New Business Development – Page 41

Plan For Heat

In my corner of the world,
Cadbury doesn’t sell chocolate
via Amazon
during the summer months.

They can’t assure
the chocolate won’t melt
in the increasing heat.

A buddy runs
a small clothing business
in Arizona.

She closes her physical store
during the height
of the summer
and focuses on online business.

Her physical store
has air conditioning
when the grid is functional
but people arrive
quite sweaty.
And trying on clothing
during heat waves
often renders any not-purchased clothing
unsellable to other customers.

Climate change is happening.
The heat will continue
in the future.

Plan for it.

Expanding Your Business

The book graphics tool company
I’ve been using
has now ‘expanded’
their offerings
to author services.

They haven’t updated
their available graphics
for three months.

They’re ignoring
their core business
to focus on the other offerings
and that is reducing
value for their existing customers.

I likely won’t renew
my subscription with them.

I’ll move
to a dedicated graphics company
or buy software and stock images
and do it all myself.

If you want to retain
your customer base,
don’t focus
100% of your energy
on new products/services.

Allocate some resources
to your original products/services.

Producing What You Want To Produce

A common piece of advice
that is given to many writers
and to many other business builders
is
Write/produce what you want
to write/produce.

That advice is incomplete
because if we wrote/produced
what we wanted to write/produce,
we likely wouldn’t sell
that story/object/service.

Our readers/customers
aren’t usually ready for
our latest big idea.

They are often ready
for ONE of our big ideas, however.
Merely not the most recent one.

The complete piece of advice
is
Write/produce what you want
to write/produce
but ensure other people want it also.

Business builders usually have
quite a few products/services
they’re interested in offering.

I, for example,
have a list of over 100 story ideas
I would like to write
and ideas get added or drop off
that list all the time.

I pick story ideas (product ideas)
off that list
I think readers (customers) are interested
in buying.

I’m happy.
Readers (customers) are happy.
My business’ bank account is happy.

Produce what you want
to produce
but ensure other people
want that product/service also.

And keep a list
of product/service ideas
you’re interested
in exploring.

The Benefits Of Multi-Generational Advisors

Most mentors are older.

They have more experience.
They’ve learned sh*t
they want to pass on
to others.
And they are often
in giving back mode.

But many of
our prospective customers
are younger
than those mentors.

These prospects have
different life experiences,
different expectations,
different ways of communicating,
of finding possible products/services.

If all our advisors
are older,
we might not know
how to reach
these younger prospective customers.

Add people from EVERY generation
to your list of advisors.

An advisor doesn’t have to be
older or have more life experiences.

They merely have to know
sh*t we don’t know
or
have a different perspective
on our issues.

Who To Support

I like a great tax break
as much
as the next business builder.

Tax breaks
help keep my businesses
alive
and healthy.

But for me to enjoy
my businesses being
alive and healthy,
I need to be alive
and relatively healthy.

Staying alive
should be task #1
for all of us.

There are challenging times
ahead.

And there are some leaders
who seem to care
whether or not
their followers
stay alive
and there are some leaders
who are a bit TOO eager
to sacrifice people.

(And if they are eager
to sacrifice one group of people
now, in the relative good times,
they will sacrifice
just about everyone else
when times get bad.)

Vote or support
the leaders who seem to care
if you live or die.

BE one of those leaders.

Someone To Vent To

There are frustrations
in every job,
every business,
every industry.

If we don’t express
these frustrations to someone
(this could be a human someone
or a cat
or a plant),
if we don’t vent
some of these extreme emotions,
they will erupt
usually at the most inconvenient time
when we are with customers
or people we’re trying to impress.

I have someone I vent to.
I express my frustrations
to him on,
at least,
a weekly basis.

He is outside the industry
so he is unlikely
to ever inadvertently
reveal my feelings
to people I sell to
or partner with.

I’ll preface the deluge
of complaints
by telling him
“I just have to vent.”

He knows then
that he doesn’t have
to provide solutions.
All he has to do
is listen.

And I do the same
for him
when he needs to vent.

We both feel better,
are calmer,
and can go back
to whatever we’re working on.

Ensure you have someone
to vent to.

How Often Should You Give Constructive Criticism?

I have an acquaintance
who gives me
constructive criticism
EVERY time I see her.

Her criticism is valid.
She sees areas
I do have to work on.

But I now avoid her
whenever possible.

Because receiving constructive criticism
is an unpleasant experience.

And we, humans,
tend to avoid
unpleasant experiences.

Give constructive criticism
only when necessary
and preferably
when asked.

No one likes to hear it
all the time.

Opportunities In Disasters

The world is a bit of a mess
lately.

But it is important
to remember
there are usually opportunities
aligned with every disaster.

The bell peppers
in my garden are being
devoured by slugs, for example.

But those slugs
are providing food
for a recovering bird population.

They are enriching the soil.

That ‘disaster’ striking
your business?

It might provide an idea
for a product or service.

Or it could lead
to another opportunity.

LOOK for those opportunities.

Keep A Done List

It is easy
to become distracted,
to be swept into mini ’emergencies’
and not complete the more important tasks.

To-do lists keep me on track.

But done lists
are almost as important
to my success.

These are lists
of all the big tasks
I’ve completed
over a year or a month or a week.

Adding tasks to the done list
keeps me motivated.
It pushes me to accomplish more.

And reviewing done lists
gives me a sense of accomplishment.

When I wonder
if my sacrifices are worth it,
if I’m progressing,
I look at a done list
and I remember all I’ve accomplished.

Consider keeping
a done list.

Numbers Are Part Of Business

I was talking about
read through on a series
on one of the writing loops.

The best selling writers
on the loop
all knew their read through rates.

Many of the other writers
talked about
not being good at math
and finding it too difficult
to calculate.

Too f*cking bad.
If you want your romance writing business
to be a success long term,
you have to know that number.

You don’t have to calculate it
if you’re bad at math.
But you DO have to
know your read through rate
and know what it means.

Numbers are a part of business.

You don’t have to calculate return on investment
or break-even sales
or sell-through rates
or other numbers.

But you do have to know
what they mean
if you want to be financially successful.

Get comfortable
with numbers.