Category: New Business Development

Once we train ourselves
to look for business ideas,
we see them everywhere.

Entrepreneurs evaluate these ideas,
choose the best one
and work on that ONE idea.

The problem is…
we continue to see ideas everywhere.
To be successful,
we have to resist the urge
to jump quickly
from one idea to another.

Writers have the same problem
(except we call them plot bunnies).

When I get a new idea,
I tell a loved one.
He has been instructed to grill me
on that new idea.
He asks me how this idea
– brings me closer to my goals
– fits into my current branding
– is better than my previous idea
etc.
I’m forced to evaluate this idea rationally,
not emotionally,
and I’m reminded of my goals.

I usually park the idea,
putting it in a dedicated notebook,
and then I focus on my original project.

Learn how to deal with your new ideas
and allow your current ideas
the opportunity to be successful.

Recently,
the President of a volunteer board I’m part of
publicly placed the blame
for a board mistake
on a board member.

As we say in business,
she threw the board member under the bus
and the loyalty of the board
was thrown under the bus also.

The next time,
the President asked for assistance,
no one volunteered.

In private, leaders can rip the group a new one
but in public, leaders should be the group’s defender.
That’s how loyalty is gained
and with loyalty, the impossible becomes possible.

As Terry Starbucker shares

“When the leader is in public,
and the arrows fly about the team’s performance,
the leader takes the hit
– or, if the critique is unjustified,
the leader passionately defends the team’s honor.
The blame is never on the team
– it’s on the leader.

Conversely, when things go well,
the praise is always on them
(Think Jim Collins and his concept of
the Level 5 leader in his book
“Good to Great”).”

Leaders defend their team in public.

Next week,
the week between Christmas and New Year’s,
is deadly for meetings and sales calls.

Employees, customers, partners
aren’t focused.
They’re worried about their families
and their after work plans
and their dog eating the tinsel.
They won’t be making the best decisions.
They don’t want to meet with other people.
Sometimes they don’t even want
to SEE other people
(especially if they’re in retail).

So don’t see them next week.
Don’t meet with them next week.

Meet with them this week.
Make decisions this week.
Accomplish what you have to do
with others
THIS week.

Use next week
to catch up on the work you can complete solo
and to plan the best damn year ever.

For high achievers,
quitting is one of the toughest things
to do.

However, quitting or stopping a doomed project
is often necessary.
Making that quitting process more challenging
for high achievers will cost a company
time and money.

Robert Waterman,
author of Adhocracy,
shares

“Good poker players know when to fold.
Managers often don’t
—for several reasons:

First, they don’t bother
to break big projects up
into bite-sized chunks.
It lends some semblance
to structure
to the unknown.

Second, as the project grows,
more and more people’s egos and careers
become invested in
making sure the damned thing succeeds.
Managers proceed against odds
no poker player would touch
because they don’t see that
a failure can turn into a valuable learning experience.

Finally, they don’t get rewarded for
“the perfect mistake”
—a good try that was called off
for the right reasons.”

Make quitting a doomed project easier
for your high achievers.

A newer writer approached me
about writing a series with me.
I have a bigger readership base
than she does
and she clearly wants to use it
to increase her sales.

She’ll write two short stories.
I’ll write two short stories.
The stories will be set
in a shared world.

I agreed to her proposal
but I suggested she go first.

That was a month ago
and she has yet to start the story.
She emails me every week,
telling me she’s working on it,
but clearly she isn’t.

I’m not surprised
and I’m not concerned.
Assigning her the first story
was a test.
If she had passed that test,
THEN I would have thought
about my story.

There are a lot of talkers
in this world
and very few doers.
Test sincerity
before you put any work
into joint projects.

Whenever I’m asked about writing,
the first thing I clarify
is whether the person is a writer
or a reader.

Readers want to hear the writing myths.
They want the author to talk
about how the characters talked to her,
telling her their stories.
They want to hear writers write for the love.
That they would write for free.
That every story is a gift.

Writers want to hear the truth.
They expect to hear
that writing is a business,
that each story is a product
to be developed,
and how we change stories
to make them more marketable.

Using Joe Bastianich’s terminology,
they want to hear the restaurant math.

As the restaurant mogul shares

“Too many people think
running a restaurant is all about the food
and forget it’s a business
and needs to be run like one,
and that’s why so many fail.
Restaurant math is
the fundamental formula for success,
and it’s one of the key things
I learned from my father.”

EVERY industry is business.
Figure out your industry’s math.

I love this post from Seth Godin
about
The Cycle of Customers Who Care.

Here is a snippet
(the entire post is wonderful)

“The first step is
people who care
making a product for
people who care.

The second step is
people who care
making a product for
people who don’t care.

And the third step,
so difficult to avoid,
is that the growing organization
starts hiring people,
not necessarily people who care,
to grow their ever-industrializing company.
And since they are servicing customers
who don’t care,
those employees who don’t care
can get away with it (for a while).”

It is very difficult to skip steps
which is why
many experts recommend
entrepreneurs focus on the niche customer
and not the average customer.
Niche customers care.
The average customer doesn’t care.

Build your first products
for people who care.

My SciFi romances originally contain
a lot of extra information.
I write about the policies, the art, the history
of the alien society.
I need that information
to write in a fully formed world.

On later drafts,
I prune out any information
that isn’t necessary for the core story,
the advancement of the romance.
The average reader doesn’t want to hear
about the evolution of the alien species.

Instead of discarding this information,
I post it on my reader blog.

This serves a number of purposes.
These posts become databases
I use when I write the sequels.
It proves to my critics
that I’ve done the research on my worlds
(a common complaint in SciFi).

But best of all,
it provides some readers,
readers who really care,
with insider information.
They are drawn deeper into my worlds, my stories
and become more emotionally involved.
This insider information gives them
a reason to talk about my stories
as they share their ‘expertise.’

Insider information gives your super fans
a reason to talk about your products.

When I was a project manager
at a large beverage company,
all of the management team took a course
on the 5 love languages
(words of affirmation,
acts of service, receiving gifts,
quality time, and physical touch).

Why?

Because thank you’s
and rewards for great service
are most effective
when we incorporate the right love language
(or incorporate as many love languages as possible
if we don’t know).

For example:
A reward that would incorporate
all 5 love languages would be
– you take your employee out to lunch
(quality time),
you drive/personally make the lunch reservations
(acts of service),
you tell her what a great job she’s doing
(words of affirmation),
you shake her hand
(physical touch),
and
you give her a small token of your appreciation
(receiving gifts)
with a card
(words of affirmation).

Easy, right?
And, with this little bit of thought,
your thank you
just moved from okay to superb.

Learn the 5 love languages.

Yesterday,
the nurse,
a couple of DJs fooled
to get news on the Royal pregnancy,
was found dead.
It is rumored she took her own life.

While the DJs
couldn’t have foreseen
that tragic turn of events,
they must have known
their actions would cost
the nurse her job
and severe hardship.

They purposefully traded a nurse’s job
for higher ratings
and more media coverage.

Right now,
one of your employees,
maybe one of your managers,
may be facing an ethical dilemma,
perhaps with the same type of consequences.

Do you have the means to help that employee
make her decision?
Do you have guidelines?
Do you have a shared view or even a motto
like Google’s Don’t Be Evil?

When you’re outlining what you WILL do
to achieve your goals,
also share what you WON’T do.

Change your world for the better.