Category: New Business Development

When I accepted this deal
with the New York publisher,
some of my writing buddies
told me I was crazy.
They said I would make more money
with my previous publisher.

But I knew why I wanted
to sign with this publisher.
I knew what I’m gaining
from the relationship.
I know the money will come.

Legendary investor
Jim Rogers
shares
in Street Smarts

“The advice I give everyone,
the advice I will give my children,
is this:
before asking how much
you are going to get paid for a job,
first decide
whether it is the right job,
whether it is the right place for you,
because if it is the right place
and you do the job right,
the money will come.
The money will find you,
I assure you.
The money should be the least
of your questions.”

Look at more than
the immediate money
when making decisions.

All of my past successes
have happened,
not because I’m smarter
or more talented
than other people,
but because I work harder
and I want the success more.
I’m shameless
about achieving my concrete goals.

Bill McDermott, co-chief executive of SAP,
shares
(and this is a GREAT interview
– I highly recommend
you read the entire post)

“A lot of people might play the field,
or try to figure out what they want.
But I knew exactly what I wanted.

Second, you’ve got to want it more.
If you want something badly enough,
everybody around you can see the passion.
And people will make bold bets
on people who have an unwavering passion
to succeed or a passion to do something.

I think that can get totally missed
in the world of academia,
but that’s the real world.”

Want your vision of success MORE.

Craig Chappelow
shares

“An ongoing stream of research
conducted by my employer,
The Center for Creative Leadership,
shows that the vast majority
of the key lessons
that leaders learn
result from on-the-job experience.
Enduring hardships,
tackling challenging assignments,
and being exposed to
effective coaches and mentors
make much more of a difference
than reading leadership books.

This is often referred to
as the 70-20-10 rule–
70% of learning comes from direct experience,
20% from the influence of others,
and 10% from classes and reading.”

What does this mean?
When hiring leaders,
the resume is more important
than the transcript.

And most leaders have ALWAYS led.
They don’t wait to graduate
or for that first job
to start leading.
I had leadership experience
when I was eight years old.

Hire a leader who has led.

I was talking about contracts
with a New York Times Bestselling writer
who wished to stay anonymous.

She told me
many writers will concentrate
on negotiating for
higher advances,
bigger royalty rates,
more promotional funds.

However,
they never talk about things
that REALLY drive book sales
like
cover art,
back cover blurbs,
choice of excerpts,
pricing.

She does.
If one of her stories releases soft,
she’ll immediately request
to change the blurb.
They’ll change it
until the blurb works.

Ironically,
because the publisher knows
she’s looking at these aspects,
the publisher takes more care with them.

Negotiate for control
over ALL of the aspects
that drive your success.

While we were kids,
my siblings and I
had a lawn mowing business.
At first,
we tried to do everything.
Everyone would make sales calls.
Everyone would design marketing materials.
It was chaos and ineffective,
frustrating us and customers.

We eventually split duties
based upon our skills.
We were happier.
Customers were happier.
The business boomed.

Marc Grondahl,
co-founder of Planet Fitness,
shares

“When we started out,
we were both doing the same things,
which we quickly learned wasn’t going to work.
We brought in consultants
in the late ’90s
and realized that we needed
to focus on our specializations.
For me that was accounting;
for Michael it was marketing
and the creative side of the business.

I recommend
other members of family businesses
do the same.
Make sure your roles are defined.
It makes life much better.”

While working in a family business
or heck, ANY business,
make sure roles are defined
AND not duplicated.

Since Yahoo announced their staffing changes,
there has been some debate over
whether or not remote workers are effective.

This is a big company debate.
For you and I
and many other entrepreneurs,
there’s no choice.
Remote workers,
contractors,
and
other partners working off-site,
are essential to our businesses.

We HAVE to learn how to manage them.
Part of this is learning
how to communicate effectively.

As Sarah Johnson
shares

“Use simple, actionable statements.
When sending email,
be clear, concise, and up-front
about why you are writing.
Do you want a response today?
Do you need the recipient
to make a decision?
Say so.
Avoid trying to be humorous
— and save the small talk for phone calls.

Speaking of the phone,
don’t be afraid to use it
after exchanging several emails
about one topic.”

You MUST learn how to manage
workers/contractors/business partners
who work off-site.

I’m looking for someone
to help me manage my street team
(i.e. superfans).
Someone I trust
is starting a business managing street teams.
She quoted me a price,
a $XX ONE time fee
for unlimited street team members.

I plan to have this street team
for three or four decades.
I also plan to eventually have
a HUGE street team.

This pricing makes no sense.
The manager won’t make any money.
Because she won’t be making money,
she likely also won’t be spending time
on managing my street team.

I renegotiated a fair annual price
dependent upon the number of members.
She’s happy
(and will be changing her fee structure
for all of her future clients)
and I’m happy.

Business relationships should be win-win.
Lose-win usually ends up as lose-lose.

The best selling romance writers
are pressured to write the same stories
they’ve always written.
I don’t have any of that pressure.
I can write whatever I want,
whatever I think will sell.

Odds are…
you’re not the industry leader either.
The industry leader is confined by expectations.
If you’re a new company,
you don’t have these expectations.

Ron Ashkenas
shares

“As a company gets larger,
there is more pressure
to preserve the base business
and less willingness to cannibalize it
through innovative new offerings.
As a result,
at the very moment
when the company needs new sources of growth,
there is a tendency to play it safe
and focus more on
adapting existing products and services,
rather than breakthrough opportunities.
This not only opens the door
to potentially disruptive competitors,
but constrains moves into
whatever is perceived as “risky” territory.”

BE a disruptive competitive.
Go where the industry leader
dares not go.

Today, my story with the big publisher releases.
I have nothing planned for today
except this book/product release.

In the past,
I’ve tried to accomplish other things
on book/product release days.
I’ve never accomplished
any of these other things
and this impossible to-do list has detracted
from the joy of the product release.

If your employees care about your company,
they won’t be doing anything
on your product release days either.
They’ll be scouring the internet for coverage,
asking the folks in shipping for sales updates,
telling their friends and family about your new product,
etc.

So why don’t you embrace this?
If possible,
have your employees focus on the release,
promoting the product,
creating excitement around it.

Product release days are rare.
Celebrate them.

One of my books
is selling REALLY well.
This increase in sales is great.
I’m grateful for it.
I know how lucky I am.

But these sales
also come with costs.
I’m dealing with professional jealousy,
next book pressures,
crazy hate mail,
stalkers,
even death threats.

I can’t talk about these issues
with strangers
or even casual friends
because they’ll think
I’m ungrateful or arrogant.
I have the success they’re working toward.
Why am I complaining?

Thankfully, I belong to
a group of five writers,
the writers on the world domination plan.
We’re all at roughly the same level
and we’re dealing with the same issues.
When I brought up my challenges,
they all chimed in,
relieved that they no longer had to deal alone.

Success is a team sport
and that is even more important
as you become more and more successful.
Build your support group now.