Month: June 2015

Some romance writers
were complaining on Facebook
and other social media
about the popularity
of Fifty Shades of Grey
and Grey,
the new release.

The issue is…
FSoG is extremely popular.
It’s likely that
many of their readers
are fans of the series.

Which means
when writers diss the book,
they’re dissing the reading tastes
of their own readers.

That’s a dumb a$$ move
and not likely to
make anyone happy.

You can show prospects
why your product is better
without insulting the choices
they’ve made in the past.

Don’t diss the competition,
especially if that competition
is extremely popular.

We’ve all come across ‘ism’s
-racism, sexism, age-ism, other ‘ism’s.
We hear a comment
and don’t know how to respond.

Seth Godin
shares one way

“The most powerful thing
we can do
to earn respect
from those around us, though,
is to call out one of our own
when he crosses the line.
“People like us,
we don’t do things like that.”
This is when real change
starts to happen,
and when others start to believe
that we really care
about something more
than scoring points.”

Responding IS a must
because, by saying nothing,
we’re giving that person
permission to continue saying it.
She thinks she’s representing us.

Tell people when they cross the line.

Unless you’re a reality TV star,
unnecessary drama
shouldn’t be part
of your professional life.

Some people will try
to involve you in drama.
(this seems to be
a female only problem)
They might spread sh*t
about you,
might try to get you involved
in their little spats,
put you on on this or that team.

My answer when I’m asked
to get involved
or for ‘my opinion’?
I don’t have time.
I have work to do.

If I’m told about someone
spreading sh*t about me
and am forced to respond,
I ask how they find the time.
There are so many exciting projects
happening in the company.
How do they find time
to participate in those
AND talk about others?

(This does two things
– it shames the person
into stopping the gossip
and the person either
gets more work
or gets laid off
because clearly she’s doing nothing)

If I find myself
getting involved,
I know I’m not busy enough
and I SHOULD BE.
Because we only have so many hours
on this Earth
and we should use them wisely.

Getting involved
in other people’s business
or unnecessary drama is a sign.
You should be doing more.
DO that more.

We’ve all been involved
with a project that simply doesn’t end.

We’ve left a company
and, years later,
our successor is still phoning us
for advice.

A product has failed,
is dead, dead, dead,
yet one person on the project team
won’t accept this
and asks us for more information.

A partner on a promotion
automatically renews it,
even though that product being promoted
is no longer our focus.

Project managers are great
about determining
when a project starts.
We’re lousy
about determining
when a project ends.

Ensure your project plan
has an end point.

A decade or so ago,
an expert
gave readers his best guess
about what the future would look like.

He predicted the death of books
(both print and ebooks),
thinking that,
with the internet,
storytelling would shift
to movies, TV shows, vlogs, etc.

He also predicted
that, with the huge increase
in the number of channels
available
and splitting of our attention spans
between modes of media,
there wouldn’t be a Seinfeld phenomenon.
We wouldn’t all be watching
the same shows,
the same movies,
get the same cultural references.

Today, one of the biggest companies
in the world
is an online bookstore (Amazon),
and almost everyone in the U.S.
knows at least one reference
from Game of Thrones,
a book-based TV show
(usually that reference is
‘Winter is Coming’).

You can’t predict the future.
Build your business
on your best guess for the future
and then adjust for reality.

In the season finale
of Game of Thrones,
a beloved character dies.

Doing this is high risk.
Viewers who love the character
might not return
months from now
for the new season.

But NOT doing this
would also be high risk.
A hit show won’t be
a hit show for long
if people don’t talk about it.

There’s a risk to taking action
and to not taking action.
Weigh the risks of both.
Don’t assume doing nothing
is the safest route.

In June 2015’s
FHM,
Ben Ebbrell,
co-founder of SORTEDfood,
a YouTube success story,
shares

“We were only getting
about 50 views per video
at first.
But after a while
people started commenting
and suggesting other recipes
they wanted to learn.
It started to snowball
from there.
We were really just lucky
that nobody else
was doing it at the time.
We never saw it
as a business
but then suddenly,
the idea of a ‘YouTuber’ took off
and we managed to ride that wave.”

I know entrepreneurs
who are still riding that wave,
starting up YouTube businesses
and profiting from them.

Consider YouTube
as a partner for your business
(or, at least,
a place to market).

I’m always working.
It isn’t
because I HAVE to work
to pay the bills.
I passed that point long ago.
It is because I WANT to work.
I need to do something.

In June 2015’s
FHM,
Adam Richman,
star of Man v Food,
shares

“There’s a kind of restlessness
that propels people
who have achieved
any modicum of success.
What tends to separate
the person on stage and
the person in the waiting room
with the audition script
is a degree of tenacity
and a blissful unease.”

Be restless.

I recently took a course
with a best selling writer.
She was generous with her advice,
giving us examples
of ‘scripts’ she used
for promotion.

One thing she stressed though
was not to copy and paste
these scripts.
She advised us
to change them,
to make them our own.

Why?
Because readers know
when we’re being authentic,
when we’re the real deal.

In June 2015’s
FHM,
filmmaker
M Night Shyamalan
shares

“My advice to anyone
getting into the business
is:
don’t try to be me,
you’ll lose.
Don’t try to be someone else.
Be yourself.
Always yourself.
If you can be exactly that,
you have a strength
that’s so specific,
it’s incredibly powerful.”

Be you.