According to the
Oxford English Dictionary Online
a money shot “is a
provocative, sensational,
or memorable sequence in a film,
on which the film’s commercial performance
is perceived to depend.”

In romance writing,
writers know that one hot, memorable scene
will not only sell a novel,
but make readers satisfied.
If there is no “money shot”,
there won’t be any sales.

With Apple products,
beautiful design is the money shot.
That is the feature
that sells their products.

No product is perfect
but every successful product
has a money shot.
Find out what your’s is
and market your product with it.

With small businesses
(and authors starting out),
I often see mission statements
(and themes)
used in marketing materials.

(winces)

Don’t.
Please don’t.
Your customer doesn’t care
about your mission statement.
Your mission statement is about you.
Customers care about themselves.
What is in it for them?

One of my author brands
stands for tolerance.
I don’t communicate this theme to readers.
EVER.

Why?

Because readers don’t buy romance novels on tolerance.
They buy love stories,
interesting character and worlds,
light-hearted entertainment.

Themes and mission statements
are for internal use only.

We all are dealing with information overload.
Our brains deal with this overload
by filtering information.

One filter is by the source of information
and whether or not
we trust it.

If I don’t trust someone,
I discard the information
they’re sharing outright.
I don’t investigate it.
I completely erase it from my brain.

On the flipside,
if I trust the source completely
and I’m in a rush,
I’ll act upon that information.

Turns out…
other people do that same thing.

A study performed by Martin Lindstrom
for his book
Brandwashed
shows that
“Deep trust is communicated
subconsciously.
It’s rarely expressed explicitly,
nor is imparted loudly
or didactically.
To trust deeply
not only can change our minds,
but it has the power
to alter our most ingrained behaviors.”

If you’re a trusted source,
people will act upon your information.
Think before you speak.

When I was younger,
I didn’t talk about my failures often.
I didn’t like the “poor you” comments
I received
when I talked about failure.
It made me feel like I did something wrong.

A few years ago,
a loved one failed
and I told him
“Try again. You can do it.”

His response?
“Fine for you to talk.
You always succeed.”

THAT was when
I realized
I wasn’t doing anyone any favors
by hiding my failures.

As Siimon Reynolds
in Why People Fail says
failure is a “forbidden subject.
We’re not supposed to fail
and if we do,
we’re supposed to hide it from everybody.
It gives people the wrong impression
about what it takes to be successful.”

Talk about your failures,
especially to the people you’re mentoring.
Take the shame out of this vital part
of being successful.

I hear this… a lot.
And when I respond
with “Get a new job”,
I get a lot of weak-assed excuses.

Steve Tobak has a better response.
(this post on workplace myths
is AWESOME)

“For one thing it’s work,
not happy hour.

Also it’s a free country.
You get to decide
what you want to do for a living
and where you work.

Isn’t that enough?

Sure, the economy sucks.
So if you’ve got a crappy job or
a boss who’s a jerk,
you’re sort of stuck for a while.
Sometimes it’s worse than others,
but the economy is cyclical and
it’s been that way forever.

Besides, if you think your company is hell,
your boss is the devil, and
your coworkers are political, backstabbing creeps,
there’s a fair chance that it’s you.
Nobody wants to believe
they’re the problem.”

If your job sucks,
either change your job
or change YOU.

Few of us
get a new skill perfect
the first time
we try it.
We KNOW that.
We expect it.
We don’t need others
to point out
how imperfect our first try was.

What we need is encouragement
to try again.

Steve Roesler shares

“Transitions and change imply,
by definition,
that people are trying something
for the first time.
When your little child
tried out her first steps
and fell after the third one,
you didn’t offer a performance appraisal.
You hugged her, made a big fuss,
took a video,
and called the grandparents.

Offer the same to adults
who are trying something
for the first time.
Truth be told,
they are feeling like kids at that moment.”

Don’t critique that first try.

Wal-Mart has announced a new contest
aimed at Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses
called Get on the shelf.

This is an American Idol type competition.
If you already have a Wal-mart appropriate product,
it requires nothing more
(no entry fee)
than a video.

Why is Wal-Mart doing this?

As per Chris Bolte,
vice president of @WalmartLabs,
“At the end of the day,
we’re hoping to uncover products
that we haven’t been looking at
and give consumers a voice
about what Wal-Mart carries.”

This is a GREAT opportunity
if Wal-Mart is part of your world domination plan.
No guts, no glory!
Make that video and enter today!

I had a discussion yesterday
with one of my buddies
about whether or not white folks were ever slaves
in the U.S.

She insisted they weren’t,
that slavery was not a white issue.

I knew that not only were the Irish enslaved
but they were valued less than African slaves
because they were cheaper to obtain.

So I told her to Google the subject.
She was shocked and dismayed
with the results
and she asked me why no one ever told her.

Exactly.
Why with all the focus on slavery
and civil rights
did no one ever tell her
these issues applied to everyone?
That we’re all more alike
than we are different?

What IS said can be questioned.
What ISN’T said is much more dangerous.

Do your own research.
Don’t accept another person’s truth blindly.

At the American Express Open booth,
the giveaways
included popcorn and cupcakes.
These weren’t branded with American Express logos.
They were branded with the logos
of the small local companies
supplying the giveaways.

The unspoken message?
American Express puts small business first.

Which is what the brand stands for.

They didn’t have to say it.
They didn’t have to advertise it.
The people who cared
about that branding
noticed.

Walk the talk.
Be the company
your brand proclaims you are.
People WILL notice.

Joe Kane, electronic imaging pioneer
and creator of A Video Standard,
presented the first true gray screen
at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show.

This screen greatly reduces
the amount of time
spent in post production
and color correction
because everyone in the viewing room
views the picture the same way.

If I’m seated in the middle of the room
and I say the flesh tone is natural,
my buddy standing against the wall
also sees the same natural flesh tone.

There’s no dissension,
and
no time needed to prove what I see.

If you need a project to move quickly,
one of the easiest ways to accomplish this,
is to ensure everyone sees
the problem and solution in the same way.
We give them a common vision.