Stewards of Sustainability:

Show Us Your Cupboards!

The latest Gallup Poll shows 47% to 19% of Americans are opposed to raising the debt ceiling.

No doubt for perceived vote-getting value, Mr. Obama appears to be seeking to steer us away from this issue by pretending to be fast on the heels of solving the gas price disaster (which threatens to thoroughly destroy whatever remains of America’s economy) by attempting to extend oil production leases and hold more frequent lease sales.

Sounds great, but like so many other too-little-too-late White House manipulations, this horse will stall at the  gate. More oil drilling sounds good, but doesn’t mean anything. Gas prices will not change anytime soon. Why? Because too long a time has been taken to initiate action. Oh, and by the way, the EPA has to approve it too. They won’t.

As every successful business owner knows, REAL leaders faced with real crunch situations –like skyrocketing gas prices, moving debt ceilings, Mid-East tension tentacles, and let’s not forget the U word:  Unemployment— use instinct and at-hand information to act. They act first, and worry about analyzing the decision afterward.

From Albert Einstein to Bill Gates, the world’s genius’s have said that all we ever have is limited knowledge. Taking too long to make decisions is a major downfall of corporate management — analysis paralysis — and government is a prime contender. Gas pump prices have been an “immediate” issue with the public since 2008!

Your business would have folded by now if you spent three years of foot-dragging and kicking around should-we-or-shouldn’t-we options to solve a major “immediate” problem.

One need not be either Einstein or Gates to see that continually rising gas prices create continually rising shipping and transportation prices, which create continually rising food prices.

This progression (regression?) of true-grit stress triggers is like throwing explosives in the fireplace, especially when we add to the mix our continually rising unemployment rates, devaluation of the dollar, and loss of global respect.

(Ah, yes, and all the while, we tug at the small business choke-hold leash of mandated healthcare on the short horizon.)  

And we’re only addressing the relationship to small business here. Consider the even larger impact on family life and managing stress. Fuel affordability factors itself quickly into human dignity and self-esteem issues when gas pump prices exceed ability to take a weekend break visit to the shore or the mountains, the zoo or a sporting event.

Global leadership is simply a worthless wish if the nation’s economic foundation continues to crumble.

Socialist causes are draining the reality of economic resurgence.

Being “green” is useless if you can’t afford to eat!

How far are you willing to be pushed before stepping up to work for new national leadership that will take action over sound bites and voter-control agendas?

The brink of bankruptcy?

There are 30 million small business owners worth of clout in America. Use it or lose it!

# # #

Your FREE subscription: Posts RSS Feed

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!

Stop Dreaming!  

Hope for economic 

change will not come 

from Washington.

It can only come

from YOU! . . . 

Roll up your sleeves!

CALLING ALL ENTREPRENEURS . . .

It’s time to step up to the plate, and accept the fact that we are not just the movers and shakers of the business world, we are quite literally the catalysts of society. Washington is not about to solve the economy or hand over the job creation tax incentives we need in order to get the job done.

We have to make things happen on our own.

Lest you have any doubt (or in case you’ve bought into token SBA talk), here’s some food for thought:

• America’s small businesses have been painted into a corner. Billions have been doled out to corporate giants (to appease union voter support instead of solve the problem). Recipients are using tax dollars to dig themselves deeper into the holes they created.

When entrepreneurs dig into a hole, they get up and out, and try digging someplace else. 

• Like a fancy dinner out with one’s spouse while the baby starves, a long trail of reckless spending has been carved out for creeping socialism programs that have no ability to do anything for the economy except increase the deficit.

Entrepreneurs consider worst-case scenarios and then take only reasonable risks!

• Next, we face the national healthcare plan that can bankrupt more small businesses than any other single act in history.

Forcing entrepreneurs to pay for healthcare coverage (including for illegal immigrants!) and deleting the free-market competition that has made America’s healthcare program the world’s best, is pure blindness.

• Now, we can choose our own healthcare professionals, institutions and methods — choices that will be eliminated. Many top  doctors are already seeking early retirement and new careers.

The tax-cut game is back to stage center (a diversionary tactic?) — all while unemployment continues to worsen. So, timing-wise, it’s back to the “He who hesitates is lost!” entrepreneurial spirit.

A prosperity direction?

Let’s remind ourselves please that just a handful of entrepreneurs is more likely to save our economy than all of politics combined. 

