July 2013 – Page 3

Working In A Family Business

While we were kids,
my siblings and I
had a lawn mowing business.
At first,
we tried to do everything.
Everyone would make sales calls.
Everyone would design marketing materials.
It was chaos and ineffective,
frustrating us and customers.

We eventually split duties
based upon our skills.
We were happier.
Customers were happier.
The business boomed.

Marc Grondahl,
co-founder of Planet Fitness,
shares

“When we started out,
we were both doing the same things,
which we quickly learned wasn’t going to work.
We brought in consultants
in the late ’90s
and realized that we needed
to focus on our specializations.
For me that was accounting;
for Michael it was marketing
and the creative side of the business.

I recommend
other members of family businesses
do the same.
Make sure your roles are defined.
It makes life much better.”

While working in a family business
or heck, ANY business,
make sure roles are defined
AND not duplicated.

Making Marketing Personal

Whenever I hear about
someone going through a rough time,
I’ll reach out to them
and offer them a story from my backlist.
This marketing doesn’t cost much
yet it surprises and delights my readers.

Emma Siemasko,
Grasshopper’s content marketing specialist,
shares

“One goal is
targeting what makes each customer tick
—we try to find unique things
about our customers
so that when we send them gifts,
it’s personal.”

“A guest blogger, Lyn Graft,
told us he loved Swedish Fish,
so we sent him a huge package of them.
When we do this sort of thing,
customers love it,
and they tweet about us
and write about us on their blogs.”

When possible,
tweak your marketing so it is personal.

Managing Remote Workers

Since Yahoo announced their staffing changes,
there has been some debate over
whether or not remote workers are effective.

This is a big company debate.
For you and I
and many other entrepreneurs,
there’s no choice.
Remote workers,
contractors,
and
other partners working off-site,
are essential to our businesses.

We HAVE to learn how to manage them.
Part of this is learning
how to communicate effectively.

As Sarah Johnson
shares

“Use simple, actionable statements.
When sending email,
be clear, concise, and up-front
about why you are writing.
Do you want a response today?
Do you need the recipient
to make a decision?
Say so.
Avoid trying to be humorous
— and save the small talk for phone calls.

Speaking of the phone,
don’t be afraid to use it
after exchanging several emails
about one topic.”

You MUST learn how to manage
workers/contractors/business partners
who work off-site.

Emotions And Your Target Customer

Business is built upon emotions.

Seth Godin has a great post
on how emotion is a habit
(the more you love,
the more likely you are to love).

As we sell and market on emotion,
it makes sense to think about emotion
when we’re drafting up business plans
for new ventures.

One of the reasons
I write romance novels
is romance novels sell
love and hope and optimism.

My readers are looking for smiles and laughs.
They’re happy positive people.
Editors, publishers, reviewers
are also looking for happy ever afters.
We’re in the happiness business.

I’m surrounded by
love and hope and optimism
every freakin’ day
and it is the best feeling
in the world.

One of my buddies writes horror.
He loves being surrounded by
fear and surprise
and that creepy feeling
we’re not quite alone.
He thrives on these dark emotions.

Business builders like you and I
work long hours
and damn hard.
This is easier to do
when surrounded by emotions
we understand and enjoy.

Look at emotion
when evaluating business ideas.

Say Yes To Promo

Normally, I limit my marketing
to protect the writing.
If I don’t have a product to ship,
it makes no sense to market.

This month,
because of how important
this current release is
(if I don’t hit really high sale targets,
the publisher won’t contract
my already written second story),
I put marketing first.
I decided to say ‘yes’
to every zero financial cost marketing opportunity
that came my way.

I had a BLAST.
I went on blogs I’d never heard of.
I was interviewed.
My characters were interviewed.
My family members were interviewed.
One of my plants was interviewed.
I wrote short stories for charity events.
I wrote an article on strange things
I’ve found in backyards
(this DID tie into my story).

What did I learn?

There are almost unlimited opportunities
for people or businesses
with no money to spend on marketing.

I was missing out
on some great promo opportunities
because I was doing the promo
I’ve always done.

