Category: New Business Development

I don’t have a smartphone.
I work out of my home
and I don’t have a burning need
to keep in constant contact
with anyone.

Plus smartphones are creative sucks.
I feel the need to check email constantly
and this pulls me
out of the worlds I’m building,
out of the stories I’m writing.

I’m the only non-smartphone user
in my household
but we’ve set
a no electronics at the dinner table
rule.
This helps us connect
with each other.

Brian Moran
shares

“Our phones,
more so than our tablet devices
and notebook computers,
are the culprits behind our insatiable need
to keep abreast of everything
that’s happening around the world.

According to a study
done by Tomi Ahonen,
a mobile technology expert,
the average person will check
his or her smartphone
approximately 150 times
in a working day of 16 hours,
or once every 6.5 minutes.
In addition,
the average person will make,
receive or avoid 22 phone calls
and send 23 text messages
in a given day.”

Consider creating a smartphone dead zone.
Detox from electronics
for at least a few minutes a day.

When I’ve completed my research
on alternatives
and I still can’t make a decision,
a loved one will often
make the decision for me.

If I agree with this decision,
I’ll go along with it.
If I don’t agree with this decision,
I’ll fight for my choice.
Either way,
I make a decision.

Jason Brick
shares

“Often, procrastination
is a symptom of indecision
—you don’t start on a project
because you haven’t decided
yet how you want to do it.
When faced with a choice
you’re having trouble making,
flip a coin.
This forces you to decide
in a few seconds
what you could otherwise stall on for weeks.
Don’t necessarily accept the coin’s decision
—if the result of “heads”
makes you want to cheat,
that reveals the decision
you’ve been wanting to make all along.”

If you’re indecisive
about a business decision,
force the choice.
This could show you
what you truly want the decision
to be.

I write for three types of publishers.
I have a huge New York publisher,
a big eBook first publisher,
and a small eBook first publisher.

If I have a hot book idea,
an idea I want to launch
right away
to capitalize upon a trend,
I don’t even bother pitching it
to the big New York publisher.
I know even if they love the idea,
they’ll take a year
bringing it to market.
The odds are also good
that they’ll think it is too risky.

Being nimble
and being willing to take a chance
are two huge benefits
of a smaller company.

As
Glen Stansberry
shares

“Red tape. Committees. Boards.
These are the types of things
that slow a marketing team
to a grinding halt,
because in this day and age,
many large companies often
can’t run an ad that hasn’t been approved
by the legal department, the subcommittee,
the marketing director, the boss,
his boss and finally the family patriarch
whose name is on the side of the building
(who should have no business
reading ad copy).

You, on the other hand, have it easy.
You are deft and nimble,
and you can run circles around
big companies’ ad departments
because, well, your “marketing team”
is most likely just you.
So take advantage of it!
Find something timely
like OREO did within your industry
and capitalize on it.”

Being small has its benefits!

We all mess up.
ALL of us.

When I was a junior jammer k,
I hid these f*ck-ups.
I never talked about them.
I rarely admitted to them.
I only talked about my successes.

Then a loved one told me
that I didn’t understand what he was going through
because I’ve never failed.
I’ve never f*cked-up.
I’ve never been nervous or worried about failing.

I realized I was doing the world
and my loved ones
a disservice by not talking about my mistakes.
I was making it more difficult
for THEM to succeed.

Yes, when I talk about my mistakes,
some critics judge me harshly
and yes, there are more critics in this world
than there are doers.

But the doers are who matter.
And they learn from my experiences.
They benefit from hearing about my mistakes
and this helps them change the world.

Seth Godin recently talked about
one of his mistakes.
I’m certain some critics will judge him harshly also.

But I’m also certain
that his post will help
someone change the world.

Consider sharing your mistakes
with loved ones
and other people who matter to you.

I rarely read reviews of my stories.
Reviews, in my opinion,
are written for readers, not writers.
Writers can’t do anything about the feedback.
The stories have been published.
The majority of readers read stories
in the first week of release.
Very few publishers will put money
into revising already released stories.

