Category: New Business Development

I was a very good student
but
when I applied for
post-secondary schooling,
I applied for all the universities
and all the colleges I was allowed
(without paying extra).
My buddies thought I was crazy.
They only applied to two or three
of their top choices.

My thinking was…
for very little extra effort,
I could keep my options wide open,
so why wouldn’t I?

I now have the option
of going through several publishers
so…
I do.
I have a couple of core publishers
I feed enough stories to keep happy,
and the other stories I spread out.
I learn from each publisher.
I get exposure from each publisher.
And hey, I can.

One of Joe Konrath’s promo tips is
“Diversify and Experiment.
I’ve had as many failures as successes.
Though my ebooks Trapped and Origin
continue to sell hundreds per day,
I’ve got other ebook titles
that only sell a hundred per month.
I have no idea why some sell better than others,
but I’m continuing to explore new genres
and experiment with formats.”

“If your sales are in the gutter,
switch genres.
Get a pen name.
Try something different.
Play with the cover art
and product description.
Switch the category label.
There is no surefire path to success,
but if you want to hit a home run,
you gotta swing at everything.”

BTW… this article is wonderful reading
for those interested
in book promotion pre-eBook
vs post-eBook.

Some folks think
rapture,
the first stage of
the end of the world,
happens today.

I don’t think it does
but all this talk about
last days
isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The topic yesterday at work
was…

What would you do
if this truly WAS
your last day?

Folks talked about visiting
loved ones
they hadn’t seen in a while.
They talked about traveling
to places they’ve always wanted
to see.
They talked about taking
risks
they’re too scared to take
otherwise.

And many people
said they wouldn’t ‘waste it’
at work.

So why are they wasting it
at work
right now?
Why aren’t they doing things
that truly matter?
Things they’d do on their last day?

Ask yourself what you would do
on your last day on earth
and then build a path
so you can do exactly that
without the drop dead deadline.

In April’s Men’s Health,
UFC Welterweight Champion
Georges St-Pierre
talks about evolution
and the circle of knowledge
(quoting Darwin, Michelangelo,
and other notables).

“In fighting, in evolution, in life,
efficiency is the key.
It’s not the most powerful animal
that survives.
It’s the most efficient.”

And how does one get more efficient?
Through knowledge
and…
“The more knowledge you get,
the more questions you ask.
The smarter you get,
the more you realize
that everything is possible.”

The more you know,
the more you know
you don’t know.

Don’t be afraid to admit to
lack of knowledge.
Only toddlers and teenagers
know everything.

Pick a good enough idea
and work it.
Work it until it either fails
or it succeeds.

The world is overflowing
with opportunities.
If you investigate
or, even worse,
start to take advantage of
every opportunity you come across,
you’ll never develop anything.

One of my writing buddies,
for example,
has more than a dozen stories started.
She hasn’t finished anything in months.
She simply starts and starts and starts.

Because she abandons her stories
before they come to completion,
they end up worthless,
not bringing in revenue,
not building her brand.

I put my shiny new story ideas
in a notebook,
and when I start a new story,
I draw from this notebook
(because getting ideas and doing the writing
never seems to happen at the same time).

Take note of the shiny and new,
but work your old idea.

“You’re crazy
to go up against that large company.”
How many times have you,
as an entrepreneur,
heard that?

As an author,
I hear the same thing.
I’m crazy to try to sell books
in the same space
as Suzie New York Times Bestseller.
I get told that
about once a day.

Well…
I’m working at an industry leader,
a huge company.
I received one number
from one department,
and one number
from another department.
Foolish me, I multiplied
these two numbers
to get the answer I needed.

My manager told me
to erase that number,
because multiplying the two numbers
belonged to another department.
I then had to send the document
to this other department
so they could do the multiplication.
(And yes, they got the same answer I did).

I shit you not.

Do you still doubt that
you can compete against the giants?

Big companies aren’t perfect.
Find an imperfection your customers
find irritating
and exploit it.

