Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Don't make the crucial customer disservice error Hale Groves is making. Pay attention! This article can save you thousands and a lot of customers, too.
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. Have you heard of a citrus company called Hale Groves of Vero Beach, ,? If not, you must be living in a cave. Their marketing is everywhere and in all places, online and off. They're spending the ransoms of two or three kings on it.
But the poobahs who run the place have made at least one crucial mistake: they haven't tried to order their product.... and as I am here to tell you, the order takers they've got are most assuredly NOT in sync with the hot-shots in the marketing department. In other words, if it is not actually impossible to order some of their tasty product, it is very close to it.
That's why I'm using as today's incidental music The Supreme's great tune "You keep me hanging on" because that's what the folks at Hale Groves have done to me... each and every time I've ordered. You'll find this1966 hit in any search engine. You can play it while you're on hold...
Still, let's get into the right mood for this situation... and what Hale Groves and every other dysfunctional marketing machine needs to do before they irritate too many more of the most important people on earth -- good paying customers like me!
The facts.
My family has been buying from Hale Groves for decades... and no wonder. I grew up in the snow belt they call Illinois... I went to college in the snow belt they call Massachusetts... and when I graduated... having had insufficient punishment from snow, sleet, ice and attendant miseries, I stayed on in the very same snow belt that snuffed the Pilgrims.
One of the things that made it all bearable was Hale Groves and the utterly delectable citrus... and, of course, I love getting the free citrus spoons, too. I have a drawer full of them.
The Hale Groves shuffle.
I like to place my citrus orders, indeed all orders, by telephone. Like a good citizen, I have my credit card out... and the special offer I want; the offer I am sure the order taker will want to make sure I get. Like most Americans I order when deals are good and pass when deals are not. But the great thing about Hale Groves is that they always have an offer... and I am always pleased to consider it. I am a citrus freak.... and pink grapefruit are guaranteed to brighten any day or palate, especially when the temperature is below zero and I curse the day I heard of Harvard and a frigid place named Cambridge.
Order I would, if order I could.
The citrus season begins November 1, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Hale Groves will have a special offer in your hand, an offer so good you wouldn't think of missing it. I want to see that offer... I want to take advantage of that offer IF Hale Groves will let me... for that is by no means a sure thing.
Because memory is imperfect, as I dial the number I find my last run-in with them is not the first thing in mind; instead I am tasting in my imagination their citrus perfection... but first I must pay my dues by holding. It is a rule.
Like all good Americans I hate holding.... not just hate it but despise and disdain it. I'd like a choice... hold forever or allow them to call me back in (so many minutes); techies can easily tell them how many: "Your call will be returned in 7.5 minutes sharp."
Okay, I'm on hold... and second by second I am working up a good head of steam, the better to craft a snide comment that they well and truly deserve. I mean, I don't begin to have the available time I have to wait for a competent order taker to emerge and assist me. Who does?
But my torments have not even begun...
Codes. Colors. Confusion. Choler.
"I'd like to place an order from a mailing I just received." These are the words I am hoping I don't soon regret.
"Do you have the offer there in front of you?"
I do... and I say so proudly, even defiantly because I am hopeful history is not about to repeat itself.
But we are, the order taker and I, about to enter the twilight zone in which the order I want to place... is the order the order taker cannot seem to take. And so The Rigmarole of ordering from Hale Groves well and truly begins, to the growing irritation of both parties.
"Sir, please give me the special order code."
Code, code, find the code.
I have an envelope full of Hale Groves propaganda... colorful brochures... a special letter from their president extolling their many virtues... I do not see and cannot find a code... and what's worse the order taker cannot direct me by uttering such reassuring words as "you'll find the code in big red letters at the top of page 1." Such essential words, calming to both parties, neither of us can find... and this is what that means.
It means some bright folks in the marketing department have not tried to order the product themselves... and have certainly never bothered to train the hapless order takers who are about to feel the sharp lash of my tongue because no one knows who's on first and where to find that flippin' code.
And so we sink into muddle, mayhem, a disordered morass. If this were a dance it would be a tango... and that for an order process is completely unacceptable.
Finally, I say what I should have said at the first sign of trouble. "Why don't you take down my telephone number and call me when you've discovered where the code is?' But my tenacious order taker won't let go, won't do the sensible thing and will not proceed with the matter of doing what we both want: placing the order. In other words getting that code, no matter that neither she nor I could find it, had become more important than satisfying the customer. And that's why this order "process" is such a mess.
But it got even worse...
The order taker, unable to direct me to the code, put me on extended hold while she quizzed her colleagues about the location of that code. No one knew, which meant no one had thought it useful to instruct them on this matter... and so while I smoldered they, with every passing minute, proved that the one hand in marketing didn't know and hadn't bothered to advise the other in the order department, thereby generating bad feelings instead of the satisfied customer both parties wanted.
Again, I advised the clueless order taker to take my number and call me back when she was organized and ready. But the poor woman had been instructed, perhaps with severity, to get the code upon pain of death. And she could not, would not get beyond this trifling matter... and so the matter ended in stand-off, no order, no business, and no future.
Hale Groves will now bombard me for years with sales messages and tempting offers, too, too little, too late. For I have now discovered an excellent product from Del Monte, Red Grapefruit, SunFresh. No hassle. No waiting. Already peeled. And no need to deal with the misnamed order takers at Hale who, when needed, could not have been less ready. Which is why I suggest you try to order what you sell. It could well be your weakest link. Oh, yes, and call me to finish my order.
*** Your response to this article is requested. What do you think? Let us know by posting your comments below.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Republished with author's permission by Craig Telfer http://MyTrafficInjection.comhttp://MyTrafficInjection.com">http://MyTrafficInjection.com>.
Check out Cash Siphon -> http://www.MyTrafficInjection.com/?rd=hn4kbOZT
Thursday, November 10, 2011
America needs millions of new jobs. This huge undertaking has set our citizens brainstorming. Here are just a few of their ideas... cool!
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. We shareholders of the United States of America, Inc. are deeply worried, perplexed, baffled and, yes, angry about our persistent unemployment rate, which continues to hover around 9%, with no end in sight. Experts, in fact, once so quick to offer their profound economic predictions based on their experience and study of past malaises are now gun shy, having been wrong so often; as a result their predictions are more opaque than ever, seeming to say much, but after explication saying absolutely nothing at all.
Into this breach the brightest and most well meaning folks have entered... unwilling to be patient a minute longer and anxious to show that American people can solve America's problems, even this draining one of unemployment. And so today, we celebrate what our never-say-die countrymen are dreaming up for bona fide jobs in the hopes that you, too, will join the parade and keep those grand ideas coming, timely and in detail.
For the appropriate music to accompany this article, I have selected the theme song of the film "9 to 5" which was released in 1980. Dolly Parton knocked this one out of the park, the bounciest tune ever composed on the unjust, unfair, and unending tricks, twists, and turns of the world of work. Ironically, most of the over 9% of unemployed Americans would positively jump at these jobs today... no matter the drawbacks... such is the level of our national desperation, apprehension, fear, and anxiety and why we need a Grand Alliance of the private sector and the governments of the nation -- local, state, and federal -- to create jobs, jobs, jobs.
Let's start with what some bright folks are doing in the great state of Florida where innovation and new ideas are sacrosanct and held in the highest regard. We must pause and here congratulate state Representative Brad Drake who at the beginning of October, 2011 filed a bill to stop letting convicted killers "get off that easy." His job- creating idea: to use firing squads, or (his far second choice) the electric chair for all those on death row.
Way to go, Brad!
Drake's bill would end the use of murderer-coddling lethal injection in Florida executions. Instead, those with a death sentence would get what every American craves, a choice; being entitled to choose between electrocution (remember, this is his personal second choice because it isn't the expedient that creates the most jobs in this sector) and a firing squad. He prefers the squad, because as a patriotic, jobs-creating American, that would create more jobs for needy Floridians.
