On the advice of his publisher, Unger set himself up on LinkedIn with the express goal of promoting his book. In this 13 minute interview, Unger tells us that over half of the visitors on his website have come from LinkedIn and the group that he started. Within 1 month, he had several of his retail locations sell out of his book, and he had gathered over 600 connections.
Unger’s success is probably about the fact that he manages his cross-connections extremely well. He’s a true Renaissance author, in that his product offerings match his communications, he interracts with his group connections regularly, and he is very good at generally putting himself out there. What a good mentor for new self-publishing authors.
Marketing Guru Seth Godin has written a number of useful books about marketing and media. And he’s suggesting that new authors should steal his next great idea.
Godin’s post from December 7th (by the way, what a great blog – easy to read) talks about the worst nightmare that terrifies every new author: that someone else will steal their idea the week before their book is released.
As a young entrepreneur, my grandfather told me to choose a competitor that had achieved heights of success that I aspired to, and to carefully emulate whatever it was that contributed to their success. (Although he was careful to state that I should never copy anyone directly – just to learn from their successes.)
Godin suggests that you take this one step further: why not contemplate what your competitor/mentor might be writing and publishing next, and do it before them? Don’t bother trying to be the best, just be first.
I invite you to call in to the show with your questions from Female Authors at (347) 205-9352. This is a great opportunity to ask a well-respected speaker, author and entrepreneur about your own business.
If you don’t want to dial in live, you can also submit questions via the live chat window available at the link above, or via skype at my user ID: “peggy.richardson”.
Thanks to everyone who listened yesterday to our live call-in show on BlogTalkRadio.com. I promised you more before we got cutoff, and I will deliver shortly. Alexa and I recorded an additional 37 minutes of content immediately afterward, which I will post as soon as I overcome some small technical issues. (Hopefully today – Thursday, November 6th. Just subscribe to my feed if you don’t want to miss it.)
Thanks again to Alexa Clark of MiniBookExpo.com, and to Renee Shupe for producing the show for us. This worked so well that all three of us agreed that we’d like to do more. Much more! Stay tuned to the player here on this blog for a complete playlist of all past and future broadcasts.
Catherine DeVrye is a former IBM Executive who now tours worldwide offering speaking and corporate coaching. She is the author of several books, but most lately the author of Hope Happens: Words of enCOURAGEment for Tough Times, and her autobiography, Serendipity Road: A Memoir, which was nominated for the Australian National Biography Prize. Her books have had positive reviews from everyone from Jack Canfield (author of the Chicken Soup series) to Sir Edmund Hillary. Catherine was kind enough to give me some of her time this past Monday here in Las Vegas.
Catherine here talks about how small and micro businesses, like self-publishing authors, can use added value and good customer service to not only keep the customers they have, but add new ones. And all of this can be accomplished without spending a dime.
I met Catherine a year ago in Sydney Australia, where she has made her home since 1973. But she spent the early years of her life far from there, in an orphanage in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Catherine has a long and extremely interesting biography (click to her site at GreatMotivation.com if you’d like details) which is now told in her autobiography. She has dined with Princes and Prime Ministers, she has cycled over the Andes and climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. But she is now best known as a corporate speaker on the topics of change management and customer service.
Catherine’s remarks about not being afraid of change are so important at all times, but especially now as many small businesses close their doors in light of the current worldwide economic slowdown. She makes some very interesting points and offers examples of how even a one-person operation can maintain a successful business philosophy.
Here’s the ebook I should have written, “Getting Real” by 37Signals. This brilliant eBook is about what all of us should apply to our virtual businesses, whether they be about software or not.
For years, I’ve been preaching about “writing backwards”, and for that matter, doing all sorts of business activities backwards. Here is another company saying exactly the same thing. And they’ve done it without debt, without funding, and with only 7 people.
Working backwards means to build any product, service or business and start from the experience of the consumer. What does the customer want to see? What do they need? What is really going to work for them? And, what will they tell their friends about?
This is defined in the book as, “Getting Real starts with the interface, the real screens that people are going to use. It begins with what the customer actually experiences and builds backwards from there. This lets you get the interface right before you get the software wrong.” Sound familiar?