Why?  Because only entrepreneurs understand how to make things happen, and then make them happen. The antithesis of government and big business thinking, entrepreneurs believe and practice the philosophy that some action is always better than no action, and that “if it ain’t broke, fix it anyway!” 

Throughout U.S. history– from Henry Ford to Dale Carnegie to Thomas Edison to Bill Gates to Mary Kay Ash and Oprah Winfrey–  it’s been entrepreneurs that have achieved their burning desires, and created jobs, who have overcome crushing economic defeat, government incompetence, and corporate greed.

It will happen, this straightening of the crooked path, but only when the innovative pursuits of entrepreneurs are able to create new jobs. It is that innovative spirit that throbs deep within our existence as the guiding light and stronghold of leadership in the free world.

Sure, we can choose to wallow in misery–as many terrorist forces would no doubt relish–or just as easily choose to make an active and conscious choice to give America genuine hope and genuine change.  

How will this happen?

We who are blessed by America’s freedom, will help it to happen by what we do with every day, and with the gift of life each of us carries from dawn to dusk.

What we DO with that, how we use it to grant others freedom from oppression and depression, each in our own unique ways, giving others our own unique kinds of pats on the back… is how it will happen! 

We shall rise up as supporters and igniters, lending and offering the incentives to make forward motion possible. By putting our shoulders to the wheel, and marching alongside others, moving in the same directions of enlightenment, we will make the difference.

The investments we make of ourselves in ourselves, and in clearing the way for those who have the gift of making lemonade from lemons, will make the difference.

Think about someone you know who glows with that “git ‘er done” energy and drive…reach out with belief and encouragement…it will work as surely as even the tides rise and fall, and the moon fills with light. 

# # #

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!

Entrepreneurship is 

the only solution to 

plummeting economy, 

job losses, and

government spending sprees!

It’s true. American history has demonstrated time and again that the only road to economic strength and stability is the one that leads to the support and encouragement of entrepreneurial pursuits. America’s federal government has underscored this point repeatedly with its own arrogant and misguided business incompetency that runs rampant to the core.

Job losses are continuing at a record rate, and new jobs are not being created.

Job creation is the single most powerful and essential factor in strengthening industry and service sector pursuits, and in boosting the value of the dollar. Job creation is almost exclusively the product of small business. Job creation does not come from the government that uses tax money to pay for useless jobs. Neither does it come from big business that invests itself in maintaining the status quo.

 Job creation is almost exclusively the product of small business.

Job creation is the child of small business because small business is owned and operated by entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs don’t know how to give up. They don’t know how to spend their way out of problems. They find solutions, or — by instinct — create them! 

Entrepreneurs live with a  burning desire to make their ideas succeed.

Entrepreneurs alone know how to capture the spirit of innovation in both thinking and practice. And no one needs to look further for the proof of it than the single-mindedness of purpose exuded out of the garages of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, out of the 10,000 attempts by Edison to invent the light bulb, out of the persistence and perseverance of Henry Ford and Mary Kay Ash and Ellen DeGeneres.

Why has nothing but SBA tokenism been offered to small business? Because tokenism is enough to make good press.

Why has nothing substantive been done to drive job creation incentives to small business and to stop breaking small business backs long enough to actually foster new jobs? Because it doesn’t suit prevailing political spending spree goals and because government has ZERO business experience.

America’s 30 million small business owners need to accept the fact that no help is on the way

What needs to happen: America’s 30 million small business owners need to accept the fact that no help is on the way, and start acting like the entrepreneurs they were in the early “pre-cushy” days. There needs to be a resurgence of pioneer spirit and a greater sense of self-reliance that seems — for the lack of necessity being the mother of invention — to have skipped a generation.

It means now is the time to dig in.

It means now is the time to dig in, to plant your entrepreneurial energy firmly into shouldering the growth of your own business, with regard for your neighbor, but determination to go forward without dependency. Government and big business won’t bail you out. And there is no hope for banding together such fiercely independent souls as entrepreneurs into some kind of grass-roots movement.

Without losing regard for others and their struggles, or the virtues of charity, or the good of the communities that support you . . . it is time to act on your own and in your own behalf.  If even a fraction of America’s 30 million upstarts lead their businesses out of the fog, they will create needed new jobs and brighten the economy with the glow of real sunshine instead of a fading flashlight.

