Resting On Your Laurels

I finally have a half decent selling story
under one of my pen names,
one of those breakout hits.

I REALLY wanted to kick back this weekend
and relax.
I didn’t.
I’m writing this post at 2 am
because I had to get another story done
and two cover art requests out.

I have a success today
but the success I have tomorrow
depends on the hard work I do now.

Usually once success finally happens,
it is after a lot of hard work.

The temptation is to then
rest on your laurels.
You’ve earned your success.
Sit back and enjoy it.

The thing is…
success is fleeting.
Continuing that success
requires continuing that same hard work

Unfortunately,
that means no resting,
no sitting back and enjoying it.

Hard Work Isn’t Enough

BNet has a great interview
with Jeffrey Pfeffer,
a Professor of Organizational Behavior
at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

He talks about power and success.

“Keith Ferazzi, the famous marketing guru,
told my class once—and he’s right—
you are not responsible for your own success.
Your burning ambitions,
or even your hard work,
won’t make you successful.
What will make you successful
are those people higher up
who have power over your career.
Your job is to make them want to make you successful.
And part of that is hard work and good performance,
but part of that are the relationships
that you build with them.
That’s why hard work isn’t enough.”

My latest story,
under one of my pen names,
is flying off the virtual shelves.
It is a good story.
I’m marketing it hard.
It is tapping into a few reader needs.

But what is REALLY helping sales
is that a major author likes me
and likes the story.
She is going out of the way
to pimp the story.

Hard work is necessary
but it isn’t enough.

The Hard Myth

There are two myths
in new product development.

One is that process is
supposed to be easy.
It should be natural.
It should flow.
The first hiccup is a signal
that you should quit.

The other is that the process is
supposed to be hard.
Every part of new product development
is a struggle.
Don’t expect anything to go your way.
You have to force yourself
to work on the product.
If it is easy,
it means you’ve missed something.

The easy myth is… well… easy to disprove.
Nothing happens without some effort.

The hard myth is more challenging to disprove.
I find, from my own experience,
that if every step, every action
in a product’s development
is a fight and a struggle,
then it usually is an indication
that I’m forcing a product
no one wants.

In other words,
the product is doomed.

New product development
is neither all easy
nor all hard.

Interests And Hobbies

One of the most underutilized
sections of a resume
is Interests and Hobbies,
that section stuck
at the end of the document
which many of us
think of as filler.

It isn’t.

One of my buddies,
competing against hundreds of grads
straight out of college,
landed the single spot
at a Fortune 500 company
because he touted his skills
with a yo-yo in the Interests And Hobbies section.

Yes, he had all the other skills
they were looking for
but so did hundreds of other candidates.
Turns out the manager also had an interest
in the yo-yo.

Yesterday,
I heard that an interviewing manager
simply HAD to meet a candidate
based on her Interests And Hobbies section.
The candidate filled it with silliness,
the creme de la creme being
“Eating Cheese Bagels”
as one of the lines.

Yes, once again,
the candidate filled all the other requirements
but so did hundreds of other candidates.
The manager feels that
if her unique Interests And Hobbies section
is due to her sense of humor,
then she is a person
he’d like to work with.

Interests And Hobbies
can set you apart from other candidates.
Use this section to your advantage.

Letting Dogs Starve

Under one pen name,
I have 8 stories
now available for sale.

One of these stories
is an absolute dog sales-wise.
It is a well written story
but it doesn’t appeal to readers.

The temptation is
to lavish my marketing on this miss
in an attempt to boost sales
so I’m not ’embarrassed’ by the failure.
Yep, that clearly is pride talking.

The better use of marketing dollars
is to invest in the stories
that are selling well,
stories readers actually want,
stories that are EASY to market.

Of course,
this logical approach means
admitting I made a mistake
and killing a product (i.e. story).
It takes big ones to do that
but then… it takes big ones to be successful.

If you have limited marketing resources…
Starve your dogs.
Shine your stars.

Published
Categorized as Marketing

Mattering Is A Decision

Scott Ginsberg has a post
on how to be heroic.

His first point
“Decide to matter”
says it all.

Mattering is a decision.
Being great is a decision.
Success is a decision.

It isn’t one single, large decision.
It is a collection of little decisions.
Each of these decisions
may look insignificant on its own
but when added together,
they ARE significant
and they DO matter.

That is why goals are important.
They allow you
to make all these little decisions quickly
without being dragged into
paralysis analysis.

Make a goal of mattering
then align each decision with that goal.

Taylor Swift, Kanye West, And Knowing Your Foe

The drama between Kanye West and Taylor Swift
is a clear example
of knowledge being power.

Kanye West blew it last year
with his rant
re: teenage Taylor Swift not deserving an award.
He didn’t know how old Taylor was.
He didn’t know this was her first win.
He didn’t know the loyalty of her fans.

He recently tried to make amends by
stating he’d write a song for Taylor.
Taylor Swift prides herself on her song writing.
Offering to write a song
for a song writer
is the equivalent of giving her the finger.

At Sunday’s VMA’s,

Taylor performed a song she wrote
about the Kanye West incident.
She didn’t mention names
but the references to Kanye were clear.
She knew his age.
She knew his songs.
She knew his history.

She did her research.
Kanye didn’t.
Round two went, once again, to Taylor Swift.

Know your foes.
Know your competitors.
Heck, know your allies.

This is the information age.
There is no justification for ignorance.

Published
Categorized as Marketing

Shiny Objects

I attended a seminar
on writing young adult novels.
I have no interest
in writing young adult novels.
I went because I adored the presenter
and wanted to show my support.

I left wanting to write
a young adult novel.

That would be great
except that I have a plan for my writing,
a very full plan,
a I-don’t-have-a-minute-to-spare plan.
Writing a young adult novel
would mean rewriting my plan.

The problem with most new business developers
is that we love, love, love
launching new products
and playing with fresh ideas
and…
well…
the newest, shiniest object.

Part of being a GREAT product developer
is having the strength
to ignore that shiny object,
to stick to our plans.

Create a plan
and stick to it
unless it is no longer feasible.
Believe me,
there will be more shiny objects
available to play with
AFTER you’re done with your plan.

Rankings And Advertising

I recently advertised
(for no dollars
but it still cost time)
on a third party book reseller’s site.

This reseller has real-time rankings
which is lovely
for advertisers
because we can see immediately
whether or not
the program is working.

In my case,
it didn’t.
I know not to use that venue again.

Yes, there are other factors
but if your ranking doesn’t increase at all,
odds are
your advertising didn’t work at all.

So if you’re drafting up an advertising program
and you want to test results,
include a site or… say… use Google keyword results
with some sort of rankings.

Published
Categorized as Marketing

Quran Burning And The Power Of The Individual

2010 is the year of the individual.
Nothing proved that better
than a small town pastor
with a 50 member congregation
causing a world incident.

Of course,
this pastor gave the media
what they were looking for.
He supplied drama.
He incited front page protests.
He almost caused a war
(and nothing sells more newspapers
than a war).

He showed us jaded marketers
that if we give the media
what they want,
they’ll cover our events.

So don’t say you can’t get media coverage.
If a small town pastor
can become a world wide media figure,
you can surely snag some eyeballs.

Published
Categorized as Marketing