Sep 08 2010

Collaboration Articulation

Two heads may be

                              

better than one,

                                                

but not always

                        

two tongues…

When you are planning or starting out to work with another entity, intent on accomplishing a mutual goal, there are some simple steps you might want to take that can dramatically increase your odds for success.

Regardless of whether the root of your pursuit is to save money with centralized purchasing arrangements, add impact to a community fundraiser, introduce a new strategic alliance or affiliate partner, send out a joint-mission news release, join forces launching a new product or service, or just share clerical or cleaning help, the burden of success rests squarely on your tongue.

Huh? Tongue? What’s that about?

When we buy into a plan or idea or action with another person or business or organization, one that brings mutual benefit to the surface, the responsibility for making things work depends on the mutual ability to communicate clearly.

This translates to using word choices you both understand (vs. jargon that only you and your people can readily digest) and consciously limiting descriptions, requests, suggestions, and commitments to the right amount of words — avoiding with equal disdain too much or too little input. Of course, the flapping of the tongue also necessitates the listening of the ear!

U.S. Naval Academy class underlings are subjected to many disciplines. One of these is the response that’s traditionally been required to be delivered (with a salute) to any upperclassman who asks the question:

“Sir, I am greatly embarrassed and deeply humiliated that due to unforeseen circumstances beyond my control, the inner workings and hidden mechanisms of my chronometer are in such inaccord with the great sidereal movement with which time is generally reckoned that I cannot with any degree of accuracy state the correct time, sir.  But without fear of being too greatly in error, I will state that it is about __ minutes, __ seconds, and __ ticks past __ bells.”

That’s a great tool for cultivating discipline. And those who can rattle out that response (plus many others!) on the spot should be valued and appreciated for their commitment. The thing is that the military (and God Bless Our Troops!) is not business.

In business, and especially in collaborative business where the other entity may not be a deeply-known entity, the response must be “3pm” (or “3:15” or some other approximation) because anything more or less creates confusion, and confusion costs money. Effective collaborators articulate just the right amount of information to get the job done.

When you agree to work with an “outside” business, take the responsibility for getting it right. Take the extra time and trouble to make sure that you’re not only on the same mission, but that you’re also on the same channel, speaking the same language.

“Let me make sure I understand you” or “Do I understand you correctly to mean…” or “Can you give me an example of what you mean by that?” are all ways to help ensure that you and your “partners” will get to where you’re going. Don’t worry about what others think of your efforts to clarify. Worry about failing to achieve the mutual goals if you don’t.

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!

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Apr 20 2010

ARE YOUR NEIGHBORS UP IN ARMS?

“Break out the

                         

tambourines,

                                   

Boss. It’s time

                             

 to collaborate!”

                                                                   

Okay, ready? Take some deep breaths Here comes a long question:

Are you and your business standing quietly on the sidelines, like celery stalks in search of a Bloody Mary…while others in your building, block, town, county, state, region, profession, industry are taking action to improve community well-being?”

     Maybe your answer has to do with how you define community? So here’s a short question: How DO you define “community”?

     And while you’re beating your brains in trying to answer that, you may want also to consider how you and your business typically interact with other businesses and business owners within the community you ultimately define. I know this is getting mind-boggling, so here’s a little historic help from your friends:   

     First we had affiliates, then we had partnerships, next came alliances, and then –so no one would construe these deliberate arrangements as involving money transfers during economic times of question-ability– we gave rise to strategic alliances. Now, however, living in the age of social media (which we have slathered on top of a deeply troubling economy), we have all become collaborators.

DID YOU HUG YOUR COLLABORATOR TODAY?

                                                 

    Actually, collaboration as you know is nothing new, but its prepon-derance in today’s txt msg literature brings to the surface a more cooperative spirit. Like it used to be “What have you done for me lately?” and then “What has your business done for me lately?” and now it’s “What has your business done for the community lately?” 

     Well, that kind of all comes full circle back to how you define “community.”

     Wherever your business is located — basement, garage, ware-house, office building, construction site, the cab of your truck, your hall closet — it comes packaged with a geographic community.

     Whatever type of business or profession you practice, it comes packaged with a business, industrial, trade or professional community.

     That means that you and your business have a responsibility to others around you besides your customers, employees and suppliers. Ah, but acceptance of that notion that doesn’t have to be burdensome if you pick and choose your community involvements carefully.

