Entrepreneur Programs

Do Not Make Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurship can be taught. And those who are entrepreneurs can be made more productive. But the truth is that those not born with entrepreneurial instincts and attitudes can only learn what the tools and ingredients are –and maybe even how to use some of them– yet never become entrepreneurs.

Not everyone, after all, can consistently look at problems and count them as opportunities. Thomas Edison saw his 10,000 attempts to invent the lightbulb as 9,999 ways to learn from, that led him to the last.

Just as tools and ingredients do not bake cakes, neither do they make entrepreneurs. What happens to the cake if you put the egg in at the wrong time? What happens to a well-informed entrepreneurship student who’s afraid to take reasonable risks?

Can risk-taking be taught? Maybe. But when the moment of truth arrives, will a top student who fully understands reasonable risk-taking, but lacks entrepreneurial instincts, actually take the risk she or he needs to take to achieve success?

Entrepreneurial instincts practically dictate resistance toward and distrust for authority figures. Does this preclude meaningful instruction? Who can teach entrepreneurship except an entrepreneur?

And how many entrepreneurs are driven by the entrepreneurial-essential fire-in-the-belly desire to put themselves in the middle of a complex politically-stratified organization that relies on academic authority channels to exist, when they themselves could instead be developing the next great medical treatment or mobile app, or self-tying shoelace?

Entrepreneurs are driven by making their ideas work, not by others’ ideas, not by money, not by organizational achievement. Though there undoubtedly must be some exception somewhere, my lifetime of entrepreneurial pursuits and independent coaching (to instill entrepreneurial values in organizations), has yet to uncover even one.

An entrepreneur is an entrepreneur is an entrepreneur. [That’s sort of like: “if it quacks like a duck . . .”] Learning as much as one possibly can about entrepreneurial-thinking-and-doing will, without doubt, strengthen one’s business and career odds for success — on a campus, in a corporation, or in small businesses run by entrepreneur-savvy people. And, yes, even in government captivity.

Realities:

• Don’t expect such efforts to crank out legions of entrepreneurs
• Many succeed beyond their dreams without even an inkling of entrepreneurial values
• Almost every business and career can benefit by infusions of entrepreneurial energy and style

Like teaching those few-and-far-between truly brilliant musicians that they have what it takes, entrepreneurship teaching and training efforts can provide much-needed wakeup calls! Programs grounded in entrepreneurial traits, characteristics, behaviors, and action-orientation do indeed succeed. They raise consciousness for students and corporate executives who have what it takes, but who never quite cultivated the awareness levels needed to put it all together for themselves.

Deliverables include: increased innovation, productivity (less wasted time, energy, resources and money), and sales; increased customer and market awareness and responsiveness; sharper and quicker decision making; accelerated market testing; rapidly expanded networking and referral bases; enhanced communication skills; and a stronger across-the-board sense of teamwork, self-fulfillment, and self-motivation.

The ultimate entrepreneurship determinant is REALITY

. . . existing as much of the time as possible in the

“here-and-now” present moment. 

Are you?

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Hal@Businessworks.US    931.854.0474

Business Owners and Managers . . .

     WISH YOU COULD BE . . .

?????????????????????

STOP WISHING that you knew what was being said when something goes wrong. Instead, start asking the right questions to find out what you really need to know.

But don’t ask “WHY?” – that only breeds excuses. WHY were you late again? My alarm clock broke. I got a flat tire. My dog was sick. I had to help a neighbor. My mother-in-law showed up for breakfast. I had a really late night last night, and . . . Well, ya’see, I belong to this carpool, and . . .

Instead, ask “HOW?” Find out the process that is or was involved. And don’t settle for a “WHY” answer that many people offer even when they are asked “HOW?”

Staying with the same “late for work” scenario, try asking the late person: HOW can you prevent being late again? Can you give me three steps you’ll take immediately that will keep you from being late again? Please write them on a piece of paper and drop it off here before you head home today.

You’ll be amazed at the results that come with handing in that piece of paper.

If necessary, explain that you want to understand the steps involved, not the reasons for taking them. You can never make something better unless you find out how it got that way to start with . . . you need to know exactly what the specific steps were. Problems aren’t solved by addressing blame or generalities. They’re solved by studying what took place.

WHY doesn’t matter. Knowing WHY won’t help you fix things. Are you wishing you were a fly on the wall so you could have someone or some circumstance to blame, OR being able to know enough to be able to fix the problem?

Can you see how the first of these two options is anchored and invested in fanning the fires of your own self-importance? The second prompts the violator to solve her or his own problem. Do you want to make things work better . . . or feel like a hot-shot?

