Your Local Business In Today’s World

It would be nice in a way, to think that time stands still. That what worked in the past will work now and just doing what we always did will keep working for us. Unfortunately whether we like it or not some things change.

Just ask the people who made their business in manufacturing button hooks for lace-up boots that were once the rage. Maybe not since they are long gone, along with the sulky makers and the cars that needed to be hand cranked to get started. Remember audio cassettes and video tapes? Now there was an industry. Replaced by CDs and DVDs and now they are in peril from download.

Some things of course, don’t change. Being well organized in your business will never go out of fashion. Which doesn’t mean being inflexible, but does mean approaching your business with the respect that it deserves. It means taking the right actions for the right reasons. Nourishing the business as necessary, in the form of scheduled marketing, and repeatable quality standards in delivery of services and product, which means good procedures and policies – written down and followed.

Whether you have noticed or not, your market is changing. Your customers are changing and the way they do business, the way they want to do business, has changed. Time is precious for your customers and many of them do their shopping research online.

They want answers when they want them, even if it is 2am and when they look for someone to help them from their plight – whatever it is – they want to be able to find the local business that can help them to do that. If they are looking for something that is in your field, then you bet you want to be there online for them to find, and get all the information they need to satisfy their interest. You want to be found and you want to be sure they have all they need to be able to use your business if they can, to satisfy what is important to them at this time.

Your customers are looking online to find you on Google and guess what? That’s not the only place they are looking now. They are seeking advice from the people around them and online more and more that is the people in their social networks. Need a good mechanic? Ask your network. Need a new accountant or a pool repaired? Social networks, like Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, review sites, you name it, they are checking it out. They are finding who is there, and they are finding who has been recommended... and who has been rubbished for their lack of service.

But you probably know this already. As a business owner, you probably do the same thing yourself. The question now is how are you responding to this change in your market, within your business? What are you doing to meet your customers in the new marketplace? How do you let them find you online and what steps have you actively taken to meet their enquiries and respond to their needs?

The tools are available to help you monitor the word that is out there about your business, and to help you spread the good word about your business. It isn’t something to take lightly and it isn’t something to ignore if you want your business to be flexible and able to prosper in the new economy. Databases for marketing, social media, sms text messages and VOIP, inventory management and advanced point of sale technology, online identity and reputation management, recruiting methods are just some of these new tools.

If you have not taken steps yet to address this side of your business, and how that fits with the overall management of your business, then now is a great time to review your direction and plan for the future that is now.

If you have taken steps to move with the times, please do add your comments and share your thoughts so others in local businesses who may still be struggling with these concepts may learn from your experiences too.


@lindyasimus

Business Planning Now includes Online Business Development



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What Do You Stand For?

Recent news scandal of a less than savoury incident involving a football team on a tour to NZ seven years ago has raised the topic of what is acceptable behaviour in sport, but more widely in the community. The reports have been revealed what is coyly described as ‘consensual sexual encounter’. Well so far as it was stated originally, the consent extended to the single man named and now paying some price for his now very  public infidelity, and his involvement in what turned out to be something other than a simple one night stand.

Specifically, it turned into something other than this, when eleven team mates and various hangers-on decided to get in on the act.

So far, the former player (the one with the consent  – from the 19 year old woman, if not his wife...) has taken the hit for the team. Well that’s the point is it not? Team bonding and all that means that the team is the thing and you don’t ‘rat’ on your mates. Where that fits insofar as the mates letting a team member take responsibility for their involvement to alone face the consequences, is however understandable it may be, cowardice. Were it the case that this man had in mind that the other members would enter the room then that would seriously compound his error and compromise his integrity even further. If he did not invite them in then it becomes even more shameful that they leave him alone to bear responsibility for their actions.

This specific case aside, it does beg the question ...What has happened to the standards that were once an easy measure for individuals to gauge their behaviour and actions? Where are the role models that will teach boys to be men of integrity? How does it come to pass that in this age of supposed enlightenment that women are still treated in this manner and more to the point, believe at some level that there is any reason to submit to such bullying? Consent? Really? Just supposing it were true the young woman did have poor judgement in this case, still yet that does not alter the fact that each and every man in that room had his own decision to make, and it would seem, each had little respect – or reason to have respect - for themselves, or anyone else in the team. Without question it is safe to assume that none of the men in that room would have been happy for their mother or sister to be treated the way that they treated that woman. So what possibly constituted the difference in their mind between she – and the women they would protect from such treatment in the normal course of events?

Beyond this sorry incident, is the broader question of what value we place on standing up and doing the right thing for the right reason. How different might this story have been had someone brought some positive leadership to the group.

In discussing this with a client this week, he related a story about travelling on an inter-city commuter train, packed with people just doing their best to endure the journey with as little friction as is possible in a train packed with commuters. A young man decided to inflict his loud opinions and blaring music on the rest of the passengers. One man requested that he be considerate and turn the music down. The youth returned the request with a hostile gesture. Minutes later the youth has moved down the aisle to where my client sat. He took this opportunity to upbraid him and let him know in no uncertain terms, that the passengers and he needed to be considerate one of the other and that his cooperation would make it a much better trip for all concerned. He motioned to the man who had asked for the music to be turned down, what he’d like to do with the music now. The man remained silent. Nobody on the train said a single thing to support him. Apparently then, all the passengers were consenting to being bullied.