Drake, one of those highly valued forward looking Republicans, said the idea came to him after having a conversation with a constituent at a Waffle House over the legal battles associated with the September 28, 2011 execution of Manuel Valle. All that sugar must have gone straight to his brain.
Valle's lawyers tried to stop the execution by arguing that a new lethal drug cocktail would cause him pain and therefore constitute cruel and unusual punishment. But courts rejected this argument and let the execution go forward. Why the coddling, Drake's constituent asked? They're murderers after all. And upon careful reflection this Tallahassee Solon agreed.
Drake is clear that the government is spending too much time listening to advocacy groups and instead should put in place a death sentence that forces convicted murderers to contemplate their fate. Now, Brad's got the bit between his teeth. He wants to make it hard on those murderers; never mind that they are being snuffed by state order. Yeah, he wants them to think about their pending punishment "every morning," as if they weren't doing that already. Besides, this is a great chance for entrepreneurs to get into the act.
Although Drake hasn't said so, I bet he's already thought up the idea of training squads of executioners and renting them out to other states which will, he is sure, come aboard after the program gets started; it's an idea, he reckons, whose time has come. And there's another financial advantage, too; we could rent these squads to foreign governments, more squeamish than we are, and so fill the empty coffers of Florida. This'll cinch the deal that ensures Rep. Drake's civic achievement.
No idea too small!
Our next great jobs-creating idea is also from Flori-duh, the land of ideas, light years ahead of other, less with-it Americans. Eat your heart out North Carolina for not dreaming up this one... this time legalized dwarf tossing.
Clueless citizen that you are, you probably didn't know that Florida's dwarfs are in unemployment lines getting welfare, when they could -- man, woman and child alike -- be doing good service (and sparing hard-pressed tax-payers) by being tossed around like a beach ball during happy hours statewide. Wow! Where do they come up with these really great ideas! Here are the facts...
According to Florida state Representative Ritch Workman, another one of those sharp- witted Republicans who run Florida these days, dwarfs are being oppressed by antediluvian state laws prohibiting them from being flung around bar rooms to enhance the drinking and entertainment experience of playful patrons, now miserable without their exuberant sport. This is a disgrace says Rep. Workman (so aptly named)... and he aims to set things to right and create a bright-shining example to other states which are still in the Dark Ages as far as dwarf tossing is concerned.
Thus, "Retain Rep. Workman for the Working Man", has introduced a bill that frees dwarfs for their destiny while likely shaving a bit off the state's horrendous unemployment rate, a punishing 1.6 percent above the US average... and a disgrace to Florida which clearly needs all the help it can get.
It's the double whammy of tough times for dwarfs getting jobs and the suppression of their God-given right to get tossed if and when they want to that fuels Workman's passion, for he is at once a man of tax-cutting, dollar-saving propensities and libertarian freedoms. As such, liberation of dwarfs everywhere demands his attention. And so he is aiming for nothing less than the overturning of the 1989 Florida law banning dwarf tossing as dangerous and dehumanizing.
But now get this... in an interview with Rep. Workman, published by Bloomberg News and running nationwide October 8, 2011, Ritch Workman said he personally found dwarf tossing "offensive" and "stupid". Still.... "If this is a job they want and people would pay to see it or participate in it, why in the world would we prohibit it?" Why indeed!
Democrats, of course, are irked beyond measure at this bill. They only want Floridians to have "real" jobs and wait patiently until their paladins create some; never mind that that might be years away. Carolyn Fiddler, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, dismisses the matter with a superior sniff. Of course she isn't a dwarf and has a job, too, and is far above the indignity of being passed from hand to hand by ruffians who might, not to put too fine a point on the matter, pinch the lady as she passes. This is, she is sure, yet another instance where Republicans don't get it. But most assuredly Rep. Workman does. He is after all a Man of Destiny, who sees clearly that less can be more.
Dolly was right!
I'm out of space for today, or I'd share with you more of these tales, for I have a ton of them. Suffice it to say people are not just waiting for Washington to wake up and focus on jobs. They're helping themselves and using their brains to create jobs, and we all ought to be glad for that. Unemployment hurts, and wouldn't you rather see folks in jobs they may not love than in no job at all? Maybe such a job wasn't the best on earth, but it did bring home the bacon... and besides I like hearing Dolly Parton sing. She can complain at my house any time she likes and make us believe "Your ship'll come in/ And the tide's gonna turn/ An' it's all gonna roll your way." We still believe this, don't we? Well, don't we?
******* What do you think? Let Dr. Lant know by posting your comments below.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books.
Republished with author's permission by Craig Telfer http://MyTrafficInjection.comhttp://MyTrafficInjection.com">http://MyTrafficInjection.com>.
Check out Mass Article Control -> http://www.MyTrafficInjection.com/?rd=bn7UNhUC
Friday, October 28, 2011
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Copy. Paste. Promote. Repeat. You've got to be kidding right?
Copy. Paste. Promote. Repeat. You've got to be kidding right?
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
How do you build an online business? Copy. Paste. Promote. Repeat.
I really hate using the first expression because I LOVE elephants but to make a point sometimes you have to be blunt.
This blog is meant to be direct and maybe make you a little irritated so you will REACT. A reaction is better than nothing. Hopefully that irritation leads to a reaction which leads to an action.
Forgive me if the tone of this blog sounds a bit tongue in cheek. My purpose is to try and get you to simplify tasks so you can get the results you want. I'd like you to think about things from a different perspective.
Every day I talk to people all over the world who are trying to build their online business. Some are having no success, some are having mixed success, some are just getting started, some have been working an online business for years. The ones who are hugely successful, I never hear from - hmmm strange.
What's the difference between the successful and the non-successful? Well it depends on who you ask and your definition of success. Here's my take on it.
People who are successful are DOERS!
They don't over think, they plod in and get busy.
They make mistakes, they learn, they try again.
They fall down, they get up again as often as it takes to get the job done. They simplify; they don't overcomplicate.
They have a unique way of looking at things, and attacking a task.
They FOCUS on what needs to be done, eliminate distraction.
They understand that small tasks can lead to big results.
They find what works and stick to it.
They have a patience many of us just can't fathom.
Failure is not an option.
I had the honour of playing a round of golf with a Professional Golfer last week. This guy was good and had won numerous tournaments. I asked him how he got to be such a good golfer and this is what he told me. He said, "I've played golf since I was 4. I'm 24 now. I've played golf pretty much every day my entire life." I then said to him, "so you did the same thing everyday and got really good at it?" He looked at me for a moment to make sure that I was being serious about something so obvious then he said. "Yes, I got some lessons and instructions then practised every day and here I am."
So if I can draw from that, if you want to be good at something - successful at something - do it everyday - over and over and over again!
Could it be that simple?
Building your online business is as simple as Copy. Paste. Promote. Repeat. Everyday?
What do you think? Post your comments below. I'd like to see your thoughts.
About the Author
Sandi Hunter is the Director of Website Development at Worldprofit Inc. Worldprofit provides a number of services for the small and home-based business community including hosting, design, webconferencing, traffic, advertising, SEO, training and resources. This year Worldprofit marks their 17th year in business. Republished with author's permission by Craig Telfer http://MyTrafficInjection.com. Check out Income Hybrid ->
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
It's the day from hell in your office... how to deal with it to keep sanity and reap profits.
It's the day from hell in your office... how to deal with it to keep sanity and reap profits.
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. You knew it was going to be one of those days when, upon waking late, you stepped on the cat's tail... to be promptly punished by the feline drawing blood with her oh-so-sharp claws. And this was just the beginning...
We all have such days... and we all need to know what to do about them to avoid worsening an already trying situation and bounce back, flags flying, good humor intact and only the barest number of welts and bruises.
For such a day, Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) and his lighter-than-air style was born. In 1858, the world was gladdened (and scandalized) by what was said to be the first classical full-length operetta, "Orpheus in the Underworld". It contained what soon became one of the most celebrated pieces of music ever composed: "The Infernal Galop" which we all better know (and erroneously) as the "Can-Can", where a lady's bottom took Offenbach to the top.
