Category: New Business Development

I rarely check my stats. 
I don’t need to. 
I don’t blog for the traffic
(I blogged for a year once
with less than 10 readers a day)
but more importantly,
there is a quicker alternative.  

Spam.

I can pretty much gauge
the popularity of my blogs by
how much comment and syndicate spam I receive. 
And since I look through my comments regularly
(try to get to them once a day),
I can cut the extra step of checking my stats. 

Look at your own system. 
Do you have an indicator that can do double duty? 
(For established stores, for example,
traffic is a great indicator of revenue)
Then save time and only regularly look at the one.

People lie. 
Clients, co-workers, vendors, you name it, lie. 
And when they do,
it can cause headaches. 
Lost sales, delayed projects, failing businesses. 

So one of the key skills a businesswoman
should pick up is how to detect these lies. 

A common “rule” is that
if the person looks left when answering a question,
they’re lying and
if they look right,  
they’re remembering. 

Unless…  
They’re left handed. 
Then it is the opposite. 
Oh, and unless they’re not “average.” 

What does this mean?  
You can’t rely on only one tell. 
Use a combo for best results.

Mary J Blige has built
her career up from nothing,
overcoming substance abuse,
to be one of the top R&B singers. 

This was not a “fluke.” 
At a recent concert, 
she repeated one mantra over and over
“I choose not to lose.” 

Notice that she didn’t say fail. 
Everyone fails. 
Losing, however, is a choice. 
Only you can define what a loss is
and for Mary J Blige,
that definition is narrow. 

I’ve spent the last couple weeks
doing rework for a project I’m now on. 

Why? 
Because the project manager keeps changing direction. 

Yes, I realize that the market is fluid. 
Yes, I realize that the competition is launching
with new products every day. 

But changing the product constantly
means that we’re launching with no products. 
Having to change the product also indicates
that we’re not developing anything sustainable.
Our proposed product does not have a competitive edge.
It is a me too
and the me too continually changes.

That is the key problem.

There is a “rule” in fiction that
there shall be no bibliography,
no resource listing
lest the reader confuse a fictional work
with a non-fiction work. 

I’m working around this rule by
putting my resource listing in my acknowledgment page
but many fiction writers don’t have
as flexible a publisher.  

So nothing is listed.  
These writers don’t acknowledge sources at all. 
Despite spending years doing research. 
Despite using that research in their novels.  
Leading to allegations like those
against historical writer Cassie Edwards
(these allegations go one step further into outright plagiarism).  
Allegations that are easy to prove 
due to the internet’s ability to phrase match. 

What does this mean? 
I believe the ruling of no bibliography in fiction
is about to be overturned. 

And I don’t think that’s a bad thing.       

The new C2 line from Taser
had a product development cycle
of less than 2 years. 

How could the team develop it so quickly? 
By using “cheats.” 

Developer Milan Cerovic admits that
the core fashionable colors were based on
the very popular Motorola razor line
(the very hot and premium priced leopard print was added later). 

Look at your product development. 
Can you leverage the lessons in other industries to shorten it? 

Oh, and the tagline for the C2.
The very clever…
Fashion With A Bite.

I asked a loved one, a teacher,
what she learned at a recent all weekend seminar. 
Her face lit up as she told me. 

She learned about folds,
hamburger folds (folding width-wise),
hot dog folds (length-wise), and
taco folds (on the diagonal).  

For anyone outside of the target audience,
it may seem unnecessary,
or even silly
to add paper folding to the agenda.

But for at least one participant,
a woman who spends hours out of her week
explaining how to fold paper to restless kids,
that fifteen minute presentation made
the costly seminar well worth the investment.

Know your target
and give them what they want.

It is two weeks after New Year’s and
29% of us
have already neglected our resolutions. 
In 3 months,
that percent will climb to 50%. 

How to increase your odds of
being in the successful 50%? 

Revisit your resolution every day.  
For major goals,
I take 2 minutes every day and 
write them down again
(I’m a visual person). 
A friend repeats her goals out loud like a mantra.  

Want to stop with the repetition?
The solution is simple…
achieve the goal.     

A Mergers and Acquisitions mentor
once told me 
“Never buy a business for what it is. 
Buy it for what it can be.” 

Companies sell close to their full value. 
Today. 

Having another vision for the company
is where buyers find value. 
This could be consolidation with other operations,
an overhaul of the product line up,
servicing another target customer, etc. 

Whatever it is,
have a plan to add value before making a purchase.

I’m currently leading a resource vampire.
His component of the project was tiny yet
he was using the majority of the
team members’ time and resources.
And he still wasn’t happy.

Upon I recognizing this,
I’ve changed tactics.
I now point him to sources of
do-it-yourself information
and then ignore him.
If I don’t ignore him,
then he will NOT consult the information,
he’ll wait until someone does it for him.
I’ve also developed a work-around,
in case his project piece is not completed.

GetACoder has more strategies
to deal with a resource vampire.