Category: New Business Development

Nellie Akalp
shares

“If you’re scared of failing,
you’re going to be miserable
as an entrepreneur.
Failure is practically
a rite of passage
for successful entrepreneurs.
Valuable lessons can be learned
through the experience;
you’ve probably heard that
some VCs won’t invest in an entrepreneur
who doesn’t have one failed business
under his or her belt.

If you’re anxious about
what might happen,
think about the worst-case scenario.
If your business or app falls flat on its face,
how long will it take you to recover?
How long will it take you to find a new job?
Start a new business?
In most cases,
the worst case is not as bad
as you may think.”

I’m not scared of failure
but I certainly don’t like it
and I always get a little anxious
when I’m in a position
where I could possibly fail
in a spectacular way.

This anxiety doesn’t stop me though.
And it shouldn’t stop you.

Learn how to manage
your fear of failure.

People are selfish.
I’m selfish.
I do what benefits me most first.

So it is important
that employees know
why the success of our businesses
is also good for them.

As Rieva Lesonsky
shares

“Your employees have
a different perspective
on the company than you do.
Make sure they know
how this project will benefit
not only the company,
but also them personally.
Will it make their jobs more secure?
Put your business on the map?
Lead to bonuses for everyone?
When they know
what the end results could be,
they’re more likely to be invested
in the project.”

How does your company’s success
lead to your employees’ success?

Seth Godin has a great post
on getting picked
He shares

“The artist who struggles in obscurity,
unfairly ignored
because he hasn’t been picked
–that’s a poignant sight.
But at some point,
the artist has the obligation
to seek a different path,
one that isn’t dependent
on a system
that doesn’t deserve him.”

I agree
but I also think
it might be worthwhile
to allow a system to pick us,
to not close ourselves off
from the system.

I see many writers
skipping the publisher route
and going straight to self-publishing.
They won’t even talk
to established publishers.
They are vehement
about not being picked.

I think this is a bit silly.
There are benefits
and synergies
coming with being picked
by a publisher.
To not consider or even listen
to these advantages
is foolish.

Consider seeking a different path
if the established path
isn’t getting you
where you want to go
but reserve the option
to hop back on the established path.

This week,
I read about
supermodels complaining
that they’re seen as clothes racks,
actors complaining
that fans think they’re the characters
they play,
and
writers complaining
that readers only want to talk
about their next books.

My response?

Congratulations!
You’re doing your job.

Our customer’s focus
SHOULD be on the products
we’re selling.

Runway models sell clothes.
Actors and writers sell fantasy,
creating worlds so real,
people think they are.

A spokesperson promotes the product,
not herself.
A CEO talks about her company’s products,
not herself.

If the focus isn’t on your products,
re-evaluate your strategy
and your thinking.

I have a series releasing in July
that has the potential to do VERY well.
Some author buddies,
having dealt with their own breakout successes,
have advised me to write the follow up story NOW.

Once a story does well,
there’s so much pressure
to produce the next story quickly,
it often causes word constipation
and can result in sloppy editing.
This damages brands
and pisses off readers.

I feel vain
preparing for possible success
but this is silly thinking.
Success IS
what I’m working so hard to achieve.
It makes no sense
not to prepare for it.

We often talk about
preparing for the worst,
building systems to survive a disaster.
Preparing for the best
is as important.

If you became an ‘overnight’ sensation,
would you benefit from this success?
Would you SURVIVE this success?
Can your company handle
double, triple, ten times
the customer load?
Can your website
handle this level of traffic?

When you’re preparing for disasters,
prepare for success also.

Seth Godin has a great post
on how to live with change.

One coping strategy is
“Don’t need
it is the shortcut
to living in crazy times.
If you don’t have an office, it won’t flood.
If you have sixteen clients,
losing one won’t wipe you out.
If your cost of living is low,
it’s far less exposed to a loss in income.
If there are no stairs in your house,
a broken hip doesn’t mean you have to move.
Intentionally stripping away
dependencies on things
you can no longer depend on
is the single best preparation to change.”

