Here They Go Again
A few months ago I complained about a photo on the front page of Pacific Business News showing an empty Honolulu Airport along with the shocking quote; “It’s worse than after 911.” The photo was obviously taken when the airport was closed.
Well, the front page of this week’s PBN shows an empty Waikiki Beach. The long shadows of the palm trees are a dead giveaway as to how early in the morning this photo was taken. It motivated me to go to that same spot this afternoon and shoot the one below:

A Different Spin
In this issue PBN reports that we have a 13% drop in visitors. What if the headline were to read:

87% Still Coming To Hawaii
And the subsequent article was to say something like;
“In spite of the doom and gloom projections about the mainland economy we are still enjoying a tourism count equal to 87% of last years record number of visitors to Hawaii. Even more exciting is the fact that these are people who are not concerned about the price of gasoline, hotel rooms or airline tikets. We are seeing the cream of the crop, and yes they are spending money.”
I say, “Knock off the negative sensationalism.” That’s how to make things better.

Even More People
There was no let up in shopping as the Made In Hawaii Festival went into its second day. People came early and stayed late. It was a chore to work your way up or down any of the aisles in either of the two Blaisdale buildings.

Is Traffic All You Need?
If traffic was all that’s needed to insure success, no one could fail in this environment. However,  traffic isn’t enough all by itself. The behavior of the person seen by those making up the traffic is an even bigger factor.

“It’s So Slow”
When asked how the show was, I assure you that some will say, “It was so slow.” This “salesperson” sitting and reading something while in the midst of this heavy traffic may as well have been out in the desert all alone. People will not stop and interupt someone that is engrossed in something else. To get busy, get busy.

Day One of Three
The opening day of this year’s Made in Hawaii Festival attracted huge numbers of people there for one reason, and one reason alone; to buy stuff!

Pictures Worth 1,000 Words
It was elbow to elbow today at both Blaisdale buildings today.

27 Years Ago
That’s when IBM introduced its first personal computer.

Then came:
Bill Gates
The Internet
The Mac
Steve Jobs
Floppy Discs
Hard Drives
Windows
The iPod
CD ROMs
E-mail
E-commerce
Instant messaging
The dotcom boom
The dotcom bust
Mobile phones
PDAs
Notebook Computers
Digital Cameras
Computer viruses
GPS
Google
My Space
iPhone
Cloud computing
YouTube
IBM drops out of the PC business

Time Flies!
Are you keeping up?

It All Starts at the Top

This latest PBN article credits the monthly Chief Executive Magazine with the opinion that CEO confidence in the American economy took a nose dive in June, and quoted its publisher Edward Kopko as saying, “CEOs are clearly negative on the economy and they expect things to get worse before they get better”.

I know more than one CEO with a better outlook than this, and I would like to see PBN search for some optimistic views to publish. The “chicken little the sky is falling” mentality becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. The positive side of that coin is that the opposite is true as well. Decide which side feels better, and give that your thoughts and energy. Thoughts are things!

If there is anyone in the organization that needs to have confidence in the future it’s the boss. When the CEO loses confidence, the company is doomed. Leave that to the naysayers in the media that never ran a business. Someone needs to display a show of strength in tough times and that should be the person at the top. I’m sure you have heard the old saying, “When the going gets tough…” 

Who Gets In?
I have the opportunity to meet and watch numerous salespeople selling various items under all sorts of circumstamces. One thing that remains constant is the top sellers. It is common see the same people at the top month after month, even though they are selling the same product at the same prices to the same types of customers as everyone else is. If you were to put these top sellers all together you would quickly see that they are quite different, just as those at the bottom are. They have different looks, personalities, ambitions, educations, and different approaches to selling. They also have some things in common, and these are things that are oftentimes missing in those that are consistently farther down in the rankings. At the top of the list is how they measure up attitude wise.

Winning Attitude
This is the biggie! Top salespeople manage to maintain a positive attitude and determination to sell in spite of whatever else is going on around them. They blow off the constant rejection from customers and negativity from low producing colleages. They never allow non buyers to steal their enthusiasm or self esteem. They convert rejection and negativity into added determination to succeed. They make up for missed sales with added sales later in the day or month.
If your ambition is to be a top seller, give yourself a “Check Up from the Neck Up” every day. Keeping the right attitude will get you to the right altitude!

Negative HeadLines Get Attention
Today’s on-line Pacific Business News featured a story starting with the above headline. Many people just read the headlines, and reading this one might cause one to buy into the negative projections and stories so popular in the press these days. Those reading beyond the headlines saw this first paragraph.