You and your business have a responsibility to others around you besides your customers, employees and suppliers.”

     Being a good business citizen doesn’t always have to mean undertaking charitable crusades, though that’s a wonderful thing when it’s possible. Actively standing up on behalf of those around you who can’t or won’t is itself an act of charity. And regardless of what it achieves, it inspires.

     When you can collaborate with other businesses, you can, for example, share marketing expenses and perhaps use the savings to afford to offer better customer discounts or higher employee bonuses, or both. When you can collaborate by sharing employee talents, it serves to broaden every one’s horizons and presents opportunities for enhanced customer service.

     Best of all, it need not cost a penny. And you thought you had no cause to celebrate? Break out the tambourines, Boss!

 Click Here to work with Hal             

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! 

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Dec 17 2009

“SQUEAKSMANSHIP”© CHECKLIST!

Holiday Gloom and Other

                                    

Economic Bushes To Beat

                                                                                                           

     There comes for many business owners and managers a point in time — that inevitably seems to fall in the middle of holiday season — where you can no longer cut back business staffing or compensation, and other overhead expenses loom ominously over your head, like a guillotine, ready to drop.

      Uh, sorry for such a merciless graphic thought, but there ARE still options to exercise, and you ARE still reading, right? Use this “SQUEAKSMANSHIP”© checklist to prompt your brain to more closely consider your circumstances and determine some alternatives that can work for you now.

  • Strategic Alliances. Even with or without exchanges of commissions or time, there are many ways to work together with allied businesses that can save money for all involved. Explore.
  • Cooperative Advertsing and Marketing. Many manufacturers provide matching dollar and similar programs for retailers that represent their products. Many trade and professional associations and membership organizations provide discounted rate arrangements. Ask.    
  • Shared PR. Jointly-issued news releases and cooperative events that promote participant businesses equally strengthen impact and minimize expenses. Poke around. 
  • Barter. ANY combination of goods and / or services represent mutual benefit when traded. Local radio stations will often trade commercial air-time for products they can give away in listener contests. Make some calls.
  • Shared Employees. Receptionists? Clerical? Contractors? IT? Programmers? Retail? Think. 
  • Shared Services. Delivery? Maintenance? Bookkeeping? Look for what’s accessible.
  • Shared Vehicles. Cars? Trucks? Construction equipment? Plows? Planes? If it moves…
  • Shared Expenses. Mortgage? Rent? Insurance? Purchasing? Memberships? Hmmm…

YOU CAN ALSO…

     Put more marketing reliance on (less expensive than traditional media) Websites, Social Media, Email Campaigns (which don’t have to be spam, btw), News Releases, Captioned Photo Releases, Postcards, Business Card Distribution Displays, Newsletters.

     Put more sales reliance on commission + expenses and/or + advances (vs. salaries) … virtual sales force use … retail street performers.

     Put more emphasis on minimizing travel expense with less exotic, fewer frills regional and centralized meetings … minimizing energy use (Some major outlet stores are cutting back on lighting with customer explanations of fuel and community savings affected.

     Make this holiday season a half-full glass for YOUR business! Oh, and remind your people to NOT cut back on wishing customers and suppliers “Merry Christmas!” Merry Christmas!  

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Reply Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US (Subject: “Blog”) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day!  Blog FREE via list-protected RSS email OR $.99/mo Amazon Kindle. Branding Line Exercise: 7Word Story (under RSS). GREAT GIFT:new Nightengale Press book THE ART OF GRANDPARENTING http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

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Sep 29 2009

Today’s BUSINESS MYTHS . . .

The Latest Business Myths

 (Not for the feisty or feint-hearted)

                                                                                                          

     MADMEN,  the award-winning TV show is (sorry folks!) NOT a true-to-life representation of big-time Madison Avenue advertising agencies in the 1960’s and ’70’s. I was there then, and in the thick of it. Yes, most people smoked cigarettes then and there, but not as rudely as depicted. Yes, politics pervaded agency meeting and presentation rooms, but not as brashly as depicted. So, the show aims to get a rise, and perhaps it does (I find it boring), but there’s hardly much truth to it. In fact, most smokers then were smoking more than cigarettes at their desks! (No, this is not a reference to the smoking of banana peels!)  