You can tell me
that a word on page 200
is spelled wrong
but I can’t do anything about it.
It is useless criticism.

As
Leo Babauta
shares

“Make sure your criticism is actionable.
There’s nothing worse
than receiving feedback on a project
that’s already been submitted.
Make sure your criticisms
are actually executable
before voicing them aloud.”

Don’t criticize something
that can’t be changed.
Don’t listen/read criticism
on a project you can’t change.

I get paid for fresh words,
for creativity.
Every decision, every discussion
zaps my creativity.

So the first thing I do
every single day
is write fresh words.
I use up all of my creativity
on this money making task.

Then when my creativity is drained,
I concentrate on other work.

As
Jason Brick
shares

“You’re the boss.
You get to set your schedule
the way you like it,
so be smart about it
and schedule big jobs
for the times of day you work best.

Morning person?
Set aside time to work
on that big report first thing.
Afternoons work best?
Close your door
from the end of lunch until 3 p.m. or so.

Ineffective scheduling
steals productivity.
And remember that
not scheduling your time
is the least effective scheduling of all.”

Schedule your money making tasks
for the time of the day
you’re at your best.

I’ve been working on a big writing project.
It is due September 15th
and I’ve been putting 16 hour days
every day on it.

Yesterday, I hit the wall.
I was burned out.
I couldn’t revise another word.

By noon, I knew I was in trouble.
I hadn’t even opened the document.

So I switched to revisions
of another story.
I worked on this different story all day.
I immediately felt better.

Tomorrow, I will return to the big project
with renewed enthusiasm.

As
Rieva Lesonsky
shares

“Maybe you’re putting off a huge task
because you’re fried.
If entrepreneurship is starting
to feel like a grind,
figure out how to freshen it up.

Could you delegate the task
you’re procrastinating
or at least share some of the labor?

Is there a way to do it differently
so it doesn’t feel like
the same old, same old?

Try breaking up
the types of tasks you do.
If you’ve been writing proposals
for a solid week,
revamping your business plan
is likely to feel like a chore.
Instead, take a few days
to make client calls or
do something completely unrelated,
then start the big task
when you’re refreshed.”

If you’re burned out,
try switching up tasks.

Part of being a great contract employee
is knowing how to price jobs.
Part of being a great writer
is knowing how long a story idea
will be.
(publishers look for specific lengths
and writers write to these lengths)

The process for the two
is very similar.

For story ideas,
I’ll look at a similar story
I’ve written.
I’ll then tweak the word count
based upon the differences
between the two stories.
At this point in my career,
I know how many pages these differences
will add to the story.

Earlier in my career,
I’d look at how many pages it took
other writers to incorporate differences.
I sometimes would write to certain point
to judge how many more or less words I used.
I’d then extrapolate this variance
for the entire scene.

The more experienced I am,
the closer I am to my estimate.
However,
as with contract jobs,
I err on the low side.
I can easily add description or a scene
to meet word count.
It is more difficult to subtract scenes.

If I don’t make my word count,
my odds of selling the story
greatly diminish.

If I don’t judge a contract job correctly,
I’ll either bid too high and lose the job
or I’ll bid too low and lose money on the job.

Learn how to price contract jobs.

Distribution is a challenge
for many start-up companies.
Often companies have to be innovative,
working around established distributors.

Seth Goldman,
Co-founder of Honest Tea,
shares

“We could make the product,
but how do you get it on the shelf?
We went to the traditional distribution folks
that did AriZona [Iced Tea] and Snapple
and they wouldn’t look at us
—we weren’t sweet enough
and we were too expensive.

We ended up finding other ways.
We’d go through a cheese distributor
to get into a gourmet store.
We’d go through a charcoal distributor
to get into a grocery store.

Pretty soon we were stealing shelf space
from the other beverages
and those original distributors came calling.”

Be open and creative
when trying to solve distribution challenges.