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!

Got a killer business?

Get a gumption transplant.

Why do some businesses make it so hard for customers to purchase their products and services? Who knows? Do you know? I don’t know. It’s beyond my ability to even imagine, yet companies that trumpet how “easy” they are –like “NOOK,”  Sirius Radio, Best Buy, cable TV companies– are convolutedly complicated, and user UNfriendly.

• Barnes & Noble makes a big deal of underscoring how “easy” it is to own and operate a NOOK electronic reader, and to be able to order books that are transmitted directly to the device, “easily.” It is not easy. Owning a NOOK requires you to read and agree to more ridiculous overkill statements than it takes to locate a Presidential birth certificate.
• Ordering books (yes, that you are paying for) is like arguing with an umpire. First off, books you do not want and would not order are planted on your new nook whether you want them or not. Secondly, one can only order NOOK books online. And that is a terrorizing experience. After being dragged through waves of selections you don’t want, what you click is what you’ve bought; no shopping cart; just pay! 
• Go into a Barnes & Noble retail store –even with your NOOK and all the legal ownership papers and try to order a NOOK book, you’ll likely get looked at as if you were from Jupiter. Third, I defy you to try spending your money without having to call the 800 number for the privilege of speaking with Customer Service (clueless about serving customers): these are people who can only follow scripts and put you in touch with a supervisor who can only follow scripts.
• And all of this is only IF you’re lucky enough to reach someone who speaks English, who then asks for your zip code, email address, tax records, where you lived when you were six-years-old, and next of kin. Do I sound annoyed? I threatened to throw my NOOK in the brook, so yeah, I guess “annoyed” works. And, yeah, I know I choose to feel annoyed!

Bottom Line: Buy a Kindle.

(And I get no special treatment from Amazon.)

Sirius Radio is equally annoying. Besides aggressive direct mail tactics, Sirius charges obscene rates for a lousy lineup of channels that they keep moving around. A great challenge while driving, trying to find a recently relocated channel.

You might as well be text messaging on the NJ Turnpike in between four 18-wheelers all going 75. Don’t be drinking coffee too!

Best Buy? <~~~ Go here for that story.

Cable TV companies win the “most obnoxious” award. Besides that you can’t even get any kind of supervisor on the phone, don’t try to explain your purchase desire without having to first answer a bombardment of questions about your personal life, your finances, your dog . . .

What’s missing here? Gumption.

Companies are giving up on their customers. They seem to have concluded that it’s more important to nail every customer for database exploitation and to make them jump through hoops to qualify to purchase, and then give them crummy quality for exorbitant prices.

The alternative of course is to simply be a stand-up, straight-ahead business.

What’s the rest of the story? Besides insensitive and unrealistic Customer Service and approaches to CRM, failing and status quo businesses are blaming the economy. If you are among these, here’s a message just for you:

“It’s not the economy , Stupid!”

It’s YOU. Change your attitude. Get a  gumption transplant. It’ll help you to get your glove and get back in the game. Sure, the economy sucks, but getting pulled down and under is your choice!

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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!

Before you throw all your

  tech stuff on the BBQ . . .

Recognize, first and foremost, that your greatest assets are your people. If you’re a one-man-band, maybe “your people” are a loving spouse, partner, children or parents who assist you, or a reliable friend or two who consistently refer(s) others to you . . . or a hotbed of talented interns.

If you’re the owner of a small to medium-size business, perhaps “your people” are account or department or office or branch managers.

The point is that I am NOT suggesting you run around torching these folks, or even giving any of them a baseball-dugout-style “hotfoot.”  I AM suggesting that you ask yourself (and answer) the following questions:

Can you readily identify and easily separate your internal and external customers?

What percentage of each day are you actively marketing to each group?

In other words:

• How much and how often are you (externally) marketing your people?

• How much and how often are you (internally) marketing TO your people?

• How much and how often are you (internally AND externally) marketing THROUGH your people?

Do you think the meaning of Customer Service is to have a Customer Service person or department?

• If each and every one of your internal customers know how to relate to and respond to external customers, why would you have to pay someone or a group to perform this function?