How many of us whined about upgrading to Windows Vista? I know I did. But what was the true problem? I know that my problem was too much. Too many clicks to get done what I wanted, too many features that I never use. Microsoft is stuck with the worst kind of problem – a massive market, so they must be all things to all people. They must design and execute features that will never be used by most people, so that they can keep the specialized applications of their product viable. But the rest of us are not burdened by this, and 37Signals states this clearly, “Getting Real delivers just what customers need and eliminates anything they don’t.”
When writing, building a product, designing a website, and almost any other business activity, we must first consider the reader, the user, and the consumer. They are who we must design for, and for their real, tested, and verified needs. We cannot design for our assumptions about the user. Talk to the user, ask them questions, and test throughout the process. This is why 37 signals will continue to thrive, building products that I use and love.
There are three categories of achievers in life and business: top, medium, and bottom. A recession is the perfect time for these to really show their potential.
Think of a wild horse, living on the prairie. Constantly on the move, these animals form strong family bonds. When there is plenty of fresh grass to eat, all of the animals are as healthy as heredity can make them, there are plenty of new foals, and none of the animals must work too hard to survive.
Now imagine a drought. The grass stops growing, and all the animals must compete for the limited food source. Some live off their fat for a time, the mares find renewed energy to search for food so as to protect their foals, and stallions fight for control over territory. It’s not true that “only the strong survive”, because what really happens is that the 3 levels of success, top, medium, and bottom, simply polarize into two levels.
The law of nature dictates that there will always be leaders, and there will always be followers. It’s difficult to be a leader without a few followers, so we know that there will always be a few that make it through the toughest times, if only because of pure luck. But the polarization of the herd into two groups happens very quickly when resources dry up. The middle achievers tend to blend into either the top or bottom groups, and most tend to drift into that bottom group. Once that happens, the bottom group shrinks overall. But by far the most interesting thing that happens is that the animals that stay in the top achiever group tend to reach new heights of success.
In that top group, those leaning more towards medium are weeded out and drift into the shrinking bottom group. Those left in the top group are stronger, leaner, faster, and tougher. They don’t just reach the peak of survival possible during a tough time, but the external forces of drought and competition for food become less important than they were when times were tough: by every standard, they excel.
One might argue that the best time to undertake a self-publishing project is during a recession. Those leaning more towards medium than top leave the top achiever group, meaning that there is less competition. Those at the bottom are more hungry than ever for information that will help them climb back up to the top of whatever mountain they need to climb. Total commitment to a project is indicative of the type of achiever that will not only climb to the top, but stay there, and publishing is one of the best ways to cement your place in your market.
It’s been said that there’s a reason for everything, but despite communication difficulties, I was meant to be in Victoria today to meet Scott Humphries.
Scott works as one of 10 trainers in North America for the group of Tony Robbins companies. I came to Victoria today to meet Scott, and see if there was a possibility for Scott and Humanus to do some sort of creative work together.
A few wires were crossed, and what I thought I was coming here for turned out to be all wrong. However, Scott is a very interesting guy, and he’s a very hardworking speaker. I found his talk to be informative, uplifting, and definitely clarifying. I’m sure that there will be an opportunity for us to host Scott as a speaker at an event hosted by Humanus in the future. It’s a good thing I stuck around and decided to see what I could learn today.
But that’s not the only lesson I learned: to avoid driving the harrowing highway to Victoria, I took the passenger train. I imagined myself working during the 2.5 hour ride, while the world whipped past outside the window. As it turned out, the train ride to Victoria swayed too much for me to type or write accurately, so I felt cheated as I realized I would be seasick if I didn’t just look out the window at the scenery.
I admit that I was grumpy as I sat with my arms crossed, trying not to enjoy watching Vancouver Island’s beautiful pastures and ocean views. (Bad Peggy, bad, bad!!!) Of course I was moved by how lovely our island is when summer finally arrives. In fact, I found myself composing a few lines of poetry into my voice recorder. (Sorry, but I will not publish them here.) Once again, I learn the lesson that everything happens for a reason. That little time out on the train did me a lot of good.
When I arrived at the meeting location today to meet Scott, it turned out that Scott hadn’t heard about me coming to hear him speak. Neither had the hosts, who were extremely polite, and generously allowed me to crash their party. I could have made the choice to leave when confronted with confusion, but if I had done that, I would have missed a great talk that was really motivating.
I’m now considering going to the Tony Robbins event in Vancouver in October because of Scott. But most importantly, I’m definitely going to get my voice-recognition software working again, so that I can take that train ride again, and dictate all the way to Victoria.
