New Business Development – Page 65

The Urge To Tweak

I love to tweak projects.
I constantly want
to make small changes.

That f*cks up
product development.
It is a way
to guarantee
the product
will NEVER ship.

I know that
so I give myself
deadlines.
If I pass them,
I can no longer
change the product.

I also tend
to delegate tasks
and then walk away
from them.
I don’t want to be involved
with the delegated tasks
because I know
I’ll change the specs
and that will
f*ck up the process.

If you constantly make changes
or you work with someone
who constantly makes changes,
put in systems to deal with that issue.

Because it IS an issue.

The Value Of Rest

I’m on Day 4
of deep revisions.
I’ve had very little sleep
and I have to turn
these revisions in
by the end of
Day 6.

On Day 1,
it took me 6 hours
to revise 3 chapters.

Yesterday,
Day 3,
it took me 12 hours
to revise 3 (different) chapters.

Today,
I suspect it will take me
longer than that.

Because I’m tired
and I’m not thinking
as clearly.

THIS is the value
of good solid sleep.
It takes half the time
to do high brain power work.

As business builders,
we tend to power through.
We tend to work ourselves
to the ground.

But breaks,
rest,
sleep has value.

Rest if you can.
You’ll save time.

(And no,
I won’t have the intelligence
to take my own good advice.)

Lying About Bad News

Climate reality is
currently
bad
and it is predicted
to become much worse.

There’s a never-ending conversation
in the climate change spheres
about whether or not
reality is too bad
for people to handle
and debating if scientists should try
to ‘soften’ it
with…well…happy lies.

This is so f*ckin’ patronizing.
And unhelpful.

I’m building businesses.
I want to build them
based on reality,
not some ‘softened’
i.e. falsified predictions.

I’ve had to dig
into the stats
because I can’t trust
the people deciphering the stats
to tell the whole truth.

Don’t lie about bad news.
You don’t have to volunteer
the truth
if doing that will hurt you
and others.
But don’t lie about it.

Should You Start A New Organization?

A well known marketing guru
is setting up an organization
to help fight climate change
(and, I suspect,
to sell more books).

The thing is…
similar organizations
already exist.
Their structures are in place.
They are ready to go,
are getting to work,
are making a difference in the world.
Today.
They merely need more support
and more people involved.

In contrast,
when the founders started #TeamTrees ,
they set it up
as a conduit for Arbor Day Foundation,
an existing organization
that plants local trees by local people
worldwide.

#TeamTrees could focus
on the huge task
of driving awareness and support.

They’ve helped plant
over 19 million trees thus far.

If your goal
is to make a difference
in the world,
ask yourself
if you can make a bigger difference
by supporting an existing organization
rather than starting a new one.

If The People Around You Hate You

Alex Jones is a horrible person.
He deliberately made a terrible situation
more terrible for grieving parents
and loved ones
and he did that to make a few dollars.

Two days ago,
we discovered his lawyer
shared the contents of his phone
with opposing council.
Alex Jones will likely go to jail
for a long, long time
due to that mistake.

There are theories
about why his lawyer did that.

My theory is…
his lawyer hates him.

He hates him so much
he’s willing to sacrifice
his ability to practice law
to ensure he goes to jail.

But…but…but
Alex Jones was paying him.

There are things
more satisfying than money
and one of those things
is vengeance.

Don’t assume
the people around you
will be loyal
because you pay them.

And don’t be
a horrible person.

Focus On One Target Customer

In the Romance Novel business,
we often talk about
the ‘ideal reader.’

They are the sole person
we’re creating our stories for
and they are the only person
we try to make happy.

This is essential
because no product,
no business,
heck, no person
can be everything to everyone.

As
Seth Godin
shares

“You can’t build a luxury car
that’s also inexpensive,
AND drives well off-road,
AND is very fast
AND super safe.
You can’t create an event
that’s intimate,
open to all comers,
proven,
resilient for any weather,
held outdoors
and unique.”

We have to choose
what we’ll offer,
what we’ll focus on.

I find that much easier
to do
when I have
a target customer
in mind.

Lowering Risks

I tested positive
for the first time
for COVID.

I’ve been fairly careful,
wearing high quality masks
anytime I’m with other people
indoors,
limiting contact,
employing social distancing
as much as possible.

This lowered the risk
of getting COVID
with each contact
but it didn’t eliminate it.

Especially since,
over the past two and a half years,
I have had hundreds,
perhaps thousands of contacts.

Low risk per contact
multiplied by
those thousands of contacts
meant the odds of me
catching COVID
was becoming pretty f*ckin’ high.

My ‘luck’ ran out.

Low risk events
happen.
Especially if we
participate in thousands
of them

Plan for that.

And yes, I will continue
taking precautions.
COVID is kicking my a$$
and I’d prefer never to get it again.

Best Of Lists

I’m not a fan of
Best Of Lists.
Because,
unless the products or services or experiences
on those lists
are identical,
they can’t be truly ranked.

Someone who loves big cities,
for example,
won’t enjoy visiting
top ranked Bali
more than they enjoy visiting
second ranked New Orleans.
The experiences are completely different.

And comparing the two
could lessen our enjoyment of them.

Seth Godin
shares

“We end up
comparing our wedding
or our box office numbers
or our tweet stats
not only to
our own best ever,
but to
the stats of others.

This summer is
unlikely to be
your best summer ever.
But it will be a summer,
and it’s up to each of us
to decide what to do with it.”

Best Of lists
and other comparisons
can be great marketing tools.

But the rankings are meaningless.
Our products and services are unique.
They can’t be directly compared.

Don’t use rankings
as an indication of worth.

Simple Is Hard

One of the services I rely upon
for my Romance Novel Business
is extremely fast and super simple
to use.

Simple and fast
is a HARD niche to own.

It is easy to add more and more
bells and whistles,
more features,
more options.

It is difficult
to prune those features
and keep a product
simple to use.

Most large companies
fail spectacularly at this.
Bigger is better
and more is better
in their view.

Except it isn’t.

There’s a market for simple and fast.
That market is often friendly
to smaller businesses
and
it usually isn’t crowded.

Consider that niche
but know that simple
isn’t easy to accomplish.

You Are NOT Your Product

With the Romance Writing business,
I use pen names.
I use them for many reasons.
They are easier to sell.
They give me the illusion
of privacy.
They allow me to brand tighter.

And
they allow me to put
emotional distance
between myself and my stories.

Trolls don’t attack ME,
for example.
They attack (Pen Name).

This enables me
to deal
with constructive criticism,
with not-so-constructive criticism,
with brutal outright attacks,
and other feedback.

I am more detached
and that is extremely healthy
in this often harsh industry.

As Seth Godin
shares

“Being detached doesn’t mean
you don’t care.
It simply means
you’re focusing on the work
and those you serve,
not on your own narrative.”

You are NOT your product.

Figure out ways
to put distance
between yourself
and the products you craft.