• Ideally, anyone in your organization whom I might reach by phone or meet in-person should be able to handle my customer service needs.

Your marketing people or your own marketing sense tell(s) you how to motivate external customers. You surely have a strong idea of what sells and what doesn’t sell them on your product(s) and/or service(s). Do you have a sense of confidence about the best ways to motivate internal customers?

Do you apply Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

If you try (or have tried to) apply Maslow’s Hierarchy, are you (or have you) doing (done) it from a position of strength — by first being a detective to understand individual “hot spots”? Has this approach helped you to realize that the best internal customer rewards are not (in spite of all popular beliefs) not always cash, raises, and bonuses?

As a leader who is heavily invested in growing the loyalty, respect, and receptivity of both internal and external customers, are you making a conscious effort to breed entrepreneurial thinking accompanied by reasonable risk-taking behaviors? Or are you breeding investment in the status quo?

Are you fostering and nurturing innovation. Do your people come to you with just ideas, or do they fully exploit the ideas they propose with well thought out paths for implementation that include all possible operational, financial and marketing applications? Do you get a thorough and complete picture instead of just a quick sketch? 

Having great people behind you is great for your ego. Having great people behind you who are inspired and highly motivated, who deliver comprehensive plans of attack, is great for your business.

Which is more important? 

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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!

“The road to hell,”

we’re told,

“is paved with them”… so 

say what you mean and,

 yup, mean what you say!

Is that the same as walk the talk?

Anytime you lead someone on, set somebody up, promise results, or guarantee satisfaction (even if you only indirectly imply it, and, yes, even if you genuinely mean it!) by assuring or reassuring her or him, you’d better deliver or be prepared to banish your business to Chapter 11.

Like going to that place many think of as hell, people may not go straight there for a bad deed, but sometime soon, not delivering the goods, so to speak, can put you on that bad deed road headed for what’s popularly believed to be a very hot climate.

I’m not just talking about customer service. That’s only one piece of the pie. Have you promised something you didn’t deliver to your employees? To one employee? To your suppliers? To one supplier? To your investors or lenders? To a job applicant? To a sales rep? To a community, industrial, or professional group?

Hopefully, like jolting yourself awake in mid-snore at your desk, or catching your mouth in mid-yawn during a meeting, you moved quickly and decisively to cover it up and excuse yourself . . . and make amends. There’s really no excuse. Behavior is a choice. Not fulfilling on promises is equivalent to digging yourself a low-trust grave.

Why am I beating on this?

Because it happens every day, every minute of every day. And it happens to the best of us. We get lazy or forgetful or preoccupied, and simply overlook that even though we properly address the envelope and put the right postage on it, if we fail to mail the letter, both the letter and our intentions are meaningless.

So bottom line then is that it takes more than a calendar, more than a hand-held device reminder beep, more than an assistant’s verbal prod, more than a note pinned on our sleeve. It takes a high integrity attitude. It takes a constant state of awareness about what makes others perceive us as honorable, and living up to it.

Don’t make appointments

you can’t or won’t keep.

Pretty basic, almost insulting advice, right?

Wrong.

Did it make you think? Well? 

There’s no room for the lackadaisical attitude suggested by such behavior under any circumstances, but especially in such a consistently spiraling economy (and don’t think because the media and the White House claim otherwise that  the corner has been turned. In fact, there’s a perfect example of not meaning what you say!) because the person or group you mislead will simply cross the street and find a more honorable entity to deal with.

Surely you didn’t bust your butt all these years simply to blow off what you’ve achieved with a cavalier attitude, or by not coming across with what you’ve intended to do or said you would deliver. Be a person of your word. Promised performance counts for more than price, package, promotion. and personality combined!

# # #

 931.854.0474 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!

Trying to run a small business

amid today’s world turmoils is 

like trying to do your tax return

 at a Chucky Cheese

birthday party!

CIA people will tell you that you really don’t want to know what’s going on in the world 24/7. Global terrorist threats and attacks are literally nonstop across the entire planet, all day and night, every day and night.