“The optimism level among owners of small businesses continues on a five-quarter decline, according to latest results of a quarterly Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index reported Tuesday.”

Are you depressed yet? If not, the next five paragraphs consisted of “doom and gloom” opinions and comments in this Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index.

The Good News Gets Lost
And as is so often the case, the good news came at the very end. Those who read to the end saw this closing sentance, “Additionally, 94 percent of respondents said they feel successful being a small business owner, virtually unchanged from all prior quarters.”

I just cannot understand how such facts deserve a headline like the one above. I’d love to see that last sentance be the headline, but then again, maybe nobody would read it.
Bad news always has been the best seller.

Micro-Manage Your Success
Six long (very long) years have gone by since President Bush landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and announced, (and I quote verbatim), “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.”
 
3,924 members of the U.S. military have died since that staement. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed since that declaration and millions have been displaced from their homes. And there are currently more U.S. troops in Iraq than there were when the U.S. invaded with a contingent of other coalition forces.

This Blog post is not about politics or the war in Iraq; that’s just a great example of a self serving, pre-mature declaration of success. This message is about getting a job done, and done right. We would all like to declare victory early. Managers often times think they have achieved a mission as soon as they have delegated it to someone to do. When delegating a task, the arm of responsibility remains connected to the delegator. YOUR JOB is not done until THE JOB is done.

When you ask someone to do something, you need to check and see if it was done, on time and right! You cannot “ass/u/me” you did the job when you delegated it.

Some may call this “micro-management”; I consider that an over used term for “management”. Another well used expression is “You must inspect what you expect”. Not doing so can lead to failure and embarrasment.

Negativity Sells - Don’t Buy It!
Bad News overshadows Good News. It has always been that way. There is always as much positive news as negative, it just doen’t make headlines. People console themselves in others troubles to feel better. In the process they “buy in” to the troubles and end up taking them on board as well. When you read about econonic problems, or hear the dreaded “R Word”, say, “I choose not to participate in that”.
Say, “No” to the negativity, and search for positive evidence that you do not have to participate.

These were among yesterday’s headlines in Pacific Business News alone.

Hawaii Medical Center to cut 89 jobs
 
Aloha cargo shutdown strands businesses
 
Hawaii job loss count hits 2,659 

Foreclosures rise, but still few in Honolulu
 
Honolulu jobless rate 2.7% in March 

Cost of long-term care rises in Hawaii 

Countrywide posts 1Q loss of $893M 

Web woes at Alaska-Horizon airlines
 
Even millionaires feeling the pinch
 
Consumer confidence lowest since March ‘03
 
Aloha shuts down cargo operation; 400 out of work; Neighbor Island freight grounded 
Give Us A Break!
I have just returned to Hawaii after giving 11 motivational talks to 8 companies in 6 cities in 14 days. My message was, “Refuse to participate in pessismistic outlooks. Look for positive evidence that abundance still exists. Rather than focus on the 2.7% that are unemployed, think about the 97.3% that are employed. Look around for the person leading the way in your company and focus on him or her. Think about the store within your chain that is doing the best and shoot for that. Get your heads out of the newspaper and out in the sunshine. IT IS STILL out there!”
I have been in Hawaii through two hurricanes and 911. I was able to see how different companies reacted to these disasters. For some it was a blip on the chart; others are still reeling from the impact. It’s all in your head. Keep your head out of the mud and you will see the daylight.

Have a SENSE of URGENCY
Last night (late last night) my wife asked me to do something with a piece of her art on this Blog. I got right up and headed to my office. She said, “You don’t have to do it now, just be sure to remember it”. My reply was, “Doing things now is my way of remembering to do them”. It only took me a few minutes to do it. It is so easy to put off doing things that are not urgent, and then when a bunch of them become urgent all at once it’s “stress time”. You may even find yourself being in a state where you have so much to do that you do nothing at all.

Overload
Things done under stress are just not done as well. That’s one of the things I love about Sundays. That’s my creative day; it’s the day nobody is asking me to do something. It’s the day that I had “time” to write all of my books. It’s a great day for me to get things done, and done well.
Today’s technology has provided us with many tools to be organized, and remember to do things. Outlook Reminders for example will put an intended “to do task” in your face as often as you want it to. The problem with these high tech programs is that they also make procrastination as easy as accomplishment. With the click of a key you can move a task that you wanted to do this morning to tomorrow morning, then the next, and the next, until it becomes urgent and you HAVE TO Do It Now.
In Success Made Easy I say, (something like) “It takes less time to do it than to decide if to do it”. Or, as the late great W. Clement Stone said, “When deciding when to do something, just DO IT NOW!” That works for me. Give it a try.