Mr. Obama has dishonored us, disowned us, and disengaged himself from the job he was elected to do, and –in the process– has triggered us into The Second Civil War, this one between big government and small business! 

                                                                           

Mr. Obama has disgraced and spit on the entire (30-million strong) universe of small business enterprises and on the entrepreneurial spirit that made America great to start with, the very spirit that allowed him to be elected in the first place . . . the very spirit he should be nurturing and rewarding with tax benefits for innovation and job creation.

Small business tax benefits for innovation and job creation remain the only viable key to economic recovery yet, at every turn, the White House arrogantly insists on doing the exact opposite.

                                                                                               

Small business innovation and job creation tax benefits remain –after more than three years of harping on it in this blog– the only REAL solution to our still plummeting economy.

It is hard to imagine, when truck drivers and supermarket clerks and burger flippers and barbers and plumbers and roofers and accountants and doctors ALL see that this is true, how the White House can be so adamant.

By obsessively over-taxing and over-regulating small business

–AND by continually berating and discrediting the leadership of the Senate, the Congress, the Supreme Court, and our military–

Mr. Obama is simply demonstrating transference (ask any psychologist) of his own inadequacies and his own complete lack of leadership.

                                                               

Being tangled up in one’s underwear is not the way to move forward.

                                                          

As we celebrate this second most important day in America’s calendar — second only to the birth of Christ — let us pray in thankfulness for all that we have achieved as a nation, all that we in small business have achieved in industry and technology and humanity.

Let us be thankful too for our entrepreneurial global leadership and enlightenment (until and in spite of the current White House).

                                                                  

And let us also pray

. . . that we overcome The Obama Depression, that we survive and thrive once more, that we the 30 million of us join together in purpose on November 6, 2012, to turn the tide, and begin to restore our battered economy and rapidly eroding stature as leader of the free world. Use your business clout to make a difference. Start now

                                                                

STAND PROUD IN TROUBLED WATERS.

WORK HARD TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” 

[Thomas Jefferson] 

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Hal@Businessworks.US  302.933.0116

 Open minds open doors.

Thanks for visiting. God Bless You.

God Bless America and America’s Troops.

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

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Apr 26 2011

Is it worth going to work tomorrow?

 Reported today on satellite radio news . . .

                                             

Nearly 20% of all U.S. income

                                   

now comes from the

                             

government!

                                                                                               

Why bother working

                          

anymore?

                                                                 

WITH GRATEFUL (Cough! Cough!) APPRECIATION FOR GROWING THIS PREDICAMENT INTO A FULL-BLOWN SMALL BUSINESS QUAGMIRE . . .

  • THANKS TO: Our never-ending bad economy that we’ve been hearing for two-and-a-half years has repeatedly “turned the corner” and is “getting better” (uh, do politicians ever fill their gas tanks, notice foreclosures, or artificially-inflated unemployment rates?)

  • THANKS TO: The complete absence of decisive leadership in the White House (which serves among many other things, to facilitate the evaporation of America’s world leadership posture and respect, and actually set us on a track of anxious retreat in the eyes of emerging nations). 

  • THANKS TO: Mr. Obama’s incessant efforts to create boundless dependency on government incompetence (dramatically marked by government’s ever-present lack of business sense, business experience, businesslike conduct, and entrepreneurial spirit . . . the same entrepreneurial spirit that made America great to start with!).

  • THANKS TO: The reckless government spending sprees that embrace idealistic socialist agendas at the expense of citizens losing their jobs, their homes, and their dignity (and front and center is the utter insanity that’s responsible for continuing efforts to ram a cataclysmic-ally extravagant and dibilitatingly expensive healthcare plan down the already constricted throats of small business).

Now you perhaps know more than you want to know, but –ah– what’s behind this leading of lambs to slaughter?

Could it possibly be that we have a government intent on gaining voter control by making all citizens and businesses beholden and grateful for the survivalist handouts that ooze out of wasted government programs?

And how do we initiate a great escape? How do we ever return to the solidity of national purpose and world respect and the high human standards this nation has been built on?

The answer, my friends, is NOT “blowin’ in the wind.”

                                     

The answer is NOT in redistributing the wealth, nor in providing safe haven to all illegal immigrants, nor taxing small businesses –literally– to death.

The answer is in taking action now. The answer is in standing tall for your small business enterprise and ambitions. The answer is in voicing your objections to increased and increasing government control and over-regulation. The answer is in doing the very best you can possibly do every day to strengthen and anchor your business interests.

The answer is to fight corruption and politics

with integrity and heart,

                                                                

The answer is to light your own fire and keep it burning in the minds of all those who support you and the work you do — your employees, customers, suppliers, advisors, investors, and the geographical communities where your business lives.

The answer lies within the purpose of your business soul.

Take your opportunities and run with them.  

 

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 “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 10 2011

What you see is . . .

In business and life:

THINGS AREN’T

                                

ALWAYS WHAT

                                        

THEY SEEM

 

The business world is filled

with its share of illusionists.

Look in the mirror. Are you

coughing from the smoke?

                                                                             

We are under relentless media bombardment of fake unemployment numbers. The make-believe news has risen to howling proportions. It’s the White House’s feeble attempt to have us all swallow that the economy is on the upswing (which failure to confirm requires, merely, a trip to your nearest gaspump, with $8 a gallon coming soon to you!).

Just the word “gaspump” puts a gasp in your ump, right?

Probably because it prompts you to remember the last guy who ripped you off.

(Am I imaging this? I doubt it!)

Looking back to November, 2008, should remind us all that in business as well as government (and all of life!), what you see is not always what you get!

