Category: New Business Development

When a story isn’t working,
the first issue I look at
is how complicated the story is.

I learned this
from new business development.
If an idea or project is too complicated,
it is more likely to die
before launching
or even worse, die AFTER launching.

People may live
complicated lives
but they follow simple ideas.
Great leaders know this.
They break down complicated problems
into simple projects.

They also simplify organizations
because they are people too
and it is easier to work
within an uncomplicated organization.

As a study by Bain & Company shows
when trying to achieve growth,
executives felt the
“biggest barrier by far
(about 85% of the time)
relates to the internal complexity
of their organizations and
the management of their energy
against that.”

Simplify, simplify, simplify!

When I tell people I’m a writer
(i.e. an entrepreneur
who produces creative content
as her product),
folks get dreamy-eyed
and talk about how
it must be nice to work whenever I want,
to answer only to the muse,
to be free.

(eye roll)

Sure, I work whenever I want.
I can choose
any 12 hours
of each and every day.

The freedom myth is just that…
a myth.

Entrepreneurs (writers) answer to customers (readers),
partners (editors/publishers), media, etc.
They have deadlines to meet
or they don’t get paid.
They need to do things,
ship product,
or they don’t get paid.

There are a lot of wonderful reasons
to become an entrepreneur
(my favorite is to make the difference
I want to make)
but absolute freedom is not one of them.

Even
(or more accurately, especially)
entrepreneurs have tasks
they have to do.

One of my writing buddies
is working on three stories
right now.
She bounces from shiny idea
to shiny idea.

When she shared
that she couldn’t wait
to get paid for writing,
I corrected her.

Writers don’t get paid
for writing.
They get paid
for selling completed stories.
If we don’t complete stories,
we don’t get paid.

You’re unlikely to be paid
for an idea.
(unlikely because
I’ve lived long enough
to know
anything is possible)
You’re unlikely to be paid
for a prototype.

You get paid
for shipping,
for completing.

Get ‘er done.

You have an opportunity
to partner with another company.
This company has strengths
to offset your weaknesses
and a customer base
you can sell to.

Sounds groovy, right?

Maybe.
IF that company is one
you want your brand associated with.
By partnering with a company,
you’re sending a signal
that you approve of that company.

Which gets VERY interesting
when the company you’re partnering with
is your competition.

That’s the situation
Barnes & Noble is in.
Barnes & Noble will be stocking
Amazon-published titles
in their e-Store.

So all of B&N’s trash talking
of Amazon
looks silly now.
They must approve of Amazon
or they wouldn’t be partnering with them.

Be careful about who you partner with
especially if that prospective partner
is your competition.

An executive I once worked with
always asked for
the dessert menu
before looking at the entrees.

She planned around dessert
because she knew
that the dessert,
as her last bite,
would be most remembered.

As new product developers,
we should plan
around this last touch also
because
as Seth Godin states

“Research shows us
that what people remember
is far more important
than what they experience.

What’s remembered:

–the peak of the experience
(bad or good)

and,

–the last part of the experience.”

Make that last part
of the experience sing.

Plan around dessert.

I pitched a story to a big publisher
and it was rejected.
It is a good story
but it doesn’t fit within
any of my established pen names
(i.e. brands).

Some of my writer buddies
tell me I should choose
one of the pen names
and have it published under that one.
“No one will care,”
they tell me.

I will.
I’ll care.
And readers might not vocalize
what they’re buying
when they buy that pen name
but I know.

Seth Godin has a great post
on this lack of feedback.

“Caring,
it turns out,
is a competitive advantage,
and one that takes effort,
not money.

Like most things that are worth doing,
it’s not easy at first
and the one who cares
isn’t going to get a standing ovation
from those that are merely phoning it in.
I think it’s this lack
of early positive feedback
that makes caring
in service businesses
so rare.

Which is precisely
what makes it valuable.”

Just because
you don’t receive feedback
doesn’t mean
it is unimportant to your customers.

Caring comes first.

I read a survey yesterday
that claimed
in my region
there were 10 unemployed teachers
for every vacant teaching position.

Yesterday, one of my buddies
landed a prime teaching position.

There are thousands of romance novels
published every year.
The odds of having a bestseller
are slim.

Yet I know many writers
who had a bestselling novel
last year.

We’ve all heard the stats
about starting businesses and succeeding.
They’re dismal and can be discouraging.

Yet business start ups succeed every damn day.

If you wait for the odds
to be in your favor,
you’ll never accomplish anything great.

Start NOW.

Michael Schrage has an awesome post
on why prototypes have to be tested
with users.

“Any innovator deploying
any prototypes in the field
can’t possibly assess
the economics and costs
of staggered roll-outs,
staggered builds and
optimization trade-offs
independent of the people
who will actually be using those prototypes.
Their level of training,
their abilities to observe and report,
their mistakes and misunderstandings,
the natural variability they individually introduce
are costs and risk factors
that invariably influence
design decisions around the prototype.”

***

“The great German General von Moltke
once observed that,
“All plans evaporate
on contact with the enemy.”
For serious innovators,
that aphorism becomes,
“All prototypes evolve
on contact with the user.””

Marketing copy, programs,
heck, ANY project
should be tested
with the end users
as soon as possible.

On an episode of The Millionaire Matchmaker,
the matchmaker knew her client
was about to f**k up big time.

Did she tell him?

No.
She said he had to learn.

That might be great TV
but it is bullsh*t advice.
The matchmaker is the millionaire’s consultant.
He is PAYING for her advice.
Her job is to give him that advice.

Last year, I wrote a Valentine’s Day romance.
Valentine’s Day romances don’t sell.
My publisher knew that.
I didn’t.
Every time I see the zero sales
on my royalty summary,
I get pissed off.

Did I learn something?

Of course.
I learned my publisher sucked
at giving advice.

If you want to be seen as an expert,
BE THE EXPERT.
That means giving your client/business partner
the information they need
to be successful.

According to the
Oxford English Dictionary Online
a money shot “is a
provocative, sensational,
or memorable sequence in a film,
on which the film’s commercial performance
is perceived to depend.”

In romance writing,
writers know that one hot, memorable scene
will not only sell a novel,
but make readers satisfied.
If there is no “money shot”,
there won’t be any sales.

With Apple products,
beautiful design is the money shot.
That is the feature
that sells their products.

No product is perfect
but every successful product
has a money shot.
Find out what your’s is
and market your product with it.