This music, which can be found in any search engine, strikes just the right note for your chaotic day. "Orpheus in the Underworld" helps you get out of Hades, back to life at the top of your game.
Take a deep breath.
Could the day get any worse? Of course... and on days like this... it will.
You can scald yourself in the shower. Get trapped in rush hour traffic. Spill hot coffee on yourself.
All this sound familiar? It's just the beginning.
Your boss is in one of his "moods." The sales figures are bad. Your best customer just quit. And they don't have your favorite dough-nut at the commissary.
Yes, it's one of those days, and your job is to get control of it... before it gets any worse.
Take a deep breath. You've probably confronted a ton of messes in your life. This one is just a little more intense and demanding. Start with the sure-to-ground- you deep breath.
Then sit down at your desk, and jot a quick to-do list of what you need to do, when you're going to do it, and how you're going to do it. This is how to begin reestablishing the control that you must have, the control so necessary to efficiency and enabling you to do what's necessary, instead of being at the mercy of events. Remember at all times: there is only one of you... and so you must prioritize what is important... and what (the dough-nut) can wait and so can any other personal matters. Matters involving your job come first.
Get your boss off your back.
To buy yourself some time, deal with your boss first. Even if he's being demanding and difficult (so what else is new?)... he is the boss... and if you get him off your back, you'll buy yourself some of the time you really need to reassert control and move ahead. Take notes on what the boss says. Then ask him for his priorities about what should be done. Don't assume. Ask the boss to tell you what he wants, how important it is, and its priority in today's scheme of things. End with "aye, aye, Captain". Then go back and mesh what the boss said...with your own priorities. Your job is to know what the important things are... then get down to doing them.
Saving the lost customer.
One thing that can always knock you for a loop is losing a big account. This, for sure, is a matter for immediate, concentrated attention. But before you make this call, think. You may get only one chance to turn things around. You must be sure you 1) understand the customer's complaint and reason for canceling and 2) be prepared to address these points in deft detail. You must be as clear as you can be with why this key customer is quitting. What has she said before that'll give you a clue? People usually don't cancel without warning; there are omens. What were they? And what have you done and can you do to answer these concerns and make things better? Remember, the goal is keeping this person happy and the account where it belongs: with you. And this is going to take thought and constructive action.
Once you're ready -- but not until -- place the call. Remember if you turn this around, you'll get the positive momentum you need to turn the entire day around.... you'll be a hero; this is, after all, a Big Deal. So, place the crucial call... no pressure!
If the customer is determined to cancel, she probably won't take the call. This may mean she's determined to burn the bridge. Bad sign. This may also mean that she's brought her concerns to you in the past (however gently) and that you failed to act on them. Now these chickens are coming home to roost. Be prepared to eat crow... and a lot of it. Remember, this is business... and your job is to get that account back, whatever it takes.
Call again in 30 minutes, taking care of other matters from your to-do list in the meantime. Remember, your job today is to be super efficient and shake off the woes by checking off completed items from your list, even small things. Everything counts toward regaining efficiency, control, and as much serenity as you can muster.
Now try that all-important customer again. Unless this customer has made an irrevocable decision about not doing further business, this time you should connect. Remember, you are here to fix a problem; to get the customer to change her mind again and, with a very good deal from you, a better deal than she has now, return to the fold.
What, offer a better deal? Yes... you want this contract. You may very well have to renegotiate the terms to keep it. At least you should be prepared...
Now that you've got the customer on the line, your job is, first, to listen carefully to what she says. So, lean back... hear and evaluate what the customer has to say. Don't rush this call. You are lucky to have it and lucky to have this chance to save your bacon.
Now, when it's your turn to talk be prepared for the following:
* If you've made promises in the past, say so. Don't defend a position that's indefensible.
* If you can truly do what the customer needs, say so. You must make your strongest possible case now; you may never get another chance.
* Remind the customer just how long you've been part of her team and that you're willing to do, adamant to do, what will help her. Then bring on the extra goodies you've got to keep their business.
Sincerity, clarity, honesty, and, yes, enthusiasm are all part of the what you need. You are aiming for one of two outcomes. First, if the customer still won't budge, ask for at least the courtesy of a day or two for her to reconsider. This is better than affirmation of the account's cancellation.
Better, of course, is the customer's willingness to try again... thereby not only giving you the time you need to turn things around... not only with this customer specifically but with your day-from-Hades generally.
You're smart, you're following these recommendations... I feel confident, therefore, that you're going to re-establish beneficial relations with that key customer who just moments ago was ready to write you off. But not now.
Therefore, you need Jacques Offenbach again... and his celebrated "Infernal Galop," for with what you've read here... and with the essential dollop of galop... I feel sure you "Can-Can" do anything on what may prove to be your best day ever.
And, by the way, your favorite doughnut has just come into the commissary. Take two, you've earned them!
*What do you think? Post your comments below.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., a company providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books.
Republished with author's permission by Craig Telfer http://MyTrafficInjection.com.
Check out Income Hybrid ->
http://www.MyTrafficInjection.com/?rd=gr2avoxX
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It's the day from hell in your office... how to deal with it to keep sanity and reap profits.
It's the day from hell in your office... how to deal with it to keep sanity and reap profits.
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. You knew it was going to be one of those days when, upon waking late, you stepped on the cat's tail... to be promptly punished by the feline drawing blood with her oh-so-sharp claws. And this was just the beginning...
We all have such days... and we all need to know what to do about them to avoid worsening an already trying situation and bounce back, flags flying, good humor intact and only the barest number of welts and bruises.
For such a day, Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) and his lighter-than-air style was born. In 1858, the world was gladdened (and scandalized) by what was said to be the first classical full-length operetta, "Orpheus in the Underworld". It contained what soon became one of the most celebrated pieces of music ever composed: "The Infernal Galop" which we all better know (and erroneously) as the "Can-Can", where a lady's bottom took Offenbach to the top.
This music, which can be found in any search engine, strikes just the right note for your chaotic day. "Orpheus in the Underworld" helps you get out of Hades, back to life at the top of your game.
Take a deep breath.
Could the day get any worse? Of course... and on days like this... it will.
You can scald yourself in the shower. Get trapped in rush hour traffic. Spill hot coffee on yourself.
All this sound familiar? It's just the beginning.
Your boss is in one of his "moods." The sales figures are bad. Your best customer just quit. And they don't have your favorite dough-nut at the commissary.
Yes, it's one of those days, and your job is to get control of it... before it gets any worse.
Take a deep breath. You've probably confronted a ton of messes in your life. This one is just a little more intense and demanding. Start with the sure-to-ground- you deep breath.
Then sit down at your desk, and jot a quick to-do list of what you need to do, when you're going to do it, and how you're going to do it. This is how to begin reestablishing the control that you must have, the control so necessary to efficiency and enabling you to do what's necessary, instead of being at the mercy of events. Remember at all times: there is only one of you... and so you must prioritize what is important... and what (the dough-nut) can wait and so can any other personal matters. Matters involving your job come first.
Get your boss off your back.
To buy yourself some time, deal with your boss first. Even if he's being demanding and difficult (so what else is new?)... he is the boss... and if you get him off your back, you'll buy yourself some of the time you really need to reassert control and move ahead. Take notes on what the boss says. Then ask him for his priorities about what should be done. Don't assume. Ask the boss to tell you what he wants, how important it is, and its priority in today's scheme of things. End with "aye, aye, Captain". Then go back and mesh what the boss said...with your own priorities. Your job is to know what the important things are... then get down to doing them.
Saving the lost customer.
