The Guaranteed Yes

The writing world
is brutally hard on self confidence
but, as all salespeople know,
you can’t sell without confidence
so what’s a writer to do?

She sets up a venue for
a guaranteed yes.

When I started writing,
that venue was blogging.
I knew that I could send a post
on business or travel
to a blogger,
and she’d think it was the greatest post ever written
(or at least say so,
’cause she was getting the content for free)
and it would be a guaranteed ‘yes, I’ll publish it.’

Currently, my guaranteed yes
is a publisher I’ve been working with
over the past year.
I know what stories they want.
I have the skills to write them.
I send them a story a month
and it is basically
a guaranteed yes
(with editing, of course,
all writers need to be edited).

This guaranteed yes
gives me the self confidence
to pitch other projects
to other publishers.

Can you set up
a guaranteed yes?

Published
Categorized as Sales

Copying A Product

One of my most successful stories
features a rabbit shapeshifter
(a woman who can turn into a rabbit).

Because it did very well,
I know of at least a dozen writers
who are writing stories
featuring bunny shifters.

My product is being copied.
Am I worried?
Yes but not for me.
I’m worried for the other writers.

Because the story wasn’t a success
simply because the heroine was a bunny shifter.

It was successful because
it had a policeman hero,
it had fantasy policeman scenarios,
it was as funny as hell,
it was book two of a very successful series,
it had a great title,
it had a great cover,
vampires die,
it had a LOT of sex in it,
AND
it had the ‘unusual’ bunny shifter heroine.

That’s the danger with copying a successful product.
You have to dig deep
and spend time to uncover
WHY it was successful.

Don’t copy products blindly,
expecting to copy their success.

Leading Organizations

One of my publishers
is run mostly on volunteers.
The publisher does the core work,
and authors volunteer to do the extra tasks.
I knew that when I submitted my first story there.
I knew what that meant.

If I wanted to be with that publisher long term,
I’d have to volunteer for a task.
Not only volunteer,
but lead
because leading is what leaders do.

I’m a busy gal.
I don’t have much extra time
so instead of waiting to be volunteered for something,
I looked at the projects,
deciding upon one that will be long lasting
but won’t take much time,
and I offered to lead that project.

All clientk readers
are either leaders
or leaders-of-the-future.
If you are part of an organization,
you will have a leadership role
in some way.
That is going to happen.

Don’t fight it.
Work with it.

Be proactive
and ask for the position you want.

Nothing Speaks Like Dollars

I was listening to a venture capitalist
talk about what gets him excited
over a new venture.
What was that magic thing?
Sales.
Cold hard cash coming in.

It didn’t have to be millions of dollars.
There simply had to be cash
he could see and touch.

I have been working on
a blog for a few years now.
I’ve been trying to get a loved one
to manage it for me.
He hemmed and hawed about it,
giving me excuse after excuse.

I recently showed him
a check from Google Adsense,
and now
magically,
he can’t wait to help me out.

Passion is great.
I wish I could get everyone interested
in my projects
based on passion alone.

But nothing speaks like dollars.
Have a project cash flow
and you will a lot of assistance.

Published
Categorized as Sales

If It Is Meant To Be…

My mom raised us
with the saying
“If it is meant to be,
it is up to me.”

Some people think this means
that if you care passionately about something,
YOU have to do it…
ALL.

Yikes, no.

I interpret it as…
if I care passionately about something,
I should find other people who care
about that same thing,
and organize them to get it done.

If it is a passionate topic,
you WILL find helpers,
and many of those helpers may be doers
but they may not be leaders.
So you take the tough job and lead.
You delegate the time consuming doing part
to your passionate helpers.

Use your leadership skills
to organize
and make a change in the world.

Raising An Entrepreneurial Kid

I grew up on a farm.
On a farm,
everyone works.
You start working at birth,
and you ‘retire’ at death.
Farming tends to be a family business
because that is what the kids know.

This is much the same
in an entrepreneurial family.
Trump’s kids have been in real estate
since birth.
He has included them
in the family business.
It is what they know.

My ten year old niece
shows a leaning towards business building.
I’m setting up a blog,
making it easy for her to post to,
and
slapping Adsense on it
so she makes some money.
I’ll nurture it for a couple of years
until she gets into the habit of posting
but I suspect by the time she’s 12,
it will be her baby.

It’ll cost less than $100
to set her up with her own business.
She might fail.
She might succeed.
But the key thing is…
I’ve encouraged her
and I’ve given her something that is hers.

Do your kids have their own business?
If not, why?

Passion And Running Russell Simmons

A loved one is anti-establishment.
He uses his different views
as a reason why
he can’t find a job in corporate.

That’s bullshit.

And it is proven as bullshit
by the racy show
Running Russell Simmons.
Russell Simmons’ executive assistant
is a devout vegan
and a PETA activist.
She has passionate views,
yet she found a corporate environment
where she not only survives
but thrives.

I don’t care if my loved one
ever finds a job in corporate.
I do care that he makes stupid excuses
for not doing so.

Passion will always find a place
for appreciation.

Hard Work And Royalty

One can become
very disgruntled
when watching reality shows.
Reality shows make the rich appear
to be given things,
to not have to work.
That is fantasy, not reality.

That is why
The King’s Speech is so refreshing.
Here is a King,
a man born to privilege,
yet we watch him struggle
to overcome a weakness.
He is never great
but, with hard work,
he ends up good.

The lesson?

“There’s no substitute for hard work.
You have to roll up your sleeves
and put the hours in
to get where you want to be,
even if you’re the King Of England.”

The Clarity Rules

has a presentation
of four other lessons learned
from The King’s Speech.

Mixing It Up

The last couple of episodes
of the hit series
Merlin
have been dark and serious.
Dark and serious
has impact
but it can be wearying.

Next week’s episode
has one of the secondary characters
taken over by an elf or gnome
or some being similar.
The show promises to be
light and silly.

And that is what
the audience needs.

If your messages to your prospects
are urgent, urgent, urgent,
serious, serious, serious,
your prospects will turn off.
No one can live in a state of emergency
constantly.

So mix it up.
Be serious when you need to be.
Be lighter at other times.

Published
Categorized as Marketing

The Customer Isn’t Always Right…

I went out to dinner
with my best bud yesterday.
We have specific preferences
that normally don’t cause problems.

Last night, they did.
The waitress,
a very nice woman,
argued about everything.

And she might have been right
but she wasn’t convincing us.

That’s the thing.
The customer may not always be right
but there is no way
you are going to convince
the customer she is wrong.

So don’t bother.
Nod, and move onto
the next customer,
the customer you do think is right.

Published
Categorized as Sales