Unless you’re a surgeon

or bombsquad defuser,

 nothing gets done

  by standing still.

Yesterday we talked about constantly moving targets. We touched on the challenges presented by rapidly changing rules, attitudes, circumstances, and information access.

To impact consumer, employee, and supplier behaviors positively, entrepreneurs and small business owners must flex, adjust, adapt, and go with the flow.

We must also hustle.

When problems surface, pounce on them. I’ve actually seen unsavvy (and ultimately unscuccessful business owners and managers walk away, pass the buck, blame others, close up and go home, and –in one instance– put a “Gone To Lunch” sign on the counter at 11:55am, and literally chase out eight customers who’d been waiting in line

. . . oblivious, obviously, to the common knowledge that every unhappy customer tells a minimum of ten other people who tell ten other people. So, in this case that makes 800 bad-mouth comments. Can your business survive that? (“Quick like a bunny” was my father’s motto; it always earned him big tips.)

Having a constant sense of urgency communicates leadership, compassion, integrity, authenticity, and professionalism. Others will assign those values to everything you are associated with — your products, services, ideas, and all of the people involved with your business. Pretty good return for zero dollar investment.

Don’t be so afraid of making mistakes. Yes, “haste makes waste,” and “failing to plan is planning to fail.” But you can’t run a business cornerstoned by trite expressions. When you take reasonable risks, you are not betting the farm, or running off to the nearest lottery window, racetrack, or casino with your gard-earned dollars.

Unless the task at hand requires some Herculian effort (e.g., securing a king-size mattress onto the roof of a Washington Bridge-bound VW) or is intricately detailed (e.g., drawing blood, folding a parachute), be on the alert about when you can hustle your muscle and please your customer or employee or vendor with a prompt response.

All of this takes an action attitude and a determination to “Git R Done,” but, hey that’s simply a matter of sleeping and exercising enough, eating right, and making the choice. This starts to sound like some kind of training camp? It is. If you’re going to make this all work, you have to choose to keep yourself in good shape, and stay with it! 

Try walking faster. Oh, and keeping a journal of response times for various tasks and services will give you a sense of where you are, where you need to be, and give you the information you need to improve the sense of urgency you deliver. What every day? No, but maybe a day or two a week to start, then a monthly check-up. 

Remember the Chinese proverb: “Talk Does Not Cook Rice.”   

# # #

   Hal@Businessworks.US

  Open Minds Open Doors 

 Thanks for your visit and may 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!

No, they’re not just born. 

     Yes, they’re also made. Yes, just a handful of them are a million times more likely to save our collective financial butts than all the Nation’s politicians put together. 

     Why?  Because only entrepreneurs understand how to make things happen and then make them happen. 

     Throughout history, it’s been entrepreneurs that have risen to the task of overcoming crushing defeat and corporate lethargy.

Entrepreneurs are catalysts.

They believe (and practice) that some action is better than no action, that “if it ain’t broke, fix it anyway!”

Entrepreneurs are willing to take REASONABLE risks, and then take them.

They believe that “he who hesitates is lost” but they also consider worst case scenarios before charging forward.

     In other words, entrepreneurs are the business movers and shakers of our society. Entrepreneurs are the ones –not the velvet-tongue, loud-mouth, know-nothing, do-nothing politicians and mainstream media opinionists– who will get this lumbering, bumbling, storm-struck ship, this USS Economy, righted again and moving in a productive direction.

     It will happen, this straightening of the crooked path, but it will only happen because the gates of humanity are thrown open to the innovative pursuits of the entrepreneurial spirit that throbs deep within our existence as the guiding light and stronghold of leadership in the free world.

     Sure, we can choose to moan and groan and mope and drag our sorry selves from coast to coast, and wallow in our misery –as certainly many terrorist nations would relish. 

     Or, you know what? We can just as easily choose to make an active and conscious choice to pull ourselves up by the proverbial bootstraps and help pave the way for the waves of entrepreneurial development that are destined to raise us to new heights. 

     How will this happen?

We who are blessed to be part of the American spirit will help it to happen by what we do with every day and the gift of life each of us carries from dawn to dusk and beyond.

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

     We shall rise up as a band of supporters, igniters, lending and offering the incentives to make forward motion possible. The shoulders, our shoulders, that we put to the wheel, and march along side other shoulders moving in the same directions of enlightenment 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, or perhaps yourself, who glows with that “git ‘er done” energy and drive . . . reach out with belief and encouragement. Yes, it will work as surely as even the tides rise and fall, and the moon fills with light.      

# # #

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  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

 Thanks for your visit and may God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone!