Category: New Business Development

I’m working on a new story.
I LOVE the premise
of this story
and I know it will sell.

When I shared it
with a loved one,
a non-romance reading loved one,
he thought it was bizarre.

That didn’t phase me.
Every great idea
has been called bizarre.

As Mike Michalowicz shares
about his own idea

“The next day
I shared the plan
with my key employees,
who told me the idea was ridiculous.
Perfect!
A clear sign I was onto something huge!
If there is one thing I have learned
about being an entrepreneur,
it’s that every game-changing idea
is challenged.”

Any idea you have
will be challenged.
Expect it.
Embrace it.

One of my buddies,
a brilliant writer,
has three stories on the go.
None of these stories
are close to completion.

Yesterday,
she found what we call
in writing circles
a new shiny,
a call for submission
from yet another publisher.

A bunch of us
did an intervention.
We told her
“no more new projects
until you finish the projects you have.”

She didn’t like it
but she didn’t argue.
She knew we were right.

Robin Sharma has a wonderful list
of 44 master moves
of remarkable entrepreneurs.
#41 is
“They are good at starting things.
And even better at finishing them.”

Finish your damn projects.

Do you know what you want?
What you TRULY want?

We lie,
even to ourselves,
perhaps ESPECIALLY to ourselves.

To avoid these lies,
former FBI agent
LaRae Quy advises
that we ask indirect questions.

“The secret of an FBI stealth interrogation
is to never ask direct questions.
Instead, come from the side.

For example, questions like,
“What is my purpose in life?”
Or,
“What do I want?”
are too broad to produce a meaningful answer.
Instead, ask yourself stealth questions like
“What would excite me?”
“What looks, feels, and sounds
like an adventure?””

To determine what I REALLY want,
I often ask myself
whom I’m jealous of,
or
whose life I’d like.
I watch for jealousy.

As Socrates says
“The unexamined life
is not worth living…”
but when you’re examining your life,
ask yourself the more truthful
indirect questions.

Romance is one of the best selling genres
and romance writers plan to
ensure it stays that way.

One initiative aimed to accomplish
this goal
is to stream younger readers
into romance.

What is one way
this is being accomplished?

Established romance writers,
the greats in the romance field,
are writing young adult novels,
novels with a bit of romance,
often set as part of worlds
existing in their adult series.

They’re building a bridge
between the two products,
making it easy
for readers to move
from young adult fiction
to adult romances.

Can you build a customer bridge,
moving customers
from one product
to another?

You’re really busy.
I know.
I’m really busy too.

And we’re not alone.
The average executive is working
longer hours.
Many executives,
including Google’s Marissa Mayer,
work 90 hour weeks.

I live by to-do lists.
They allow me to prioritize
but I’ve also moved to
scheduling this tasks.

As Joann S. Lublin shares

“For some time-starved managers,
keeping a detailed calendar
often makes more sense
than making daily to-do lists.”

Schedule those important tasks
and keep to your schedule.

Shipping is an important
but often overlooked part of a business.
It takes time and money
and it is a big part of your customer’s experience.

Open Forum has a great article
on 13 ways to reduce shipping.

Nina Rodecker,
CEO and founder of
Tasty Clouds Cotton Candy Company,
provides this tip…

“State in your company’s terms of shipping
which days you ship products.
This way,
you can group your shipments together
and save time, money and
several trips to the shipping carrier.
Some carriers will pick up your shipments
at your location for a small fee,
so consider the time, labor, gas
and other factors
when comparing delivery vs. pickup costs.”

Shipping is an important task
and grouping tasks is efficient.

A buddy of mine writes
interracial romances.
Her fellow interracial romance writers
would bitch and complain
about how there was no writing chapter
for them.
She’d tell them to form one.
They wouldn’t.
She finally got tired of their complaining
and organized the chapter
her own damn self.

Now that it is up and running,
she has plenty of helpers
but she will always, always be the founder.

Last year, I was part
of a multi-author series.
I was the newbie author in the series
and I waited for someone
to organize cross-promotion, etc.
Nobody did.

This year, I’m part
of another multi-author series.
I didn’t wait for someone else
to organize cross-promotion.
I did it my own damn self.

Once I organized the activities,
I had plenty of helpers
who did as much or more work
than I did.
However, I’m seen as a leader
and I’m getting the bulk of the credit.

If you want something done,
organize it your own damn self.
Delegate but take the lead.
Make things happen.
Change your world.

Whenever I can’t figure out a problem,
I’ll start working on something else
and usually while doing this something else
my brain grasps a solution.

How is this possible?
Aren’t I using my brain
to do that something else?

I am
but it is a different part
of the brain
and these parts can function separately.

As Myra Fernandes,
an associate professor in cognitive neuroscience
shares

“It’s only when you have competition
for the exact same brain structure
that you’re going to get
what we call ‘catastrophic interference.’
You can’t remember as much
as you normally would.”

So when you’re multi-tasking,
try to multi-task
different sorts of tasks.

When you envision an economics class,
what do you think of?
Dry facts?
Complicated formulas?
A stuffy professor
droning in an monotone voice?

Not in Larry Smith’s economics class
at the University of Waterloo.
(at least not when I was taking his classes)
There was never an empty seat
and the students taking the class
knew to show up early
because students not taking the class
would drop in and listen.
These students were in unrelated fields,
the liberal arts,
computer studies, geology.

They came to listen
because Larry Smith has a passion for economics.
He makes the subject matter interesting.

But passion is different from interest.
As he explains
“Passion is your greatest love,
passion is the thing
that will help you create
the highest expression of your talent.
Passion, interest,
it’s not the same thing…
What you want is passion…
You need 20 interests and
then one of them might grab you, and
one of them might engage you
more than anything else.
And then you will have found
your greatest love
in comparison to all of the other things
that interest you, and
that’s what passion is.”

Find your passion.
Live your passion.

Some days I feel extremely lazy.
I don’t want to work.
I certainly don’t want to work
until midnight
(as I did last night and the night before).

But then I remember
Queen Elizabeth II,
a freakin’ Queen,
standing in the pouring rain,
waving to her people,
because it was her Diamond Jubilee
and that was what people expected.
She’s 86 years old,
a Queen,
and she was working it.

What is my excuse?
What is your excuse?
(hint: being a Queen
clearly isn’t a legitimate excuse,
and neither is being in your 80’s)

Time to get back to work.