We hear from off-the-deep-end-tree-huggers (so described as to separate them from genuine environmentalists) that Al Gore’s “global warming” warnings were not so “warm” and were actually intended to focus more broadly on “climate change.”

Whew!

We should all be relieved to know that the man didn’t have the warming warning thing any more wrong than his claims to have “invented the Internet,” and that he really meant to say “climate change” from the outset.

Oh! Okay.

And we all know about gas prices, and the federal government’s bungling of the economy. [See my 87 gazillion posts about how to turn the economy around with tax incentives for job creation to new entrepreneurs — instead of tax-dollar handouts to incompetent corporate giants, thieving unions, and socialistic reform programs that simply add to the crushing deficit burden.]

Now I know this next statement will send 14,000 PETA members picketing me and no doubt some threats from civil liberties lawyers, but by way of meaningful advice to small business and professional practice owners, operators, partners and managers:

When a horse throws you,

get up, brush yourself off,

punch the horse in the nose

and climb back on!

(Ask any horse trainer)

Right, says you, but how do you concentrate on your own business when all the walls around you come tumbling down? First, all the walls around you are not tumbling down.

It’s cold in lots of places where it was always warm. People riot in the streets and get killed every day of the week in some town or city in some country. That doesn’t make it right, or even alright, but it should be enough to convince you that you need to stay alert while keeping your shoulder to the wheel. Stick-to-it-tive-ness is one of the great entrepreneurial traits.

The economy? The only thing that will turn that around — realistically speaking — is new national leadership that values and understands the contributions of small business, that responds to small business, and that rises to the occasion to nurture entrepreneurship with more than tokenism, empty promises, and babble.

So the bottom line is that you need to send your star rising on your own. There’s no place left to lean. Challenge yourself and your people to innovate, build high trust, exceed customer service expectations, and market the truth.

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302.933.0116   Hal@BusinessWorks.US

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Do the WAYS

we do business

determine

the results we get?

ATTITUDES

Do you and your partners, associates, and advisers ALL demonstrate positive upbeat attitudes in practically everything you say and do? When it’s time to swallow hard, eat crow, and bite the bullet (heck of a name for a restaurant!), do you and those around you own up, face the music, take it on the chin, take some deep breaths, and then step forward, onward, and upward? 

Are high-trust responsive attitudes standard fare in all your business dealings? Do you practice and foster “OPEN MINDS OPEN DOORS” attitudes? Are you listening?

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Can you honestly say there are no exceptions ever to: the customer is always right, the customer is always right, the customer is always right? (Even when it’s a customer who has overstepped bounds, or someone you don’t particularly like?) Do you and your people try to make EVERY customer deliriously delighted. Are you invested in cultivating repeat sales with a present moment focus? Are you listening?

EMPLOYEES

Are you taking the time and trouble to get to know your people well enough to make the most of their strengths (or are you constantly trying to shore up their weaknesses)? Have you frequently matched employee need levels against Maslow’s Hierarchy (Google or Bing it if you’ve forgotten it) to most effectively motivate productive performances? Do you practice leadership by teaching by example? Are you listening?

INVESTORS, LENDERS, AND REFERRERS

Is your level of transparency what you would want it to be if you were investing in you, or referring others to your business? Are you keeping these key connections inside your inner loop? Are you tapping them as resources and regularly soliciting their input. Have you recruited them into unpaid Advisory Board positions? Are you listening?

VENDORS AND SUPPLIERS

Do you treat these resource people and companies like partners? Can you extend and generate better terms for exchanging and referring and bartering products and services? Do you keep them competitive with an ongoing bid process, and constantly review their performances while keeping open-minded to other options? Do they know where they stand with you? Are you listening?

POLICIES AND PROCEDURES

Are you running a U.S.Marine Drill Instructors Academy, or a hospice, or something in between? Is the way you run your business in keeping with the industry or profession you’re part of? Is it too much in keeping that it doesn’t stand out? Do your policies and procedures squelch innovative thinking and doing, or enhance it? How lawyer-crazed tight are your policy interpretations? 

EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING

Are you constantly making room for top talent, and cultivating it. Are you providing enough of the right kinds of training. Are you aware of how importantly regarded expanded opportunities and responsibilities are to most people? Did you know that young people are positively more attracted to being praised than they are to sex, drugs, and alcohol? 

COMMUNITY RELATIONS

Are you and your business being good citizens in the various (professional, industry, geographic, neighborhood)communities that patronize your business and support your existence?

GOD AND COUNTRY

When you put God and country first on your business agenda, all the other pieces will fit together because both God and your country will know about your allegiance, your commitment, and where your heart is. As we sow, so shall we reap. 

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302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Are you making money

or providing healthcare?

The mission of doctors, nurses, hospitals, and all affiliated healthcare-related and therapeutic professions is to provide healthcare services. Emotional-based businesses and professions trying to sell rational doses of reassurance

The mission of all for-profit and (surprise) not-for-profit entities is to provide products, services, and ideas in exchange for money or other dollar-value products and services. Rationally-reassuring-based businesses and organizations trying to sell emotional triggers.  

And rarely if ever do “the twains” seem to meet.

Yet, each side of that two-edged coin has much to learn from the other.

They can protest ’til they’re blue in the face and spitting wooden nickles, but truth is there is barely a doctor, nurse, hospital or affiliated healthcare-related or therapeutic profession that knows the first thing about the realities of marketing.

It’s as rare as finding an 1861 three-cent piece in your pocket change that businesses have as much customer care savvy as an ICU nurse or front line physical therapist.

Oh, you say, but that’s not a fair comparison because business is business is business, and who can be worried about a customer problem after she or he has left the store, office, showroom, or work site. After all, we’re not in business to hold hands and pat heads.

Ah, but business is in business to cater to customers before, during and after (and long after) purchase because it’s the only way to grow the future. Boast all you want about your databases and efforts to serve the customer after the sale is made, but reality is that if you’re not doing something dramatically positive with past customers –and especially long after the sale– you’re missing the message!

What can you learn now from your past customers?

How? What’s holding you back?

(You had better be “holding hands”!) 

Hospitals have the whole lifelong loop covered. They are tenacious about providing fall-over services at every level, to present and past patients and families. They haven’t a clue about how to attract attention, create interest, stimulate desire, and bring about action, but they sure do know how to ensure satisfaction (maybe not with the bills and insurance tangles, but definitely one-on-one!)

Businesses need to take a page from that and appreciate that today’s customer should NEVER have  a reason for not also being tomorrow’s customer.

As the world gets smaller by time and communication transmission, we face enormously bigger and better opportunities to learn from one another.

And -yes– even hospitals and healthcare professionals with no business skills have an instinctive sense of customer momentum. Almost all of us could stand a booster shot of customer momentum as we troop through the daily grand rounds of our work sites and work stations, our staffr and employee meetings, and our customer encounters at every level. Think it. Try it. Do it. STOP studying things so much! Surprise yourself! 

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! 

If Oct/Nov/Dec hasn’t

heated up your business,

 Jan/Feb/Mar won’t either!

I sit here in an area of the country that –until last year’s three-foot accumulation– hadn’t had any snow to speak of for over 75 years, contemplating the seven hours of driveway shoveling I just completed of another 1-2-foot-plus, on the day after Christmas.

One can’t help, I’m fairly sure, in circumstances like this, having one’s mind drift ever so creepy-crawly, to Ex (Thank Heaven!) Vice President Al Gore’s Nobel Prize-winning predictions of global warming.

This recognition of course came well after his claims that he invented the Internet. Duh! It’s hard to tell which of the three is the bigger farce: Gore, the Nobel Prize or global warming.

Anyway, it made me think about “Chicken Little.”

Remember him?

He ran around the neighborhood yelling, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”

Well, let’s have none of that, says our current Administration, hellbent on selling us all into business success by throwing good money after bad at corporate buffoon giants.

Thank Heaven, again! (Yikes! Twice in one blog post–  this “Thank Heaven!” is for Ford Motor Company. Thank you, FORD, for sassing it out and protecting Henry’s entrepreneurial legacy by telling the White House where to take a hike!).