Well, okay, some people thrive on being management firefighters who prefer to flex their problem-solving muscles by finding fault with others instead of helping others solve their own problems. So, if that’s the case, just keep asking WHY? Oh, and just keep wishing . . . you might win a trip to fantasyland!

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Hal@Businessworks.US    931.854.0474

OPEN MINDS OPEN DOORS

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

You’re on the threshold

of a presentation.

Are you “overkill” ready?

I once worked for an “overkill” boss. It took me awhile to figure this out because he constantly gave me the impression he thought I wasn’t up to snuff with reality, until I discovered that he was simply an OCD  poster boy . . .

“Did you key up the audio so it’s loud enough for those with hearing disorders? Is it timed to come on just as I say ‘New campaign’? Is there a crisp, clean unused legal pad and new pen with keyboard access in front of every chair at the meeting table? Who’s escorting them into the room?

“You’re wearing pinstripes, right? And plain dark suit? No crazy neckties. And kill that erring! Did you check the thermostat? You’re sure the agenda board is 100% perfect and visible from every seat? Their limo is ordered? What time’s their flight? Lunch arrangements? What about lunch arrangements? “

Of course that was just the beginning of his diatribe checklist. He would go on to the exact type and amount and freshness of the tuna salad and bread and veggies and dip and chips and cheese and crackers and fruit, and juice and soda to be served. “What’s the dessert? Who’s making it? Have you tried it?” and on and on. You’d have thought our ad agency sales pitch was a White House attempt at negotiating a global war peace treaty. “WHO,” he would always ask, “is in your pocket?”

BUT WAS HE WRONG?

I’d be interested in your thoughts, but I can tell you this much: While I never became the fanatic he was, I learned to respect the value of being fully prepared ahead of every client and potential client interface — in person, on the phone, and on the computer screen. While I agree that his cage-rattling directives were often excessive, over-the-top, I have come to realize that –in fact– he had a point: You can never be TOO prepared!

And perhaps most important: being fully prepared –including having some contingency plans– helps build self-confidence as well. Why? Because it leaves your mind clear to deal with the person(s) in front of you and adapt to he/her/them and/or the circumstances. If you’re not fully prepared, you may be too preoccupied with fumbling to notice nonverbal responses or room temperature or your own agenda . Sales, remember, are made in “the here and now“!

What is business (and professional practice) all about after all? The customer/client/patient/prospect . . . RIGHT? What else could it possibly be about? So if you think on this a minute or two –or a lifetime’s worth– you will undoubtedly come to the conclusion that your entire career existence is dependent on your’s and your organization’s abilities to attract and keep, and grow your customer base. What else is there?

Even if you work for a nonprofit, and think you exist to make the world a better place, you’ll never succeed without developing a base of supporters. So how does one maximize the odds of attracting and keeping and growing a support base of any kind? With as accurate and perfect and communicative a presentation as possible at every opportunity you get to make a point. You need not become an OCD basket case or a pushy salesperson to make this happen.

You must quite simply put yourself in your audience’s (of one or one million) proverbial shoes and present information at his/her/their level wrapped around expressed needs and interests. Oh, and that can ONLY happen if you listen carefully (at least 80% of the time) to what each and all of them have to say. If you’re unsure or can’t feasibly do this, hire a firm that will do it for you with surveys or focus groups or whatever methods work for your industry or profession.

Otherwise, you’re you’ll find yourself

working inside a box 

that you’ll never learn to think out of!

Need more of a call-to-action? Click here:  86400

  THE FIVE PROVEN STEPS TO

  ENTREPRENEURIAL SUCCESS

  THAT MAKE IT HARD TO FAIL

1.

BE passionate about your ideas and make them work with the help of others. This means, of course, being emotionally committed to what you’re doing 24/7. By doing that, odds are you’ll never have to solicit and recruit others to your crusade. They will see a place for themselves and gravitate there on their own.

When that happens, others’ commitments will be more solid and grounded than if you had gone out hunting for them and then had to talk them into joining forces. It’s a proven fact: When people make their own decisions about what they want to do, they are happier, more dedicated to achieving results, and they do a better job!

2.

Often ACT first and plan second. This does NOT mean rashly jumping from the frying pan into the fire. It instead suggests that over- indulgence in evaluating, assessing, diagnosing, and long-term planning (I call it “analysis paralysis”) wastes time, money, energy, and opportunities.

