How Is Your Family Time Doing?

Where Are Your Greatest Achievements?

In my career I have delivered many more hours to my business work than I have to my family.  There are three major reasons why I believe this is so.  First, I have done so due to my sense of duty for providing income enough to supply our family economic needs, wants and desires.  Second, I have come to recognize that when you own your own there is more work to do than there are hours in the day to provide an adequate supply of necessary accomplishment.  Third, it is very easy to fulfill recognition needs that drive owners to become owners.  Owners have a high need for accomplishment and recognition acknowledgments.  Owners strive to be the leader, the boss, the decision-maker and the one who becomes the go-to-person.  These three elements drive owners to work more often than what they might consider giving to their own families.  Being married to a business owner is much like sharing a spouse with another mate.  The other mate is the business.

Awareness, Business And Criticism...The ABC's.

Awareness In Your Marketplace, Where Do You Fit?

When someone speaks without opening their mouth and you understand what they are saying, you probably know that person very well.  Furthermore, when you 'felt' that person thinking you both became aware of each others thoughts and the communication reaches a superb level.  Awareness is at a peak level when things like that happen.  I am confident many of you know what I mean.  Each of us has experienced this kind of awareness.

If you own a business does your business experience this kind of market awareness?  The above photo reflects the captive logos of the current top ten branded businesses.  In many polls these branded business models are some of the most recognized in the world.  Is your market place aware of your business model?

What risks has your business survived to become known in your specific marketplace?  What duties and contributions has your business model offered to its marketplace?  What pleasures does your business model offer its consumer base?  How important is it to your customer that they select you to trade with instead of your competitors?  How healthy is your business model?  Why do these business models survive the criticisms in the marketplace, so well?

What fears have these business models overcome to deal with the same criticisms we all face in business?  Everyone reading this material can look to each one of these names above and describe something critically wrong about something they have done, something they represent, failures they have stepped around, messages they have been known to damage or product errors they have had to endure at one time or another.  These leaders are far from perfect models.  How did they get to the top?  What consistencies did they perform?

Awareness, business and criticism are simple components of interest to these leaders of choice.  They choose to become involved deeply with the successful management of these three things...awareness, business and criticism.

How To Inspire Others To Do The Right Thing.

Inspiration

How do you inspire people to do the right thing?

We may be concerned about our employees, our boss or our company and how they practice the work they perform.  Not always have we seen these people make decisions on the right things to do.  Everyone of us has a tale to share about some of the very wrong things people have done.  Many of those tales include a level of damage to our lives that was not fun to manage.  How do we inspire people to do the right thing?

First of all, wrong things will occasionally happen.  Stranger to stranger occurrences will litter our lives with unwanted happenstances.  There is not much anyone will likely be able do to inspire others to refrain from those events.  A certain level of tolerance will need to be exercised when those events occur.  They happen.  We have little influence with the lives of those stranger to stranger events.

Therefore, how do you inspire people to do the right thing within your sphere of influence? 

First, you must figure out what it is in their make-up that keeps them from believing they do not need to do the right thing.  Start at the end of their actions and work backwards.  If people do the wrong thing and are proud of it, something is very wrong with what has been going on in their life up to then.  They are doing the wrong thing on purpose for some very wrong reasons.  The trouble with this truth is that they do not believe they are doing something wrong.  They actually might fight to protect why they are able to feel good about doing something wrong.  They have come to accept the numbness they feel when they recognize they have stepped into the wrong direction.  When they are exposed as doing something very wrong, they may even present that bad choice as a badge of honor, to justify the wrong decisions.  They may express some extraneous noble reason for doing the wrong thing.  It helps them feel good about being numb about the wrong things they are doing.  If we manage enough people long enough, we will see this pattern occasionally.

How do you inspire people to do the right thing?

Can A Business Borrow Character?

Can You Borrow Character?

Can a business model find a way to borrow character?

Some of the best and most successful business models have a lot of character.  Many great business models have been fortunate enough to find ways to develop a culture of good character.  Those models are often used as template examples for others to emulate.  This raises the question whether or not other aspiring business models can use those established patterns of character achievements in their own business efforts.

This again begs the question, what parts of character can be traded and used from one model to the next?

Seriously, can you borrow character?  It seems as though many people believe you can.

It Is Time For Resolutions And Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning Is Good When It Works

Seven Super Revenue Solutions.  This title sounds like a slogan.  As a title, it almost fits well as a government acronym.  Try this partial acronym for Seven Super Revenue Solutions....Double S & R Solutions (SSRS)!  During an annual strategic planning session this could turn out to be one of the best "new" company programs.  I am serious.  I have seen the silliest programs come out of some of the most serious 'annual retreat' sessions large companies have produced.

This time of year is traditionally the time of year when business models work on resolutions or strategic planning for the coming year.  It is the time of year when volume activity is typically low, employee spirits are damped a little bit as they exit the family and 'holiday-up-spirited' seasons and last years' irritations are beginning to mold on the edges of your business model.  It becomes the favorite season for planning.

Two choices of planning exist.  One, resolutions.  Two, strategically moderated group planning sessions.

