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!

STOP BEING

A FIREFIGHTER!

When you undermine those

who work with you, YOU

become less effective. 

Entrepreneurs, small business and professional practice owners and managers are notorious for undermining the people they work with. They’ll ask a partner, associate or employee to handle a certain task or make contact with someone in their absence, then –an hour or two, or day or two later– will turn around and do it themselves.

Sound familiar?

______________________

I’m reminded of one of those yea/boo stories [I need a bucket to bail out the boat (boo!); ah, here’s a bucket I can use (yea!); oops, my bucket has a hole in it (boo!); the hole is in the top (yea!) . . .].

____________________

When you ask someone to do something and then whisk the job away because it wasn’t done the way you would do it or because it wasn’t done as quickly as you wanted — or worse, maybe it was already done, but instead of checking to find out, an assumption is made that it wasn’t, and the task ends up being needlessly duplicated. 

Besides that such actions are looked upon unfavorably by both internal customers (employees, investors, referrers, suppliers, lenders, advisors) and external customers (purchasers and consumers) and are considered highly unprofessional in business circles . . . the behaviors persist.

By pulling the rug out from under someone you’ve charged with a responsibility, the likelihood is great that you will also have managed to ignite fuses of discontent, frustration and neurosis.

Not to mention the not-worth-it losses you’ll suffer in credibility, respect, and reputation. 

I know personally of two employee shooting rampages attributed to having “assigned responsibilities” prematurely withdrawn, or arbitrarily reassigned. 

When you as a leader empower someone (or set someone up to become empowered), be extremely clear what needs to be done, and how (assuming there’s no room for interpretation or alternate approaches), and by when. Then go away. Don’t disenfranchise an individual that you’ve just enfranchised.

“Well,” you say, “this sounds good, but nobody else does stuff as effectively as me. If I don’t ‘ride herd’ on those I give assignments to, they’ll never get done.”

Are you really saying that you don’t trust those you’ve partnered with or hired? Is what you mean that you think you’re better than anybody else? Is what you mean that you like running around like a maniac, putting out fires?

Are you really saying that under all these pretenses, you simply don’t trust your SELF or your own judgment?

This may sound embarrassingly obvious,

 but worth the risk of mentioning anyway:

When the kinds of carelessness

that start fires to begin with,

are eliminated to start with,

you won’t need to start with

being a firefighter. 

Maybe it’s time to consider corporate life, or a job with the Post Office? Most towns have openings for roadway cone placement. Nothing to undermine. Think of all the stress you’ll spare yourself.

Entrepreneurial leadership means–among other things– that you need to trust those you’ve trusted to work with, to get the jobs done that you ask them to do, and go about your business of growing your business instead of wasting your time and energy, and everyone else’s. 

Think twice before you delegate. Make sure you are delegating to the best person to get the job done under the circumstances. Make sure you explain carefully what’s needed, and by when, and how much room there is to determine methods and techniques for getting the job done. Set “How Goes It?” follow-up plans. Trust. Walk away.

When you undermine others,

                                                you’re really undermining yourself.

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  931.854.0474   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!

Reported today on Sirius radio’s America’s Newsroom . . .

One of every eight American

homes now stands empty! 

Based on today’s news . . .

This “one out of eight” no doubt

includes The White House!

Double-speak –such as that evidenced in tonight’s feeble address by Mr. Obama in attempting to justify his unauthorized headstrong reaction (instead of a measured response) to the challenges and sickness of another nation’s madman leader– doesn’t work for America’s people.

And guess what? Double-speak also doesn’t work for the business you own and/or run and/or manage.

Small business owners, first of all, know instinctively how to practice responding instead of reacting.

If we don’t, we’re out of business. Period.                

• It is lack of leadership that has emptied American homes. It is lack of leadership that has led America to falter and approach other nations balanced on weak knees.

• Lack of leadership is what brings down business enterprises and national governments alike. Clearly, America’s White House is as empty as the two suits that run our country.

