Category: New Business Development

I belong to a large organization
catering to romance writers.

Large organizations change slowly.
It is challenging
to gain consensus
with so many people,
from so many different backgrounds,
involved.

The romance writing industry
is changing VERY quickly.
Only a year ago,
no respectable writer
considered self-publishing.
Now, almost everyone is considering
that route.

Unfortunately, the writing organization
has very narrow specifications
on which formats and genres and even word counts
they deem as acceptable.

They can’t keep up with the changes.
Sub-groups are inventing workarounds
as the organization falls more and more
out of touch
with the current writing environment.
If they don’t catch up,
eventually they’ll become extinct.

If you’re building a business
in a quickly changing industry
(and ALL industries are changing quickly),
add flexibility
so your business can also change.

Great businesses adapt to change.

During
Black In America: The New Promised Land
– Silicon Valley,
one of the mentors
pointed out that
young white guys land more tech funding.

So what did he do
as NOT a young white guy?

He hired a young white guy
to pitch his company to venture capitalists.

One of my writing buddies
writes gay romances.

She’s not male OR gay
so she hires hunky males
(often they’re gay)
to pose with her at book signings.

Her fans love attending her events.

Yes,
it would be wonderful
if we were judged on results alone
but we don’t live
in that imaginary world.
We live in a world filled with bias
and hurdles.

Life is easier when we acknowledge bias
AND develop an action plan
to overcome it.

During the panel after
Black In America: The New Promised Land
– Silicon Valley,
the value of execution is stressed
again and again.

Chris Genteel,
Diversity Business Development Manager
at Google,
talks about Angela Benton,
the accelerator’s founder.

“It was incredible
the speed with which
she moved to that,
which is something that
at Google,
we know something about,
which is moving really quickly
and when you see
someone like that
who so embodies the spirit of tech
which is quick
and get it done,
you know you HAVE to partner.”

Notice that Angela moved first.
She took action first.
She executed first.

THEN she landed a significant partner.

Prove you can do.
Prove you can execute.
Words can lie.
Action rarely does.

Get started.

During
Black In America: The New Promised Land
– Silicon Valley,
upon arrival,
the entrepreneurs were asked to pitch
at their first meet and greet event.

The entrepreneurs were shocked
and completely unprepared.

The potential investors
were, of course, appalled.
Individual after individual
pointed out
that entrepreneurs should
ALWAYS be ready to pitch.

An author buddy attended a dinner
on Saturday.
She lucked out
and sat beside an agent.
The agent asked her to pitch
her latest book.

My buddy froze.
She didn’t have a tagline.
She didn’t have a catchy blurb.
The agent was unimpressed
and didn’t ask to see her book.

If you sat beside someone right now
who had the ability to help you
with your dream,
could you sell her on helping you?

ALWAYS be ready to pitch.

Kevin Smith,
actor/writer/producer,
is known for bringing unlikely characters
to the big screen.

So what is his advice
for others seeking similar success?

“Chase the whimsies.
Don’t stop fucking
chasing the whimsies
because there’s so much reality
out there.
All I ever did all my life
was chase after
dopey little shitty dreams.
But you aggregate enough
dopey little dreams together,
you get one fucking big dream
that comes a callin’
and holds your life together.”

I totally agree.
Rarely do I hear about
entrepreneurs recognizing their innovation
as “the next big thing.”
Usually, they focus on the little innovation
and it grows into
that big thing.

Your dream doesn’t have to be big
to lead to success.

Chase the whimsies.

Nolan Bushnell is the founder
of Chuck-E-Cheese and Atari.

What is his definition
of an entrepreneur?

“The critical ingredient is
getting off your butt
and doing something.
It’s as simple as that.
A lot of people have ideas,
but there are few
who decide to do something about them
now.
Not tomorrow.
Not next week.
But today.
The true entrepreneur is a doer.. not a dreamer.”

Yes, I know you’ve heard
this “you must do” message
often here
on Clientk.

There’s a reason for that.
You HAVE to do
to succeed.
It is one of key success factors
ALL entrepreneurs, authors, brand builders,
hell, anyone
agrees upon.

Do it NOW!

It astounds me
when I talk to people
and they DON’T have
a business or idea they’re working on.

The opportunities are amazing.

If you don’t believe me,
believe Guy Kawasaki.

“Think of everything that
an entrepreneur needs
(tech ones, anyway),
and you’ll see that most things
are free or cheap.

Marketing: use blogs and social media
to promote your products.

Tools: most tools are Open Source and free.
Microsoft offers free versions of applications
like Word, Excel and PowerPoint in the cloud!

Infrastructure: More cloud goodness—
you don’t have to buy servers anymore.

People: callous for me to say,
but in a recession,
people are free or cheap.

Office space: what office space?
You can work out of your garage
(like David Hewlett and Bill Packard)
or just form a virtual team.

The bottom line is
this is one of the cheapest times
to be an entrepreneur,
so go into your garage and start prototyping.”

You heard the man.
Go!

As we’ve discussed before,
there are two types of people in the world.

There are those that believe
in scarcity,
that success is a zero-sum game.
If you win,
they lose.
These folks may say they’re happy
for your success
but they’re not really happy
because by you succeeding,
you’ve reduced the chance
of them succeeding.

In the other camp
are those that believe in abundance.
They believe if you win,
they can win also.
They’re happy for you
when you succeed.
They’ll help you to succeed.

So what does this have to do
with today,
Valentine’s Day?

One of the easiest ways
to determine
a woman’s view of the world
is to listen for the word ‘love.’

Scarcity believers won’t use love
to describe much.
They believe they can only love
so many people, so many things.
One of my loved ones is a scarcity believer
and she’ll only sign a specific number
of holiday cards with ‘love.’
As her family grew,
she nixed siblings off her list of people
she loved.

World of abundance women
will use love to describe everything.
They love white chocolate brownies.
They love people they met
two minutes ago.
They love movies and books
and their jobs
and…well…everything.
They believe love and wealth and success
is unlimited.

Listen for the love.
Those are the women
you want on your team.

It is rumored that the bitchy boss
in The Devil Wears Prada
is based on Anna Wintour,
the editor-in-chief of Vogue,
a woman
designer Karl Lagerfeld calls
“the most famous
fashion journalist in the world.”

Now
you and I know
that if a woman is the boss,
odds are
some ass is going to call
her a bitch.

Anna Wintour points out
to 60 Minutes
that the proof is in the employees.

“I have so many people
that have worked here for
15 to 20 years.
If I’m such a bitch,
they must be gluttons
for punishment.”

Exactly.
People aren’t stupid.
They don’t work for decades
for a bad boss.

Is Anna Wintour tough?
Of course.
You don’t survive for long
as a leader
if you’re not tough.

As Wintour points out
“People respond well
to people who know what they want.”

No one follows a bitch.
They follow leaders.

A writing organization I belong to
spent the last couple of years
debating whether or not
to recognize the achievements
of ePublished authors.
This created a lot of drama
and bad feelings.

They finally decided ‘yes’
and the membership breathed
a collective sigh of relief,
applying themselves to their true business
of writing.

There was about three months
of peace.
Then the leadership made the decision
to exclude any LGBT writing.

More distracting drama.

It is really tempting
as a leader
to constantly make changes,
tweaks here and there
that may or may not
be necessary.
We feel like we’re doing something.

The issue is…
changes create drama
and drama is distracting.
Distractions kill businesses.

Ask yourself
if your proposed change
is important enough
to distract your employees
from your core business.
Don’t create drama
for no reason.