10 Necessities For Becoming A Successful Writer by Nathan Bransford

Garth Beyer

In my opinion, these seem to be more life mottos than tips for writers. Take what you love and leave what you don’t. You can find more Bransford wisdom here.

  1. Enjoy the present
  2. Maintain your integrity
  3. Recognize the forces outside of your control
  4. Don’t neglect your friends and family
  5. Don’t quit your day job
  6. Keep up with publishing industry news
  7. Reach out to fellow writers
  8. Park your jealousy at the door
  9. Be thankful for what you have.
  10. Keep writing…It’s the solution to every single problem that occurs while writing

 

Stay Positive & Write On

Get Your Entrepreneurons Buzzing With These Marketing Playbook Strategies

Garth Beyer

The following are tips from a new WARF series focused on bringing the fundamentals of getting a new venture started.

The following entrepreneurs marketing playbook strategies are courtesy of

  • Marsha Lindsay of Lindsay, Stone & Briggs
  • Todd LaBeau, vice president, director of digital marketing, Lindsay, Stone & Briggs
  • Mike Judge, director, Center for Brand and Product Management, Wisconsin School of Business
  • Tim Gill, search manager, Shopbop.com/Amazon.com
  • Chris Parker, vice president and chief commercial officer, Cellular Dynamics Internationale

1. You have to be willing to bet the farm on an idea. And if you don’t have a farm, bet the house and the car on the idea.

2. When you start something, it’s incumbent upon you to continue.

3. 512,000 new businesses launched in 2012, 250,000 new products are launched every year, 75% of VC backed firms don’t return investors capital, 95% of start-ups fail.

4. Face reality: what will it take to dramatically increase your odds? Face what you know and don’t know about marketing and then devote as much to learning and mastering marketing as you do your innovation. Be prepared to invest in what it takes to build awareness, engagement, adoption.

5. Before you set expectations or make promises you can’t meet, do marketing math and avoid seeing what doesn’t exist. “You will see in the data what you want to see even if it’s not there,” confirmation bias.

6. Number one reason innovations fail: product doesn’t have meaningful role in people’s lives. Realize you’re launching not an innovation, but a meaningful role to play in people’s lives. It is what drives sales and revenue and line extension. Know what is compelling not in your eyes, but in eyes of the user.

7. Building marketing strategy in from start. Today marketing is synonymous with innovation and business strategy.

8. Your why should help people be more of who they are or aspire to be.

9. To survive your startup, you need as many paying customers of all kinds as quickly as possible. To last, you need your target audience to be your partner.

10. Know where you’ll get your volume, know your competitors and what their product is.

11. As much as you invest in something, make sure you expect that something will not happen the way you want it. Allow for a contingency plan.

12. Not what everyone wants is a product they can touch hold and play with. Some people want a product that makes them feel a certain way. How is it you figure out the feeling people want?

The best way to figure them out is through qualitative research. Sit down with people and watch them use the product, ask them about the product and how it makes them feel. Learn to ask better questions to get someone to say “I loved how this happened, or I love how it’s like X.” Figure out how it makes them feel without asking them how it makes them feel.

 

Stay Positive & Take These Lessons Then Run With Them

Shall We Gamble Our Success On A Meeting

Garth Beyer

Bob Proctor says to consider the agenda of your meeting tomorrow the night before.

Sorry, Bob, I say skip the meeting completely and stay focused on what needs to be done.

Meetings have two arguable goals. The first goal is to put off good work being done. The second is to hold people accountable for doing good work after the meeting. My thought is, wouldn’t you want to hire people who don’t need anyone to hold them accountable, who are self-accountable, self-motivated?

Here’s an interesting thought. Want to know what employees to keep around next quarter? Go a month without having a meeting and see who still gets everything they need done.

The only meeting worth having is the meeting of celebration.

 

Stay Positive & More On Meetings (& More) (& More)

Being A Leader Is Fricken Hard

Garth Beyer

Allow me to be personal, blatant and a bit motivational.

If there’s one thing I work the most hard at, it’s being a leader. I subject myself to more trials and obstacles than many others my age because I have a dream of being a real leader. I start by biting off more than I can chew. I continue by making promises that keep me busy day in and day out. I manage all this by believing that I don’t have a choice but to manage it all. Today I’ve experienced the famous quote that you will likely recall from Spider-Man,

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

My superpower is leadership and with it comes a lot of responsibility. The beautiful thing about leadership is that 90 percent of the responsibility is pleasurable. (Part of me would argue this same ratio goes for any superpower. It’s what makes it super!) Most leaders enjoy stress, take pleasure in daily deadlines and play with the difficulty of leading 10, 50, 10,000 people. Leadership is fun, but there are times – like Peter Parker – I wish it wasn’t my superpower. When I’m coughing, aching and chasing my running nose all day, I don’t want to be a leader. When I miss the friends closest to me, I wish I could drop everything and go see them immediately.

There is, however, one thing that helps counter this sorrow. When someone thanks me for my leadership commitment, when someone reminds me that the group won’t function as well without me, that, like Peter Parker, people need me, well, the unfortunate 10 percent of the superpower disappears. Sick and weary, I lead a group today because someone reminded me my leadership was needed, that it did not go unnoticed. Without that someone, I would have let the group down.

So I’ve got a task for you. Go remind someone that their superpower is needed, that it doesn’t go unnoticed. There are people all around us who make sacrifices because their great power makes them responsible to do so. There are people who need the recognition. Let’s work on bringing the superhero out in everyone.

1 person, 1 message, 1 compliment or reminder of their superpower

Everyone’s got a superpower. Your compliment might just remind someone of what theirs is.

Stay Positive & Perhaps You’ll Rediscover Yours Along The Way Too

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Garth Beyer

Not knowing.

That’s the business we’re all in.

We don’t know if it will work, we don’t know if our long-term investment will pay off, we don’t know if our competitors will be around tomorrow, we don’t know if we will be around tomorrow.

No matter what analytical software we use, we don’t know if our campaign will stick, we don’t know if our video will go viral, we don’t know if the investors will like our pitch.

Not knowing is not a good enough excuse for not trying. If anything, it’s the only reason we need to try. In fact, all the good stuff comes from what we do to find out what we don’t know.

Doing what we know over and over again and expecting the same results is a death wish. There’s a point when repetition goes from helpful to annoying.

 

Stay Positive & There’s A Reason We Always Round Up

All Sorts Of Advice About Writing

Garth Beyer

Writing is hard.

Writing is easy.

You’re bound to get writer’s block.

Writer’s block doesn’t exist.

You need to write at least 2,000 words or a chapter a day.

As long as you get one sentence down, it’s a successful day.

Connections don’t matter at first, focus on content.

Content doesn’t sell, connections and personality do. Content comes last.

 

These are all pieces of advice I’ve gotten from successful writers and I’m sure they are also pieces of advice you’ve read online too. You know what? Believe in the one you believe in. They all work as long as you believe in them.

If you believe writing is hard, don’t take suggestions from someone who thinks it’s easy. If you don’t believe in writer’s block, how do you plan to apply the tricks to overcoming what you don’t think exists? It doesn’t make sense, confuses you and breaks your momentum.

There are a hundred different paths to follow to become a successful writer. You only need to take one. The one you believe the most in.

 

Stay Positive & Remember There’s No Shortcut*

*Not in doing what you believe in and not in doing what you don’t believe in. It’s more about which one you can enjoy more and be more passionate about.