One of my author buddies
sent an email to a Yahoo Loop,
complaining about his publisher.
He wanted to send it to a marketing loop.
He, instead, sent it to the publisher’s loop.
Every single author, editor, admin
and yes, the owner
received this email.
He has spent the last week
doing damage control.
Email is dangerous.
Yahoo Loops are that danger multiplied.
As a result,
I try to keep all messages on Loops
positive and upbeat.
Pain is one of the great motivators
and it is, I believe, the greatest motivator
for entrepreneurship,
more so than gain.
Before jumping off the corporate ladder,
I asked myself the question
Wanda at Creating Abundant Lifestyles
recently asked readers
‘Which would be the greatest pain,
The Pain of Risk or the Pain of Regret?’
My answer was clear.
I would always regret not taking the risk.
What is your answer?
I keep hearing
TV is dying.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
According to
The Boomer Century 1946-2046,
the average retiree watches
43 hours of tv a week.
That’s over 6 hours a DAY.
What does that mean?
If that trend holds
with the boomers approaching retirement,
we’ll be looking at a boom
in viewership.
That is,
if the networks produce content
this demographic wants to watch.
This week,
I finished up my 11th full revision
of Invisible,
my February release.
I’ll have 2 or more sets of edits to do
before the book is published.
And I can guarantee there will be errors
in the final copy.
So it doesn’t surprise me
that proof reading errors pop up
again and again
on The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur’s list
of the top 31 Entrepreneurial Mistakes.
If a professional writer requires 3 sets of editors,
entrepreneurs certainly need at least one.
If you skip this step,
you will pay for it
(eventually).
I have a monthly contest on my writing site.
Every month,
I email my list about the contest.
This month,
I helped organize a contest on another site.
When talking about promotion,
a co-author told me
she didn’t want to ‘spam’ her list
to talk about the contest.
I ‘spammed’ my list.
I told my readers
that I knew they loved contests
and I loved this specific contest
I helped organize
so I thought they might love it too.
I got emails THANKING me for the heads up.
It is not spam
if your list wants the information.
Being a project person,
I tend to have multiple bosses.
I have the boss I directly report to
(often Finance)
and then the bosses assigning me projects
(sales, marketing, operations, the CEO).
Whenever layoffs are discussed,
my main boss has to discuss and get agreement
with all the other bosses
about whether my position stays or is eliminated.
That complexity saved my butt many times.
Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert,
talks about Boss Diversity in Fortune.
“The best plan now is
to have as many bosses as possible.
I call it boss diversity.
If you work for a company and
you have one boss and
that boss doesn’t like you or
wants to get rid of you,
you’re in trouble.
But if you work for yourself,
you have lots of bosses,
who are your customers,
and if a few of them decide
they don’t like you,
that’s okay.
You can get new ones.
Boss diversity is the one kind
companies don’t talk to you about,
but it can save your career.”
Yesterday, we talked about bosses being stuck.
Today, we’ll talk about how to work around
a stuck boss.
A loved one wants a promotion
but he’s dealing with a stuck boss.
The boss doesn’t know how to ask
for what the loved one wants (a promotion).
He’s scared someone will figure out
he doesn’t know how to play the game
and fire his ass.
So my loved one is putting together a proposal.
He’s outlining why that position
(always make it about the position,
not about the person)
should be at a more senior level.
This report has numbers behind it
(the percent of his pay currently performance based
vs
the percent of revenue he pulls in for the team).
It is thick
and
it is ready to be presented.
All the boss has to do
is read the executive summary.
It is no risk for him.
If it goes well,
he takes all the credit for the report.
If it goes poorly,
he says since his employee
put so much time into it,
he felt he had to present it.
Bam!
Stuck boss worked around.
Has your boss been in his position
5 years or more?
Then odds are
he’s stuck.
He’ll tell you he’s happy where he is,
he doesn’t want more responsibility,
or he’s waiting for retirement.
That is B.S.
I’ve played at the different levels,
the stress is all the same.
What changes is the game
and your boss being stuck
is a clear indication
he doesn’t know how to play that game.
What’s the answer?
You work around him.
If you don’t,
you’ll end up stuck one level down.
‘It’s all been done’
is something a new business developer
hears again and again.
There are no new stories,
no new products,
no new.
Yet this is proven wrong daily.
New books hit the New York Times Bestseller list.
New toys become the hot hit
of the holiday season.
1,000 new species are found in a jungle
in Vietnam.
‘It’s all been done’
is an excuse
made by people not doing.
Ignore it.
I went holiday shopping on Saturday.
At one department store,
I was told by an employee
she couldn’t help me
buy a watch
as she was ‘with a customer’
(that ‘customer’ had a store name tag on).
In a Wal-Mart,
the cashier checked me out
without looking at me once
(she was busy complaining to a coworker).
You may think
that the bad economy,
poor sales,
possible lay offs,
is enough to incent employees
to hustle.
It isn’t.
Managers still have to do their jobs,
motivating employees
and ensuring that sales actually get done.
Are your employees selling?