                                           

Though most of us think the Latin phrase “Caveat Emptor”Let the buyer beware— first surfaced in the Ralph Nader consumerism movement of the 1960s, the birth of its use was in fact claimed in 1523, would you believe? So, bottom line here is that deception in business has been around for awhile.

Talk with anyone who sailed through the last few years of the “Dot Gone” Revolution in the 1990s, and you’ll hear sad tales of almost jumping out of tall buildings. I lost $500,000 with a legal signed contract in hand. Another family member lost $1.5 million with a signed contract in hand. The lesson? Signed documents mean nothing!

Where does that leave us? Having to be V~E~R~Y cautious about others we do business with. I’m not so much talking about customers (though big-ticket product and service customers have been known to take what they can and run). I’m really referring more to employment and investor and loan arrangements — big bucks deals!

But I’m also keying in on small business ripoffs that cost big-time hours and effort.

Those are the real killers of entrepreneurial spirit!

I need to make sales to eat.

It’s often hard to do due diligence on a small-time business down the road or in the next town enough to find out that the owner is a scam artist, looking to con as much information from your brain as possible, for free!

                                                                         

Experience has taught me some, but –in the end– I still have to sell my services. Selling services requires giving services. You can sample the pastrami in a deli, but any kind of consultant (except maybe a pastrami consultant) has to provide a sampling of know-how and experience, and that takes time. And time costs money.

So figuring out how to best parcel out samples of your expertise in order to hook the fish but not lose your shirt is the ultimate challenge. And you may never win if you don’t approach prospects with reserved skepticism. I’m not suggesting distrust. I trust everyone until they prove otherwise. I’m talking about being yellow-light-cautious. 

Not everyone has your integrity. Not everyone believes in God. Not everyone functions completely on her or his own. (You’ve heard of silent partners? Wives? In-laws?)

There’s not a whole lot we can do about gas prices, but we always have control of whom we choose to do business with. Yellow lights are only followed by red lights!

Stay alert. Don’t get hurt!

                                                                                          
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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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Feb 24 2011

The $200 Fill-up!

$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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“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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Feb 12 2011

No, Mr. Obama, you still don’t get it!

America’s small business

                                             

community is 30 million strong.

 

                               

On one issue —the economy— we

                                   

stand shoulder to shoulder

                                   

with one voice:

 

The economy can only be saved by new job creation.

New jobs come —only— from small business.

(Check history!)

 

It’s time to face the fact that America’s small businesses drive America’s economy. Period.

It’s time to step up to the plate, Mr. Obama, and exercise the kind of domestic leadership you were elected to provide.

Without a strong economy, there is nothing else you can provide. Your social agenda will continue to dissolve. Our nation’s image will continue to deteriorate. Your support will continue to erode. And the kind of legacy you surely pursue will become more elusive each day.

But you can turn the tide.

                                                                   

You need only to choose to stop being driven by fear of losing face and votes, and show the world the leadership you appear to be capable of.

Bottom line, Mr. Obama:

Stop being an under-achiever!

                                                  

Your “pulling up short” behavior simply doesn’t do justice to the promises you represent. Surely you can do better than that?

                                                       

Instead of:

  • Blockading and berating small businesses at every turn, and catering to big businesses that are over-run with lethargic 9 to 5 attitudes and disreputable union leaders . . . corporate giants entrenched in maintaining the status quo.

  • Creating artificial government “jobs” that simply add to the deficit . . . how many people does it take to fill a pothole? (A State issue? And where do the states take their lead?) 

  • Making lots of PR sound-bites and photo ops to illustrate your administration’s dedication to business (and setting up token programs through the pathetic SBA and other smoke and mirror entities to try to look good to voters). . . I served the SBA Advisory Council for two, two-year terms; it’s a farce run by corporate giants. 

  . . . how about trying a bold new tact?                                           

What, for example, could happen if you actually threw Federal support behind small business development by providing genuine tax incentives for job creation?

What, for example, could happen by introducing genuine tax incentives for meaningful small business expansion, and for the creation of entrepreneurial and innovative new revenue streams?

                                                   

Will you please set the stage for entrepreneurial input by taking the high road? In other words:

  • Can you start to genuinely demonstrate a more receptive attitude toward small business owners?

  • Can you show a little entrepreneurial spirit yourself by taking the reasonable risk of rolling up your sleeves and setting to work with non-politicized teams of America’s great entrepreneurs? (This includes looking past just those who have worked with and on your various campaigns.)

  • Can you put political ambition aside long enough to recruit some active “straighten-out-the-economy” participation by small business? (This means doing far more than just dispatching small armies of researchers and interviewers and surveyors into consumer, industrial and professional marketplaces to “report back.”)   

So far, it seems to ALL of the hundreds of small business owners I informally communicate with regularly, that your administration has done everything humanly possible to alienate entrepreneurs and small business owners and operators and managers, instead of tap into their experience and knowledge, and embrace their spirit.

Small business owners and operators and managers and entrepreneurs know how to be productive.

They know how to turn on a dime.

They know how to create and manage marketplace opportunities.

They know how to do whatever it takes with a passionate sense of urgency.

They know how to make things happen.

                                                     

It’s hard to know the source of numbers that have crossed your desk, but reality is that there are indeed 30 million of us who are tired of being stepped on, over, under, and around. And many of us care more about turning things around than we do about making political points.

We truly want the opportunity to work with government to turn things around, but there must be an ongoing and mutual sense of purpose and respect coming from the White House. There has not been so far. 

Just say you’re willing to try, Mr. Obama, and let’s get started! Yes, it’s that simple.    

  

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

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