How Hard You Work

If you work really hard,
you’ll get successful.

Nope.
That’s a myth.

If you work really hard,
you might produce a variety
of different products,
increasing the odds of
one becoming successful.

If you work really hard,
reaching out to different target markets,
you might find one
that works for your business
and become successful.

But if you work really hard,
doing something that no one values,
you aren’t going to be successful.

Seth Godin
shares

“The market is selfish.
It doesn’t care a whit
about how hard you’re working
or how difficult the task is.”

Work hard
providing something
the market wants.

Using Luck To Guide Our Next Decision

Hurricane Matthew could have been
much more deadly
than it was,
especially for Florida.
All the experts
were saying it would be.
It was sheer luck
that it wasn’t.

Many residents didn’t evacuate,
deeming to wait out the storm.
They now believe
they’re more intelligent
than the experts.
They will likely use this hurricane
to guide their actions
during the next one.

They weren’t intelligent.
They were lucky.
They beat the odds.

One of these days
they won’t be lucky.
The experts will be right.
And these second guessers
will be dead.

I see this happen in business also.
An entrepreneur beats the odds.
She gets lucky,
thinks this proves the experts wrong,
assumes it is her superior intelligence
and not a fluke guiding her results.

She counts on this luck
happening again.
It doesn’t.

If your results are the exception,
luck likely had a big part
in your success.

Unless you can duplicate the results,
be cautious about basing your decision
on this one result.

The Easy Sale

The Easy Sale.
Saleswomen dream of it.

A previously unknown prospect
works into the office
or the showroom
or calls the business
or visits the website
and buys the product
without any prep,
without a pitch,
without negotiating.

It is, unfortunately, a myth.
No one buys like this.
Someone did the prep work,
the bulk of the selling.
It might not be you.
It could be another customer,
a friend of a friend
or even a competitor.
But someone did the work.

You can’t count on this happening.

If you want the sale,
you have to do the work.

Published
Categorized as Sales

The Use Of White Space

White space,
the gaps around text and images,
is very powerful.

I use it here on client k
to emphasize points.
I also use it in my romance novels
to ensure readers absorb
important sentences
or sentence fragments.

Carmine Gallo
shares

“The first thing you’ll notice
about the slides
is white space.
There are very few words
on each slide.

Just as professional ad designers
do not fill up
the entire page with text,
neither do effective presenters
clutter their slides
with extraneous words or numbers.”

More is not better.
Use white space
to emphasize your points.

Excitement Sells

If you watch reality shows
or late night TV,
you might think
that successful folks
are blah about everything.
They’re jaded.
They’ve seen it all.
They’re too ‘cool’ to express emotion.

That’s a myth.

Excitement sells
and successful people know this.
Steve Jobs was known
for his passion about his products.
Listen to any great CEO
or entrepreneur
and you’ll feel her/his excitement.

Whenever I participate in
a promo event,
I pump myself up.
I revisit why I LOVE
my stories/products.

I get excited
and that excitement
flows into prospects.

The easiest way
to get prospects excited
about your products/services/brand
is to be excited about them
yourself.

Published
Categorized as Marketing

Market Where Your Prospects Are

Many of the customers
for my romance novels
are on Facebook
but not everywhere on Facebook.
There are groups that
have my type of readers
and there are groups that don’t.
Spending time in the groups
that don’t have my type of readers
sells no books.
Spending time in the groups
that have my type of readers
sells quite a few books.

Mike Michalowicz
shares

“Finding out
where your customers are
and where they get their information
can help inform
what methods you can use
to effectively reach them.

An awesome billboard in the city
may not do you any good
if your customers live and
work in the suburbs.
Social media
can be the same way.

Consider marketing
where your customers spend time.”

Find out where your prospects are
and market there.

Published
Categorized as Marketing

Don’t Be Afraid To Outsource

As an Indie writer,
a businesswoman who
is building a business
in the publishing world,
I’m a big believer in outsourcing,
especially if I don’t love the task
and the task requires
constant learning to remain current.

I’m a one-woman business.
I HAVE to be choosy
about what tasks
I do myself
and outsource the rest.

David Reavy,
CEO/Owner of
React Physical Therapy,
shares

“I’m a skilled physical therapist
and entrepreneur,
but I know that
when it comes to things
like marketing, logos and public relations,
I’m no expert.
When I decided to rebrand my business,
the first thing I did
was hire a chief marketing officer.”

Don’t be afraid to outsource.
Hire the years of experience
and focus on what you do best.

You’ll Be A Failure Until You Aren’t

I’m a USA Today Bestselling Writer.
I can now easily pay my bills
with the writing.

Yet many of my loved ones
don’t consider me to be a success.
I haven’t been on TV.
I don’t have books
in physical book stores.
No one has made a TV show
based on my books.

Matt Paxton,
Founder of Clutter Cleaner,
shares

“I was cleaning up trash
while my friends were
doctors and lawyers.
They made fun of me
until I got on TV,
until I wrote a book.
I was a ‘failure’
until the very last minute
when I was suddenly no longer
a failure.”

There are many great reasons
to build businesses.
To be viewed as a ‘success’
isn’t one of them.

Preparing For November

The US Presidential Election
is on November 8th.

I deliberately delayed a book release
so it didn’t happen in November.
Why?
Because I think
unsettling events will happen
in November
and promoting books
while unsettling events are happening
makes readers angry.
A book release I can’t promote
is a waste of time and energy.

I believe
that no matter who wins,
there will be upheaval,
there will be violent reactions.
As business builders,
we should plan for this.

We should think about
our Christmas marketing,
the safety of our physical stores,
the mindset of our employees,
of our customers,
potential disturbances
in manufacturing,
and so on.

Maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe nothing happens.
If so, you have an emergency plan in place
for the future.
You have a clearer view of your business.

And maybe I’m right
and you’re prepared.
You can react quickly.

Think about November.
Prepare for it.

Emotion Vs Logic

The bestselling book isn’t
usually the best crafted book,
the book that is
well researched,
well planned,
100% logical.

It is almost always
the book that tugs
at some emotion,
that reflects how we feel
or how we want to feel.

As political parties are discovering,
when emotion is pitched
against logic,
against facts,
against reality,
emotion almost always wins.

Remember that
when marketing
your product, service, brand.
Sure, supply the facts
but concentrate
on the emotion.

Emotion sells.

Published
Categorized as Marketing