Category: New Business Development

My best brainstorming is done
within small groups
(less than 5 people).

I find with larger groups,
there’s less contribution.
Participants slide by,
wait for others to suggest ideas,
are hesitant to contribute.

In a small group,
every participant knows
she or he was asked to be there
because the organizer feels
she or he can contribute
to solving the problem.
There are higher expectations
and more accountability.

As Yorgen Edholm,
chief executive of Accellion,
shares

“Sometimes when companies have a problem,
there is a temptation
to throw more people at it.
But that kind of linear mind-set
can kill
a high-tech company very quickly.
In that kind of situation,
my impulse is to take some people
off the project
and unleash the best ones.”

More people is not necessarily better.
Consider reducing the size of the group.

A loved one recently bought a house.
This was her first house.
Her brother-in-love,
a master negotiator,
offered to negotiate with the seller.
My loved one turned down this offer.
She wanted to do this on her own.

We estimate that ‘doing this on her own’
cost her an additional 30%.
This is what I call
the pride premium,
the price we pay
(in either dollars or time)
when we don’t ask for
or accept help.

You might scoff
and call my loved one silly
but right now, there’s something, some task,
you should be asking for help on tackling
and you’re not.
You’re paying a pride premium.
We all are.

The key is to recognize
we’re paying this premium
and then decide
if our pride is worth this price.

Last week,
there was a huge complaint thread
on one of the popular romance review sites.
Readers and reviewers were complaining
about writers behaving badly,
talking about how they’re damaging Romanceland,
causing the decline of the industry.

Being a writer,
I posted a comment
asking them for ideas to FIX this problem.
Silence.
The complaints stopped.

We all know complainers.
They complain about everything,
every idea, every project,
slowing down launches
and
destroying morale.

Complainers rarely suggest solutions
and seldom add anything constructive
to the conversation.

The quickest and most effective way
to silence these complainers
is to ask them
what THEY would do.

Terry Starbucker
shares

“Leaders cannot change personalities.
Period.

This is a hard one to accept.
I thought I could “fix” people
multiple times in my career,
and I failed every single time.
Then, I compounded the problem
by hanging on too long
with these folks
as I charged up the hill,
thinking that somehow, someway,
I could still make it to the big success
without hitting the brick wall.

And of course I’d hit it,
have to face reality and
let those people go,
and start again.”

I’d add that it is very difficult,
almost impossible,
to change YOUR own personality.

Early in my career,
I tried and failed.
Now, I accept my personality
and work with or around it,
hiring people to compensate for my weaknesses,
building systems to keep me on track.

You can’t change personalities.
Either accept that this is how
they will always be
or
let them be somewhere else.

The brain is an amazing tool.
Even when we’re not consciously thinking
about the solution to a problem,
our brains are often working on it.

I’ll go to sleep with no solutions
and wake up with many.
The issue is…
these solutions often instantly evaporate
when they connect with the light of day.
I forget about them
during the early morning rush.
Or if I wake during the night
with the solutions,
I’m too out of it to remember them.

This is why I always have a notepad
next to my bed.
I’ll have this notepad open to a blank page
and a marker pen clipped to it.
If I wake during the night,
I’ll reach over, grab it,
scrawl a word or two to remind me,
and then fall back asleep.

There’s no waiting for a device to boot up
or turning a light on
or anything that might erase the idea.

Consider keeping a notepad and pen
by the bed.

An editor once told me
that a writer’s number one job
is to write the first draft.
She can help fix a bad first draft.
She can’t write that first draft.

Nora Roberts,
one of the best selling romance writers
of all time,
once shared

“I can fix a bad page.
I can’t fix a blank page.”

The first draft of everything
is usually the toughest.
It is also usually the draft
YOU have to develop.

Don’t worry about it being perfect.
There will be plenty of people
eager to improve your first draft.

Just get that draft on the paper
(or on the table if it is a prototype).

Tracy M. Byham, Ph.D.,
DDI Senior Vice President,
Leadership Solutions shares

“A staggering 63 percent
of the survey group
never had a formal mentor and
considering that 67 percent
rated mentorship as highly important
in helping to advance
and grow their careers
—this indicates a critical gap
in businesswomen’s development.”

I agree that mentorship is important.

I was fortunate to work
for a huge beverage company
that proactively set up mentorship programs
between high achievers
and executives.
I learned more from those mentors
than I ever learned from any course.

I’m now a romance writer
and romance writers are known
in the literary world
for mentoring newer writers.
It is expected
and I suspect
one of the reasons
the genre is number one.

However,
I’ve NEVER waited
to be assigned a mentor,
not in the beverage company,
not in my romance writing chapter.
I’ve always proactively asked
for mentorship.
Yes, I’ve been rejected
(usually due to time constraints)
but I continued asking others
until I landed mentors.

And no, my mentors weren’t all female.
Few of them in business were.
Sex isn’t as important as knowledge.

Everyone needs a mentor.
Don’t wait to be assigned one.
Ask for mentorship.

I’m currently writing a 12 novella serial
for a large New York publisher.
When I was first approached
about this project,
I had serious concerns.
I’ve never written a 12 novella serial,
have never crafted such a huge story
(1,200 pages),
have never written a story
with a similar premise.

I wasn’t qualified
but I knew if I didn’t take this project,
I’d regret it for the rest of my life.
I bet on myself,
on my ability to craft this story.
(half way through the story,
this bet seems to be paying off)

Former Ogilvy & Mather CEO
Charlotte Beers
shares

“I want us to bet on ourselves
even though there is something still missing
and we’re aware of it.
There is a McKinsey study
that says if a job is offered
and a man has two out of the 10 characteristics,
he will raise his hand.
A woman won’t raise her hand
until she has eight out of the 10.”

You’ll never be perfectly qualified
for the opportunity you want.
Bet on yourself.

Some of my writing buddies are in a rush
to hit the bestseller lists.
They’re doing this by putting together
box sets of original stories
written by dozens of writers,
priced at a ridiculous 99 cents.

Some of them have been successful.
They made no money
but they hit the lists.

And now they’re facing lawsuits.
Readers, aspiring writers,
anyone seeing a quick route to money,
are suing them,
thinking they have a fortune to share.

Dennis J. Ceru,
an adjunct entrepreneurship professor
at Babson College,
shares

“Pray that you become wildly successful,
and set aside some money
for a lawsuit and a settlement,
because it’s going to happen.”

Once you become famous,
you’ll get sued.
This is the environment we’re living in.

So either delay becoming famous
(you CAN be successful
without being famous)
or figure out
how to make money from that fame
so you can pay for lawyers.

Fame comes with lawsuits.

Romanceland
(aka the romance novel industry)
has become super volatile.
There’s a crazy price war,
battles over formats, lengths, trends.

Writers are trying a zillion different things,
hoping that something
will be the next big thing.

I’m tempted,
truly tempted to join the madness
but I have a plan
and in order to make
that plan a reality,
I have to focus.

Focus is one technique
Alexandra Levit
recommends to deal with volatility.

“Before embarking on a new project,
ideally, you’ll work hard
to reach a general consensus
about the best course of action
your company should take and
you’ll have effectively addressed
and neutralized any naysayers.
Once you’re out of the gate,
nothing short of an unanticipated disaster
should stop the train from changing course.
Realize that every time
you backtrack and change direction,
it costs your company money
and frustrates employees to no end.
Get the necessary input upfront,
and then focus on moving forward
with minimal delays.”

If your plan is still viable,
stick with it.