Category: New Business Development

One of the many things
that separates Gene Simmons Family Jewels
from other reality celebrity shows
is the home movies shown.
The lives of the kids
have been documented
since birth.
This history can’t be duplicated.

The BBC has been showing
animal documentaries
for… well… for forever.
They have thousands of hours
of quality content.
What to do with it?
Some very creative people
have added hilarious voiceovers
to the animal videos.
It is one of the hottest clips on YouTube.
Same video, new content.
(Notice the branding)

Another hot trend on YouTube
is the premakes
of current movie trailers
using classic Disney content.
Why Disney content?
Again, because of the years of history.
This is NOT done by Disney
but it should have been.

You don’t need a hundred years of history
to reuse content.
I have a photo blog with over 8,000 photos.
Clearly when I need images,
I reuse the old content
on the photo blog.

The past doesn’t have to stay
in the past.
If you have history,
dust off those old products,
images, content,
and see if you can reuse it
in a fresh, creative way.

Psychiatrist Edward Hallowell states
there are five steps to peak performance.

The first step is Select.
What is select?

“A person needs to first figure out
what it is they should be doing.
It is the intersection of three elements
—what they’re good at,
what they like,
and
what adds value to the organization or world.
All of the other steps are based
on this first pivotal step.”

When I first contemplated writing romances,
I was wary.
I knew I LIKED writing romances.
I didn’t know if I was GOOD at writing romances.
So I entered a contest,
and, in that first contest,
I placed second.

I had two of the three.
I was good at it,
and I liked it.
That left
“Would my romance writing
add value to the world?”
In other words,
would people perceive my writing
to be of such value,
that they’d pay for it.

My first product,
traditional romances with a business slant,
flopped.
Sales were low.
They didn’t add value.

My next product,
steamier paranormal romances,
sold.
They DID add value.
Now I have the three.
I love what I do,
I’m good at it (and getting better),
AND what I do adds value.

Do you love what you do?
Are you good at it?
Does what you do add value?
If the answers to any of these questions are no,
your present role may not be the right one
for you.

A loved one doesn’t like to travel.
Her husband loves to travel.
Two years ago,
this loved one ‘dreamed’
that if she traveled,
she would die.
She told the husband
“If I travel, I’ll die.
Would you rather
we travel now,
or we live a long life together?”
Of course, the husband said the latter,
and they haven’t traveled since.

That’s the thing.
If you want a reason
to do something
or a reason
NOT do something,
you will find one…
even if it is based on a dream.

Stop with the reasons/excuses already.
Figure out what you want,
plot out how to get it,
and then GO for it.

It sounds simple,
because it IS.
The only thing stopping you is YOU.

One of my most successful stories
features a rabbit shapeshifter
(a woman who can turn into a rabbit).

Because it did very well,
I know of at least a dozen writers
who are writing stories
featuring bunny shifters.

My product is being copied.
Am I worried?
Yes but not for me.
I’m worried for the other writers.

Because the story wasn’t a success
simply because the heroine was a bunny shifter.

It was successful because
it had a policeman hero,
it had fantasy policeman scenarios,
it was as funny as hell,
it was book two of a very successful series,
it had a great title,
it had a great cover,
vampires die,
it had a LOT of sex in it,
AND
it had the ‘unusual’ bunny shifter heroine.

That’s the danger with copying a successful product.
You have to dig deep
and spend time to uncover
WHY it was successful.

Don’t copy products blindly,
expecting to copy their success.

One of my publishers
is run mostly on volunteers.
The publisher does the core work,
and authors volunteer to do the extra tasks.
I knew that when I submitted my first story there.
I knew what that meant.

If I wanted to be with that publisher long term,
I’d have to volunteer for a task.
Not only volunteer,
but lead
because leading is what leaders do.

I’m a busy gal.
I don’t have much extra time
so instead of waiting to be volunteered for something,
I looked at the projects,
deciding upon one that will be long lasting
but won’t take much time,
and I offered to lead that project.

All clientk readers
are either leaders
or leaders-of-the-future.
If you are part of an organization,
you will have a leadership role
in some way.
That is going to happen.

Don’t fight it.
Work with it.

Be proactive
and ask for the position you want.

My mom raised us
with the saying
“If it is meant to be,
it is up to me.”

Some people think this means
that if you care passionately about something,
YOU have to do it…
ALL.

Yikes, no.

I interpret it as…
if I care passionately about something,
I should find other people who care
about that same thing,
and organize them to get it done.

If it is a passionate topic,
you WILL find helpers,
and many of those helpers may be doers
but they may not be leaders.
So you take the tough job and lead.
You delegate the time consuming doing part
to your passionate helpers.

Use your leadership skills
to organize
and make a change in the world.

I grew up on a farm.
On a farm,
everyone works.
You start working at birth,
and you ‘retire’ at death.
Farming tends to be a family business
because that is what the kids know.

This is much the same
in an entrepreneurial family.
Trump’s kids have been in real estate
since birth.
He has included them
in the family business.
It is what they know.

My ten year old niece
shows a leaning towards business building.
I’m setting up a blog,
making it easy for her to post to,
and
slapping Adsense on it
so she makes some money.
I’ll nurture it for a couple of years
until she gets into the habit of posting
but I suspect by the time she’s 12,
it will be her baby.

It’ll cost less than $100
to set her up with her own business.
She might fail.
She might succeed.
But the key thing is…
I’ve encouraged her
and I’ve given her something that is hers.

Do your kids have their own business?
If not, why?

One can become
very disgruntled
when watching reality shows.
Reality shows make the rich appear
to be given things,
to not have to work.
That is fantasy, not reality.

That is why
The King’s Speech is so refreshing.
Here is a King,
a man born to privilege,
yet we watch him struggle
to overcome a weakness.
He is never great
but, with hard work,
he ends up good.

The lesson?

“There’s no substitute for hard work.
You have to roll up your sleeves
and put the hours in
to get where you want to be,
even if you’re the King Of England.”

The Clarity Rules
has a presentation
of four other lessons learned
from The King’s Speech.

A little over a year ago,
I published my first paranormal romance.
I was told, at the time,
that I ‘missed the boat,’
that the paranormal romance genre was dying,
that I was wading into a crowded genre
with too much established competition to succeed in.

Since then,
I’ve published over a dozen stories.
I wasn’t a success over night
but I’m building a following
and paying some bills with my writing.

If an industry is healthy,
you will have competition.
Waiting for the competition to thin
is silly and a waste of time.

Launch NOW.
There is ALWAYS room
for a good product
with a different story.

Seth Godin has a similar post
on the subject of waiting.

I fail… often.
As I mentioned yesterday,
I wrote a few stinkers in 2010
and those were the stories
I THOUGHT had worked.

Any doer has failed.
If she says she hasn’t,
she has either forgotten her failures
(good for her),
or is lying.

Jonathan Fields,
author of
Career Renegade:
How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love
says

“The reality is that a ton of businesses fail.
Every successful entrepreneur
I’ve ever met
has failed way more than
they’ve succeeded.
In fact,
it’s almost evidence of that fact
that you’re willing to continue
to try and innovate.
If you don’t try,
what inevitably happens is
you start to move sideways.”

Don’t try to fail,
that would be silly,
but don’t be afraid of failing.