One thing that can always knock you for a loop is losing a big account. This, for sure, is a matter for immediate, concentrated attention. But before you make this call, think. You may get only one chance to turn things around. You must be sure you 1) understand the customer's complaint and reason for canceling and 2) be prepared to address these points in deft detail. You must be as clear as you can be with why this key customer is quitting. What has she said before that'll give you a clue? People usually don't cancel without warning; there are omens. What were they? And what have you done and can you do to answer these concerns and make things better? Remember, the goal is keeping this person happy and the account where it belongs: with you. And this is going to take thought and constructive action.
Once you're ready -- but not until -- place the call. Remember if you turn this around, you'll get the positive momentum you need to turn the entire day around.... you'll be a hero; this is, after all, a Big Deal. So, place the crucial call... no pressure!
If the customer is determined to cancel, she probably won't take the call. This may mean she's determined to burn the bridge. Bad sign. This may also mean that she's brought her concerns to you in the past (however gently) and that you failed to act on them. Now these chickens are coming home to roost. Be prepared to eat crow... and a lot of it. Remember, this is business... and your job is to get that account back, whatever it takes.
Call again in 30 minutes, taking care of other matters from your to-do list in the meantime. Remember, your job today is to be super efficient and shake off the woes by checking off completed items from your list, even small things. Everything counts toward regaining efficiency, control, and as much serenity as you can muster.
Now try that all-important customer again. Unless this customer has made an irrevocable decision about not doing further business, this time you should connect. Remember, you are here to fix a problem; to get the customer to change her mind again and, with a very good deal from you, a better deal than she has now, return to the fold.
What, offer a better deal? Yes... you want this contract. You may very well have to renegotiate the terms to keep it. At least you should be prepared...
Now that you've got the customer on the line, your job is, first, to listen carefully to what she says. So, lean back... hear and evaluate what the customer has to say. Don't rush this call. You are lucky to have it and lucky to have this chance to save your bacon.
Now, when it's your turn to talk be prepared for the following:
* If you've made promises in the past, say so. Don't defend a position that's indefensible.
* If you can truly do what the customer needs, say so. You must make your strongest possible case now; you may never get another chance.
* Remind the customer just how long you've been part of her team and that you're willing to do, adamant to do, what will help her. Then bring on the extra goodies you've got to keep their business.
Sincerity, clarity, honesty, and, yes, enthusiasm are all part of the what you need. You are aiming for one of two outcomes. First, if the customer still won't budge, ask for at least the courtesy of a day or two for her to reconsider. This is better than affirmation of the account's cancellation.
Better, of course, is the customer's willingness to try again... thereby not only giving you the time you need to turn things around... not only with this customer specifically but with your day-from-Hades generally.
You're smart, you're following these recommendations... I feel confident, therefore, that you're going to re-establish beneficial relations with that key customer who just moments ago was ready to write you off. But not now.
Therefore, you need Jacques Offenbach again... and his celebrated "Infernal Galop," for with what you've read here... and with the essential dollop of galop... I feel sure you "Can-Can" do anything on what may prove to be your best day ever.
And, by the way, your favorite doughnut has just come into the commissary. Take two, you've earned them!
*What do you think? Post your comments below.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., a company providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books.
Republished with author's permission by Craig Telfer http://MyTrafficInjection.com.
Check out Income Hybrid ->
http://www.MyTrafficInjection.com/?rd=gr2avoxX
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Sunday, October 23, 2011
'To the shores of Tripoli', let freedom ring as one of the world's nastiest and most enduring tyrants dies by inches. The end of Moammar Khadafy.
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. Like so many of my Scottish countrymen, my family left the Highlands in the mid-eighteenth century to pursue a better life in America. But though they left physically, a portion of their heart remained behind and their love continued strong and enduring. The current events taking place in Libya returned my attention to the cruel end of PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland when 270 innocent passengers were shredded in mid-air to satisfy the blood lust and barbarism of one man, Moammar Khadafy. Today this most bestial, longest-serving dictator in the Arab world, is inches from the retribution he has long deserved and is hopefully as painful as his deeds demand. But first, take a moment to find the evocative, spectral song "Loch Lomond" in any search engine. Let it sooth the spirits of the airborne dead and remind them, we have never forgotten what Khadafy, his henchmen, and their hatred did to you... and to so many innocent others.
Today the remnants of Khadafy's insolent regime are crumbing, block by block, desertion by desertion, as the everyday people of Tripoli, and throughout Libya, do what they have not been allowed to do for the nearly 42 year regime -- think for themselves! Live for themselves! Be who they want... not merely whom they have been told to be.
Today is one of the rarest days for one of the world's oldest civilizations... a day of possibilities, not restrictions. A day of high hopes, not of grinding despair. A day when the heart beats faster and when the world's peoples extend the hand of friendship and fraternity... glad to share the joy of a people who have experienced so little of it.
This is 21 August, 2011 and their long dreaded, capricious lord comes closer, closer to his inevitable conclusion, squalid, bloody, wherein the reigning monster of their long terror is shown to be what he always was, a man of small mind, mendacious habits, and contempt for every human but himself. And so the great man is revealed and abased... humbled... and shown to be at the end so very little.
So now this man of hatred, contumely, and abuse is reaping what he had sown day by day....
Today is a day which looks resolutely forward, for today the people of Libya, who have and have always had under this regime, so very little, at least have the prospect of a future. But today must also be a day of full remembrance for the full litany of dislocations, murders, maimings, disappearances, and ceaseless terrors perpetrated by a regime with power but no vision, weapons but no soul, destructive prowess but without humanity and compassion. Let us pause to remember them now... and vow that these outrages, every one of these outrages, will never be forgotten and stand as a vital testament to the never-ending saga of what a man is capable of doing when the world stands by and pretends that this diabolic business as usual is acceptable.
So now tolls the bell, for each and every one of these outrages, each a manifestation of malice aforethought...
As one of his first deeds, Khadafy in 1970 expelled the Italian population of Libya. He detested all Westerners... and ordered the extirpation of all evidence of their culture... and their systematic dislocation and removal.
From the first days of his power, and reaching full speed and application by 1973, he became the living symbol of Orwell's Big Brother. Dictators all have a compelling need to know what their peoples are doing at all times and places. Khadafy's need to know was the very essence of dictatorial thoroughness. Surveillance took place at every level of the government, on all people in any position of power, no matter that he had put those people there himself. Surveillance was constant, intrusive, paralyzing in factories, in education, in the military, everywhere where two or more people might meet and converse.
In short order, human behavior, human contact, human interaction in Libya became just what "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution" permitted, and absolutely nothing else, upon pain of unimaginable suffering and horror. Libya was not a nation; it was a prison, where everyone was in thrall to a man of unmatched skill in the business of refined and exquisite torments,
His capacity for inflicting sufferings developed apace...
He hung dissidents to his all-encompassing regime in public, the better to intimidate. He headed a band of zealots perfect in the art of mutilation; so happy in this severe art that he had its execution and best examples played on television, to a nation which never failed to grasp the glaring meaning: so could thy life end, in an instant, with such pain.
But this quintessence of evil had more pain and suffering to deliver...
He censored the press, of course, by the simple expedient not just of suppressing content but by killing its writers, brutally and publicly, so that the ones not executed today would not even think of thinking, much less writing and publishing the brutal truths they knew to be irrefutable.
He executed, too, after the full panoply of torture, all those who sought national redemption through means political. Their moment of dissent was their last. They went to prison where they experienced the full pain humans can inflict. Such outrages against humanity were constant, brutal, the stuff of everyday existence for every Libyan.
Of course, he had a special regard for the growing ranks of his critics worldwide... they were a menace, a problem, and as such he increased the ranks of his thorough executioners, the better to diminish, and painfully so, the ranks of the disaffected.
There is more, much more, every instance an outrage to every sentiment that makes us human. And at last, Libyans, who saw nothing more for their lives than the constant chaos and confusion of their existence, saw that revolt was their only hope against a regime without any limit to the abuses perpetrated against the long suffering Libyan people.
