Category: New Business Development

No, I’m not getting into the meaning of life,
(if there even is one).
What I’m talking about
is why your business or your service exists.

Easy answer.
Because you’re different.
You offer something
another company or consultant or employee
doesn’t.

If you’re a writer,
you don’t want to be Stephenie Meyer
(1 in 7 books sold last quarter
were written by Stephenie Meyer).
Stephenie Meyer already exists.
While she continues to write,
why would her fans switch?

If you’re a soft drink manufacturer,
you don’t want to be Coca-Cola.
You’ll never be the real thing.

You want to be different.
Different is NOT bad.
It is essential to success.

Struggling to find new ideas?

R. Keith Sawyer,
author of the book
Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation
says that
bathroom, bus,
and bed
are the three places most likely
to lead to a creative idea.

When I’m working on a novel,
I tend to sleep more.
I’ll think about a problem before bed
and then when I wake up,
I’ll often have a solution.
The quiet time allows my brain to work
uninterrupted.

If I’m stuck for ideas, period,
I take the bus.
There is something very inspiring
about being around
so many different people
from different walks of life.
Some are on their phones,
allowing me to listen in on
one-sided conversation,
forcing me to make up
the other half.
Others will be reading
the latest hot book.
Styles, color choices, music
are all out of my comfort zone.

I don’t see the bathroom as a creative place
but many of my friends do.
They’ll bring in reading material
including magazines and newspapers
and the quiet time allows them to think.

Try the three B’s
next time
you need to be creative.

Chris Martin,
lead singer of Coldplay,
is still hungry and it shows.

“Every day I wake up
and think,
‘OK, today we’ve got to really prove ourselves.
We’ve got to justify where we are.’
I always feel like
my dad’s going to burst through my bedroom door
at any moment
and wake me up to go back to my real job.”

But he realizes that no matter how hard they work,
they’ll never please everyone.

“We’re like Vegemite in many respects.
A lot of people like us,
but many more people don’t.
I’d like to convince everyone
that our particular brand of Vegemite
is brilliant
but it’s never going to happen.”

Be like Vegemite
and work it.

Rapper/Producer/Businessman Kanye West
believes in innovation
and pushing ideas forward.

“I like the challenge of having
to win people over
with a new concept.”

“My father was a salesman.
And I saw him
have to talk people into things
and expose people to new ideas
all the time.
And I like that.
What’s the point
if you’re not presenting something new
to people,
that people might not be ready for,
and exposing people to new ideas?”

Exactly.
What’s the point?

My goal this summer for clientk
is to put together
4 Best Of… eBooks
(one for each year 2005 to 2008
and yes, Elisha, I agree,
it is about f***in’ time).

I know the importance of covers
(The Times Online states
“Studies show that a book on a three-for-two table
has about one and a half seconds to catch a reader’s eye.
If it is picked up,
it is on average glanced at
for only three to four seconds.”
– that’s all cover)
so I wanted to get the best cover art I could.
I contacted the designer
of my very popular Invisible cover.

Her charge out rate for a cover?
$50-75
An absolute bargain.

For one time activities,
it makes absolutely NO sense
to do it yourself.
There is always someone who can do it better
for less.

Success has a great post on
businesses thriving during economic tough times.

Of course, there are the usual benefactors
bankruptcy lawyers, resume writing services, grocery stores
but there are a few unusual industries.

Bike sales have increased substantially
as people have more time and less money
to go places.

Video game manufacturers are seeing increases
of 31%
on top of previous strong sales.

Have you considered adding a recession friendly product
to your line up?

You might think it would be easy
for a rising country star like Taylor Swift
to snag a walk on
in an extra stuffed show like CSI.

You’d be wrong.
In an interview with CMT’s Paul McGuire,
Taylor Swift
shares that it took 2 years
of mentioning how much she loved CSI
in almost every interview she had
to get the invite.

A less determined person would have given up earlier
but then,
a less determined person is not a star.

Stars stay stars because they work hard.
If they are working that hard,
shouldn’t you?

One of the things
romance readers do well
is ask
“What’s next?”
They’ll finish a great book from an author
(did I mention for eBook week,
my publisher is giving away Invisible for free?)
and they’ll contact the author
or scope out her website
or…
to find out when the next book is out.

I increase the likelihood of that
by asking readers to tell me
what they think of my novels.
This allows me to let them know (individually)
when the next novel is being released.

What is the lesson in this?
Great customers prefer to be led
from sale to sale.
They don’t want to buy just one.
They WANT to be lifelong customers.

Don’t abandon customers after the sale.
Take care of them.

A group of editors and agents
took time out of their busy, overbooked schedules
and put together a twitter event
called QueryFail.
They took examples of real queries
and discussed why the queries failed.

It was very successful
and highly educational
but some writers took offense.

That’s to be expected.
If you do ANYTHING of note,
you’re going to get criticism.
Even Mother Teresa was criticized.

And if you do absolutely nothing,
you’ll hear about it also.

So stop worrying about what other people think.
Go out there and change YOUR world!

I pitched a project to a company.
I had to fight for it
but it ended up a solid success.

I pitched the next project to the same company.
Again, I received the same fierce push back,
no credit given for the previous success.
The second project was an even bigger success.

I pitched the third project to the same company.
No credit was given for the first two successes.
Despite even more strenuous push back.
I managed to sell it in.
It is shaping up to be another success.

Now, I’m looking at the fourth project.
I’m NOT selling it to the same company.
Why would I?
If I’m going to be treated like a complete newbie,
I might as well be a newbie
in a new company.

Push back is great,
we expect some,
but don’t make your superstars
fight for every single concession.
They eventually won’t bother.