Month: May 2014

Jacquelyn Smith
shares

“Successful people want
others to succeed.
Unsuccessful people secretly hope
others fail.
“When you’re in an organization
with a group of people,
in order to be successful,
you all have to be successful,”
Kerpen explains.”

People judge you
by the company you keep.
If your buddies are all successful,
you will look
and likely become
more successful.

Has your social maven buddy
worked her a$$ off
and gained a million Twitter followers?
Congratulations!
By being supportive,
you now have access to a million people!

Has your co-worker won an award?
Congratulations!
Everyone in your department
including yourself
is now in the spotlight.
Make the most of this time.

Success creates success.
It doesn’t have to be your success
that starts the reaction.

Mike Periu
shares
“I was recently asked:
What is the greatest mistake
first-time business owners make
right at the launch of their businesses?

There are enough mistakes
to fill several books,
but in my experience
the business killer is
focusing on profitability.
This may seem counterintuitive,
as being profitable should be
the goal of any business.
But this goal usually comes
at the expense of something more important:
cash flow.
Managing your cash is
by far the single most important factor
in business success.
No amount of sales or profits
can save a business
from having insufficient cash flow.”

I can attest to this.
I drafted the financials
for many new businesses.
Even for brand extensions
within one of the largest beverage companies
in the world,
I drafted cash flow statements.

Yes, we looked at regular income statements also
but the cash flow projections
were the most perused,
the most heavily debated.
(If the cash wasn’t used for the brand extension,
it could have been used elsewhere.)

In my own business,
even though I’m a professional accountant,
I only update the formal accounting statements
once a year.
The cash flow statements are usually updated
daily.

Run out of cash
and your business is in trouble.
Focus on cash flow.

Last week,
a huge acquisition in Romanceland
(HarperCollins aka Avon buying Harlequin)
was announced.

This started a debate
about whether or not
this was a good thing.

My reaction?
Who gives a sh*t
if it SHOULD happen?
It’s happening.
How can we profit from it?

Every industry,
including yours,
is currently debating
something equally useless,
equally out of their control.

It could be
an increase in input costs,
a new law,
a new consumer trend.
Your industry doesn’t have
the power to change it.
You can only figure out a way
to profit from it.

Accept these new realities
and adjust your plans
for this change.

Seth Godin
has a great post
on power users

“Power users can pay you more
or they can build infrastructure,
or they can do outreach for you.
The challenge is in
finding them, embracing them
and giving them tools
to accomplish their goals
as you reach yours.”

In Romance,
as with many industries,
sales are all about the power user.
There are certain groups of readers
who read A LOT.
They also constantly talk about books,
promote books,
push other readers to buy books.

When I find a power user
reading one of my stories,
I immediately invite her to be part
of my street team.
I shower her with extras.
I make her feel special.
She tends to invite her power user buddies
to be part of the street team also.

I win because I have these power users
promoting for me.
They win because they are rewarded.
Everyone is happy
and my sales grow.

Embrace your power users.

There’s a certain editor in Romanceland
that I greatly admire.
She has done some creative innovative things,
pushing the entire industry forward.

However, I don’t agree
with many of these things
and when we talk,
we always argue about them.
The arguments are heated
but not emotional.

We’re both professionals.
We can disagree
and remain rational about it.
We can also work together
and not worry about vendettas
or other pettiness.

And we’re both better,
more successful
because of this.

You don’t have to agree
with everything a person says
or believes or does
to learn from and work with them.

There is a lot of talk
about eliminating the ‘isms.
This is 2014.
We shouldn’t tolerate
racism, ageism, sexism, etc.

Yes, I agree that we shouldn’t tolerate it
but ‘isms aren’t going away.
They might change.
If aliens attack, we might experience planetism.
But they won’t go away.

Because the ‘isms serve an emotional purpose.
They make us feel safe and in control.
In the past,
we used these ‘isms to band together
giving us a greater chance of surviving.

It helps us deal with
the random sh*t that happens.
These unexplainable acts frighten us.
If we blame them on a certain group,
we’re immediately calmer.
We’re in control.
We can do something about them
(exclude or eliminate this group).

We also enjoy being in elite groups,
belonging to clubs not everyone can join.
This is why self-published writers tell everyone
they’re self-published
even though readers don’t care about publishers.
They made what they felt to be
a superior choice
and now they’re informing the world.

Self-published writers then surround themselves
with people who agree with them,
who made the same choice.
Clearly, every other writer is wrong.
This gives them reassurance,
a nice feeling.

We ALL have ‘isms.
The first step to
managing or eliminating them
is to know what our own ‘isms are.

A romance writer told me yesterday
that she couldn’t wait for
the billionaire “trend” to be over.

She’ll be waiting for a long time
because the billionaire hero,
an upgrade on the millionaire hero,
has been popular
since…
well… since the first romance novel was written.

I’ve heard the same thing
about wolf shifters,
a twist on the beast hero.
There has always been a demand
for more primitive heroes.
They might be MMA Fighters
or wolf shifters
or gladiators
but they’re the same type of hero.

There are short lived fads
and longer lasting trends.
Then there are twists
on constants.
These constants never go away.

Businesses can be built
around all three of these
but the tactics for
fads, trends, constants
are very different.

Know what type of business
you’re in.