Beverly Clearly And Business Opportunities

Award winning
children’s writer
Beverly Clearly
recently turned 100.

How did she get the idea
for her first successful story?

From listening to her target audience.

She shares

“I know that
when I was a children’s librarian,
that was about 1940,
boys particularly asked
where were the books
about kids like us,
and there weren’t any
at that time.”

What products
are your target audience
asking for?

Constant Marketing

When I am about to release
a new book (product),
I start promoting
in Facebook groups
once a week.

The first week,
I get very few pre-orders.

The second week,
I get a couple more.

The sixth week,
I get quite a few pre-orders.

Readers comment about
how EVERYONE is talking about
this book.

No, not everyone is talking about
this book.
I’m talking about it
over and over again.

Many writers only promote
for the first couple weeks
and then they quit,
saying the marketing wasn’t effective.

Most marketing efforts
take time and constant effort
to be successful.
They are slow builds,
not flash successes.

Don’t give up too early.

Published
Categorized as Marketing

Steve Jobs And Passion

I had over 100 stories published
before I had a financially successful story.
Yep, 100.
Many writers would have given up.
Not me.
I have a passion for writing.
I have no problems with hard work.
I continue learning with each story.
And I would have written them anyway,
even if I hadn’t received
ANY sales ever from my stories.

Steve Jobs
once shared

“People say
you need to have
a lot of passion
for what you’re doing
and it’s totally true.

And the reason is
because it’s so hard
that if you don’t [have it]
any rational person would give up.

So if you don’t love it
and you’re not having fun doing it
you’re going to give up.

If you don’t love it,
you’re going to fail.

So you’ve got to love it
and have passion.”

There are almost unlimited businesses
you can build.
Build one that you’re passionate about.

Branded Everything

As builders of
new or small businesses,
it is really challenging for us
to compete on price.
We don’t have the mass production
that bigger companies might have.

We CAN, however,
compete in the luxury goods market.
Luxury goods aren’t simply
fragrances or fashion or cars.
There can be luxury brands
for everything consumers buy.

As George Matouk Jr.,
CEO of Matouk,
shares

“When luxury consumers
who regularly spend thousands of dollars
on shoes, handbags and watches
—brands that they love
and identify with—
stop telling me that
they don’t really know
who makes their sheets and towels,
I’ll know that our business goals
will have exceeded
all of our expectations.”

Is there a luxury brand
in your market?
If there isn’t,
can you be that luxury brand?

Published
Categorized as Marketing

Complaints About Pricing

The default excuse
for almost every person
for not buying a product
is price.

They can’t afford it
or it is too expensive.

That’s usually bullsh*t.
Folks will happily pay
for a $5 coffee.
Odds are
they can afford your product.

What they truly mean to say
is your product isn’t worth the price.

I have one book series
that is priced at $2.99 per book.
I have another book series
that is priced at 99 cents per book.

The $2.99 book series
outsells the lower priced one
10 to 1
yet I receive much more complaints
about pricing
from the lower priced series customers.

It isn’t about price.
It is about perceived value.

If you’re receiving complaints about price,
consider increasing the perceived value
of your product.

Published
Categorized as Sales

Google Mail, Email And Newsletters

I give free exclusive stories
to newsletter subscribers.
I share jokes and insider info
in every newsletter.
I have a very high open rate.

The issue is…
readers haven’t been receiving
their newsletters.
They contact me
and are upset.

Seth Godin
shares

“Google also automatically
moves many Mailchimp newsletters
to your promo folder in gmail.
As well as airline alerts,
school newsletters and more.
Without asking you first.
Plenty of babies in that bathwater.
This error violates the do-not-harm principle…
If people trust you to deliver their email,
then deliver it.”

What I’ve been doing
is trying to contact readers a variety of ways
(Facebook, Twitter, Blog, etc)
and hope one method is successful.

You can’t trust that an email
will be delivered.
For important emails,
follow up.

Published
Categorized as Marketing

Letting Go

Most business builders are control freaks,
at least in a small way.
We feel the need to be involved
in every decision,
to be part of every step
in the process.

That’s not possible.
Even if we’re one woman businesses,
we lose control of the product
once the customer has bought it.

And if we want to scale,
we need to learn to delegate,
to trust others to make decisions.

Seth Godin
shares

“Caring matters.
Your contribution makes things better.
But when the need for control
starts to get in the way
of your people doing their best work,
caring about their craft
and scaling their efforts,
and when the need for control
starts to make you crazy,
it might be worth thinking
about that wedding in Baton Rouge
that went just fine without you.”

Learn how to delegate
and let go,
but take comfort in knowing
that many of us
find this a challenge.

Me And Earl And The Dying Girl And Business Building

Hopefully,
the business you’re building
is one you feel passionately about,
one you live and breathe
and think about every day
because you care about it.

When that happens,
you see business lessons everywhere.

On Friday, I watched two movies.
Both targeted the teen audience
Both dealt with teen issues.

They were two completely different
types of movie
and two completely different
business models.

One–Me And Earl And The Dying Girl
–was quirky and raw
and was clearly not made for mass consumption.
The other–Paper Towns
–was clever and slick
and was meant for the masses.

Both were successful in their own way.
Paper Towns made much more profit
but that was what it was designed to do.
Me And Earl And The Dying Girl was
much more innovative
but, again, that was what it was designed to to.

What is the purpose of YOUR business?
Is your barometer of success aligned with that purpose?

Dog Piles And Criticism

As a writer, I deal with criticism
and harsh feedback
every dang day
from just about everyone
(including partners
like editors).

I’m accustomed to it.

On Thursday,
however,
a well known writer
posted publicly
on Facebook
about how much
she hated the ending in one of my books.

Hey, that happens.
I sent her a private message
apologizing for upsetting her
and explaining why that ending was necessary.

We talked through it.

She didn’t remove her post.
And hundreds of people chimed in,
sharing how much they hated writers
who did what I did,
giving their bullsh*t theories on
why I wrote what I did,
ranging from being a money grabber
to a hack trying to make a name for herself.
Criticism built upon criticism,
becoming more and more personal,
more and more mean,
until there was no way I could defend myself.
It was a dog pile.
They had jumped on top of me,
beating me down,
not giving me a chance to breathe.

This was a step farther
than group criticism
but group criticism
(which has become popular in some organizations)
can feel the same way.

It might seem efficient
to have multiple people critique an employee
at the same time
but I doubt that it is as effective.

Criticize one-on-one,
not in a group.

Be Reachable

When I first started out,
a best selling writer
with a huge reader base,
told me to ALWAYS respond
to reader mail.

I took that advice to heart
and now, my most vocal fans
are the readers
I’ve personally responded to.

Sue Chen,
CEO of NOVA Medical Products,
shares

“I remember thinking,
I can contact my toothpaste manufacturer,
but the people who use
my walkers and canes and crutches
can’t get a hold of me.
As a B2B operation,
I didn’t even know them.”

Ensure your customers
can reach you
any time,
any where.

Published
Categorized as Marketing