Category: New Business Development

I read these questions
on wealth building forums,
hear these questions
at seminars,
receive these questions
via email.

Should I go to college?
Should I start my own business?
Should I write about vampires?
Should I look for a new job?

No one can answer these questions.
Why?
Because the most important word
in these questions
is “I”.
No one can make these decisions
except for the questioner.

I know what I would do.
I can give you pro’s and con’s
of the decision.

I can’t and won’t make
the decision for you.
That responsibility is yours.

A new writer asked me
how I know readers will like a story.

I don’t.

I have no idea whether or not
a story will resonate with readers.
I write the best stories I can write
and hope for the best.

Paul Simon has the same view
of the hits he has had.
“Because I was surprised at
a lot of the hits I’d had
and didn’t know what made them hits.
I would never have guessed that
“50 Ways To Leave Your Lover”
would be No. 1.”

Patrick Monahan of Train
can’t tell either.
“But I not being driven
take way more chances
and that’s why it works.
Because you know “Hey Soul Sister”
was not supposed to be a huge song
but the fact that
a ukulele was picked up
made it more pop.”

When I launched non-writing products
(beverages, new burgers),
I also had no clue
what would be a hit.
All the focus groups in the world
couldn’t tell me this.

You won’t know
if your product will sell
until you launch it.
Sorry
but that’s the gritty truth.

We all know
the classic example of opportunity cost.
If we can only launch one product
and we launch product A,
we won’t benefit from launching product B.
This missed benefit
or cost of not pursuing the other opportunity
is an opportunity cost.

Leonard A. Schlesinger,
Charles F. Kiefer,
and Paul B. Brown
remind us of other opportunity costs
we should be aware of.

“You want to be mindful of
what you are choosing not to do,
and you also want to recognize
another form of opportunity cost:
the price to be paid
for not acting right away
— someone else might conceive
and implement your idea.
And the price to be paid for inaction
— you might spend the rest of your life
in a job you hate,
or miss a great opportunity
to make an once-in-a-lifetime contribution.”

This is why
the standard dreamer’s rationalization
that “it doesn’t cost anything to wait”
is wrong.

It DOES cost something to wait.
It could cost you
the opportunity of a lifetime.

Baratunde Thurston,
director of digital for The Onion,
believes that career security
depends on broad thinking.

“That when change is the constant,
the thing that you have to cling to
is less the specific skill set of Job A
and more of a general mindset of Approach B.”

so instead of being a Facebook specialist,
you think of yourself
as a communications specialist.

Why?

Because the world is changing quickly.
Today, Facebook is the media of choice.
Tomorrow, it may be something else.

A broader view of what you do
will prepare you
when Facebook disappears.
It will position you
as being more adaptable.

Think of what you do in broad terms.

I highly recommend
watching
this fast, less than 5 minute video.

Travis Robertson has a great post
on the four phases
to living your mission,
living the life
you’re meant to live.

The first
and most important phase
is believing you have a mission.

“Many people don’t even think
they are called to something greater
than what they’re currently doing.
They’ve settled.
Perhaps you have accepted the lie
that you are “unlucky” or
that you are average.
In your mind,
other people having missions,
or callings,
or a purpose.
Not you.
You feel like you are doomed
to this average life.”

I’m about as average as a woman gets.
I’ve never been top of my class.
I’ve never been the prettiest
or the most popular person.
Even my writing skills started out
as being average.

But I had products
I wanted to see launched
and I had stories
I wanted to see written.

And I quickly saw
that being average was a benefit.
I launched products for average people
and I wrote stories for average people
and amazingly,
that made me extraordinary.

You can be your version of extraordinary also.
First, you have to believe.

Last week,
I was approached by a writer.
She had crafted a well written story,
had a blazing marketing program,
yet had no sales.

Why?

Because there’s no demand for her story.
She can advertise it
all she wants
but if people don’t want the product,
they won’t buy it.

John Bradberry
stresses the importance of market demand.

“Market demand for a product
is the first source of all commercial success.
Jeff Cornwall,
director of Belmont University’s
entrepreneurship program,
has estimated that
40 percent of all failing ventures
are doomed right out of the gate,
simply because the basic idea isn’t viable.

This may be because
the entrepreneur’s product or service
doesn’t solve a compelling enough problem,
or because
strong competitors are already
addressing the problem,
or because
of an inability to promote
and distribute the product
through the right customer channels.”

Ensure market demand
is there
before sinking a lot of time
and money into your product.

I get rejected every damn day.
My manuscripts get rejected by publishers.
My edits get rejected by editors.
My stories get rejected by readers and reviewers.

Rejection is such a huge part
of a writer’s life
that how she handles rejection
will determine how successful she is.
Deal with it well = success.

Dealing with it well
means not taking it personally,
learning from the rejection,
and trying again.

What are harmful ways
to deal with rejection?

Ron Ashkenas
shares

“While all employees should feel comfortable
offering ideas, raising issues,
and making observations —
they should do so
with the knowledge
that they may be rejected.
If they get discouraged or angry
about not having their ideas accepted,
they might shut down
and stop contributing.
Similarly,
if employees feel so self-important
that the organization should never
turn them down,
their sense of entitlement will make it difficult
to drive constructive change.”

No one likes rejection
but successful people learn
how to deal with it.

Today, on Good Friday,
my mom wakes up early
and bakes dozens
of hot cross buns.

This made sense
when she had a big family.
Today, however, she lives alone
and she still bakes dozens
of hot cross buns.

We’re creatures of habits.
We have thousands of habits
we don’t even realize are habits.

Charles Duhigg,
author of
The Power of Habit,
shares why habits are important.

“When a habit emerges,
the brain stops fully participating
in decision making.
It stops working so hard,
or diverts focus to other tasks.
So unless you deliberately fight a habit—
unless you find new routines—
the pattern will unfold automatically.”

Design products to work
with existing habits.
Make it easy for your product
to become part of a customer’s
daily/weekly/monthly/annual habit.

Jeff Stibel has a great post
on entrepreneurs and work-life balance.

“As entrepreneurs,
we have zero sense of balance.
We’re all in,
all the time.
It doesn’t matter if it’s day or night,
weekday or weekend —
each of us focuses on our vision
with a single-minded passion.”

He’s right.
We’re not balanced.
Sure, we do our best to spend time
with our family and friends
but we don’t often indulge in
other entertainment.

We don’t need to.

As a writer, I work damn hard,
producing product,
building a brand,
expanding the business.

I no longer need to go to the movies
or take work-free vacations
or to get away from the business.

Why?

Because I truly love what I do.
Sure, some days, it is challenging
but I don’t want to do anything else.

When you’re living your dream,
you don’t need a vacation.

Jim Collins asserts that
successful companies aren’t luckier
than other companies.
They get a “better return on luck.”

“On one hand,
Bill Gates was lucky.
He was lucky to be
in the right place
at the right time,
he knew how to program
just as the first personal computer
came into existence.
But thousands of other people
had access to computers and
knew how to program in BASIC.

Yet, the difference between Bill Gates
and others
is not that he was lucky,
it’s that he did more with his luck.
He moved to Albuquerque.
He dropped out of college.
He got BASIC ready in time
for the first personal computer
and for the Altair.
He launched Microsoft and
he didn’t stop.
He [put in] another 25 years of hard work.”

In other words,
we’re all lucky.
Some of us, however, recognize
the situation as good luck
and leverage that luck into success.