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!

“Dreams which have

not been interpreted 

are like letters from

the Self which have

not been opened”

— TALMUD

Here’s the thing, the most successful business people in the world all share some common traits and all share one common status of being self-actualized. This means that they have each learned some in-depth things about themselves and have used that information to figure out what makes them tick.

Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, Steven Jobs, Mary Kay, Henry Ford, Dale Carnegie (Add your own), have all been students of themselves in the processes of designing and developing their businesses.

Do you know what makes you tick?

One way to get a better fix on the answer to this question is to write notes to yourself the minute you wake up in the morning about any dreams or parts of dreams you can remember . . . a “dream journal” if you will. By forcing yourself to take up this practice and jot something down every morning, a few things will happen:

1. Odds are good that after a few days, you will begin to remember more and be able to record more. In this case, more is better.
2. Repetitive patterns or scenes or thoughts or images may begin to emerge that will help you interpret more and learn more about your SELF which can boost your business big-time.
3. The more you remember and write down, the more likely you will be to feel less stressed, and to be more productive both on and off the job.

Is this information to share with your white-shirt-and-tie corporate brother-in-law? Probably not. I wouldn’t in fact recommend sharing the idea with anyone until you start to see some results for yourself. Why does the idea seem too off-the-wall bizarre? Because it’s not in any business textbook and most of those who benefit by the practice don’t discuss it for fear of . . . well, you understand.

A primitive Malaysian hunting and gathering tribe called the Senoi (Bing or Google them if you’re interested in more detail) have a generations old practice of waking each morning and talking about their dreams from the night before with others in their tribe. They reportedly go from one tribal member to another until they feel satisfied with the interpretation of their dreams.

Wackos, right? Wrong. The tribe is free of stress, free of disease and free of mental illness.

Imagine if you could be enjoying that luxury right now. Is it mumbo-jumbo or dark magic? Not likely. Since almost all research ends up demonstrating that disease of all kinds has a psychosomatic base that inevitably evolves from stress, it shouldn’t be surprising news.

When a group of people (regardless of how primitive) devotes part of every day focusing on, exploring, and identifying stress sources, that group is going to experience less stress. Less stress means less disease and less mental illness.

Keeping a daily “dream journal” is one way to help yourself (which means you will also be helping your business) beginning immediately. And it’s FREE! (Oh, right, a blank book and a pen!)

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

“If you think education’s

expensive, try ignorance!”

     Besides that this bumper sticker passed me today in the rain going at least 60 in a 40, I found it hard to stop laughing at the stupidity of the message from the standpoint of business. Education (at least as we know it in the U.S.) is hardly the opposite of ignorance. In fact, education (as we know it in the U.S.) is often the CAUSE of ignorance in business!

     Okay, let’s first take a look at whether education is expensive. Yes indeed, it is. Is it worth the expense? No indeed, it’s not. And why is that the case? Because — except for rocket scientists, neuro and cardiovascular surgeons, astronauts, statistical analysts, and tax attorneys (none of whom have the slightest clue about business), it doesn’t much matter.

     Formal education in America is a complete failure. Primary and secondary education systems fail to prepare students for the real world and college prep programs fail to prepare students for college.

     Advanced education systems fail to prepare students for the real world and career prep programs fail to prepare students for careers. Those who would own and run businesses are better off getting real first-hand experience than suffering through meaningless formal education coursework that’s out of touch with reality!

     Having had over 20,000 students (in business, career psychology, human development, and elementary education) I can attest that maybe (maybe!) one in 100 students actually gets the point of it all, and recognizes that formal education coursework is all about learning the PROCESS.

     You would be surprised (or perhaps not) to find out how few students recognize that what they need to be learning is HOW TO THINK, not what idiotic events took place that led to market segmentation media planning or what magic formulas exist for setting retail mark-ups or what impact socio-economic factors have on target market strategy development.

     We are all businesspeople reading this, right? So perhaps it’s preaching to the choir, but when we look carefully at the business people and business success stories that have made a difference on earth — from Henry Ford to Bill Gates — what’s seems striking is that formal education never played an important role.

     Our neurotic societal values dictate that MBAs and PhDs are such enviable and important degrees for business success, that they must be encouraged at all costs. Baloney! They are meaningless tools for entrepreneurs. They cost huge amounts of time, money, and energy, and get in the way of the real learning that takes place on the job.

