Category: New Business Development

I love watching The Voice.
The blind auditions
behind The Voice
show us that passion can be heard
and felt.

Some of the so-called performers,
because it is a blind audition,
simply sing.
They stand there and sing.
They don’t perform.
They don’t engage the crowd.
They don’t entertain.
They do the bare minimal
and that’s it.

The true performers perform.
They move around the stage.
They give the audience a show.
They put everything they have
into the performance.

And the judges feel this.
They turn around for the true performers.

Your customers might not see
everything you do either
but they WILL feel your passion.
Give it your all.

As I receive yet another rejection
on a manuscript,
I remind myself that
rejection is part of every success.

The pilot for Mad Men
was rejected by both HBO and Showtime.

As Mad Men’s creator
Matthew Weiner
shares

“A lot of the business people
and creative people
that I’m fascinated by
all have something in common,
which is a lot of failure
–a lot of dramatic failure
–and a lot of rejection.

All of us face conflict in our life
and obviously no one just gives you anything
–that might create its own problems.
I don’t know about that.

But you get to a point
where you’re like,
okay, I can be bitter
and just stop
or I can keep going
because I really don’t have a choice.”

Don’t allow rejection
and failure to stop you.
Keep going.

For almost three years,
I published stories with an OK publisher.
The sales weren’t bad enough
to force a change
but they weren’t good enough
to help me meet my readership goals.

Eventually,
the publisher’s status changed,
from OK to bad.
I switched to a GREAT publisher
and kicked myself for
not switching sooner.

OK is deadly,
including the OK employee.

In February’s Entrepreneur,
Mel Kleiman,
founder of Humetrics,
shares

“The worst person to hire
is not a bad employee;
it’s an OK employee.

Why?

If you get a bad employee,
you figure out pretty quickly
they’re bad
and get rid of them.
If you hire someone who is OK,
then at least they’re OK,
and you have too many things to do
besides finding someone better
so you just leave them in the job.

Mediocrity is a slow death.”

Eliminate the OK.
OK is not good enough.

Recently,
I signed a three book deal
with a major publisher.
I had submitted several stories
to this publisher
before I sent them a story,
they not only loved
but wanted sequels to.

I have writing buddies
who gave up after the first rejection
from this very choosy publisher.
They wanted to know my secret.
My only secret was
I tried different ideas
until the publisher loved one.

Bob Parsons,
Founder of Go Daddy,
shares

“When I started Go Daddy,
I tried many things
— like building networks
and selling education —
and none of it panned out.

I lost millions of dollars
the first couple of years.
I made a lot of wrong turns,
but that’s the process of
being successful in business.

You got to go down
a lot of wrong roads
to find the right one.”

You’ll make mistakes.
You’ll take wrong turns.
Don’t let this stop you.

When I first started writing,
I wrote whatever I wanted.
I didn’t have a writing schedule
or a submissions schedule
or… well… any schedule.

I also didn’t get much done
and even less sold.

Now, I have a career plan.
I have a writing plan.
I have
annual, monthly,
weekly, daily schedules.

I’m a professional
and I get sh*t done.

As Pete Cashmore,
founder of Mashable,
shares

“Execution really shapes
whether your company takes off or not.

I’m very much a creative person,
but you’ve got to do the follow-through.

A lot of people start out
with an exciting thing
and they want to take over the world,
but really the people who do
take over the world
have a good plan of
how to get there
and the steps along the way.”

Create a plan
and then follow it.

One of my superfans
has what she calls ‘the writing closet.’
Whenever she hears one of her favorite writers
has a deadline looming
or a project she needs to focus on,
she throws her in the writing closet.
Whenever she sees the writer on social media,
she tells her “get back in the closet.”

It sounds silly
but it works.
One of the reasons I wrote 100,000 words
in one month
was because she threw me
into the writing closet.

Entrepreneurs often need
to be locked in a room also.

As Scott Heiferman,
co-founder of Meetup,
shares

“A lot of people think
entrepreneurship is just about reading stuff
and talking to people.

No.
You also need to build, make, design.

Meetup was started by me
locking myself in a room
and sketching, sketching, sketching.”

If you need to get something done,
lock yourself in a room
and complete it.

About once a day,
someone tells me
she has a great idea for a book.

Having a great idea for a book
is a tiny part of the writing process
and
unless the rest of the process
is completed
(i.e. the book gets written
and published
and is sold),
the idea is worthless.
Success is all about executing.

As Gurbaksh Chahal,
serial entrepreneur,
shares

“A big turnoff is
when people approach me
and say,
‘I have a million-dollar idea
and it’s going to be amazing.’

They think just an idea
will make them millions.
That’s not the way business really works.
It’s about executing
the hell out of your idea
— better than anyone else.”

DO something with your great idea!

One of the best CEOs
I’ve ever worked for
(the CEO of a major beverage company)
would visit the customer
(grocery stores, restaurants, etc)
at least once A DAY.

He’d constantly ask people
what they were buying
and why they were buying it.
We knew
when we pitched a new product to him,
he’d look at it
from not only a CEO view
but from a customer view also.

As Jim Koch,
Founder of Boston Beer Co.,
shares

“As a business grows,
the people at the top are often cut off
from the market,
the customers,
and what’s really happening.

I still do a lot of street selling
and spending a lot of time
in front of customers,
whether it’s trying to get a draft line
or a better place on the shelf.

It teaches me the real challenges.
We don’t do a lot of market research
or focus groups,
but I see real customers
and to me that’s a lot higher quality information.”

See and talk to customers.

A loved one had a verbal deal
with a person he trusted.
He thought they both understood the deal
but it turned out
he interpreted it one way
and she interpreted it another.
It ended up costing him
a LOT of money,
money he could have saved
if he had gotten the deal in writing.

Serial lifestyle and beauty entrepreneur
Marcia Kilgore
shares

“Get everything in writing,
especially with business partners.
When you’re starting out,
things can be quite friendly and exciting,
but people’s memory can change due to money.
You can say,
‘Hey, so we don’t forget what the original deal was,
and I have a bad memory,
let’s just write it down together.’

Obviously, better to have a lawyer do it,
but at least have some written recollection
that you are partners,
who’s responsible for what,
and how much money each of you put in.

It seems basic,
but people still don’t put things in writing.”

This is why notes for meetings
can be crucial.

Avoid misunderstandings
and get it in writing.

BTW… if the other person
protests the need to get agreements in writing,
SERIOUSLY consider
whether or not you wish to do business
with her.

David Chilton,
a dragon on the Dragon’s Den
(the Canadian version of Shark Tank),
was asked about failing
and shared

“It’s the nature of the game.
You’re taking risks.
You’re trying things.

In fact, if you’re not failing a lot,
you’re probably not trying enough.

You try to limit the downside
and you make sure
you make the right calculations
but I’ve made all kinds of mistakes.”

Today, a marketing executive at a large publisher
told me I’ve been making a major mistake
with my back cover copy.
I have over 60 stories released
and this mistake has definitely cost me sales.

When you try new things,
you WILL make mistakes.
Don’t allow this
to stop you from trying these new things.