On 17 February, 2011 major political protests began, as Libyans looked carefully at the events that had toppled the Mubarak tyranny in Egypt and called forth the admiration of the world, in their attempt to become the men they were, the men Khadafy had tried so long and with such bitter means to control.
Khadafy, with more men at his command, more armaments, more mercenaries, more money yet failed to eradicate the often ramshackle forces against him. The reason could be deduced in a single word: FREEDOM. Khadafy sought to control, to regiment, to hurt and divide. His opponents, whose names are now the names of patriots, wanted only one thing: for the people of Libya to control their own destinies, free from the daily terrors and anxieties each knew so well under the current regime.
And so, bit by bit, they advanced... never without hardship, never without the immemorial difficulties of war, experiencing want, sacrifice, their own political difficulties and conflicts... but still, despite every drawback, they advanced... until today the end of the regime is nigh, perhaps just hours away. These are the valiant days in Tripoli... the days proud men of action will impart to their grandchildren. It is a great day not just for Libyans but for all of us who value freedom and know its unending cost. Today all us ride with you through streets of Tripoli, optimistic, hopeful, grateful for your courage and application in a cause we all must hold dear.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books.
Republished with author's permission by Craig Telfer <a href="http://MyTrafficInjection.com">http://MyTrafficInjection.com</a>.
Check out Instant Traffic Robot -> http://www.MyTrafficInjection.com/?rd=nb7udulf
Friday, October 21, 2011
21 Recommended Books for Entrepreneurs
21 Recommended Books for Entrepreneurs
Often when I am consulting with clients, I am asked to recommend books for entrepreneurs. I have compiled a list of titles on my shelf that I think are worth reading. Success in business means constantly learning and evolving, what better way to do so than sitting down with a good book. These are in no particular order. I hope you enjoy them as I have.
The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley & William Danko
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries & Jack Trout
The Intelligent Entrepreneur by Bill Murphy
Cash Copy by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
The Wealthy Barber and The Wealthy Barber Returns By David Chilton (these will appeal especially to Canadians reading this article)
Midas Touch: Why Some Entrepreneurs Get Rich-And Why Most Don't by Donald J. Trump and Robert Kiyosaki
The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur by Mike Micalowicz
7 Strategies for Wealth & Happiness by Jim Rohn
Alpha Dogs: How Your Small Business Can Become a Leader of the Pack by Donna Fenn
Illusions of Entrepreneurship by Scott A. Shane
Escape from Cubicle Nation by Pamela Slim
Magic of Thinking BIG by David J Schwartz
How to Make Millions with Your Ideas by Dan Kennedy
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell (His book, The Outliers is really a good book too but less related to Entrepreneurs)
Why We Buy by Paco Underhill
The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox
Screw It, Let's Do It by Richard Branson
Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed by Brian Tracy
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
You Need to Be a Little Crazy: The Truth About Starting and Growing Your Own Business by Barry Moltz
Secrets of Closing the Sale by Zig Ziglar
Of course these are print books. There are lots of superb blogs and websites targeted at entrepreneurs. I will save that list for another post as it will be a very long list. For now I think you have some reading to do? Enjoy.
NOTE: Let us know what you think. We've love to hear which are your favourite titles. Open minds invite new ideas, sharing ideas makes us all a little smarter.
About the Author
Sandi Hunter is the Director of Website Development at Worldprofit Inc. Worldprofit provides a number of services for the small and home-based business community including hosting, design, webconferencing, traffic, advertising, SEO, training and resources. This year Worldprofit marks their 17th year in business. Republished with author's permission by Craig Telfer http://MyTrafficInjection.com. Check out Instant Traffic Robot ->
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Got an idea to change the world? Then you could get $1000 free. That'sAwesome.
Got an idea to change the world? Then you could get $1000 free. That'sAwesome.
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. If you live in a college town like I do (Cambridge, Massachusetts) you're going to hear the undergrads talk about the "awesome" this, the even more "awesome" that. Usually I don't pay much attention to this because the word is habitually misapplied and misused. I mean just how "awesome" can the umpteenth pizzeria be, right?
But today I have got an idea for you, an idea that's, well, "awesome", particularly if you're of an inventive turn of mind and need 1000 smackers to help you with your improve-the-world idea. Just a free thousand bucks, with no strings attached.
Too good to be true? That's the awesome part! It's that "once in a blue moon", "it is what they say it is," "I'll be darned" idea.
For such an idea, soon to be revealed to you, I've selected the song that'll start any day off right, even if your voice needs re-inventing. It's "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin;' " from the 1947 Broadway musical "Oklahoma!" by Rogers and Hammerstein. You can easily find it in any search engine. Let 'er rip... especially when you're completing the simple form that could net you a free grand.
2008 Harvard grad Tim Hwang's awesome idea.
Tim Hwang, like most of us, hates paperwork, bureaucracy, and wasting time with stupid and "what's the point?" tasks. But unlike the rest of us, Hwang actually did something about his annoying pet peeve and irritation. The beneficiaries are those special people who have had that proverbial "aha!" moment, that exciting instant in time that signifies the fact you've just given birth to what the world always needs... another bright idea. We just can't get enough of them.
In the real world, your brand-new, bright-shiney idea would quickly become the easiest part of an endless list of things to do, especially if you want -- money! (As every single inventor in human history has.)
It becomes a backbreaking task, doing this, doing that, hurry up and wait for funding sources that seem to be friendly and accessible in their brochures, then morph into inhabitants of an "undisclosed location" when you want to hit them up for something. That common situation is awful...
Hwang's "aha!" moment.
Cambridge is a city where everyone and his brother is Always Imagining Something, Doing Something and, in due course, Achieving Something and (nice this) Giving Back Something. It's a very exciting, motivating environment where establishments of every kind could well have "Creative People Need Apply" signs on the door. It's most addictive. Tim Hwang is one of these people and even at his young age is already in the Give Back category. Here's what he dreamed up... and how that object of your affection -- you! -- can benefit.
First Hwang came to be aware of one of the truest facts on earth, viz. that to get money from people they require you to fill out a whole filing cabinet's worth of forms. It's time-consuming, often daunting, and always as dull as dishwater. But Hwang built a better mousetrap, so to speak, giving away money -- real Yankee greenbacks -- with a form so simple you won't have apoplexy or worse completing it and -- drum roll -- no (universally hated) reporting requirements at all. Nirvana!
Hwang credits the MacArthur Foundation for inspiring him. MacArthur awards the so-called "genius grants" which give folks a truly awesome $500,000 to use however they want without being forced to complete a single page of application or meet a single reporting requirement. I could use one of those myself! Hwang took this established mode of helping idea people... and gave it an awesome turn.
The Awesome Foundation.
Hwang's idea was new, innovative, and (biggest deal of all) so flexible it could help any idea reckoned as "awesome" by either the trustees of the newly established "Awesome Foundation" or the people who came up with the ideas and applied for the money. Hwang's "foundation" is not a classic grants-making foundation at all. Instead it is a singular way for idea people to apply -- and easily get -- a thousand dollars to use towards any idea they dream up and submit to the trustees.
These trustees are a key to the foundation's success, first because they each kick in $100 a month, from which the awards are made; second because they are responsible for determining which "awesome" idea gets the money. This involves judgement as fine as King Solomon's. Here's an example of a recent conundrum presented to the trustees of the original chapter, now known as the Boston chapter. 130 folks applied in August, 2011... 128 of these, while awesome , were not awesome enough. And so it came down to just 2 people.
The first wanted to buy a couple of goats to rent out as urban lawn mowers. The second was a sculptor who wanted to change careers and asked the Foundation to fund a portable welder so he could go round and fix his deteriorating city. And so, after further careful consideration, the trustees selected the disenchanted sculptor and his awesome idea for reinventing himself and his city.
It grows as it goes.
The motto for the state of New Mexico is also appropriate for the Awesome Foundation and its labor of love. This simple idea of people helping people and providing some financial encouragement, too, is truly an idea whose time has come. As a result Tim Hwang has got himself a tiger by the tail. There are already 23 chapters around the world; Australia is the farthest away from Cambridge... Detroit is the newest. They both need a hand from whoever is willing to help.
