We Have A Right To Be Heard, How Is That Going For You?

The Popular Post, "The Right To Speak."

A few months ago I posted a piece about having the right to speak.  It has become one of the top posts of this blog.  Even though it is now parked in its resting place within the older post archives, it gets a lot of attention.  It has finished in the number one spot three months in a row.  Readers out there are looking for material in a post that has the ability to help them find a way to become better heard.  Business owners are curious to find better ways to be heard.  I do not blame them.  The real trick is to find ways your business model gets heard in the marketplace.  How does your business model make enough noise in the consumer marketplace to become busier than it can handle?  How can business owners make that happen?

That old post covered the subject on making sure we recognize that our business model was given a right to be heard.  What kind of noise is it making?  How loud is that noise?

For the hundreds of business owners who read that older post every month, how well have you been able to shake down how your business model speaks to its customers?  Is your business model making some better noise?  Have you improved how that noise is being heard?  You have a right to make a lot of noise, how well are you doing with that right?  Is your business increasing the noise it makes or is it still running silently?

Remember, your business model has a life.  You are the director of how it lives.  The things you do to help your business model make its noise are the things that help your model live the way you want it to live.  That older post covered how the markets move towards the business models that make the most noise, the loudest noise and the coolest noise.  Is your business model doing one of these three things?  If you are deficient in all three of these areas you are not finding very many consumers communicate with how your business does what it does.  The more you get your customers to communicate with your business model, the more you will enjoy a lot of trade.  What you help your business model say will greatly determine how much volume it will eventually produce.  With regards to your business model, do not be afraid of speaking your mind.  Learn how to get your business model to be heard.  Make some noise.  Try to select one of the three ways you can be heard and go with the things that will help your model perform that desire.  You can make a lot of noise, you can make the loudest noise or you can make the coolest noise.  Decide which one you want to do.  Then begin doing the things that will help that kind of noise become alive.  You are given the right to speak.  Get going and start making some noise.

In that older post we talked about the size and position of your audience.  If you plan to improve the noise your business makes, we need to determine who is listening.  We need to find out who wants to hear your noise.  How you make the noise you decide to make will be greatly supported when we find the right listeners.  If you speak a loud noise about auto repair, the ladies who want fashionable footwear will not be listening to any kind of noise you decide to make.  Scream all you want, scream continuously for months on end, make the noise the most interesting noise they have ever heard...they still do not care about your auto repair business.  Be aware of this truth.  However, when she is headed for town to check out a great shoe sale and her vehicle dies from some electronic malfunction, does she know what your business can say?  When her car dies, what kind of noise is going through her head?  Is she hearing dealership, or you?  Who has been making the loudest noise in the hallways of her mind?  How has been making the most noise in the hallways of her mind?  Who has been making the coolest noise in the hallways of her mind?  That is what she hears when her car dies.  She follows the noise that speaks the best.  Trust me, it ain't the yellow pages that makes the most effective noise.  You need to learn how to make the right noises, in the right ways, with the right people.  Make sure your business model is being heard.  Find your audience.  Who is listening?

That older post covered how to find the audience and to determine how to make the right kind of noise with them.  In order to be heard, we need to make sure we know who is listening and why they need to listen to our noise.  The noise our business makes will determine how well they are listening.  The audience will decide if our noise is being heard.  Pay close attention to that process.

That older post also covered the subject of finding the best ways to connect with the audience.  Are we connecting with the audience in the ways they use to hear us?  How does the audience hear us?  There is a lot of noise out there in the world.  How are they able to hear us above all of that noise?  You might need to do some strategic thinking about how your business noise will be heard above all of the other group noises out there in the world.  You are competing with a lot of other noises.  How can they best hear your business noise?

Do not skip around this issue.  You need to get serious about some strategic planning.  You need to hurt your brain a little bit and do some serious thinking.  I hate that crap.  However, it is vitally important and it will help you find how to make the most effective noise.  Get serious about doing some strategic planning.  Study how that process works.  If you have never done any strategic planning in the past, so what.  Do it now.  Just because you do not know how to do some strategic planning is no excuse for skipping the importance it carries.  It is your business model, you are holding the steering wheel and the direction it is going is your fault.  Learn how to use the steering wheel better.  Quit taking short cuts on the road to success.  They do not work well.  You might need to find a better GPS system.  The one you are currently using is not making the right kind of noise, as often as it should in the way it can be heard the most.  Chuck it out of the window.  Turn the business steering wheel into a new direction.  Let's learn how to make our business noise be heard.  Strategic planning will help us to develop what we should be doing that gets the most attention.  Do not skip around this issue.  You need to get serious about some strategic planning.