     A more realistic bumper sticker might read:  

“IF YOU THINK BUSINESS SUCCESS DEPENDS ON EDUCATION, YOU’RE IGNORANT!”

# # #               

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.    

# # #               

Reality Check!

      Just in case  you’re star-struck with the idea of starting your own business venture, be aware that there’s a little more to it than flipping the black and red “Yes, We’re Open” and “Sorry, We’re Closed” sign twice a day.

There’s . . . 

• money (at least twenty times more than you can even imagine needing!) 
• industry experience, training and know-how
• knowledge of the market and the competition
• customers (you’re going to need a few to start)
• suppliers (you’re going to need a few to start)
• location (which is often critical, depending on the nature of the business)
• utilities
• a formal written business plan
• investor and/or loan payback arrangements
• basic office and business supplies
• inventory of products and/or services
• credibility (industry/community associations?)
• advertising/marketing preparation
• advertising/marketing implementation
• an accountant
• a lawyer
• an advisory board
• employees
• a bank and bank account
• maybe a post office box
• maybe charge card or PayPal arrangements
• maybe a charge card
• furniture and equipment

…this could go on for pages!

     And don’t tie-up  your brain with this next thought, but you surely need to be conscious of the fact that 9 out of 11 new businesses fail in the first 3 years, and that it takes 5 years on average just to break even financially.

     Be aware that  most businesses fail because of poor management. Period. It’s common to hear that a new business didn’t make it because it was under-capitalized, but if you think about that for 2.5 seconds and can be honest about it, under-capitalization is:  poor management!

     You can be  a free-wheeling entrepreneurial spirit all you want, but reality dictates that you have to do some planning and have a ton more money than you think you need just to get up and running. This is a “haste-makes-waste” point in time where shortcuts don’t work.

     Of course there are always  Steve Jobs and Bill Gates success stories about starting in a garage and working “on a shoestring,” and I wish for you to be that kind of successful, but reality is that these two superstars are each one in trillions.   

     If all the above  thoughts have fueled your fire instead of discouraged you into retreating to the life of a bottom of the barrel employee, you might actually have what it takes to make it work. Go for it! (Oh, and if you need to call me for help, do it please before running out of money! Thank you.)

# # #  

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

# # #

This blog free via list-protected email: click RSS Feed above…$1.99/mo on  AMAZON Kindle. Creative? Add your own 7 words to the 314-day 7-Word Story (under RSS) We’re making it up as we go!  GET Hal Alpiar short story in Sept. release book from Nightengale Press: THE ART OF GRANDPARENTING Amazon, B&N, OR order special (signed by Hal) pre-publication $22.45 total check only (includes s&h), payable & mail to: TheWriterWorks.com, LLC @PO Box 1236, Millsboro, DE 19966. Include continental US ship-to address. 9/13 is Grandparent’s Day!

2nd only to the government,

big business gets an F

All of us who own and operate or manage a small or medium sized business know that the world’s most incompetent excuses for “businesspeople” reside in dark, damp little squirrel holes of government and academia buildings. They are the poster boys and girls for business stupidity.

But right after these poor ignorant, unrealistic souls, maybe not even a full rung lower on the ladder, are the braindead, money-wasting corporate executives who spend half their lives in limos, cabs, commuter train barcars, business class airline seats, and fancy restaurants.

These are the hot-shot 9 to 5 executives who travel better, eat and drink better and live better, higher-income lifestyles than either the government doo-dahs or the academic muckity-mucks.

But that doesn’t make them smart, or productive, or successful.

Most of them are none of those.

It simply makes them people who don’t have what it takes to start and build and grow their own business ventures, but who are not quite as stupid as those who work for those who get elected.

They are also a hair more savvy than those who merely pretend to know what it’s all about, and who instead of doing, end up teaching young people how to do and not do the things they themselves don’t know how to do and not do.

It’s interesting to me, by the way, that so many of these corporate suits seem to think they are Henry Ford’s and Bill Gates’s and Mary Kay’s when they get anywhere near a calculator or Excel spreadsheet.

Reality is that this country is in dire economic straits today because of corporate mentalities that STILL don’t get it, that STILL are unproductive, that STILL squander taxpayer (and stockholder) money left and right. (Actually, I have fresh evidence from today, if anyone’s interested in details.)

