If you are Entrepreneuring

still –in 2011– you got guts!

Look at it this way, those of us who directly or indirectly choose to pursue paths of small business development –in the face of today’s upsets, intimidations, threats, and tsunami-like attempts to control every breath we take— probably deserve a medal!

The thing is there are 30 million of us and that’s an awful lot of medals. Besides, we didn’t choose entrepreneuring for fame and recognition. We don’t much care about being honored. We care about our ideas working.

We care about building our businesses to the point of creating jobs and reputations for customer service (the real kind, not some put-you-on-hold unintelligible “customer service department“).

Who does care about getting a medal? Why the very same types of self-serving, reckless spending, low life that work hard at creating all those roadblocks we and our small businesses are forced to contend with:

• From our arrogant, get-the-votes-at-any-cost-campaign-obsessed, leaderless White House with zero business know-how and the global mindset of a two-year-old

• And corporate giants (the antithesis of innovation, wallowing in incompetence and self-pity) with their deep pockets and greedy unions standing forever at the ready  

• To artificial-do-gooder-preoccupied-with-“green” academia-land, which pollutes the world of small business with theory and complexity over reality and common sense

Loose accusations? No, deeply-documented fact-based assessments.

______________________

Small (and in-home) businesses, professional practices, small business owners, operators, and managers all. We are in the fights of our lives to overcome all the disproportionate tax burdens, all the government over-regulation and controls being shoved down our throats as we try to create jobs and make our ideas successfull!

Unions and academia? Not even a step up from Hollywood and mass media sensationalists: they just get in the way. Let them pester government and the Fortune 500 companies, or –perhaps even better– each other!

UNEMPLOYMENT is the worst it has been in the United States since the 1930s. Terrorism threats are at an all-time high. Natural weather disasters are running roughshod across America, destroying homes and businesses, killing and uprooting families. And America’s allies are being insulted instead of thanked.

GAS PRICES are still through the roof, and igniting skyrocketing costs for shipping, transportation, and now food–costs unmercifully and unavoidably being passed along to consumers who are made more dependent on government controls every passing day. And America’s enemies are being cajoled instead of chased.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS are pouring across our borders every night with drugs and weapons . . . and welcomed (!) in our schools, hospitals, and welfare rolls? America is on the brink of bankruptcy compounded by dollar devaluation, loss of global respect, and the compromising of our Constitution.

MR.. OBAMA is in Ireland toasting a pint of ale.The last catastrophe just weeks ago found him absorbed in worries about the Final Four basketball competition. And how long ago did he disrupt his golf trip to “dispatch” advisors to “review” the disastrous Gulf oil spill 30 DAYS AFTER IT HAPPENED?

THIS is leadership? Could your business survive this behavior from it’s leader? Like I said, if you’ve made it this far, you got guts! America needs you.

Keep it up!  Oh, and while you’re at it:

Mark your election day calendar

now for November 6, 2012.

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

“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!

Product/Service Knowledge

Does Not A Sales Star Make!

     What makes entrepreneurs and sales professionals successful is having the ability to go waaay beyond the point of just knowing about the products and services they represent.

     It takes a very rare “geek,” for example (e.g., Bill Gates, Steve Jobs), to be able to come up out of the techie hole and have a clear vision of everything else that surrounds her or him.

     I’m not suggesting the need to be an expert at everything, but to instead appreciate and value what’s there (in your market, in your industry, in your universe), and know when to call on (and how to manage) others’ skills.  

     This “failure shortcoming” is unfortunately not something that’s easily adjustable because it’s more a product of the system than of the individual. It is the single greatest failing of academia that students are rarely if ever taught how to use what they’ve been taught to know.

     While touching on our misguided educational system, I should add that the best college for successful business career preparation (besides the proverbial “school of hard knocks”) is the one that fosters student internship and cooperative education programs and/or real-life experience opportunities. A taste of reality always beats none.

It is the single greatest failing of academia that students are rarely if ever taught how to use what they’ve been taught to know.”

     Why should this matter? Having a single purpose and collective goals is one thing, but no business is successful that is run with closed-minded fantasy-land controls. Product / service knowledge is just one part of the success equation. Having the vision and organization skills to apply that knowledge is what counts.

     No sales professional has ever made it on having total command alone of her or his company product or service features. No one “buys” features. Buyers may justify their purchases by itemizing features, but what makes the sale are emotional triggers to benefits. Product and service knowledge can only serve as the launchpad for those triggers. 

     What are the answers? I believe they vary with each set of circumstances, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers … BUT:

     I CAN tell you that if you and your sales message have been heavily focused on what goes into a product or service and how it’s made, and you see all the guys down in the trenches (the scientist /technician / analyst types) smiling up at you and nodding agreement, you need to adjust what you’re communicating to the rest of the world!

     Like the dentist ads promoting mucosal blade inserts, which would only have a recognition factor and be a point of interest among other dentists, many businesses go down the tubes grasping for receptivity to jargon that only they and a handful of staff (and competitive!) “experts” understand.

     Real Business “Power”— the Power of entrepreneurial and sales success, comes not from merely knowing — comes from knowing who, how, when, and where to put the knowledge that you have to work.    

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“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!