Largesse from the Knight Foundation.
At the Awesome Foundation's website (awesomefoundation.org) enthusiastic members post evidence of their work's success. It reads like what it is, a bulletin board of all the available evidence that the Foundation is moving ahead smartly. It is an amateur production in need of sharper design and copy, but the overall effect is positive; of real people who could have ignored the problems they deal with choosing instead to do something useful, even if that was limited.
This positive, hands-on, people-helping idea came to the attention of the bigger fish at the Knight Foundation whose decision makers liked what they saw, and gave $244,000, so joining the Awesome cause. This grant, the biggest yet to Awesome, will fund an initiative to provide microgrants to citizen journalism projects in Detroit. It's Knight's way of endorsing Awecome and helping Detroit, a basket case among America's wide array of urban plights.
And I'll tell you something. I think that's just plain Awesome, don't you think?
To apply for one of Awesome's $1000 no-strings grants, go to awesomefoundation.org
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books.
Republished with author's permission by Craig Telfer http://MyTrafficInjection.com.
Check out Commission Commando ->
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
An appreciation of Holly Hickler, master teacher, poet, her love affair with words, dead at
An appreciation of Holly Hickler, master teacher, poet, her love affair with words, dead at 88.
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. This is a story about words and a woman who understood the power of words properly used to motivate adolescents, some of the toughest customers on earth. It is the story of Holly Hickler, proud to be a teacher, exhilarated by the challenges of her profession, a model to the less committed, who are legion.
Words, words, and ocean of words.
If you are a word person (as I confess I am) you will be sad upon reading this article that you never knew Holly Hickler. The minute I read her obituary in The Boston Globe (July 31, 2011), I was so saddened... I wanted to know her... and I wanted the world to know her, too. Words, you see, even words in an obituary, can make you feel so; words can do anything, convey anything, rouse anything, exult anything, change anything, remove anything, love anything, revolt anything...
... but you must know the words, have them not just in your head, but in your fingertips; words must be your constant companions. They must intrigue you, mystify you, bring you to your knees with grief, carry your prayers to God, and then, doubling back, conjure love from indifference... then ask your too late mate when she will be home for dinner.
Holly Hickler loved words, every word; she loved the sound of them, the textures, the complicated words and the simple words which proved upon reflection to be the most complicated of all: heaven, love, death, God, forever.
Mischievous, this mother could with laughter and purpose confound her children by reciting at any time or place a sprig of Frost on an autumn day:
""Summer was past and the day was past. Sombre clouds in the west were massed. Out on the porch's sagging floor Leaves got up in a coil and hissed...."
( from "Bereft" by Robert Frost, 1874-1963)
Or this written by Gerard Manly Hopkins (1844-1889) in 1877, but not published until 1918.
"GLORY be to God for dappled things -- For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow: For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings:..."
( from the poem "Pied Beauty").
Poems like these, even simple seeming Frost, are hard to read... harder to understand... and that would have suited Mrs. Hickler just fine. Such words, in such order, forced the surly, withdrawn, moody, often aggravating adolescents (either school delivered or borne by her) to stop, read the words clearly, sharply, for words must be heard; then look up the definitions... recite them again with greater clarity both of recitation and of meaning... then again and again, transforming brain cells into repositories of words, to be yours forever, shared only when you wish to touch a human heart or uplift, if only for a minute, some weary passerby in need of the comfort of the right word right delivered.
Her life.
Born Helen, in Philadelphia, her mother, Jean Miller Schloss, was fashion coordinator for Gimbels Department Store, and her father Edwin Schloss, a cellist who played chamber music with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra. It was a home of culture, the arts, and of sensitivities to music... literature... and, always, to words.
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1945 with a major in English, she worked on women's magazines and publishing for a time and interviewed authors on television in New York City. Unfortunately (and tellingly) her greatest achievement in these years was not the stunning prose she wrote and published (for she did neither), but rather the fact she survived the crash of a B-25 aircraft which plunged into the Empire State Building in July, 1945 while she was working. But she survived...
In 1946, she married Courtland Yardley White III, her former writing professor. They had twins, Peter and Kate. Mr. White died of tuberculosis in January, 1950. That September she married Frederick Dunlap Hickler, an architect. They had three children. When their oldest child left for college, Mrs. Hickler started teaching at the progressive Cambridge School of Weston, Massachusetts. Here her vocation for teaching became evident to all.
Sympathetic, loving, strict standards.
Unwary students often misread Mrs. Hickler's educational approach, to their peril. She was kind, empathetic, even loving towards her students, but this did not mean any diminution of the high standards she expected students to meet. As Bonny Musinsky, a fellow teacher at the school for 17 years, said, "when it comes to grading, she was no push-over. If they didn't measure up -- with all her love and caring -- she would give them a C."
The writer's eye.
Writers are a probing, observant, perceptive, invasive kind of people. They never merely glance and are the masters of minute detail and of actually seeing a thing. No one can write effective prose without these skills. Mrs. Hickler made it a point to foster this ability which she used to good effect in her 1981 book co-authored with Cambridge psychiatrist John Mack. It was titled "Vivienne: The Life and Suicide of an Adolescent Girl", and focused on the impersonal attitude of teachers in meeting the needs of teen-agers. No one ever accused Mrs. Hickler of such misunderstanding and dereliction and that is why she was such an effective, impacting, and always memorable instructor.
Writer's block.
I can guess, but cannot confirm, that one of the great sadnesses of this productive life was her own difficulties with writing words and slender published oeuvre. It must have been maddening, discouraging, irritating at the very least. So much so, that at age 75 she took a class to overcome writer's block. In due course, she wrote again. It was prose remembers Deborah Carr of Wellesley, a member of the group, about her "youth in an artsy, intellectual family in Philadelphia which she told in a voice that sounded as young as Holly was at heart." Unfortunately, it was not published... but this article, which will be read by thousands, will help keep green the memory of Holly Hickler, and her message that words matter, good writing matters, and that both are essential in the complicated business of human communication.
Infuriatingly, this is something far too many school districts have not grasped, which is one reason SAT reading scores have sunk to a record low with the class of 2011. In this connection, Wayne Camara, College Board vice president of research, mused, "We're looking and wondering if more efforts in English and reading and writing would benefit students."
Having read this article, just what do you think Holly Hickler's resounding response would have been? Or what yours should be, now that she has gone?
Then go to any search engine to find the recording by the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia of Tshaikovsky's Variations on a Roccoco Theme. Holly would have loved it.... and so will you.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books.
Republished with author's permission by Craig Telfer http://MyTrafficInjection.com.
Check out Job Crusher 2 ->http://MyTrafficInjection.com/?rd=kq3IHum8.
Monday, September 12, 2011
9/11, closure, and an important new book by Professor Nancy Berns.
Author's program note. This is a story about death and remembrance, one of the most difficult of subjects; universal reality for every human... but one we approach with the utmost diffidence, wanting to make the troubling matter which touches upon our own mortality short, clean,crisp, so that the experience is sanitized and efficient. We want to treat it as a management problem not as profound unsettling event. We want closure... and we want it as soon and as effortlessly as possible.
But death and remembrance do not work that way... it is not a management problem; it is about our own oblivion, and it must be treated with the high seriousness it deserves.
That's why I have selected revered Mozart's "Requiem Mass in D minor" (K. 626) for the musical accompaniment for today's article. It is the precise sound needed to help you consider the matter of eternity, including your own. You will find it in any search engine. Allow yourself to be touched by this masterpiece unfinished at his death, which the Master left in 1791 for his encounter with God. It will help us with ours and help the loved ones who must deal, in due course, with our own passing.
How a new book by Professor Nancy Berns can help.