Yes, I am a lifelong Ford owner, but No, I am not a White House hater. I am a realist. I am a serious skeptic of all who would think they could step on and over small business owners and entrepreneurs with the naive convictions that stimulus tax-dollars tossed to big business (and to frivolous socialistic-based enterprises and government agencies) would turn the economy around.  

Only small businesses create jobs. Period.   

Oh, and did I mention the flood of money that beleaguered, hardworking business owners and managers don’t even get to look at while being taxed into the dirt, while incompetent government agencies award themselves salary increases?

Well, yes, there have been some token awards possible through the pathetic SBA, assuming the struggling small business owner could afford the lawyer and accountant needed to process the truckloads of paperwork. 

Did we notice part of the government’s efforts to sell the public on economic success has been to push the media to glow with positive business talk . . . “the greatest holiday retail shopping returns in history,” I heard . . . while businesses continue to die in record numbers? 

Where does this leave YOU? If your last quarter of 2010 was great, congratulations! Odds are good that your first quarter of 2011 will also be fiscally productive.

If your last quarter of 2010 sucked eggs, odds are pretty good that the first quarter of 2011 will not break any revenue or profit levels. Ah, but hope, the White House tells us, is just around the corner.

Here’s the bottom line: Hope gets you nowhere in reality. Action is what moves business forward. And businesses that move forward drive the economy forward. (Yes, this is apparently too complex a concept for government to grasp!)

So, what’s preventing you from taking the action steps that you know need to be taken, that perhaps you’ve been shying away from to avoid making waves? Hmmm?

What will happen if you simply choose to turn up the heat on your challenges to employees, your opportunities to vendors and suppliers, and your service to customers and clients?

You don’t need the government to tell you what to do to make your business work!

You need only to choose to step up to the plate in your industry or profession, in your marketplace, and in your community.

Not being overly cautious is not the same as being careless.

Reasonable risks are what got you here in the first place.

The first quarter of 2011 is yours for the taking.

    Don’t ask. Don’t tell. Just do it!   

# # # 

www.TheWriterWorks.com

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!

When you finally slow down for

(or from) the weekend,

DEFRAGMENT!

No need to explain why. You already know all the economy, industry or profession, marketplace and competition reasons.

So let’s get to the heart of it. Use this slow-down-time period to step back, adjust your glasses, put your hands on your hips, stretch, yawn, take some deep breaths, and defragment — put all the pieces out on the table.

Start with your business . . .

What’s been going on these past few months? Weeks? Where’s your business now, and where’s it headed?

~~FINANCES?

Management? Strategies?  Communications? Budgets? Investors? A/R? A/P? Cash flow? Payroll? Other overhead? Reimbursements? Taxes? Revenues? Charitable donations? Profits? Accounting systems? Bookkeeping services? Add your own here: _____________________  

~~OPERATIONS?

Management? Strategies? Communications? Equipment? Supplies? Storage? Shipping? Inventory? Warehousing? Operating systems? Work flow? Scheduling? Purchasing? Leases? Legal actions? IT? Add your own here: _______  _________________________________   

~~MARKETING?

Management? Strategies? Communications? Branding? Sales? (Yes, sales is a function of marketing.) Public and community and investor and industry relations (Also all marketing functions, including news releases, special events, blogs, BUZZ)? Advertising (another function of marketing, including online, traditional and direct media . . . as well as the creation and production of all of it) Pricing? Packaging? Promotion? Merchandising? Social media? Add your own here: _____________________________  

~~HUMAN RESOURCES?

Management? Strategies? Communications? Benefit programs? Customer Service? Referral values? Recruitment? Hiring and firing? leadership, teamwork and skills development training? Performance incentives? Motivational programs? Add your own here: _____________________________

[So you noticed those 3 primary targets for each category, huh? Well, in my experience, poor management, poor (or no) strategies, and poor communications have consistently been the primary reasons for business failure!]

That should give you a place to start. When you’ve exhausted your business thinking, switch gears to your SELF.

What’s been going on these past few months/weeks  with YOU? Where are you now, and where are you headed?

~~HEALTH & FITNESS?

