June 2013 – Page 3

The You Show

One of the local politicians
has been involved
in personal scandal
after personal scandal.

He claims these scandals
aren’t interfering with his job.

They are.

Every leader makes bad or unpopular decisions.
That’s part of leading
and part of being human.

But when the media turns
from criticizing decisions
to criticizing a leader’s personal life,
that leader becomes a distraction.
He’s no longer representing
the people/company/brand.
He’s representing himself
and that’s not what his role is.

If you’re fielding more questions
about your personal life
than about your brand/company,
it may be time to step away
from a public leadership position.

The Cost Of Delegating

I no longer have time
to help one of my publishers
to load free reads.

This publisher found another person
to complete the task.
I agreed to train my replacement.

Ironically, this training cost me three hours.
I could have posted
three month’s worth of free reads
in the same amount of time.

This upfront time cost
is one of the issues
with delegating.

If we thought short-term,
no one would ever delegate.

But we aren’t thinking short-term.
We are building lasting businesses.
We pay this cost now,
knowing it will pay off for years.
It is an investment.

Delegate what you can
and allocate the time to training.

The Next Call To Action

Yesterday,
we talked about
how communications,
especially marketing messages,
should have a call to action,
the next steps for a prospect.

The calls to action
shouldn’t stop with the sale.
Your least expensive customer to obtain
is often a returning customer.

Before the feature presentation
at a movie theater,
previews of upcoming movies
are shown.
This is a call to action.
See the movie you purchased a ticket for
and THEN return
to watch this next movie.

I try to have the next story in a series written
before the current story releases.
When readers and reviewers talk about
how much they like a current release,
I tell them
they won’t want to miss the next release.

A real estate agent sold a friend
a great starter house.
She told this friend
that when she wanted to upgrade,
she’d be happy to handle her business
(upgrading being the call to action).
Every six months or so,
the real estate agent contacts my friend.

If you want customers for life,
the calls to action
shouldn’t stop with the sale.

Call To Action

I received an email
from a cover artist three days ago.
The email had my cover attached
and two words in the body
– final draft.

I received another email today
from the cover artist
telling me I was delaying the process
because I didn’t approve the final draft.

We do this all the time.
We ASSUME
people know the next steps.

We send out minutes for meetings
with no action steps detailed.

We send out marketing
with no buy links,
with no information
on what the prospect should do
if she’s interested.

If you want a response,
ASK for a response.

The Walmart Of Your Industry

I was talking with some authors
about branding
and one author declared
“I want to be the Walmart of writing.
I want to write anything
a reader wants to read.”

That’s an impossible branding
to achieve immediately
because even Walmart
didn’t start out
as the Walmart of today.

Walmart started with one store
serving one town.
Yep, Walmart was a niche store.
They focused on that store
and on that town
until the store was profitable.
THEN they expanded.

All large companies start
as niche companies.

Focus on your niche.

Steering The Ship

When I first joined
a large beverage company,
I was amazed by how many
passionate, committed environmentalists
and dietary activists
worked there.
They worked in all departments –
new product development,
marketing, sales, finance.

These unofficial activists
would push their beliefs
into every decision in the process.
I knew when pitching a new project,
I’d be asked for the impact
on the environment
and on people’s health.

So I’d design the project
to satisfy these two groups.

These few internal activists
have changed this huge company
significantly more than
the sign waving folks outside.

My grandpa always used to tell me
“It’s easier to steer the ship
from the inside.”

If you want to truly change an organization,
JOIN the organization.

Level By Level

My most recent romance release
debuted at around the 120,000 sales rank
on Amazon.
This debut was based upon my branding.

I then promoted my a$$ off
and
the story hit the 33,500 (roughly) rank.

At this point,
the story hit one of the top 100 in category lists.
Simply being on this list
(and being a solid story)
moved the story from 33,500 to 3,415.

If the story hits around 1,700,
it will hit one of the BIG top 100 lists
and this will propel the story
to the equivalent sales
of a New York Times best seller.

Success builds upon success
and this build isn’t linear.
It is exponential.

Concentrate on
moving to the next level.

McDonald’s Rumors

In Canada,
McDonald’s is running
a series of commercials
discussing the rumors around their food.

In the TV advertising,
a customer share a rumor
like
“I heard that bird beaks are cut off
and ground into the nuggets.”
Then a print message
tells viewers to visit the website
for answers.

Why the f*ck
is McDonald’s paying advertising dollars
to spread horrible rumors
about their products?
I hadn’t heard of many of these rumors
before the commercials launched
and they freak the hell out of me.

I also often have the TV on
as background noise
so all I hear
is the rumor repeated over and over again.
I don’t visit the website
to find out
if the rumors are true or not.

Don’t reinforce negative rumors
about your products.

Whatever It Takes

I thought I was hard working
until I read this article
about Rob Honeycutt.

For 13 years,
Rob Honeycutt,
founder of Timbuk2,
worked
more than 100 hours per week,
sewed through several fingers,
almost starved a few times
and lived out of his factory.

“I worked from home
for three years,
making every bag by hand.
By myself,
I could make
10 to 15 bags per day.
This was the late ’80s,
early ’90s
and the Internet wasn’t around yet,
so I would hand-draw pictures
of bags on fliers
and send them to bike shops
along the West Coast.
By 1993, I had about 50 bike shops
selling my bags.
I moved into a live/work space
just outside San Francisco
and hired one person.
I grew slowly from there,
but the biggest growth happened
when I hired good salespeople.”

Are you willing to do
whatever it takes
to make your dreams a reality?

Quitting Shouldn’t Be Easy

Today, I told a publisher
I’d no longer be submitting stories
on a set schedule.
Basically, I quit
but left the door open
to return.

Although this publisher expected me
to make this move,
actually making this move,
quitting,
made me sick to my stomach.
I worried about
whether or not it was the right move
for everyone.

Even after quitting,
I still worry about it.

And I strongly believe
that’s the way quitting should be.
Quitting should be difficult.
It should be the last resort.
It should be thought about.

If quitting was easy,
we wouldn’t finish anything.
We wouldn’t succeed.

Don’t worry
if quitting is difficult
for you.
Worry
if quitting is easy.