Drake University associate professor of sociology Nancy Berns has just published a work which may perhaps become seminal, offering as it does vital insights into the prevailing American way of grief, remembrance and the matter of "closure." Her book is titled "Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What It Costs Us," and it comes just as the nation faces another agonizing bout of remembrance on the never-must-be-forgotten events which fall under the name "9/11".
Her subject is important, timely, and of the greatest significance to every one of us: is closure a desirable objective, or is it another illustration of our national disinclination to deal with subjects at once difficult, distasteful, and perhaps irresolvable? Let's start with a definition of "closure," "that which closes or shuts down."
It's easy to see why real everyday people want death and its aftermath to be an "over ASAP" matter. We live in a culture which not only values but obsessives over the need for youth, beauty and boundless health and which sees in age and the weight of enfeebling years the markers of debility, always measuring by how much is gone and how much may remain. Death thus becomes not just an event but the event which deprives us of everything... and gives the hot potato of your death and disposal to people who want to pass it on immediately and get back to life. For such people (for all they may have loved us) the concept of "closure" is absolutely essential because it gives them the right to forget and forget as fast as possible. This is especially true where the fatalities have been significant... as they can be in wars, natural disasters and traumatizing outrages like 9/11.
Images of 9/11
9/11 seared the national memory with images profound, haunting, horrifying, indelible. Each of us, all of us, have been bothered and afflicted by these images which in an instant altered our consciousness and diminished our securities. We close our eyes and will it otherwise but these images abide with us forever, the residue of carnage. We attempt to make sense of the senseless by creating statistics, for that is easier than remembering the victims, those blown to Kingdom Come mid-air and those on whom the debris and the bodies fell, eliminating lives in a cascade of unimaginable flames.
65 percent of the victims were between 31 and 50 years old.
76 percent of those killed were men.
64 percent of the dead were married.
72 percent had at least one dependent.
Nearly 39 percent made at least $100,000 a year.
Statistics give a kind of distance -- and closure.
9/11 oppresses us, not merely because of the original event, but because we want to "move on", into a world where the impact of this tragedy lessons and gives us peace... without guilt; closure, with finality.
Here's where the deeper insights of Professor Berns come in.
She argues, and I think rightly, that closure is a concept born n our speed-driven culture. It is an appealing idea because it offers a definitive end to our suffering or grief and thereby offers an acceptable basis for starting a new life chapter where there is no sorrow, guilt, or anger. An invention of Gestalt psychology, this concept is now a cultural commonplace in every area of national life. But the fact that this notion is widely cited and believed does not make it real or true, merely convenient.
Thus we do a grave disservice to the dead, to ourselves, and to what we should rather do to reaffirm our humanity and gain the benefits that come from celebrating the dead... and letting them abide, much loved, never forgotten, as vital as our brain can make them and recall.
Thus, grief is not bad. It is not some set destination, to be concluded at a certain time and in a certain manner. It is not something that must necessarily end, or which by ending, brings peace and serenity.
Grief is not like an illness which can and should be ended with the right pill or prescription. It is highly personal and cannot be regulated, regimented, erased by rules or reason. And so it is difficult for all and most want an early exit, a strategy that does not soothe or lesson the pain. Thus the pain continues, to the growing frustration and irritation of others who, grieving differently or not grieving at all, have "moved on".
Things were different 100 years ago.
Just a century ago, people grieved quite differently; no doubt in part because they had more time and the pace of life was leisurely compared to our own. When people died, at home more often than not, strands of hair would be carefully cut, then annotated in copperplate hand and dispatched to relatives and a few special friends who loved the deceased. Some would be placed in or made into keepsakes, brooches, lockets with pictures. No one rushed the matter of grief... and social mores dictated a liberal amount of time, how long and in what way black should be worn, and the degree of reserve and retirement from society. No one vexed you by telling you to "move on, get closure."
And no one should say so today. As we age, the ranks of our dear departed increase until, at the last, they undoubtedly outnumber the living. But the dead remain with us, too, and should for to forget them is to diminish ourselves. The intensity of that grief will wane... but the fact and meaning of that grief cannot.
And so I'll end on this personal note. I have before me a letter from my mother dated Monday, November 18, 1985 and begins "My very dear son...." I would recognize the careful writing anywhere. This is how it opens "your letter came Saturday and I've been answering it ever since and throwing away the pages. I would so like to hold you and comfort you and 'make the world go away'".
I no longer remember the incident which provoked this response, but in every word I see her... and feel her love. And so I grieve anew for her death... and rejoice again that she abides with me and so long as I remain she remains and must be grasped and treasured accordingly. There is pain in this course... but there is solace,too... and to give up the one is to lose the other. And that would never do.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Craig Telfer <a href="http://MyTrafficInjection.com">http://MyTrafficInjection.com</a>.
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Friday, September 9, 2011
Too busy? Need extra time? Then it's time for your 'NEVER DO' list!
We all know the importance of "to do" lists, that is lists where you write down what you need to do and when you need to do it. You DO have such lists, don't you? They are essential for maximum efficiency and focus.
Well, this is a recommendation to start drawing up and living by items on your "never do" list, a list that becomes absolutely necessary as you see your opportunities and tasks expanding exponentially and your time remaining inflexible and limited.
Time is infuriatingly limited
Face it. Since you were born, no one has been able to figure out how to get more than 24 hours in a day. Generations of trained, often brilliant, scientists have come and gone... yet we have the same amount of time as the Caesars with no change in sight. Bummer.
Thus instead of wishing we had more time, the challenge becomes making better use of the time we have. Inspired allocation of time becomes the goal... and this includes the all-important "never do" list.
The residual pull of "do it yourself".
If your upbringing was anything like mine, you were constantly admonished: "if you want it done right, do it yourself."
Without detracting from the wisdom of this remark, I must tell you this in all seriousness: quite simply you cannot do it all yourself... and to achieve increasing success you must make the determination and live by it... that that which can be done by others, must be done by others; this is the only way you can perfect your ability to make money and mastermind the growth and expansion of your empire.
Start today. What task(s) can you stop doing at once?
Review what you did yesterday, everything you did. Write it down. It is time to see where you currently invest your time... and to stop doing at least 1 of the items currently being done by you. Now, when I say write down EVERYTHING you did....I do mean EVERYTHING. The goal is freeing up time... which means a total review of what you now do for yourself.
Looking at what you do
This list will include items like these
* household tasks like laundry, food shopping and preparation, taking care of pets
* time you spend with children and elderly parents
* running errands (list every one you must do)
* driving and upkeep of your vehicles.
Be thorough, be exhaustive, be honest!
Selecting the first item to be done by others
Remember, the amount of time is rigidly fixed. What you personally do... and what you delegate to others to do is not. Now is the time to start this crucial delegation.
Household help
Busy people, important people, people with lots of things to do... and the desire to advance... almost all have household help and so must you.
Hire your help (recommendations from friends help). Then train them to meet your exacting standards and to create the lifestyle of ease and efficiency that you require as a necessary condition for your own success.
Now, I'm not saying it's not possible to live without household help. What I am saying is that if you want the maximum amount of free time that you can devote to getting on and getting richer, then you MUST have household help. That help is a crucial factor in your success.
Training such people in what you require is essential. You'll need a "to do" list for them, and you'll need to monitor carefully what they do and how they do it. Allowing them to get on with the job of helping and serving you will yield a huge dividend in time and a general feeling of contentment and satisfaction.
A driver
If you're like most people you spend a spectacular amount of time in and around your vehicles. This is time better spent in advancing your economic well- being and comfort. In short, you require a driver.
Drivers can be used for a myriad of purposes, from running errands to making an evening out comfortable and efficient. If you've never had such help before, you can hardly imagine how liberating it is to acquire and use it... and how promptly you become accustomed to its many advantages. And the cherry on the cake, of course, is that it frees up a huge volume of time, time you can better use for other purposes.