Entrepreneurial leaders take action, make adjustments, act again, make adjustments, and act again. Except for formal loan and investor-required formal business plans, they limit their planning to the short term — hour, day, week, month. And even those plans are temporary and flexible. Not unlike being too focused on one’s goals instead of the path that leads there, watching the finish line causes stumbling and falls.

3.

Always RESPOND instead of react. A key ingredient in the success of this pursuit is stress management. Bottom line: If you always respond instead of react, you can never over-react. If you never over-react, you will be faithfully followed. Built snugly into this thinking is this important awareness:

HOW you respond to someone who

(or something that) is out of control

. . . IS WITHIN YOUR CONTROL.

And we know this because? Because every behavior — yours, your employees’, your customers and prospects — is a CHOICE. It’s just as easy to choose to make a situation easy as it is to choose to make it hard. It may require some conscious stress management effort but, in the end, leadership is measured by ability to gain results through control and responsiveness!

4.

LEARN as much as you can about yourself –your SELF– may be the single most important determinant of entrepreneurial leadership because it is the foundation, the cornerstone, of each of the above criteria, and of any others you might add to the list. Without knowing what makes you tick, you cannot pretend to understand others enough to be a true leader. TALK TO YOUR SELF. Oh, and remember to listen!

5.

USE hands-on specifics. Keep a journal. Date every entry every day. Separate facing pages into “What Happened” on the left and “How I felt” on the right. This discipline helps sharpen your skills to separate fact and observation from opinion and feelings. Write, draw, diagram, paste photos, spit, whatever floats your boat. It’s YOUR journal.

Attend group and individual “personal and professional growth and development”-type discussion and counseling sessions. Take advantage of local adult education programs that focus on self-expression — from giving speeches and stand-up presentations to writing or painting or photography or music or handicraft courses. DISCOVER YOUR SELF!

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When is a pat on the back

  really a kick in the butt?

A client tells you your service is great, then complains about it later to others. Assuming nothing changed along the way to erode the value of your praiseworthy performance, your sense of anguish may simply be the result of of a mixed message. Mixed messages find their way into everyday business exchanges with increasing regularity.

“Pretty good job . . . for a woman!” is a typical example. “You’re doing this the right way, but you need to slow down and think it through better!” is another. Have you ever heard something like: “We need to move forward with plans to collaborate, but not at the expense of our own department (division, team, group)?”

Mixed messages are nonproductive. Mixed messages often couch hidden agendas. Unlike much problem solving that requires “two to tango” and cannot be realistically addressed by a single entity alone, mixed message situations can be resolved by one person taking preventive measures. These include paraphrasing, note taking, feedback, diagramming, and offering/ requesting examples. 

1)  PARAPHRASING. Instead of simply taking statements at face value and then squirming with them later, ask: “Do I understand you correctly to mean . . . (and repeat back what you think you heard, using your own words)?”

2)  NOTE TAKING. The biggest problem with note taking is that most people do not take notes. And even when they do, they fail to directly request the speaker to allow for it. “Would you mind please slowing down on (or repeating) that point for me  so I can make note of it because I don’t want to forget what you said.” is not just called for; it’s flattering to the speaker. But write it!!

3)  FEEDBACK. Speakers need to pause periodically and take inventory: “How are we doing here so far? Do you have any questions? Is all of this information clear?” Listeners need to politely interrupt periodically and take inventory: “Excuse me. Can we take a ‘Time Out’ minute here to summarize this last bit of information? I want to make sure I understand what you mean.” Write it!!

4)  DIAGRAMS. When speaker or listener is not 100% sure that communications are clear, ask for a diagram of the information; arranging keywords and ideas visually helps ensure accuracy, and can often illuminate a new perspective.

5)  EXAMPLES. Ask for them. Very few exchanges of information fail to become transparently clear when examples are offered and discussed.

Getting tangled up in miscommunication can be frustrating, annoying, and stressful. One person who is determined to “get it right” the first time, and who is willing to accept that it may take longer and be more work, will ultimately experience greater accuracy in dealing with others, and accuracy spells success.                               

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 Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US  or comment below.

Healthcare Pros STILL

Flushing Money Down the Drain!

Thanks for your visit. We have recently relocated to Cookeville Tennessee (between Nashville and Knoxville), home of Tennessee Tech University. Return here often for new posts in this series for Doctorpreneurs©and Healthcare professionals.

Why not just open the window and throw your money out? Why bother spending it on meaningless, confused thinking about marketing? Why keep feeding the nonperformance of media, mobile apps, direct mail magazines and newsletters, social media and, oh yes, outdoor advertising? Can we look at this open-mindedly?