• Lack of leadership, in the form of poor management, is responsible for 9 out of 11 new businesses failing within the first 2-3 years of existence (source: The SBA)  

~~~~~~~~

We —as small business owners and managers, and entrepreneurs– must learn from this place in history.

Incompetent leadership cannot be covered up with great oratory and superficial reasoning. We, the electorate see through it. While the facade pictures that are verbally painted may convince those who know not how to think for themselves, they no longer appease or hook those with intelligence.

When we cover up business incompetence, we lose customers; we go bankrupt. We lose.

If you or I were to run our businesses with the same Johnny-come-lately, wimpy, and universally arrogant intervention approaches that were expressed tonight by Mr. Obama, God bless us all.

He has done everything possible to undermine and smother small business because he fails utterly to understand it. He has in the process led us into world disgrace. His assessments –in addition to being unrealistic– are inflammatory to say the least. Talk about pouring gasoline on a fire!

You and I cannot make our business problems go away by giving a political speech and calling it an “explanation.”

We cannot avert financial collapse by offering endless apologies (or simply printing new money!).

We cannot achieve success by concentrating on competitors. 

Sad and unfortunate as it is, thousands of people die every day by acts of terrorism. When –and before– those forces become genuine threats to our existence, we need to act quickly and decisively and unapologetically to protect and preserve our interests.

Do we like what’s happening in Libya? Of course not. But Libya offers no such threat to America. The more the U.S. tries to become the world’s police force, the less effective the U.S. becomes. The more your business tries to monopolize a profession, industry, or marketplace, the less effective it becomes. But you already know that!

Do we like what all our competitors are doing. Of course not. Do we engage them apologetically and make that be productive for us? Are you kidding? Those who succeed in business are those who focus on their businesses, not on what other businesses are doing, or not doing, that may be distasteful. 

When it’s possible to help other businesses without putting your own at risk, go for it! Until then, strengthen yourself so you can get to that point. That works for business and business works! Being consistently authentic and honest and demonstrating integrity works for business too. Will shallow-minded ego-crazed politicians ever get it?    

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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!

Let’s get real,

Entrepreneurs!

There’s not much room

left on this planet

for more anger!

We can moan and groan all we want –and justifiably– about the pathetic, ill-conceived, mismanaged, misdirected, arrogant, naive, incompetent, overbearing, scathingly stupid behaviors fostered by the White House since 2008. It adds up to total lack of leadership and complete lack of vision . . . a branding program of anti-reality.

But bitching gets us nowhere. Attacking people personally for their attitudes and behaviors makes us no more reasonable than they are, and doesn’t achieve anything beyond stirring up more anger.

Anger doesn’t work.

It’s not working in Libya, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Northern Ireland, or -today– not in London either. Certainly, it has never worked in the United States. It only serves to shorten fuses and make things worse.

Yes, we, as business owners and managers, have had enough. We are fed up with meaningless run-off-at-the-mouth oratory and reckless spending of our hard-earned tax dollars. We are fed up with attempts to have creeping socialism overpower democracy, our Constitution, and the free-enterprise system that built America.

Hope, Mr. Obama,

doesn’t work either.

It’s time for the federal government to back off and abandon its incessant attempts to smother small business. It is time instead to support the small business owner and startup entrepreneur world if there is ever to be a true economic recovery.

It is simply not true that America’s economy has turned the corner. Falsified unemployment numbers and make-believe claims that home sales are up and foreclosures are down couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Reality is that unemployment continues to worsen. Foreclosures continue to go up. Home sales continue to go down. And a rocket science degree isn’t required to size-up the impact on our daily lives; we need only to look at the gas pumps.

We are being lied to by government-controlled media stooges and greedy union thugs.

Yes we feel angry, but we are smarter than those who pose as leaders, and their contingent of talking heads. We know in our hearts that achievement and accomplishment will not be sidetracked if we maintain balance and control of the businesses we own and operate and birth. 

By working hard AND smart, by never forgetting that America is the product of entrepreneurial growth and our ever-guiding national motto:

“In God We Trust”

. . . by honoring and respecting all who we encounter, including the ignorant, we who own and manage small and family and home and garage businesses can lead America from the darkness of anger and fantasy.

____________________

It will take perseverance and it will take speaking up for what’s right instead of complaining about what’s wrong. Can we turn our anger into productivity? Are you willing to work harder at it?

What can you do to get started now, today?

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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!

Seek healthier

                        

relationships?

                                 

Want to lower

                              

your stress, BP,

                                         

chronic pain, risk

                            

of addiction? Wishing

                       