This is the coping strategy
I often use.
Before I switched to writing full time,
my household eliminated
all of our unnecessary expenses.
I have four publishers (customers), not one.
I write in three genres, not one.
I work out of my home,
not in a rented space.

It isn’t a sacrifice
because not having these other things
means I can focus on the business I’m building,
the goals I have,
making my dreams happen.

Change isn’t going away.
Figure out how to cope with it.

I’ve talked about the power of envy before,
about how envy isn’t
about the other person,
how it shows us what WE want.

Envy can also show us
the skill level we’re at.

I’ve been told that as skills improve,
I should become more confident in my writing
and become less envious.

The opposite happened.

When I first started writing,
I’d hear about
a writer securing a big publishing deal
or landing on the New York Times list
and I wouldn’t feel any envy.
I knew I didn’t yet have the writing skills
to warrant this success for myself.

As I increased my skill,
my envy increased also.
Whether or not
I equaled the writer’s success
became more about luck than skill.
I had the skill.
I was envious of their luck.

Envy isn’t a bad thing.
It shows us what we want
and how close we are
to achieving this success
for ourselves.

One of the phrases
romance writers hear over and over
is “Write tight.”
What this means is
every sentence,
every word should count.
The color of the heroine’s dress
means something.
Her name means something.
The flowers on the dining room table
mean something.

Many casual readers,
including critics of romance,
won’t appreciate this tightness.
They’ll read the story
at the literal level.
For them, the heroine’s dress,
name, flower choice
is completely random.

But for the savvy reader,
the well-read romance reader,
this tightness separates
a story destined for the keeper shelf
from the quickly forgotten stories.
When that savvy reader
is an influential,
magic happens.

Tight isn’t the same as perfect.
Tight is about meaning,
about adding features
because they make the product better,
about making deliberate choices.

Tightness should be the goal
of every new product designer.
Fill your product with meaning.

A buddy was offered a promotion
in a more prestigious department.
When he shared this with loved ones,
one family member responded with
“Sounds like your boss
is trying to get rid of you.”

That was a ridiculous comment
but this family member’s negativity
sucked much of the happiness
out of his announcement.

We all know completely negative people.
They’re not simply negative about certain ideas.
They’re negative about EVERYTHING.

The first thing I do
when faced with a negative person
is accept who they are.
Being negative works for them somehow.
That’s why they’re negative.
I’m never going to change them,
no matter what I do
or whatever proof I have to the contrary.

I then avoid these people.
Being negative works for them.
Being around negative people
doesn’t work for me.
When times are good,
I want to enjoy the good times.
When times are bad,
I don’t need nonconstructive
gloom and doom.

If I can’t avoid negative people
(because I’m related to them),
I keep my hopes and dreams
and anything else that is precious
to myself.
When asked about my business,
I’ll change the subject.
Sometimes I’ll make a game
out of out-negativing them
or I’ll count the number of times
they say won’t or never.

Completely negative people exist.
Develop your own coping methods
for dealing with them.

Writers are taught
that a character’s strength
taken to the extreme
becomes a weakness.
A brave heroine might become reckless,
acting first and thinking later.
A wise hero might become all talk and no action
or so ‘perfectly wise’ that he can’t relate
to flawed others.

This is true in leaders also.

As Bruna Martinuzzi
shares
“It’s a known fact that our gifts,
taken to the extreme,
can be liabilities.

For example, one of your strengths might be
that you are prudent in your decision-making.
But what you view as caution,
taken to the extreme,
might result in fear of risk taking.
In the long run,
this can work against you.

You may pride yourself in being a visionary,
but taken to the extreme,
you may bounce off in too many directions,
frustrating others on the team
by switching gears too often.”

Know what your strengths and weaknesses are
but also know what the upsides and downsides
of these strengths and weaknesses are.