New Business Development – Page 47

If The Time Frame Is In Three Years Or Longer

World leaders have been promising
to take action
on climate change
at the earliest
in 2030.

That’s 7 years from now.
That leader is unlikely
to remain in their role.
The future leader
is unlikely
to keep
the past leader’s promise.

That action isn’t happening.
The world leaders know this.
They’re saying sh*t
just to get the media
off their backs
and to appease
some gullible supporters.

This is true
in business also.

If the time frame
is three years
from now
or longer,
that action
or project
isn’t happening.

Building A Buffer…Again

I’m building a buffer
of posts
again
here at client k.

Every day,
I craft one post
and then
craft an additional post
to schedule.

I do this
because…
life happens.

(Especially
as the pandemic continues
and
climate change causes
power outages
and…
and…)

I might get busy.
I might become ill.
I might be deep into
another project.

And I can’t
or I prefer not to post.

Having a post
already scheduled
takes the pressure off me.
It gives me
some flexibility.

If you have
a little bit of extra time,
give yourself a gift
and create a buffer.

Your future self
will thank you.

If You Have To Be Told To Do Tasks…

If you have to be told
to do tasks,
you’re not a partner.
You’re a subordinate.

If you’re a subordinate,
you likely can be replaced.

Does your spouse
put EVERYTHING you do
on the honey-do list?

That’s a warning sign.

It means they don’t trust you
to pitch in
at all.

It means they know
if they’re ill
or too busy
to craft that list,
you won’t put any work
into the relationship.

That request from a friend
to bring a dessert
to their BBQ?

It means they know
you won’t voluntarily help them.

That line in the meeting invite
that says participation is mandatory?

That means the project lead
doesn’t think
you’ll voluntarily attend.

If you’re not initiating tasks,
you’re not a partner.

There Are Opportunities Everywhere

I don’t condone AI
built off
other people’s creative property
without their consent
(i.e. feeding novels
into the AI machine
and having AI
craft new novels
using those writers’ storylines,
style, word choice, etc.).

And I suspect
I will close my Romance Novel Business
when I can no longer compete
with AI.

But I DO recognize
there are a lot of great business opportunities
around AI and novel writing.

As one example,
interactive stories will,
in the future,
become much more interactive.

The reader could choose
the main character’s love interest.

Bella, in the Twilight series,
could choose the wolf,
not the vampire.

And then AI would craft
a story around that decision.

There are ALWAYS opportunities
with any innovation.
Look for them.

Fighting The Inevitable

Many writers,
at the moment,
are fighting the use of
AI
for writing, cover art, editing.

I often ask them
what their plan is
for when AI
is the norm.

They say
it will never be
the norm.
They plan to always
fight it.

They WILL lose
that fight.

Heck, they’re losing
that fight
now.
Major publishers
are already contracting
AI-written stories.

Fighting the inevitable
has some merit.
It can delay
that inevitable
and allow us time
to craft plans
for dealing with it.

But the inevitable
WILL happen.
Prepare for it.

No Regrets

A loved one
and I find ourselves
in the position
where there’s a break
in each of our schedules.

We’re traveling
during that time.

Will that travel break slow
the build on
the Romance Writing Business?
Yes.

But I know
I’ll regret it
if I don’t take the time
to travel.

When you’re faced
with an opportunity,
ask yourself
if you’ll regret
not taking that opportunity.

If you will regret it,
do everything you can
to make that opportunity
happen.

Live life
with very few regrets.

Don’t Delegate Tasks That Won’t Save You Time

Yesterday,
I talked about
how we shouldn’t delegate tasks
that we love.

We also shouldn’t delegate tasks
that will never
save us time.

Yes, initially,
it will take longer
for us to delegate
a task
than do it ourselves.

We have to train
the person
and likely quality control
the output.

But once training is complete,
delegation of that task
should save us time.
If it doesn’t save us time,
we either have the wrong person
doing the task
or the task shouldn’t be delegated
at all.

For example,
a family member sends me emails
asking me to order items
for him
from a large online store.

He gives me
detailed instructions.
He picks up the item
from me.
And he gives me cash
for the item.

It would be MUCH faster
for him
to simply order it himself.
(He refuses to do this
for some unknown reason.)

His delegation
is not only costing me time
but it is costing him
MORE time.

Don’t delegate tasks
that will never
save you time.

Don’t Delegate The Tasks You Love

One of my writing buddies
LOVES crafting covers.

Her self-publishing business
is growing.
She has a lot to do
and is delegating tasks.

Other writers are telling her
to delegate cover creation.
(I’ve delegated this task also.)

I told her to keep it
on her task list.
She loves it.
There are other
less wonderful-for-her tasks
to delegate.

We need tasks
that give us happiness.

That feeds our souls
and it will help us
find the willpower
to continue building our businesses
when times are tough.

Keep the tasks you love.

It is NOT All Or Nothing

I was wearing a mask
while shopping in a grocery store.

A woman stopped me
and told me
I should stay home
if I was so scared of COVID.

It isn’t all or nothing.

We can wear masks
and continue to do
all the things
we love to do.

The all or nothing thinking
is EVERYWHERE
and it often hampers our success
and, in this lady’s case,
threatens our lives.

We don’t have to, for example,
source
all our supplies locally
or source
all our supplies internationally.

We can source some supplies
locally
and some supplies
internationally.

We don’t have to be
a purely charitable organization
or
a purely for-profit organization.

We can have a charitable component
in our for-profit organization.

It is not all or nothing.
Some is an option.

Learn From History

Some States
in the US
are banning
No-Fault Divorces.

They want to stop
women from fleeing
abusive relationships.

History tells us,
that when No-Fault Divorces
became legal,
the unnatural death rates
for men dropped sharply.

If No-Fault Divorces
are banned,
the only way out
of an abusive marriage
will be death.

Thanks to the internet,
that is easy to arrange.

And thanks to the pandemic
and the already high death rates,
that ‘solution’,
if it looks like a heart attack,
will be easy
to hide.

Right now,
you’re likely considering
taking a step
for your business
that has been taken
by other businesses
in the past.

Research those cases.
Learn from history.
Don’t kill your business
because you failed
to complete a Google search.