Category: New Business Development

Before pitching a new product
to the entire board,
I always pitch the product
to each board member individually first.

This does a few things.

It allows me to hear and prepare
for push back
before the general presentation.
Having the answers
makes me look like a superstar.

I can customize the pitch
for that board member,
increasing the odds
of a favorable sell in.

Best of all,
I can find at least one project champion
(and if there isn’t a project champion,
I know the product has issues).
This project champion will do
some of my selling for me.

As Tom Searcy states
“Seed the audience with supporters.
If you have decided to present
an idea in a meeting,
preview your idea to
some supporters in advance
to get friendly voices in the discussion.”

It is easier to sell to one person
than a group of people.
Pre-pitch your product ideas.

Tom Asacker has a GREAT post
on his predictions for 2012.

One of my favorite sections is
on how the passionate
will not only survive
but they will thrive.

“What’s bugging you?
Whatever it is, for your sake
–and for those unwilling or unable to change–
do something about it!
That’s the key to growth and success.
The inventor David Levy
referred to it
as the curse effect:
“Whenever I hear someone curse,
it’s a sign to invent something.””

What is irritating you?
Does it irritate others?
(This is why I don’t mind
complainers.
They’re great sources of product ideas.)
Can you figure out a solution
and a way to profit from that solution?

One of my writing buddies
spent all of 2011
deep in the depths of despair.
She didn’t write.
Instead she worried about
the state of the publishing world,
how no one could build a career,
and
how the days of writing full time were over.

I published 13 short stories
and 4 novellas in 2011.
I’m at the point
where I’m seriously considering
writing year round.

I know writers who made
millions and millions of dollars last year.
Some of my writing buddies
made their first million in income in 2011.

Ten years from now,
I predict that my worry wart friend
will look back
and realize that THESE were the good ol’ days.

Seth Godin has a great post on this topic.

Start that venture NOW.
There’s never been a better time
to realize your dreams.

I always have aggressive goals.
When I meet them,
I’m flying.
When I fall short,
I still achieve.

A buddy of mine
is super conservative with her goals.
She always achieves them
BUT she seldom achieves more.
She’s lazy
(like all of us are)
and when she achieves her goals,
she stops working.

That’s one reason why
simply not failing
is a dangerous goal to have.
At best, we don’t fail and that’s it.

Another reason is that
we don’t hear negatives.
Tell yourself “Don’t fail”
and your mind hears “Fail.”
NOT a good message
to tell yourself.

Art Petty has a great article
on other reasons.

Aim for success.

Many experts will tell you
to outsource all of the work
just anyone can do.
Hire someone to do your filing,
your spreadsheet updates,
your documenting.

These experts,
I’m betting,
either don’t go out for New Year’s Eve
or they don’t work January 1st.

I always save some
of the brain dead work.

I save this work for days like today
or for days when I zap my brain
in the morning
and still want to feel like
I’m accomplishing something
in the afternoon.

I also save this work
for days
when everything goes wrong.
Updating my royalties spreadsheet
makes me feel like I accomplished something.
It gives me back my confidence
and allows me to attempt
the more challenging work again.

Consider saving some of the easy work
for yourself.

Jim Rohn claimed that
“You are the average
of the five people
you spend the most time with.”

And the odds are…
you’ve invited at least
one of these five people
to your New Year’s Eve party.

If you want to become successful
and you wish to continue to associate
with this person,
it makes sense to help them become successful, right?

Writing down their goals
would help them become successful.

So why don’t you work New Year Resolutions
into your party?
Make it fun.

Have attendees set one crazy resolution
(“I’ll go streaking down my street”)
and one realistic resolution
(“I’ll take a sales course”).

or

Host an internet scavenger hunt,
finding articles
to help to help with resolutions.

or

Have a prize for the people
who keep their resolution
and award it at next year’s party.

or

???

Build goal setting into your party.
Help the people you know
become successful.

We all know that writing down our goals
increases the odds
of realizing our goals.

People who write down their goals
have over an 80% higher success rate
of achieving them.

(The Harvard Goal Setting Study
also showed that graduates
with clear written goals
and plans to achieve them
earned more than twice on average
what their non-goal setting classmates earned.)

So why only write them down once?

What I do
is write down my top goals
EVERY morning.

This does a number of things.
I reconfirm that the goal is important.
I REMEMBER I have made this a goal.
Writing the goal down
on a fresh piece of paper
also reminds me that this is a fresh day,
a fresh start,
and yesterday’s mistakes are in the past.

Write down your goals
at least once.
If you really wish to stay focused,
write them down daily.

One of my buddies had been trying
to quit smoking for a while.
She’d stop and then days or week later,
start again.

Then one day,
her 7 year old daughter came home crying.
She’d learned about smoking and cancer
in school
and was convinced her mommy was about to die.

My buddy quit that day
and she has never picked up
another cigarette.
Whenever she gets the urge,
she remembers those tears streaking down
her daughter’s face
and that urge goes away.

One of my other friends
always dreamed of writing a novel.
She’d write for a bit and then stop,
putting other tasks and other people first.

I finally told her
“By not finding time for your dream,
you’re teaching your children
that their dreams aren’t important.
Is that what you want to do?”

She now has six stories published
and her kids sincerely think
that ANYTHING is possible.

Goals are easier
to achieve
when they have an emotional link.
Find that emotion.

Goals should, of course, be
S.M.A.R.T.,
specific, measurable, attainable,
realistic, and timely.

But how specific is specific?

Top Achievement proposes

“A specific goal has a much greater chance
of being accomplished
than a general goal.
To set a specific goal
you must answer the six “W” questions:

*Who: Who is involved?

*What: What do I want to accomplish?

*Where: Identify a location.

*When: Establish a time frame.

*Which: Identify requirements and constraints.

*Why: Specific reasons, purpose
or benefits of accomplishing the goal.

EXAMPLE: A general goal would be,
“Get in shape.”
But a specific goal would say,
“Join a health club
and workout 3 days a week.””

The more specific a goal is,
the less decisions you need to make,
the easier it is to put it on auto-implement.

An 11 year old recently asked
what a New Year Resolution was.
A friend answered
“A goal you have for the new year.”

THIS definition is one of the reasons
I believe New Year Resolutions fail,
because there is no connection
to a bigger goal.

My goal for 2012 is to write
12 short stories
and 12 novellas.
This goal isn’t inspiring.
It isn’t life changing.
It doesn’t excite me.

What DOES excite me is my big goal
– To earn a million dollars a year
from writing in 10 years.
Being paid great money
to do something I love
gets my blood pumping.
It drives me to work hard,
to achieve.

My goal for 2012 is one more step
toward this big exciting goal.

Yes, have a goal for 2012
but tie that smaller goal
into a larger, more inspiring one.