When I witness a stunning achievement like the opening ceremonies in Beijing, it’s my nature to try and figure out what I can learn from such a performance.
I would never have thought such alignment, coordination and harmony were possible. If I was asked to coordinate any portion of these games, it would have totally freaked me out. (But I think I still would have given it a shot.)
Here’s what occurs to me as I watch the ceremonies. Tell me if any of this rings true for your company…
1) I’m not delegating enough. I need to hire more help.
2) I’m not doing a good enough job of communicating my vision to assistants, and perhaps even clients. I need to use more storyboarding, video, and other illustrative techniques.
3) I don’t need to micro-manage. If I share my vision well enough, people will believe in it, and they will figure out a lot of the details on their own.
4) While clarifying my vision for others, I may discover the fastest way to clarify it for myself – by thinking in harmony with others, and less thinking about my vision all by myself.
5) I should increase my vision of my company’s reach to be more global. Language barriers are not that big a deal.
6) Foreign markets are really, really hungry for North American products. They hate us, but they want to buy our stuff. It’s weird.
7) Not everything has to be accomplished using high-tech methods. If 2008 people can jump around inside cardboard boxes and make it look like a giant plate of movable type, I can be happy using my post-it notes and white boards rather than an electronic illustration.
8) Scale is really, really impressive. But it still has to look good close-up. Details matter.
9) I have to take more risks – even though there is the possibility that something can go horribly, horribly wrong, I need to put myself out there even more. It is never enough.
and… 10) Anything is possible if it can be imagined.
I was awoken very early this morning by my neighbour’s new rooster. (Yes, she’s still my friend.) While trying to get back to sleep, I heard another sound – a gentle rustling and footsteps in my yard, outside my bedroom window.
I crept out of bed to see a young deer and her very brand-new fawn munching on Bracken Fern in my cedar grove. This was the smallest fawn I’ve ever seen. He was very darkly spotted, and his mother was gently licking him. He couldn’t have been more than a few days old. From my vantage point, he seemed only to be about the size of a cat. I must have made some sound, because he followed her as she quickly led him out of my view.
This morning is the last time that I may get to see such a scene, because today is the day that my yard will be excavated by heavy equipment. Our newly-built house will finally nest into the garden I imagined more than 2 years ago when I first walked onto this lot. The stumps of trees that we felled to build the house and deck will be scraped clean, like everything else here. And all of that Bracken will be gone by the end of today, pushed into a large pile of organic matter that will form a berm between the front of my property and the road. 12 hours from now, the food source on my property for these deer will be eliminated.
Building and construction are a lot like writing and editing. You plan, you imagine, but when it comes to actually doing it, you are forced to make compromise after compromise. Editing a large manuscript is arduous and sometimes full of agonizing decisions about what to keep and what not to. The “manuscript” of my construction project has been awful to edit because of outside forces like weather (the market), lack of available help (sub-contractors), and a huge distraction factor on my part. (Ironically, many of my days have been spent writing instead of finishing to build a house.) And once you’ve eliminated all the crap, you must be careful not to have robbed it of all character.
Living on a gulf island means that there are weeds in every garden – plenty of them – and I’m far, far from being the only food source for these deer. In fact, I rarely see them in my yard, and they are quite fat. (More than once has my husband suggested that he wished he still had his rusty .22 in the basement.) I’m not hurting them by pulling out stumps and putting up wire fencing. And so I believe a few weeds should be left in each piece of writing, especially in non-fiction, which often serves to keep the content light and more personable.
Today I’m ripping out thistle, scraping away long grasses and raking up piles of stones. But I’m going to leave a section of grasses and ferns at the end of my driveway still wild – just for the deer. They are so sweet and gentle, and I want to make sure that my garden is going to be welcoming to creatures like that. I don’t care about the weeds – they will flower and attractively greet visitors. Who wants to pretend to be perfect, anyway?
is published by Wiley in Canada and the USA, and he’ll be here to talk about marketing, especially for female entrepreneurs and authors.
, and her autobiography, 
, which was nominated for the Australian National Biography Prize. Her books have had positive reviews from everyone from Jack Canfield (author of the Chicken Soup series) to Sir Edmund Hillary. Catherine was kind enough to give me some of her time this past Monday here in Las Vegas.