By opening myself to new promo venues,
I opened myself to new readers.

For a day, a week, a month,
consider saying ‘yes’
to any and all promotional activities.

Story Starter Press Releases

A month ago,
I was asked to craft a press release
for the story that released this week.

As I hadn’t crafted a press release
for the publishing industry before,
I asked a friend for advice.
She sent me a copy of the press release
her publisher had crafted for her.

It was dry,
very professional, yes,
but after reading it,
I wasn’t inspired to write a blog post
about the book release.
I couldn’t think of a topic
I’d write on.

And that’s the point with press releases
from smaller businesses and brands.
WE are not the story.
OUR news is not the story.
We’re not big enough to be a story.
Our press releases should be story starters.
Our ‘job’ is to suggest stories,
giving the media quotes to use in these stories.

How many hits did she get on this press release?
Two – from sites affiliated with the publisher.
And that’s too bad
because her book really was newsworthy.

My book isn’t as newsworthy
but I wrote a press release
jammed full of story ideas.
I referred to reality TV shows,
Fifty Shades Of Grey,
body image,
and quite a few other topics.
I’ve lost count of how many times
this little press release has been quoted.

Is your press release a story starter?

Must Be Win-Win

I’m looking for someone
to help me manage my street team
(i.e. superfans).
Someone I trust
is starting a business managing street teams.
She quoted me a price,
a $XX ONE time fee
for unlimited street team members.

I plan to have this street team
for three or four decades.
I also plan to eventually have
a HUGE street team.

This pricing makes no sense.
The manager won’t make any money.
Because she won’t be making money,
she likely also won’t be spending time
on managing my street team.

I renegotiated a fair annual price
dependent upon the number of members.
She’s happy
(and will be changing her fee structure
for all of her future clients)
and I’m happy.

Business relationships should be win-win.
Lose-win usually ends up as lose-lose.

Be A Disruptive Competitor

The best selling romance writers
are pressured to write the same stories
they’ve always written.
I don’t have any of that pressure.
I can write whatever I want,
whatever I think will sell.

Odds are…
you’re not the industry leader either.
The industry leader is confined by expectations.
If you’re a new company,
you don’t have these expectations.

Ron Ashkenas
shares

“As a company gets larger,
there is more pressure
to preserve the base business
and less willingness to cannibalize it
through innovative new offerings.
As a result,
at the very moment
when the company needs new sources of growth,
there is a tendency to play it safe
and focus more on
adapting existing products and services,
rather than breakthrough opportunities.
This not only opens the door
to potentially disruptive competitors,
but constrains moves into
whatever is perceived as “risky” territory.”

BE a disruptive competitive.
Go where the industry leader
dares not go.

Guest Posts Gone Wrong

I’ve started my massive blog tour
and I’ve seen a peculiar trend
in the blogosphere.

Some blog sites
are quarantining guest posts.
They’re putting guest posts
on a sub-domain,
giving them zero exposure
on the blog home page
yet marketing to guest post visitors
using the side bars.

I’ve also noticed that these bloggers
don’t promote the guest blogs
on their social media platforms.

In other words,
they’re taking the guest blogger’s content
and the links (readers) into the blog
and they’re giving nothing in return.

When I see this,
I don’t link to the guest post
and
I don’t promote the guest post.

Which completely defeats the purpose
of writing or hosting guest posts.

Relationships only work
if all parties benefit.
Give AND take.

Product Release Days

Today, my story with the big publisher releases.
I have nothing planned for today
except this book/product release.

In the past,
I’ve tried to accomplish other things
on book/product release days.
I’ve never accomplished
any of these other things
and this impossible to-do list has detracted
from the joy of the product release.

If your employees care about your company,
they won’t be doing anything
on your product release days either.
They’ll be scouring the internet for coverage,
asking the folks in shipping for sales updates,
telling their friends and family about your new product,
etc.

So why don’t you embrace this?
If possible,
have your employees focus on the release,
promoting the product,
creating excitement around it.

Product release days are rare.
Celebrate them.