Resolutions are the most manageable method smaller companies exercise to help re-direct the critical work they need to be doing for the coming new year.  Smaller companies do not need to act like large corporate engines when it comes to this type of planning.  Many smaller companies are lead by a single owner.  The owner has a small contingency of important followers they employ.  That is usually it.  The rest of what those smaller businesses try do in the coming year is to meld as many dissident employees into the company fold as is tolerable.  Any small company who becomes bone honest about this fact recognizes this process.

Owners must work hard on capturing this truth about their business leadership.  Owners must accept the real level of leadership they have so far managed with their current employment and staff.  Once this truth has been recognized, exposed and accepted for the specific level of leadership that is genuine, effective work on realistic resolutions can be achieved.  Any other resolution work is, and has in the past, proven to be a waste of time.  In the smaller companies, work your resolutions within the parameters of what your employment will truly support.  Anything outside of that truth will fail to materialize in the coming year.  The 'new' ideas will drift along in the mind of the owner and remain untapped in the marketplace of your business model.  Practicing this type of planning will add damage to any leadership an owner may have in place.

Be realistic in your resolution process.  Set up smaller, more effective resolutions for the coming year.  You will find greater success in how the staff will approach the challenges you prefer to repair.  Good luck, get going.

For those who plan to plan well...here are some steps to protect.

Repair Your Business, Repair Your Mind

Add These Guys To Your Favorites

"How To" business manuals do not always have a chapter dedicated to teaching us how to repair our business minds.  Plenty of material is written on the steps and procedures of the physical responsibilities a business owner should perform.  It is easy searching the web to find written suggestions on how to do the physical steps on operating a business successfully.  There are virtually hundreds of thousands of those types of sites that provide that kind of information.  The trick is not how to search and find this kind of material.  The real trick to building business success is to recognize where to look to build a stronger business mind.  Landing on material that is designed to strengthen the mind of a business owner is far more necessary than going to the SBA and listening to the rules and procedures of how to function like a "real" business.  No offense to the Small Business Administration (SBA) folks, www.sba.gov/, they are very sharp and provide excellent material to those who have no idea what to do on the accounting and financial portions of their business responsibilities.  The SBA forces business operators to practice due diligence within the accounting portion of their business model before going forward with any hopeful ideas.  That force is a necessary force.  Any business operator who intends to ignore this crucial component within their business building efforts is an operator destined to fail.  Do not get mad about this reality, just prepare yourself for its results.  Failure is not fun nor is it cheap.  The truth remains that every business owner should and will need to practice this portion with great attention in order to succeed well.  The SBA is a wonderful source for this kind of guidance.  Quit running all over the web looking for a site that is friendlier to accept.  The SBA is a stellar choice and should be in your favorites.  It is in mine.  However, the SBA has little to do with the necessary repair process a business mind must visit on a regular maintenance schedule.  They devote very little time to study this topic and offer an operator less than enough good substance to become friendly fruit to an owner's needs on this subject.  Wrong place, wrong subject...great place, great subject...depending upon what you are looking to improve.

The Good Guys With Experience!

While on the subject of providing great favorites to own on your computer...make sure you add the link to SCORE, http://www.score.org/index.html , another wonderful resource for business owners.  Groups like SCORE are also out there providing excellent advice to business owners on business mechanics.  I especially like the idea that these 'non-profit volunteers' have operated business models in their careers.  The information they offer is priceless and flowing down the proper stream to a current business owner.  The rest of us on the web out there are busy throwing out bits and pieces for readers to review.  The "SCORE" guys are flowing deep with a wealth of excellent, relevant and useful material.  Skipping them is a little bit like skipping past your future success.  Shame on you.  Check them out.  Place them into your favorites list and learn to go back and forth to them once in awhile.

How To Warm Up A Cold Business

Less Than 3% Of The Population Place Their Own Signature On The Front Of A Payroll Check.
Everyone Else Pens It Onto The Back Of The Check.

Running a profitable business is not always a joy to perform.  Every business owner who practices running a business long enough recognizes two things.  One; the mind of a business owner must think differently than the mind of most everyone else.  Two; rarely does everyone else truly understand and respect what goes through the mind of a business owner.  The business owner is held accountable for the success or failure of every decision about the business.  This kind of accountability runs freely and carries every piece of blame the trail of decisions may produce.  This concept is real and brings to the surface one very measurable result.  The business owner must keep to themselves many of the ideas and thoughts they process about what they plan or do not plan to do.  Much of the deeper thinking a business owner performs is very secret stuff.  This kind of planning is a cause and effect result of the effort to avoid too much criticism.  Consequently, successful business owners often operate in deeper thought than their viewers see.  The successful ones think well away from all the other white balls.

Can Business Work Better When You Are Wrong?

Doing Something Wrong Can Help Your Business!

Can business work better when you are wrong?  Absolutely.

Every leader in every business takes chances.  Business owners will be forced to take some chances in their operational career.  Just the sheer fact that they are in business for themselves is a tremendous chance taken.  Business owners take chances.

With chances comes the high probability of choosing something wrong.  Business owners will eventually choose a wrong choice.  Owners will make some mistakes.  Big deal.  I just hope owners do not get too caught up worrying about whether or not they will make some mistakes.  Business owners will make some mistakes.  Nobody is perfect, especially if you own a business.  Business ownership is an imperfect world.