Category: New Business Development

This year has been
an adventure.
It seems like
there is a new challenge
for my businesses
every day.

Yesterday,
I stepped back
from these emergencies
and I spent the day
planning.

It felt good.
It calmed
my frantic a$$ down.
It gave me
a game plan
for dealing
with the constant emergencies.

Seth Godin
shares

“Spend four hours
in isolation,
with nothing to do
but figuring out
what’s scaring you
and
what you’ve been avoiding.

Spend half a day
figuring out
the difference
between urgent
and important.

If you’re too busy
to do that,
it’s probably because
you are spending
too much time
on the urgent.”

Set aside
some time
for planning.

Facebook has still not
reactivated my pen name.
(Facebook says
it is ‘under review’
but it has been
‘under review’ for 5 weeks.)

At least once a week,
I receive a message
from another writer
telling me they would be
freakin’ out
if that happened to them
and that my sales
must be a disaster.

Thank you. (<–sarcasm)
That was not helpful.
At all.

I believe
they’re not merely
insensitive asshats.

I believe
they truly want
to ask me
how I’m selling books
without Facebook.
They, unfortunately,
don’t know
how to ask that question
well
(or at all).

Most times,
the best way
to ask the question
is simply to ask
the d@mn question.

You’re more likely
to f*ck up the request
if you try to approach it
sideways.

I get so ticked off
at the writers
who tell me
my career is likely
to nosedive;
I don’t answer
their unasked question.
I send them
a breezy
not-at-all helpful
reply.

Ask the question.

These upcoming holidays
will be different.

We can’t celebrate them
in the exact same way
as we celebrated them
in the past.

There are some things
we can’t safely do.

But there are also things
we can do this year
that we might never
be able to do again.

(This will
hopefully
be the ONLY set
of holidays
we celebrate under lockdown.)

As business builders,
we can help
our customers, partners,
employees
celebrate the uniqueness
of these holidays

One large company
is allowing their employees
to use
their video conference system
to contact loved ones
over the holidays.

An indie bookstore
is sending
2020
snowmen in lockdown
stickers
as a surprise
with every order.

Another indie store
is sending a funny
lockdown-themed
holiday card
with orders.
Their customers
can send these
to loved ones.

This is a different holiday
this year.
We can do our parts
to make it special.

I’ve been in plenty of
positions
in which I was
the first woman
to hold my role.

It isn’t fun.
Often there are
a gazillion people
within the organization
who would prefer
there was no ‘first.’
They target me,
do their best
to ensure I fail.

But it is also
extremely satisfying
because, by being the first,
I’ve opened the door
for others.
They won’t be
in the same position.
It won’t be easy for them
but it will be easier.

Comedian
Nadirah Pierre
shares

“If I quit,
some unsuspecting sister
will come into this game
and have to battle
the things I’ve had to,
so I’m making
an active decision
to be on the frontlines
so that they don’t have to.”

You’re making a difference
by being first.
You’re changing the world.

There are three types of writers
in the world

– Those who pants
These writers write
by the seat of their pants
i.e. without a plot.

– Those who plot
These writers
have their plots
outlined
and everything thought out
before
they start writing.

– Those who are plotzers
These writers
do a combination
of plotting and pantsing.

There are professional writers,
belonging to each of these
writing types,
who are making healthy livings.

But if you looked at courses,
and listened to discussions with
non-writers
(like publishers or agents),
you would think
plotting is THE best way
and THE only way
to produce books.

Why?

Because plotting
appears to be logical.
There are systems
with plotting.
There are steps.

In contrast,
pantsing
appears magical
and magic can’t be taught.
It can’t be explained.

Magic scares people.

But magic, if you have it,
also can work.
VERY well.

I’m a pantser.
I’ve written hundreds
of books,
created complex worlds
and intricate series
as a pantser.

I can’t explain
how I do it
but I also don’t mess
with it.
And I don’t discount it.

There is ‘magic’
in this world,
things we can’t explain.

There are people
who have ‘feelings’
about product launches
and those feelings
are never wrong.

There are people
who call you
as you are reaching
for the phone
to call them.

There are people
who ‘dream’
of advertising slogans.

There are many other
types of magic.

Never discount that.

I give my cover artist
my insights on what
my covers might look like.

And then
I walk away
and allow her to do
her job.

She’s the expert
on cover design,
has went to school
for it,
has designed
thousands of covers.

And I trust her.
That’s why
she’s part of my team.

Marie Leslie
shares

“The most productive people
don’t try to do it all
themselves.
They’ve learned
there is value
in delegation.
And along with delegation,
they’ve learned
to trust their team.”

Delegate tasks.
Trust your team
to do their jobs.

As an aside:
If you don’t trust them
to do their jobs,
they shouldn’t be part
of your team.

Trick or treating on Halloween
is an important event
in the city where I live.

Leaders,
knowing how much
it means
to kids,
didn’t want to cancel it
due to the pandemic.

But it is VERY important
that it be done safely.
Kids, our future,
were at stake.

People applied
themselves
to this challenge.

The solution
many of us
have decided upon?

Candy chutes.

We are applying a (decorated)
length of pipe
to the handrails
of our front steps.

The person in the home
inserts the candy on one end.

The children open
their bags or pumpkin pails
under the opening
at the other end
and they ‘catch’ the candy
(or it falls into a box
where they can retrieve it).

The kids will LOVE this.
I’ve tested ours
and I LOVE it.

Making the experience
safer
for the kids
has also made the experience
BETTER
for the kids.

The choices we are facing
between safety
and hosting activities
are really opportunities
to innovate,
to think beyond
what we’ve done in the past.

Harness your creativity
and make it BETTER.

Yesterday, I posted
about how I try
every day
to progress
toward key goals.

Every day?
You exclaim.
What about burnout?
Won’t I burnout
if I work every day?

Do your lungs
burnout
because they breathe
every day?

(shakes head)

The brutal truth is…
business builders
don’t get days
completely off
work.

We can plan
for a day off
but emergencies happen
and we have to deal
with those situations.

There is also
so much sh*t to do.
Taking a day off
often leads
to overworking other days.

Our ‘days off’
often consist
of a much lighter
work load
and/or
completing different tasks.

I save ‘fun’ tasks
for my ‘days off.’

Today, for example,
I’m deciding on a name
for my heroine.
I’m writing this blog post.
I’m revising a short story.

Avoiding burnout
doesn’t have to mean
avoiding the business
or not working at all.

When I’m working on
the first draft of a story,
I try not to take days off.

I might have
smaller word count days
but I don’t want
zero word count days.

Why?

Because spending
an entire day
away from the story
makes it more difficult
for me to return to it,
to write the next
line,
paragraph,
page.

As Newton’s first law of motion
states

“An object at rest
stays at rest
and
an object in motion
stays in motion
with the same speed
and in the same direction
unless acted upon
by an unbalanced force.”

This applies
to humans also.

Try to stay in motion,
moving in the direction
of the goal
you wish to achieve.

A writer gave a piece
of advice
to all her listeners
on a free podcast.

I took that advice
and it worked.
Spectacularly.

So I reached out
to the writer
and I thanked her
for sharing that advice.

She was thrilled
I had done that.

She had been wondering
if it was worth her time
and energy
to do podcasts.
She rarely heard back
from listeners
and often that feedback
was criticism.

Hearing her advice
helped people
(the reason she did
the podcasts)
was extremely rare.

If you take advice
and it works,
consider telling
that advice giver.

Your two minute message
could mean
the difference between
benefiting from MORE awesome advice
or not hearing it at all.