you could grow your

                           

business now to where

                            

you want it to be?

Yes, my friend,”

you are told as you stand glassy-eyed in the vegetable aisle of the supermarket, leaning dumbfounded over your wire shopping cart, “you can have all this and more!” the man shouts.

You expect a crack of lightning and rumble of thunder to follow as he reaches toward the heavens and then steps down toward you from his platform and proceeds to sell you a 27-piece set of stainless knives for just $9.95!

Well, who knows whether a set of knives can turn your life around. Nothing surprises me anymore. Oh, except for one thing: finding out that all the benefits above (and more!) really can be yours when you are able to bring yourself to forgive yourself.

In a whole series of studies conducted over the last 3-4 years at the Mayo Clinic, prayer is believed to facilitate forgiveness, and forgiveness (especially self-forgiveness) may hold the key to a healthier state of well-being, and longer, healthier, happier lives.

How come everyone doesn’t know this or do it? Ignorance may account for the majority of the world’s population not knowing or practicing this thinking. Of those who understand, not everyone accepts the values of prayer.

And even among those who do accept the ability of prayer to heal, not all of them believe that forgiving others –and especially themselves— could possibly enhance their own physical, spiritual and emotional well-being.

Don’t go getting

your entrepreneurship

in an uproar!

This is not a Bible study blog.

I am not an Evangelist.

It’s safe to keep reading.

The bottom line on credibility, by the way, is to simply Bing or Google Mayo Clinic studies on forgiveness, and check out what you find. Suffice it to say that the conclusions drawn certainly seem to make sense to a great many successful business owners I’ve known.

Every human being carries burdens of having done something wrong and/or harmful –in error or intentionally. Such burdensome experiences bury themselves deep within us as we move on with the clock and the calendar and the rush of Earthly existence.

We may keep these upsets tucked away forever until some event triggers us enough to bring them back to the surface, or to implode in, for example, the form of a heart attack, or explode from within as hostility or aggressive behavior, or lie dormant to rise one day as suicide.

The situations and events we choose not to forgive can paralyze and erode parts of our brains and inhibit some of the freedom of our movements.

Many of us torture ourselves over and over, day after day, year after year . . . for perhaps one instant of bad judgement.

To choose to take some action about forgiveness of others and forgiveness of ourselves moves us a giant step closer to productive leadership, and raises the prospects of growing our businesses to where we want them to be, to where we believe they are capable of being.

If prayer leads us to forgiveness, and forgiveness leads us to healthier relationships, lower stress and blood pressure, less chronic pain and less risk of addiction, then we become better stronger leaders. Happy, healthy, positive business leaders who have chosen forgiveness of themselves and others as a path are those who succeed.

If your business is not where you believe it could or should be right now, consider yourself the catalyst for change by taking action now to strengthen your self. Have you tried prayer? (Seriously, or token tinkering?) Have you prayed for forgiveness for yourself and for others?

What’s have you got to lose by not trying? Your business? Your life? Eternity in hell? 

# # #

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! 

TO: The Presidents of America’s

       30 Million Small Businesses

FR: Hal, on Behalf of Your  

        Families, Friends and

        Loyal Employees

RE: Happy Presidents Day!

Dear Small Business President:

Presidents Day is your day too

 …Lincoln, Washington, and YOU!

Your finger may not be poised at some war and peace hot button, but you are just as important to your customers, clients, and patients as you are to the partners, employees, vendors, referrers, investors and lenders who serve you. Whew! There’s a brainful of thought.

Now layer on top of that, your importance to your family, friends, and loved ones. Obligations, emotions, responsibilities, and headaches galore! (Maybe where the title, Pride and Punishment came from?)

Yet you run FULL AHEAD, battling the storms at sea, and always with your business strapped to your back. It’s no wonder people think you’re crazy! Ah, but you’re still there. You have consistently seen problems as opportunities. You have exercised leadership by example. And you’re still captaining your ship.

That alone is cause for celebration… so 

take some Presidents Day time to party!

In fact, odds are pretty good that you’ve already outlived (or surely will) the terms of any elected American President. And though it’s hard to imagine upstaging the likes of Teddy Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan, odds are also pretty good that you’ve probably outperformed them all as well.

Well, you might say, almost all of them were both caught up with and bogged down in partisan politics. But, hey, you’ve had your in-laws to deal with, and probably your fill of rambunctious txtmsging teenagers, not to mention the dysfunctional families we all have standing in the wings.

So like the old hamburger slogan,

“You Deserve A Break Today!”

Take some time out to appreciate your SELF and what you’ve been able to accomplish. (I mean, you have stayed out of jail so far, right?) Your business is still functioning even though our government is not, and big business just pretends to be. Somehow or another, you have stayed the course, and kept on ticking.

Give yourself a pat on the back!

Call the president of another small business you know, and wish her or him Happy Presidents Day. You may even strike up a collaborative relationship discussion. Y’never know!

