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It’s the Digital Age – Ethically Speaking, Things Here Are Different

October 20, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

As arrogant occupants of 21st-century Earth, who can rightly boast of creating exciting innovations, like the computer, talking paint, and the margarita blender, it serves us to believe we’re also the more enlightened generation.

But honesty demands an acknowledgment that contemporary applications of wisdom, morality and ethical behavior are in fact derivative of concepts first proposed long ago by the ancients.

Consider the 10,000-year-old Chinese wisdom, I Ching, The Book of Changes. Then there are the 5,000-year-old Upanishads from India. And of course, the new kid on the block, the four-millennia-old Mosaic Laws (Thou shalt not …). Indeed, no wisdom is handier than that of King Solomon, from the first millennium BCE in Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and the Psalms.

It must be noted that much of this awesome introspection and self-awareness was first contemplated at a time when receding Ice Age glaciers were still carving Scotland’s Loch Ness and the Great Lakes of North America, on the threshold of the written word.

Alas, ethically and morally speaking, we moderns are merely the new models, not necessarily the better ones. Hold that thought. [Continue Reading]

The Archenemy of Fear Is Performance

October 15, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

Anyone who has contemplated forsaking the perceived, if not real, security of employment to start a small business has come face-to-face with and overcome the greatest of all business challenges: the fear of failure. Countless would-be entrepreneurs have discontinued their self-employment pursuits for fear of losing too much – the risk being just too great. Everybody knows that.

But if you pushed through these trepidations and, against all odds, became a business owner anyway, you know that wasn’t the last time you experienced fear. Indeed, fear is so much a part of being a business owner that, in time, we recognize and accept fear as something that can be quite handy.

Not paralyzing fear, like when you’re ignorant of how to prevent or recover from danger. But rather the kind of fear that helps you seek excellence. The kind that motivates you to become more aware, knowledgeable, capable, prepared, decisive, and effective.

Remember these two things about fear: 1) it’s a shape-shifter, capable of appearing in many forms; and 2) successful entrepreneurs learn how to recognize and deal with fear in all its shapes. Let’s look at some of the manifestations of fear, followed by what each one might sound like. [Continue Reading]

“Customers from Hell” and the #1 Business Fundamental

October 6, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

“This is for one of those customers from hell.”

That’s what a small business owner said to me during one of my road trips across the country to check on how things are going out on Main Street.

“Ann” was responding to my query about her business. Her full answer was closer to, “Business has been good. But now I’ve got to spend most of the day dealing with this customer from hell.”

Turns out, what caused this customer’s alleged domicile to be mentioned is because they required a lot of extra attention – they wanted things the way they wanted them. Like Ann, you might be surprised at my response, which is our next “Business Fundamental.”

“You should never have a customer from hell.” [Continue Reading]

“No Problem,” The Vuvuzela Of Customer Service

September 29, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

“No problem.”

That’s exactly what the young man on the phone at the bank said after thanking him for not being able to answer my question.

He didn’t say, “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be of more assistance,” or “I’ll be happy to take a message.” Instead, he slouched into the verbal scourge of the 21st-century marketplace: when an employee serving a customer says, “No problem.”

In addition to the sound being harmonically dissonant to a customer’s ear, “No problem” is also cognitively dissonant to the Universe because of its misuse in the following two service scenarios, both inappropriate and unprofessional: [Continue Reading]

Implications of the Pandemic Workforce Diaspora on Corporate Culture

September 20, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

“Frankly, I’m amazed at how well we’re working right now. We’ve experienced zero drop in performance.”

That quote, and variations of it, came from several CEOs during the second half of 2020, in response to my question: “How have your teams performed so far during the lockdown?” These CEOs were guests on my weekday, syndicated radio program, “The Small Business Advocate Show.” In fact, they were so pleasantly surprised that one executive even asked rhetorically, “Tell me again why we’re spending $5million a year on office rent?”

For date context, that was the initial period when the marketplace was essentially locked down, and the workforce was sent home in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Overnight, millions of workers across the globe started working remotely and, ready or not, subsequent teamwork, collaboration and meetings were conducted in the two-dimensional digital domain, like on a Zoom call.

Based on the answers to my question, it seemed that this emergency, once-in-a-career, global workplace disruption had revealed some previously unknown magical management formula [Continue Reading]

Lest We Forget – The Moments That Changed America

September 15, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

Concluding my live broadcast at exactly 8:58:50am EDT that Tuesday morning of September 11, 2001, was no different from the previous 198 Tuesdays since I started The Small Business Advocate Show in 1997. With the unremitting ticking of the clock, every weekday at the same moment, I transitioned from my on-air world to my off-air life. A talk show is an imprecise activity conducted in a precise environment.

Having conducted half-hour interviews with four different small business experts, as if it were just another day, we discussed marketing, communication skills, a survey about computer usage, and salesmanship. Tax rebates were hitting mailboxes, as the economy continued to be the big news.

There were errands to run, so by 9:02am, I was turning the key in the ignition of my Crown Victoria. Our world is filled with familiar sounds from which we receive information and sometimes comfort: in one second the sound of the engine told me it was okay to engage the transmission, and in the next, the voice of the radio announcer gave me subliminal comfort that the outside world was still there and reporting in.

But with the next tick of the clock, the content of the news registered, and I learned that as I was wrapping up my last interview at approximately, 8:45am EDT, a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Without moving a tire I turned off the engine and went back inside to turn on the news.

Barely five minutes after the hour, horrific images came into focus [Continue Reading]