What’s wrong with all this is not just the consequences of incompetence but the systems that breed it: educational institutions, government agencies, and Fortune 500 corporations.

How do I know this? Before spending most of my career as a small business owner/operator, I was a college professor, a government employee and a Fortune 500 executive. That’s like the been there, done that thing.

Thankfully, I saw early on that none of these (academia, government, corporate) paths held out any promise of a successful life journey for anyone with energy and ambition and common sense and basic business instincts.

And here’s what I conclude: 

. . . when we can ween ourselves from societal dependence on misguided government, fantasyworld academia, and thieving corporate America . . . and put wind behind the sails of small business . . . only then, will we turn this ship around! 

# # #  

 Hal@TheWriterWorks.com or comment below.

Thanks for visiting. 

Go for your goals, good night and God bless you!  

SELF-EMPLOYED?

Defragment and

give your SELF a

stimulus package!

     There’s plenty of unused storage space in your mind, believe me. Even if it’s just a little teeny bit true that Einstein supposedly only used about 10% of his total brain capacity, where does that leave the rest of us? I mean, give that about 27 or 28 seconds of think time right now.

     Think about all that extra (empty?) space in your brain that’s available to put to work. Leave it plugged in tonight and just click on accessories> defragment. By the morning, VOILA! You’ll be ready for anything.

     Maybe we should sort out who’s working where first. That way, when you’re all freshly defragmented, you’ll be in a position to make more of what you’ve got, or jump into something different.

     If you work for a big company, raise your hand and leave the room. If you work for someone else in a small company or you work for an organization of some type, or you’re in school learning how to work for somebody else…or you don’t work (Wow! What’s thatlike?), you’re probably not reading any of this anyway because you’re too busy surfing FaceBook.

This now leaves us with the heart of the businessworld: YOU!

    You run and/or own and/or manage a business,

OR you are self-employed.

     Oh, there’s that nasty hyphenated word again: self-employed. This simply means that you run AND own AND manage a business. I love you for that…but don’t get yourself worked up over my affection because what do I know?

     Federal and state government leaders don’t think you count.

     Obviously they haven’t a clue about how Apple and Microsoft got started in garages by self-employed geniuses. Anyway, don’t hold your breath waiting for some kind of  stimulus package since “self-employed” doesn’t count as a small business in government circles.

     I saw a handful of governor-conference-attending governors on CSPAN last night, including I am sorry to say, Delaware Governor Jack Markell who clearly doesn’t get it…who thinks his small business job creation plan to help established small businesses get bigger is going to have big economic impact.

     Sorry Jack. You need to get real, and talk with (LISTEN TO) some of Delaware’s thousands of self-employed small businesses –the ones that are NOT established, that are struggling to get established to see what they need to get up to 3 or 4 or 11 or 25 employees…and TIP: it’s not more loans!

     Making stimulus package room for startups and struggling self-employed is like making disk space by defragmenting. Clear out the junk, the spam, the space-wasters.

     You see what I’m saying here about brain capacity?  Defragmenting cleans up your harddrive. The same concept will clean up your brain, and help you focus on how to be more productive with your time and energy.

     You can be sure of not getting government support, so what can you be sure of? Your SELF! And how do you make that start to work for you? The same ways that Messrs. Jobs and Gates made their one-man-band garage ventures start to work for them.

     They made the choice. They worked hard at their ideas. They didn’t give up when things looked bleak. They didn’t worry about stimulus packages. They put their heads down and charged. You can do that too! Start tomorrow morning…after you defragment tonight!     

# # #  

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

# # # 

Get this blog FREE by list-protected email: click “Posts RSS Feed” (center column)…or pay $1.99/month on AMAZON Kindle. FEELING CREATIVE? Add your own 7 words to the 297-day “7-Word Story” (center column). A new Hal Alpiar short story is coming in September in a new book from Nightengale Press: THE ART OF GRANDPARENTING…soon at Barnes & Noble @ $19.95 ($24.95 CAD), OR order special (signed by Hal) pre-publication @ $18.95 plus $3.50 s&h [$22.45 total check only), payable to: TheWriterWorks.com. LLC. and mail to POBox 1236, Millsboro, DE 19966. Include ship-to (U.S. only) address.  REMEMBER SEPTEMBER 13th IS GRANDPARENT’S DAY!