In Australia we have had the notion of a fair go, and an expectation of reasonable behaviour as we live-and-let-live. Has that been a fantasy of the imagination? Has this really been worth nothing... or have we just turned our back on this concept as being worthy of keeping in our present age?

Does it really, not matter at all, how we behave to one another?

I for one, hope not.

As our society moves away from the two parent home, we see more and more children raised in homes without a male parent. The examples that the parents set, in what the children absorb about how relationships work, how people treat each other would seem to be changed now, compared to the past. Many things that would have been frowned upon, are now found to be commonplace. The old rules are thrown out, but what are the new rules?

We’re learning something now of what the former football team regards as reasonable behaviour. It isn’t pretty.

In America, many are fond of a question WWJD – What would Jesus Do.

My question to you, is What Would You Do?

What are the things for which you are prepared to stand up? Even when they are difficult.

Especially when they are difficult.

A quote to which I subscribe says:

“What I am is the result of all the choices I have made or allowed others to make for me. What I choose is what I am”

Choose well.

What do you think?

 

Lindy Asimus
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Leonard Cohen Lessons From A Man of Grace

Four months into my Leonard Cohen obsession, kicked off by seeing him in Australia in concert in the Hunter Valley under the stars at Bimbadgen Estate, I am just now begining to find the words to relate the impact of seeing him perform in this recent tour.

Actually, the impact is unfolding as I have learned more about Leonard Cohen than I ever knew before the concert. While I had liked him well enough before the concert, I'd really only known his very old songs and his voice on those had never really quite "got there" for me. Perhaps it was the primitive recording methods of the late 60's or that his voice had not fully matured or perhaps a combination of the two.

So I went to this concert willingly, and looking forward to seeing the performance, but really clueless as to what it would be like but wishing to keep my good friend company and enjoy this beautiful day in a lovely part of the world with one of the world's preeminent personalities in the world of poetry and music.

Without expectations as such, still any vestige or measure about how good the concert might be was surpassed in short order and from the first step on the stage and the swell of the audience and good spirit directed toward Himself as the musical notes began, set the tone for a performance that literally transported an entire audience.

This aging man, his voice deeper and more resonant than ever captivated each and every person there. From the elderly reliving the songs from their hip (perhaps misspent?) youth, to the children of this group who attended. A spread of ages amazingly broad.


Authenticity is a concept that we see bandied about as desireable quality and yet our examples that splash across our TV and movie screens belie the value of self acceptance. The contrast as we view Leonard Cohen large on the two giant screens at either side of the stage, the cameras zooming into capture his face in unforgiving closeup reveals a man whose vanity lies in the presentation of his thoughts and striving for some kind of impeccability in what he does. Not hiding from reality and pretense of youth, by surgeon's knife and botox. He wears his years with good humour and resignation, perhaps. He has earned the scars and shares them with us. The songs personal and intmate and letting us into the place that is the external representation of his internal landscape. He is no remote 'star'. He is one of us and we appreciate that humility. And we appreciate the marvellous talent that he brought together to create this remarkable presentation of his life's work. And his generosity in sharing the stage and edifying all who made the performances so remarkable, including his band members, but also those responsible for the wonderful sound and the visuals that were to find their way onto the DVD from the London concert.


There are lessons for us all in what happened during this, and each and every other concert that has occurred on this tour. This tour that began as a fighting back, after Leonard Cohen's financial stability was undermined by the very manager he entrusted to safeguard his interests. In the aftermath of the embezzlement that resulted in the loss of some $5million and the resulting court case that vindicated his claim and awarded him damages in excess of the original theft, but with little chance of collecting, at the age of 74 this man, whom many like to portray as being a master of gloom, does what he needs to do and heads back to work. "Back on Boogey Street" and "Just Paying The Rent... In The Tower Of Song". Some strange way to bring this light into all our lives. Go figure. Just be grateful.

And perhaps Leonard Cohen is grateful too. How many of us have the chance to see how profoundly loved we are by so many around the world, whose lives we have touched. What price that experience? Certainly a rare and precious thing. And a reminder to us of how fleeting life is, and how fast time flies, so there is no time to waste. No time to put off creating our own pieces of unique art that will form our own body of work during our life.

No time to waste chasing unattainable perfection, for in Leonard Cohen's words:

"Ring the bells that still can ring.
There is a crack...a crack, in everything.

That's how the light gets in."



So what are the lessons? This will be a topic for another post.

Lessons for us as individuals.

Lessons for us in how we approach our business.


Halleluljah.

Had to update with this ... I'm Your Man + Recitation of A Thousand Kisses Deep.






Video - Where Is My Gypsy Wife Tonight?




Video Hallelujah (droning voice on the soundtrack is not from the band!)

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