Oh, most important of all . . . tell your family you love them for giving you the chance to run your own business, and call a couple of friends you’ve not kept up with to thank them for their patience and understanding about you being so preoccupied so often. Guaranteed you’ll be glad you did.

Then, get back to work!

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“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!

America’s small business

community is 30 million strong.

On one issue —the economy— we

stand shoulder to shoulder

with one voice:

The economy can only be saved by new job creation.

New jobs come —only— from small business.

(Check history!)

It’s time to face the fact that America’s small businesses drive America’s economy. Period.

It’s time to step up to the plate, Mr. Obama, and exercise the kind of domestic leadership you were elected to provide.

Without a strong economy, there is nothing else you can provide. Your social agenda will continue to dissolve. Our nation’s image will continue to deteriorate. Your support will continue to erode. And the kind of legacy you surely pursue will become more elusive each day.

But you can turn the tide.

You need only to choose to stop being driven by fear of losing face and votes, and show the world the leadership you appear to be capable of.

Bottom line, Mr. Obama:

Stop being an under-achiever!

Your “pulling up short” behavior simply doesn’t do justice to the promises you represent. Surely you can do better than that?

Instead of:

• Blockading and berating small businesses at every turn, and catering to big businesses that are over-run with lethargic 9 to 5 attitudes and disreputable union leaders . . . corporate giants entrenched in maintaining the status quo.

• Creating artificial government “jobs” that simply add to the deficit . . . how many people does it take to fill a pothole? (A State issue? And where do the states take their lead?) 

• Making lots of PR sound-bites and photo ops to illustrate your administration’s dedication to business (and setting up token programs through the pathetic SBA and other smoke and mirror entities to try to look good to voters). . . I served the SBA Advisory Council for two, two-year terms; it’s a farce run by corporate giants. 

  . . . how about trying a bold new tact?                                           

What, for example, could happen if you actually threw Federal support behind small business development by providing genuine tax incentives for job creation?

What, for example, could happen by introducing genuine tax incentives for meaningful small business expansion, and for the creation of entrepreneurial and innovative new revenue streams?

Will you please set the stage for entrepreneurial input by taking the high road? In other words:

• Can you start to genuinely demonstrate a more receptive attitude toward small business owners?

• Can you show a little entrepreneurial spirit yourself by taking the reasonable risk of rolling up your sleeves and setting to work with non-politicized teams of America’s great entrepreneurs? (This includes looking past just those who have worked with and on your various campaigns.)

• Can you put political ambition aside long enough to recruit some active “straighten-out-the-economy” participation by small business? (This means doing far more than just dispatching small armies of researchers and interviewers and surveyors into consumer, industrial and professional marketplaces to “report back.”)   

So far, it seems to ALL of the hundreds of small business owners I informally communicate with regularly, that your administration has done everything humanly possible to alienate entrepreneurs and small business owners and operators and managers, instead of tap into their experience and knowledge, and embrace their spirit.

Small business owners and operators and managers and entrepreneurs know how to be productive.

They know how to turn on a dime.

They know how to create and manage marketplace opportunities.

They know how to do whatever it takes with a passionate sense of urgency.

They know how to make things happen.

It’s hard to know the source of numbers that have crossed your desk, but reality is that there are indeed 30 million of us who are tired of being stepped on, over, under, and around. And many of us care more about turning things around than we do about making political points.

We truly want the opportunity to work with government to turn things around, but there must be an ongoing and mutual sense of purpose and respect coming from the White House. There has not been so far. 

Just say you’re willing to try, Mr. Obama, and let’s get started! Yes, it’s that simple.    

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“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!

TEN  SECONDS !

Front burner food for thought

for every sales and

leadership encounter!

First, recognize that every form of leadership gets its salt and pepper from the world of professional sales, and particularly for spicing up the first ten seconds of every encounter, which is the amount of time used to “size up” a leader or a sales pro.

Second, since everybody seems to love acronyms (especially all those tax-dollar-paycheck-justification head-cases in government and big corporations), here’s another acronym to write on the palm of your hand . . . or on your knee, perhaps, if you wear skirts:

TEN SECONDS

(I hear your brain ticking away as we speak.)

T

TONE— Set the TONE by being on time with your neat, clean appearance (from clean shoes and clothes, to deodorized skin, clean nails and teeth, and neat hair — briefcases and pocketbooks count too!). YOUR VISUAL APPEARANCE consumes second #1 of being “sized up.” The same dynamics apply to email and text messages that appear crisp and friendly, that don’t assume too much with abbreviations and attitude.

E

