Author: k

New product development is sales.
Plain and simple.
Project managers have to sell
co-workers, executives, vendors, customers,
on the new product.
No matter how good
a salesperson you are,
some people
simply won’t understand.

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com,
explained in the April 28th issue of BusinessWeek
“If you’re going to do something
that’s never been done before
– which is basically what innovation is –
people are going to misunderstand it
just because it’s new.”

I received an email
after yesterday’s failure post.
The reader thought
if I was an experienced product developer,
I would have met my goals,
especially with something as simple
as a book launch.

I had to smile.
First, there’s nothing simple about a book launch.
The market is satuated,
the customer base shrinking.

Second, if a product developer
claims to have never failed once
with any of her hundreds of launches,
he or she is a liar.
A thousand different things can go wrong with a launch.
Failure is part of the job.

I received my royalty statement
for my first novel, Breach Of Trust,
and sales aren’t where I want
them to be.

First I allowed myself to move
through the grieving process
denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance,
then I picked my strategy apart.

Did I still want this?
Yes, writing gives me pleasure
and my novels add value.
Were my original goals realistic?
Yes, other authors with similar novels achieved them.
Was the product good?
Yes, feedback from my few readers have been terrific.
They are surprised at how good the novel is.
Were my promotions working?
Yes, website traffic growth has been healthy.
So my issue is conversion.
My copy can be better
(removing the surprise about how good Breach Of Trust is)
and I could provide more sampling.

I’m not one to succeed immediately.
I have failures first.
The key is to bounce back.