A word of recognition
My own driver is Aime Joseph, a man of efficiency and concern, who with his charming wife Mercedes, take care of me and mine. Indeed, so popular is Mr. Joseph, that when my relatives visit they always ask whether he will be picking them up at the air port. An affirmative answer cheers them immensely. I am glad to attest to his virtues... and to the essential services he delivers, services which have given me both leisure and the time required for enhanced business profits and a better, more serene existence.
A word of advice: slow and steady wins the race
The first problem to overcome will be accepting the need for help to free up time. Then there is the matter of cost. You'll say that you don't have the money to delegate life's essential tasks to others. That's rubbish. You simply need to be sure that you can generate the necessary money from your business and that this money is greater than the cost of the assistance you are acquiring. If it is, no problem.
But don't go mad... before you add additional help to your expense ledger, always make sure you can generate the income to pay for it. Once you are sure, proceed. This means moving ahead with all due deliberation. Help is great, help is essential, help gives you the better life... but you must be able to pay for it.
Now begin. You are about to stop doing one essential task after another, tasks you may have done for a lifetime but which you cannot afford to do yourself any more. Why? Because you truly know and intend to live by the fundamental truth that is Benjamin Franklin's famous line: "time is money." Indeed it is... and now, with all your new and vital help, you are about to liberate a great deal of that time and reap the very substantial benefits that come when you do!
About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Attend Dr. Lant's live webcast TODAY and receive 50,000 free guaranteed visitors to the website of your choice! Dr. Lant is the author of 18 best-selling books. Republished with author's permission by Craig Telfer <a href="http://MyTrafficInjection.com">http://MyTrafficInjection.com</a>.
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Thursday, August 18, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Saturday, August 13, 2011
The fish that ate Chicago. A true story of the invasive carp that won't quit.
Author's program note. This is a fish story... a big fish story... the story of two different Asian carp species who have already wiped out the competition down river from the Windy City and now mean to seize Chicago and swim north to capture the Great Lakes. It's the story of what happens when man changes his environment without understanding the consequences (or, worse, knowing the consequences but going ahead anyway). And it is a story of our sneaking admiration for the... fish... who can outsmart us, the great poobahs of the planet.
For this story, then, I selected the song called "High Hopes", recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1959. With music written by Jimmy Van Heusen and lyrics by Sammy Cahn, it was introduced in the 1959 film "A Hole in the Head". It was nominated for a Grammy and won an Oscar for Best Original Song at the 32nd Academy Awards.
It's a tune about tenacity, persistence, grit and unbeatability... all things the carp have got to spare.... but which we humans often lack, too often taking the easy path... dozing through the crises around us. You can find this number in any search engine. Go now, listen up and get in the "can do" mood. And if you find the version Sinatra recorded for John F. Kennedy's campaign in 1960, give a listen. It's a classic piece of Americana.
How the carp got here.
The first thing you need to know about this story is that we did it to ourselves. Yep. Imagine you are a friendly, law-abiding carp. You're living somewhere in Asia and life is good. You've got all the plankton you want... and you've got the respect of all the other denizens in the water ways you have populated and control. You're the boss.
Then one day in the 1980s you find yourself captured by some hoodlum who's sold you and your captured buddies to a bunch of Southern U.S. municipal wastewater treatment facilities. Your job: to control algae growth in aquaculture. Disgusting. You're forced to do this job, this really dirty job, and you do... biding your time until you can escape to freedom and cleaner water. Then one day when the humans who are supposed to keep you in captivity aren't looking you... break out... and start swimming north! And along the way you reproduce like crazy. By the time the schleppers at the wastewater plant have figured out what you're doing, you are already a significant river presence, a fact to be reckoned with... and you're having the time of your life, reproducing faster than ever.
Facts about silver carp.
The silver carp is a species of freshwater cyprinid fish, a variety of Asian carp native to north and northeast Asia. It is cultivated in China. Pound for pound, more silver carp are produced worldwide in aquaculture than any other species. It has been introduced to, or spread into via connected waterways, at least 88 countries worldwide. The most common reason for importation was for use in aquaculture, but enhancement of wild fisheries and water quality control were also important reasons for importation.
These facts are important, of course, but what's really important is this:
1) These carp are BIG, whoppers. Their average weight is 30-40 pounds, but it is not uncommon to find some weighing up to 110 pounds.
2) They can leap 10 feet in the air, thereby presenting substantial hazards for people fishing from boats. And you must never water ski in areas known to be inhabited by silver carp and bighead carp. That would be most foolhardy.
3) These carp are voracious eaters and in short order deprive native fishes of the nutrients they require while eating up to 20% of their body weight each day.
4) They are difficult to catch. Silver carp are filter feeders; this is what makes them difficult to catch on a typical hook and line gear. Special methods have been developed to catch these fish, the most important being the "suspension method" usually consisting of a large dough ball that disintegrates slowly, surrounded by a nest of tiny hooks that are embedded in the bait.
5) Silver carp feeding on certain species of blue-green algae, notably the often toxic Microcystis, can pass through the gut of silver carp unharmed, and pick up nutrients while in the gut. Thus, in some cases blue-green algae blooms have been exacerbated by silver carp... and the carp are therefore hazardous to eat.
Now this resourceful adversary, so far successful in all its endeavors, wants to seize Chicago and move into the greatest hunting area on earth, the Great Lakes, where, by the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Thus did America's great Victorian poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in "The Song of Hiawatha" (1855) write of Lake Superior, now a target for the silver carp and a prime reason why at this very moment in August 2011 deeply concerned humans are racing to raise defences which must hold, or the fish will triumph.
The carp must take the Chicago Waterway System to reach their goal... and we must make sure they cannot seize it.
The manmade Chicago Waterway System connects the Great Lakes to the Illinois River, which then connects to the Mississippi River. Both sides know the pivotal battle will be fought here. Each side controls a major part of the puzzle. The silver and bighead carp have overwhelmed the Mississippi River network; humans still own the Great Lakes.
The carp have numbers and time on their side. They also know that they can sacrifice as many of their species as necessary to win; they will produce as many as required. Above all, they know this: that their human adversaries must keep EVERY invasive carp out of the Great Lakes... while the carp have only to get ONE carp into the Great Lakes to seize the first lake, then all the lakes, and change the environment forever, turning it to their exclusive advantage and wrecking havoc on the ecology existing now. The stakes could hardly be higher.
That is why today, on a perfect summer's day for fishing, crews will instead be straining muscle and mind to stop these brazen invaders, already too close for comfort. They will be using electric jolts to stun fish, sweeping the waterway with half-mile-long nets, and sampling and resampling Lake Calumet and the Calumet River.
What the folks at the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Council (which keeps a detailed daily blog on the subject) find so troubling is this: DNA from silver carp has already been found in 11 samples in the lake and river in July. The US Army Corps of Engineers announced July 22 that it had found additional samples containing DNA from silver carp. Experts cannot say from the sampling whether live fish are already in the lake or if genetic material came from dead fish or was carried into the lake from bilge water. The sampling, of course, continues... and chary professionals remind us no final verdict on the matter is yet possible.
But for me, my money's on the fish. They have outsmarted us at every turn, with every current in the great river system they now control. They have destroyed an immemorial eco-system, snuffing out every native variety of fish, destroying, too, boating, fishing, and travel businesses along the way, replacing lucrative native fisheries with their own flesh, worth so much less on the open market.
They insist that nothing, absolutely nothing, will pause their onrushing vehemence. Against such a determined adversary, have we the grit and commitment necessary to win... or are we just going through the paces, already defeated? These dog days of August will determine all. Like I said, I'm betting on the fish. They've got the high hopes.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc. at
http://www.worldprofit.com/, providing a wide range of online services for
small and-home based businesses. Republished with author's permission by Craig Telfer <a href="http://mytrafficinjection.com%22%3ehttp//MyTrafficInjection.com%3C/a>. Check out Google Cash Monster -> http://babyslug1.gcashmnstr.hop.clickbank.net/
Friday, July 29, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
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