I recently had a story
go to the next round of consideration
with a major publisher.
Many, many people touched this story
(supplying edits, helping to name it, etc)
so when this good news came,
there was a lot of excitement.
Everyone felt their piece
made a difference
(and it likely had).

One of my loved ones
doesn’t ask for help on his projects.
He doesn’t want to ‘bother’ people.
He wonders why
people aren’t as excited about his successes.

People are selfish
(this is a running theme on Clientk).
They’re excited about my success
because they think of it
as their success.
They’re not excited about my loved one’s success
because it had nothing
to do with them.

If you want people to be happy for you,
make the success about them.
Swallow your pride,
and ask for help.

BTW… THIS is why everyone wants
to help people who are proven to be successes.
A start up entrepreneur may
have to ask for help.
An entrepreneur with a growing reputation
gets volunteers.

I am subbing stories to
some of the larger publishers.
These are possible big dollars,
but they also have a long turnaround time.
Some take a year to look at a partial
(the first three chapters and synopsis).

A story sold to a large publisher
would make my career.
Rationally it makes sense that
I should allocate all my time and energy
to these submissions.

Humans aren’t rational.

I know if I only send to the big publishers,
it will take years before I get a sale.
Over these years,
I will get discouraged,
and stop subbing stories.

So every month,
I also send a shorter story
to a smaller publisher.
These publishers take mere weeks to accept a story.
They then publish these stories within months.
I see sales.
I see progress.
I continue to sub to the larger publishers.

Can you set up some short term wins
on your road to that big success?

In the January/February edition
of The Costco Connection,
veteran alternative rocker
David Usher
commented on the rise
of downloading.

“Old-school me says
it would be nice
if everyone bought the record,
and new-school me says
it’s really great people are listening.
In the end,
I can’t change people’s behavior.
It would be easier
for the artists
to make a living
if people were paying for music,
but I have to live in the real world
– which often record labels don’t live in.”

If a rocker can’t
change people’s behavior,
an entrepreneur certainly can’t either.

Work with change.
Work with behavior.

When Carmine Gallo interviewed
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz years ago,
Schultz told him
“We’re not in the coffee business.
It’s what we sell as a product
but we’re in the people business
—hiring hundreds of employees a week,
serving sixty million customers a week,
it’s all human connection.”

The company I’m currently working with
originally thought of themselves
as being in the cellphone business.
The competition in that business increased,
and they wanted to grow.
That growth came
when they repositioned themselves
as a company that
helps their customers communicate.
Bam.
Their market expanded.

One of my writing buds
saw herself as
writing print books.
She resisted eBooks
and audio books
and other new technology.
It was only when she began
to see herself as
providing stories
that she embraced change
and the future.

Your view of who you are matters.
It defines what you can and you cannot do,
what you look at and what you discard.

Take some time
and examine who you believe you are.

In Profit Magazine,
Stephan Cretier,
Founder of Garda World Security,
talks about how his company
survived the financial crisis
(when his company’s stock price
dropped from $17 to $0.57)

“Our two main clients
at that time were
Washington Mutual Bank
and Wachovia Bank,
which don’t exist today.
We were leveraged
to the maximum,
and we didn’t even know
if our bank clients were going
to survive.
So, many people questioned
whether WE would survive.

I remember
sitting with my management team.
I said, “Let’s stop focusing on
what’s impossible,
and start thinking
about what’s possible.”
So, we started thinking about
ways to get through the crisis,
whether it lasted 12, 18 or 24 months.
And we said “Let’s make sure
we’re the best security company
in the world when this crisis is over.”
So, we really started focusing on our systems,
on benchmarking the company,
on choosing the key markets,
on cleaning up the parts of the business
we wanted to be in
and getting rid of the rest.”

Of course,
if Garda had done all that
BEFORE the meltdown,
they would have been
in an even better position.

Don’t wait until your industry’s meltdown
(and it WILL come)
to take action.