Are you squeezing in enough exercise every week to keep yourself in decent shape? You need not lift or jog for three hours a day and eat powered protein shakes with 37 raw eggs for breakfast in order to stay physically fit.

Many experts say 3 hours a week of brisk walking and avoiding overdoses of red meat and fatty foods will suffice for most people with busy schedules. Are you getting routine medical and dental health checkups as recommended? What do you need to do to motivate yourself in these directions?  

~~FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS

Are you spending enough quality time with children, parents, spouse or significant other and (get your finger out of your throat!) your in-laws? How can you combine some time-consumers more productively? Walk with family members or friends. Partner up for health tests (easier to deal with when you have company).

Get serious about sharing healthy food preparation ideas, recipes, and meals. Small specialty of handmade gifts and handwritten thank you notes work wonders as relationship cement. Add your own ideas here: ____________________

~~SELF-EXPRESSION, SELF-AWARENESS & SELF-DEVELOPMENT

Surely you know what you need to do in these categories to defragment yourselfand move forward with the adventures in creative expression and self and academic learning that you’ve always wanted to fit into your life, but never chose to make the room for. Now’s your chance to choose, and blame it on me!

The more you can learn about yourself, the better you’ll be as a leader and coach and role model . . . the better prepared you’ll be to inspire and motivate others to productivity and peak performances. Choose to make yourself make room for this. 

Weekend time slow-down periods are the perfect times to reevaluate and make commitments to yourself.

No, not token promises that never happen. Get serious here for a minute.

You have only one life, and the rest of it starts the minute you leave this blog post, so how about making the rest of your life make the kind of difference you’ve only ever dreamed of?

Hey, what’s to lose by trying?

 # # # 

www.TheWriterWorks.com

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!

Well, It’s Your PEOPLE,

Of Course!

Whether it’s your spouse helping with bookkeeping while you run a home-based business, or it’s a workforce of 3 or 300 or 3000, if you are not doing a GREAT job of motivating each of them, your business will never get where you want it to go.

Having the world’s greatest business plan, fat investors, and full access to cutting-edge tech systems and equipment means zip without committed support from those who work with and for you! Your PEOPLE are your most important asset!

And that kind of support only happens with your consistent leadership by example.

Job one is to do whatever it takes to figure out how to best open each individual’s mind, then open it, then keep it open.

Because open minds open doors.

 

The more people are encouraged to think for themselves, and to think in innovative terms, and to always think first of customers, the more opportunities they will create — for both the business and themselves, which translates to steady growth.                                                   

3 Key questions to ask yourself (and answer) in order to succeed and grow:

_______________________________

1)   Can you readily identify and separate your internal and external customers?

2)   Can you really tell the difference?

3)   What percentage of every day are you marketing to them?

This set of questions and answers is all about your ability to market your people, market to your people, and market through your people.

Successful entrepreneurs focus intently on these (above) fifty or so words . . . take a minute!  

 _______________________

Do you think that the meaning of customer service is to have dedicated customer service people?

Successful entrepreneurs charge every employee with customer service responsibilities all of the time. Parttime assistants as well as the most senior officers need to be able to handle every customer service issue at any time.

Customer service interruptions should be the rule, not the exception. 

Can you “ask, don’t tell” with the words you use? Unless you’re a creative director guiding designers and writers, can you “engineer, not architect” with verbal pictures you paint? 

When you lead by example, can you diagram ideas, and resist “giving orders” in favor of putting others and yourself on the same side of the solution table?

Successful entrepreneurs recognize that marketing through their people means being careful with what is said and how it’s said.  

Are you breeding entrepreneurs (and can you manage them)? Or are you breeding investments in the status quo (and can you manage that)? Are you encouraging enough reasonable risk-taking? Are you rewarding failure when great efforts are expended?

Do your actions take the 5-step direction of:

1) THINK

2) CREATE

3) THINK

4) INNOVATE

5) THINK

?????

Creativity only happens when thinking stops, and innovation requires re-activating THINKING in order to take the creative ideas all the way through every step of the strategic process from concept to launch, with all anticipated needs addressed. 

Then THINK AGAIN — Assess the innovative plans and designs.

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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] 

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