     SALES LEAD GENERATION.  This has replaced Search Engine Optimization as the business world’s biggest smoke and mirrors act! In the past week alone, I have received over 100 email and Twitter solicitations to engage the services of (Rah-Rah-Sis-Boom-Bah!) Lead Generation “Coaches,” Lead Generation “Resource Centers,” Lead Generation “Experts” and “Professionals,” Lead Generation “Counselors” (presumably to assist those poor souls who’ve generated altogether too many leads!) and all other jump-on-the-bandwagon, nutcase varieties of people who truly must be fooling themselves. With so many great sales leads to offer, would you think they have to sell so hard? I guess they just “generate” them so we can all actually use them.

     HAVE I GOT A DEAL FOR YOU!  It is really interesting the levels of desperation that legitimate business professionals choose to set themselves up to get dragged into. Have you noticed lately how the economy has created a deal on every corner? No longer just the blowtorch approach of car dealership salespeople, now we are being offered deals from all manner of retailers and service businesses, even doctors and nursing homes (whoops, sorry, long-term care facilities) are doing two-for-one deals. Right! My 96 year-old neighbor and I come as a package deal. Uh, rebates?

     STRATEGIC ALLIANCES  are all the rage. This simply means: No, there’s not enough money laying around to hire your services because the economy sucks eggs, so — instead — we’re (I’m) making this magnificent offer to you to engage your talents on behalf of our (my) interests and in exchange you’ll get a free banner on our website (that btw we need you to write for us) and we’ll even throw in “a ton of sales leads” that we generate for top clients. It’s your chance to see where your hard work can lead (oh, that word again).

     THE ECONOMY IS TURNING AROUNDYeah, like the QEII in New Jersey’s Metedeconk River. Keep on kidding yourself, and — for a touch of reality — be checking the bills in your wallet as you assure your bankers and investors that Grandma should break out the tambourines because the business world is getting ready to rise again. You go girl!    

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Input always 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  

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Posts free via list-protected email: subscribe RSS Feed…OR $1.99/mo AMAZON Kindle. Feel Creative? Add YOUR 7 words to the 358day 7-Word Story (under RSS) We’re making it up as we go! Get Hal’s short story in new Nightengale Press book: THE ART OF GRANDPARENTING Amazon, B&N, OR order special (signed by Hal) $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.

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Apr 13 2009

Economy Medicine: Strategic Alliances

Yes, you do need

                                                                                           

to love your spouse!

                                                            

                                                                                                       

     When you think your business is buckling under from economic strains and from government’s abject failure to provide meaningful job creation incentives for small business, there are still steps you can take now to get your business back on top. Yes, steps you can take, not HOPE. HOPE is not the answer. ACTION is the answer.

     What does it take? You need simply to get your head up out of the sand and turn around. Look at the other businesses around you…in the same building, on the same block, in the same town. in the same county, in the same state, in a neighboring state, or even in another country. Find businesses that are compatible with yours, whose services or products are complementary to yours.

     Accountants and bookkeeping services, computer hardware and software services, animal and produce farming, office supplies and office furniture, painters and sculptures, publications and Internet marketers, ad agencies and photographers, furniture and bedding companies, candy stores and dentists (just kidding there; wanted to make sure you’re still reading BECAUSE striking up strategic alliances with other businesses offers opportunities you don’t have now by yourself!)

     With another complementary business, you may be able to share marketing costs (even utilities if you’re in the same building), public relations impact (with joint news releases and co-sponsored events), customer service (by offering an extended array of products or services), databases (shared email addresses for promotional emails, for example), even staff (centralized reception or sales reps that may be too costly for one business to carry alone. And so it goes, on and on.

     The point is that the opportunities are only limited by your thinking and your attitude. If you think it’s better to go down with your ship than to step back to a co-captain position with part of your business, help yourself. The thing that’s important to remember is that strategic alliances are strategic alliances because they are not formal legal entities. They are simply ways of working together that have mutual benefits.

     Oh, and yes, you do need to love your spouse, but you need not love a strategic partner. You need only to have two businesses that recognize there’s strength in numbers that just does not exist for either business functioning independently. What have you got to lose by talking and trying? You might even come up with a situation that lifts both businesses off the map! You never know ’til you try. Nothing happens ’til you act!

                                                        

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Hal@Businessworks.US     302.933.0116

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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