November 2009 – Page 2

The Big Bad Corporation

I spent today
listening to person after person
slice into a large corporation.

They talked about this corporation
as though it had no soul,
no face,
no feelings.

You and I know that’s not true.

Corporations,
even those on the Fortune 500 list,
consists of people,
hundreds, or thousands of people.
Each one of these people works there
for a reason.
For many of them,
that reason isn’t just money.
They believe in the organization.
They believe in the product.
They believe in what the company stands for.

So when you attack the company,
you’re attacking these employees.

Next time,
you diss a big organization,
remember that it is not faceless.

Professional Organizations

A professional organization
recently kicked out
the industry leader
for breaking the rules.

Dumbness.

Because that is what industry leaders do.
They break the rules.
They CREATE the rules.

The response of the industry leader
re: being kicked out?
Didn’t even warrant a press release.
They are busy creating wealth
and innovating.

Next time you catch yourself
wondering
if you might get kicked out
of your professional organization
for trying something,
remember…
industry leaders are NOT
hobbled by this restriction.

Neither should you.

Listen More Closely To Family

When a loved one recently got married,
I gave her this piece of advice
‘Assume your husband comes from
a different planet.’

No, not because he is strange
but because
if she believes she knows nothing
about her loved one,
she will ask more questions
and listen more closely.

The more alike we are,
the more we assume
the other person
will make the same decisions.
We stop listening.
We stop asking questions.
That usually leads to disaster.

This is especially true
when working with family.
We believe we know
our mother/brother/cousin/niece.
We forget that people,
even our loved ones,
are complex and often irrational.

Success Magazine has
some more great tips
on running a successful magazine.

The Meeting Free Executive Position

I was recently approached
about an executive position
for a non profit organization.

The pitch was…
I got a project
(great, I love projects).
I got a budget
(great, money makes more things possible).
I could make all the decisions
(great, I prefer that).
I had to keep the executives in the loop
(that’s what the cc function
on emails are for).
I had to attend the monthly executive meetings.
(WTF?)

Supposedly the last stipulation
was so I could have input
on other people’s projects.
Why?
I don’t know.
The project I was being assigned
had enough work attached to it.

I said “No, thank you.”

Meetings are a time suck
I’d rather do
so if I can do without meetings,
that’s the volunteer position
I sign up for.

If you’re a volunteer organization,
offer some positions
that are meeting free.
You’ll get more high quality volunteers.

Believing In Your Product

I’m currently doing edits on a book
that I’m not happy with.
My publisher likes it.
My editor likes it.
I’m not happy with it.
I don’t think it is good enough.

If I’m not happy with it
by the time
we have to make the publish or not call,
I will pull it.

Why?

Because like many entrepreneurs,
authors are the creators, marketers,
and salesmen
for their products.
If you don’t believe in your product,
it is VERY difficult
to sell it to other people.

As BrainCram states
“How will you persuade them
that what you are offering will meet their need
if you don’t have at least the same level of confidence
in what you are offering?”
(them being the customer)

That’s why Believe in What You are Doing
is one of BrainCram’s
Top 10 Tips For Successful Entrepreneurship

Shimmer Lotion And Twilight

Yesterday I hunted for an hour
for shimmer lotion.

Shimmer lotion was popular
a few years ago.
This moisturizer with sparkles in it
(a simple twist on an existing product)
was a seasonal (Christmas) fad.

That fad is back.

I tease a 37 year old loved one
about being my Edward.
I wanted to give him shimmer lotion
as a joke present
so he could sparkle like that Twilight vampire.

Very few stores had it.
Not one store made the connection
to Twilight/vampires.
Sure, no one wants to pay
licensing fees
but there are ways to market
a product
without smacking the Twilight name on it.

It is a wasted opportunity.
The product exists,
it simply has to be brought back
from the dead
(pun intended)
and marketed.

Keep a database
(the database sometimes resides
in the brain of a long time employee)
of existing and dead products.
Re-use these already developed products
as much as possible.

The Greatest Leadership Sin

Leadership Blog
has summed up Drucker’s
Seven Deadly Leadership Sins.

The most deadly?

Pride.

“The sin of pride
is usually considered
the most serious of the seven deadly sins.”
Being proud of one’s accomplishments is one thing.
“The problem comes
when leaders believe themselves so special
that ordinary rules no longer apply.
Generalized pride
—as opposed to being proud of specific things—
is the most serious leadership sin
because it can easily lead to the other six.”

Innovators, thankfully, have a
natural neutralizer for this sin.
It is called failure.
If you innovate,
you will fail.
If you never fail,
you don’t innovate
enough
(i.e. you’ve failed at innovating).

I remember that
every time I get a little too full of myself
(which is not often
as I fail on a regular basis).

The Entrepreneur As Goalie

While the center may get all the glory,
the goalie is one of the most important
players on any hockey team.
Every defenceman is taught to
‘protect the goalie.’

However much he is protected,
at the end of the game
the goalie is usually covered in bruises.
He plays the entire game.
He places his body in front of the puck.

Mike Zaya, chief executive of Printrunner,
says entrepreneurs are the goalies
of start ups
“You end up being the goalie of the company,
and the goalie has to sacrifice their body.”
“You have to be the first man in
and last man out on any given day.”

There are benefits to being an entrepreneur
but there are costs also.

The Power Of Unlimited

I host this blog
with Hostgator.
Hostgator offers
unlimited sites, unlimited space for $7.95/mth.

That is powerful,
especially for a marketer.

Why?

Because the cost of testing
an additional online site
is the cost of a domain name
and the time to set up the test.

Hostgator knows that
we can’t manage infinite an number of sites.
The sites one user can run
is naturally capped.

But we CAN test
many, many different concepts.

THAT is the power of unlimited.
It takes away a restriction completely.

30% Of What?

Harlequin Enterprises has launched
an eBook only division,
Carina Press.

Some authors are in a tizzy
about the royalty rate
Carina will be offering,
‘outraged’
that it may only be 30% of selling price
compared to 35 or 40%
offered by some other eBook publishers.

Without knowing volume or selling price,
this is foolishness.
If Carina sells double the volume of books
at the same price,
I’ll happily take a 10% decrease
in my royalty rates.

Sales should be compared
on total profitability,
not on components.

Know how you’re getting paid.