EVERY — EVERY smile :<) is a free gift you can give to others. Make it genuine (people can tell, even by phone, when it’s not). It consumes second #2. And E is also for EYE CONTACT (neither probing or riveting stares, nor sideways glances). Keep in mind that people can also tell when a phone call connection is distracted. Ask if you’re interrupting. Offer to call back.

N

NUANCE — Your handshake (neither bone-crusher nor fish fillet) takes up second #3 and either confirms and reinforces the first two seconds, OR raises a mental-red-flag cause for doubt about you and the products/services/ideas you represent.

Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock, Tick-T. . .

S

START — START with a friendly clear greeting and question.

E

EACH — Remember that EACH of the first ten seconds that passes will make or break your sale or degree of leadership acceptance.

C

CONVERSATION— Begin with a brief (“elevator speech”) summary that “BILLBOARDS” what you have to sell: Use emotional triggers. Tell a story with a beginning, middle, and an end, and that’s persuasive . . . all in seven words or less, then ask for the sale (since it takes 5-6 attempts to close a sale, you can’t start asking too soon).

O

OPEN — OPEN your ears and listen with care. Ideally, you’ll listen 80% of the time after these first ten seconds, and speak 20%.

N

NOTE — NOTE what’s said (and what’s not said) right from the git-go. Actually write it down. Ask the speaker to slow down so you can jot a couple of reminder notes of what she/he says. Ask for examples. Nothing flatters like an attentive listener and note taker.

D

DECIDE — DECIDE if the prospect is worth your time and energy (especially on a trade or professional show or showroom floor) and politely dismiss yourself from window-shoppers and tire-kickers when you’re busy. When you’re not, get engaged and practice!

S

SELL — Too many salespeople (!) and leaders forget to sell!

# # #

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! 

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.

# # #

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!

A Wandering Mind

Gathers Much Loss

Every minute of every hour of every day, conscious and unconscious negative influences are fighting for your attention.

You own, run, manage, just bought, started, are planning to buy or start, or inherited a business. The last thing on your mind is your mind. You cast away all those inspirational quotes on Twitter and in church, and those gems of wisdom from your six-year-old.

You have no time for the “You become what you think about” writings and teachings of Napoleon Hill, Brian Tracy, Wayne Dyer, Zig Ziglar, Deepak Chopra, or the hundreds of other thought leaders. Yeah, you’ve heard the “As you sow, so shall you reap” line from the Bible. In fact, you have your own been-there-done-that style version: “What goes around comes around.”

But without being consistently grounded in this thinking, you run the risk each day of your thought-stream leading you down an unhealthy path. In fact, you can be obsessed with negative thoughts that create business loss and not even be aware of it.

Taking inventory might be a good suggestion. How can you find out if your mind has slipped over the top without you knowing about it? Try this illuminating exercise:

Ask some friends, associates and family members whose opinions you value to tell you what animal, what musical instrument and what song they most closely identify you with, and why.

They’ll probably laugh. Simply say you are doing a study and explain no further.

• Be clear that you’re looking for their straight-out opinions.

• Do not interrupt except to ask for clarification.

• Do not refute, rebuttal or defend. Just listen, and take notes.

• If you’re not sure you understand, ask for examples.

• Whatever you get back, take it on the chin.

When you have the input of five or six people, decide if there’s any pattern or overlap. For example, do four of them think you most remind them of a snake (or wild boar?), and a kazoo, and a song like “Angry Eyes”? Well. Organize the input you get to see if it makes any sense. Prioritize. Evaluate. Decide how to get more positive stuff and less negative stuff.

Feeding on daily TV show lineups can produce a steady stream of negative-related people and situations which can take a toll on  behavior and prompt offerings of defensive reasons and excuses for every action. Dr. Andrew Weil has been known to prescribe “No News” for a week to some distressed patients.

If all your mind does is think about cancer, or your weight, or your age, or your bank account or bills, you are going to (like rolling a snowball) generate more of that kind of thinking.

When some one’s thoughts are preoccupied with having an affair, it will be hard to pay attention to their spouse. A new baby or puppy in the house can drain your ability to stay focused.

Behaviors. Behavior is a choice. A negative mindset is something we bring on ourselves. Directly or indirectly (and often obscurely), we make lousy behavior choices. Regardless of the who, how, why, when, and where, if you’re feeling misery, failure, or frustration, accept that you are choosing it.

Take some deep breaths and choose instead to change the channel in your brain. Self-control leads to leadership control. The world’s greatest leaders are masters of self-control. Self-control means exercising compassion as well as passion, and being focused on the journey –not the destination– as the source of achievement.

When your mind is healthy and you’re concentrating on something, it –like a spotlight illuminating the outer edges– will be fully aware of what’s going on around you as well as what you’re targeting in front of you. You can do it. Choose it. Practice it. Keep choosing it! (Yes, you can call me for a little coaching!)

If you work at it sincerely and haven’t experienced remarkable change in three weeks, I’ll be astounded. Yes, after thousands of success stories with zero failures, I will be astounded!

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931.854.0474   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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