Money Works How Money Works

Now, let's talk a little bit about how money works.  Since we have determined that we need to get serious about doing some strategic planning, let's figure out how money works.  It will help us make better noise in our business model if we recognize how money works.  The trick to all of this is to get more money to travel in our direction.  Why make a lot of noise if more money does not show up?  We do not want to waste the effort.  We need to make sure it pays well to be heard.  If we fail to make that part happen, we will go broke.  Who wants that kind of result?  I certainly do not.

Your business has a right to be heard.  How well are you making the right kind of noise in order to make that happen?  If your business makes the right kind of noise, will it pay well to achieve that attention?  Let's make sure we understand how to do that.  In order to get paid well for making a lot of business noise, we need to attract more money to appear.  In order to attract more money it would make sense that we need to know how money works.  Money does what money does.  The real trick is in the process of knowing how money does what money does.  Money moves around in very consistent patterns.  Money is shy, but when understood, it will easily come out of hiding and show up often.  Do we truly know how that is done?

Let's find out.  Write down on a piece of paper how you think money works.  Go ahead, write it down.  I dare you.  It ain't that simple, is it?  Did you know we do not teach our own children how money works?  You cannot take a high school class on the subject, "How money works."  I remember having a deep conversation about this subject one time with a good school teacher.  I admire teachers.  I applaud them for trying to do well in a screwed up education system.  We have funky education methods we are forced to pay for teaching our children how to compete in this world.  Some of the things our education polices support are a bit off target, not to mention expensive and often ineffective.  Some regions have as much as a 25% drop out rate.  How can that ever be considered effective?  That is another subject for another time.  In parting on that subject, how can your business model survive this competitive world with a 25% turn-over rate?  The truth, it cannot.  I rest my case.

I think we just found a great place to make a lot of business noise.  Link up with learning!  In fact, what a great phrase!  LINK UP WITH LEARNING.  It has the potential to make a lot of interesting noise.  Get this right and your business will find a wonderful tool to attract a lot of 'cool' noise.  We all know how we would prefer to see our kids get a better education.  It is a serious concern in all markets.  LINK UP WITH LEARNING!  You heard it hear.  Just do not forget that truth.  Run with it.

Now back to learning how money works.  Did you write something down?  I am sure most of you did not.  We hate to do what we are told to do, did you know that?  I am very guilty of that affliction.  It also hurts my success rate.  I am sure none of you have that same affliction, however.

How does money work?  Money gravitates towards solutions and shy's away from problems.  If you wrote that down you got it right on.  Money is not attracted to problems.  It disappears when the problems arrive.  However, when a solution shows up, money comes out of its hiding and begins to appear.  Money is attracted to solutions, not problems.  Think about it.  What do 'grants' do?  They come to solve problems.  What do government disbursements do?  They try to solve problems.  What are customers trying to do with their money?  They are going to solve problems.  Solutions attract money.  Problems scare money away.  Did you know that?  It is true.

So if you want to make a lot of noise in your business and you want to be heard, solve problems.  How hard can that be?  You own a business that sells rubber bands because those rubber bands solve problems.  When your rubber bands fail to solve problems, they create a new problem and money disappears.  This is not rocket science.  It has been the truth about how money works forever.  It amazes me how many business owners do not know this truth about how money works.  No wonder nobody hears what their business has to say.  It likely creates more problems instead of solving them.  Try these problems on for size.  Long customer lines, slow check out systems, poor telephone services, rude clerks, broken customer service promises, staff members with a lack of product knowledge, poor customer service follow-up, old unwanted merchandise, poorly priced items, hard to find displays and the list goes on and on and on.  Problems.  How will those problems ever attract money?  They don't and they never will.  They actually chase money away.  The money that moved away is looking for someone else to help solve what problems it is running from.  That is exactly how money works.  It is consistent, reliable and friendly when treated properly.  Now you see why strategic planning is so vital!  Before you can make the right kind of noise in your business model, you need to make sure you are attracting money and allowing it to work the way it wants to work.  Get more serious about this move.  It will not let you down.  These are laws that can only be confirmed when you test them.

It is your business model.  You have your hands on the steering wheel.  These laws of money and business noise are real and they are consistent.  Get them understood well and you should have no problem operating profitably in tough times.

Go make some big noise!  Learn how to be heard.

Until next time...