The Business End

This past week has been filled with a number of great events. I am a big believer in perfecting your craft. That is exactly what I have been doing. No matter how good you are there is always room for improvement.

I like to take my surroundings and use them to the best of my advantage. Sort of like a business ninja. It’s not that I know anyone who is a ninja but the basic principle of using what you have immediately around you to achieve your goals is the ninja philosophy. (so I’ve heard)

What do I mean? Well in a previous post I described what a “life’s loser” was. It’s a pretty pathetic condition where someones role in life is to bring others down since they lack any real talents themselves. (Unfourtunately I know quite a few.) Well what happens when this affects you? How do you react when someone who is in an adult body but clearly an infant mind?

I have a client in Chicago with this very situation. The basic human nature is to just get upset. However, don’t waste your energy on a life’s loser. Get even and fight 100 times harder. It’s how you treat bullies when your young and it’s how you treat bullies who never grew up.

In my client’s case he is stuck working for a rude and mean boss. But what I tried to make him see was that he had a job to begin with when our unemployment rate is at the highest level since 1983. Instead of quitting I told him to practice his business ninja skills while getting paid. The main reason why I say this is because he will have a client when he is on his own that will no doubt be a real pain in the butt and you cannot just up and quit! This trial by fire approach will prove him well when a real issue arises.

Now about the part when I said fight 100 times harder. That does not really apply to him. He will get to fight back by showing he is succesfull. His boss does not pose any real threat.

I am specifically referring to people talking about you or doing things to stumble you up in your process. In this market there are some really desperate people.

Fight back and fight hard. I probably say this because of the Irish blood that runs through my veins.

Don’t put up with slander or someone trying to ruin your reputation.

Like I said, In this market you will find people who are truely desperate and sometimes mentally challenged. They will stop at nothing to bring you down. Don’t let them. Keep good records and if they screw up bad enough get the law involved. This is why we have court rooms and lawyers. If they want to fight, show them a good one.

I find that when this happens, while they are stupid enough to spend their energy to shut you down, business karma sets in and you will get more business because a true professonal always shines. No one wants to work with a child.

To my client in Chicago hang tough. It’s not as bad as it seems. the rest of you out there. Hang tough, there will always be someone to make you look bad when they are short on money and have no real talents. Fight them!

I’ll keep this post brief. I just had recent conversations with a number I people regarding business gadgets. I wanted to know what people use out there that helped them, truely!

I have used a number of tools from expensive crm tools to a piece of paper and a pen. I find that often times these cool apps often take up more time than one might initially think they do.

What is your favorite organizational tool?

Lately it seems the stock market has been more like a despair-market than anything else. It’s hard to look at your investments and see that things are dropping. I hear it from my folks all the time. “Do you know how much my 401k has dropped?”

So far today as of this writing it seems we are holding tight. After a 7% increase in the DOW yesterday, most felt that historically speaking we would just drop another 7% today. There is nothing wrong with optimism lets just hope it all stays up there.

Of course if you have nothing in the market then all of this means very little to you. I like to use it as a barometric indicator on how emotionally people feel about the economy. I find that when there is a sell off there tends to be people not willing to buy retail goods. At least in my own town.  I went to Northpark Center one night and noticed a ton of people but very few bags in hand. Then the market took an upswing and the human to bag-in-hand ratio went up significantly. There is in fact a certain psychology to how people buy. Having people tell the public that its doom and gloom sure does not help.

Well, lets hope we are moving forward in a growth pattern!