The business and sports worlds have fed your fires since childhood that you must be competitive at all costs in order to win… that’s 100% false for healthcare professionals! In fact, many healthcare pros have marketing success expectations as unrealistic as imagining that a heart attack can be treated with a BandAid®

REALITY: No one “buys” billboards with smiling doctor faces (or, even worse, the recent trend toward somber looks!). Most people are not so stupid as to think that hospital “magazines” and “newsletters” with feature (dressed-up PR) stories are interesting or meaningful enough to be worth reading. My guess is that –other than the few and far between genuine healthcare educational mailing pieces– most of these exorbitantly expensive items go straight to the recycle pail. All this nonsense came and went thirty years ago. [Interesting how America’s healthcare institutions are accelerating these feeble old-fashioned attempts at marketing. Is it some kind of knee-jerk attempt to cope with the Obamacare muddle?]

BOTTOM LINE: No one cares! The public simply doesn’t care how great hospitals, doctors, therapists (or any professionals for that matter) think they are! Healthcare consumers may have more (and more personal) issues on the line than other kinds of consumers, but they really and truly only care about the same thing that every consumer cares most about: What’s in it for me? Period.

So if you’ve read this far, perhaps it would be useful to explore and reassess your current “marketing” practices, and decide if your money could be better spent on strengthening patient, patient family, and referral network relations. If you’re looking for a role model institution, consider the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center… you’ll find no shallow representations of professional skills… “Treatment” is their specialty, and it applies to everyone who enters their doors. Oh, and guess what? The only expense is training and training maintenance time.

Marketing –if it’s done right– might sometimes succeed at building brand loyalty for some products and services in some markets and marketplaces. But when the two end-results people seek most from healthcare professionals are 1) Reassurance and 2) Trust, it’s not likely either will ever be achieved with empty images or promises.

Doctorpreneurs© Copyright Hal Alpiar, 1994. All rights reserved.

BandAid® is a Registered Trademark of the Johnson & Johnson Company

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“Got here safe & sound, Y’all!”

AND STILL UNPACKING AND SETTING UP NEW OFFICES . . .

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

Thank you for your visit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

See you the day after taxes!!!

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Every Entrepreneur

–And Every Business–

Experiences Exhaustion

The hardest part of being reborn, reinvented, revitalized is knowing when you need it, and then making the commitment to make it work.

For a business, the same entrapments lie in waiting. Does your business need help now? Are your organizational viability, adaptability, finances, and market position in lockstep with zooming technology changes? If they’re not standing tall, do they seem to be plummeting… or slowly disintegrating? Are you prepared mentally, physically, and emotionally to pick up the pieces and lead the charge?

The rate of business exhaustion will of course determine the pace and extent of your pursuit. And even if you’re thinking no special effort is needed, it’s never a bad idea to step back and assess where you and your business are headed. If the present path leads to a cliff, you’re going to want to have a pretty clear idea of  how long it will take to hit bottom.

Why? Because without some sense of the speed you’ll need to crank up, there’s no way to know whether you’ll have the resources, support, and personal energy it will take to get you where you’ll need to go. Being born the first time is pretty hard all by itself. Being born again is definitely not a matter of cruise control.

If you’re too entrenched or stuck or resistant to take the risk of jolting things back into place, or into an entirely new place, but know deep inside that some survival steps are, or will soon be, necessary, it may serve you well to begin thinking more about opportunities than about consequences. In other words, be aware of where you’re headed, but don’t dwell on the sunset. Take a hard look instead to the sunrise!

Avoid falling into a savings frenzy! Cutting back expenses does not make money. Only sales produce money.

So if you’re going to jump on something, jump on sales! Assuming you have a viable product or service and make it available at a price point that’s affordable for the market your business targets, then don’t waste time analyzing who did what to whom and when and why and what the circumstances were. Just jump on sales!

What can you be doing right this minute that

you’re not doing, to be able to help boost sales?

If you’re a true entrepreneur, odds are you’re good at representing your products, services, and business ideas to others. If this does not describe your skill set focus, find a great salesperson ASAP and tie her or him to a great reward system. Don’t give the farm away, but do pull out all the stops that bogged things down to start with.

Oh, and do remember when it comes to getting the support you need from others who work with you, that pulling teammates along gets MUCH more done than pushing them… every time… all the time.

If a bit of personal stress management or self-appreciation is in order to help your psych up for the task at hand, try clicking on a couple of links in this post. Good luck!

Catch you on the rebound

— you and your rebirthed business!

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