Last week, I attended a training given by Adam Urbanski called The Overnight Authority Live Event. It was an intense, demanding 3 days but I learned a lot. Not 
only were there strategies and tactics, but there was a lot of new ways of thinking presented which was the most helpful part for me. By “new ways of thinking,” I don’t really mean mindset, which is also important, but a new way of looking at how you do business that is focused on accomplishing important things quickly. I have lots more to share from the event and in fact have a few blog posts lined up already, but for today I’ll wet your appetite with just my top ten takeaways from the event:
- Spend less time creating things to sell and more time selling them.
- If something doesn’t work or sell well the first time around, instead of scrapping it and starting fresh, see if you can try again and tweak what you did. This is a shift for me because although I live by “test and revise,” I think I’ve been too quick to say something didn’t work and needed to be scrapped.
- Don’t be afraid to wing it. If there’s a customer in front of you that wants to buy something you don’t currently sell but can provide, find a way to make a deal.
- Don’t be afraid to ask. If you don’t ask you’ll always get a “no,” if you ask you may get a yes or a no but the worst possible outcome is that they say no.
- Don’t think first of cutting prices, think first of how to deliver more value so you can charge the price you want.
- Having something for sale is useless unless people need it and know they need it.
- Connect regularly with successful business owners and continue your own development.
- If you refuse to stop you cannot fail.
- There’s a lot of things that a lot of experts will tell you that you “have to” do. They are not always right.
- Don’t let fear of looking stupid or fear of what other people might think stop you or even influence you.
What’s your favorite idea here? How did you learn it? Tell me about it in the comments.
Throughout my life as a writer and artist, I have found that people have always tried to give me advice about how to get things done. However they don’t always know what they’re talking about.
When I was going through high school, I checked out every book there was about publishing… as boring as they were, I learned about it all through those non-fiction books. And they did tend to repeat themselves a lot no matter who they were by. It was a good learning curve for me for when I posted in my first manuscript… which was rejected. I did as I was asked in the cover letter and then posted it to another publisher; who in turn rejected it and told me to undo what I had done. This totally confused me… so I stopped sending my work in at about the 6th manuscript. Not only was I getting mixed messages, but I was running out of pocket money! How frustrating!
Now, I’m 38 and I’m still no closer to being published in print; but I am in e-books. I’m a good writer, but not a great one. I’m not well-known, but people love my work (ironic isn’t it how that works?). But I’d love to have my book in print and on the shelves of a bookstore and in libraries where people will pick them up and buy them… take them home and read them. I would love that. It’s been my life dream.
However, I’ve learned that to have this dream, you don’t have to have a completed book, it can be half finished. You can be as finished as you want and yet the damned book still isn’t finished… confused? Yep, we’re back to when I was 15 again when nothing makes sense. So, now I write and write and write… then I edit to my heart’s content and if nobody likes it? Well, stuff them… it’s my book and I’ll keep editing until I think it’s ready to see the light of day.
I have been trying to learn many things from many people. And yet I haven’t learned anything off them. Agents aren’t nice people; they’re awful. Publishers won’t touch anything unless it’s been to an agent first, and agents won’t touch anything unless it’s been solicited; and that costs around $1,000 you usually don’t have. This is the main thing I’ve learned… you don’t get anywhere without money; and money is what I don’t have; most authors don’t have money unless they’re Stephen King or Wilbur Smith; and even they had to deal with a tonne of rejection before anyone took notice of them.
One thing I do is: never take no for an answer.
Sure it makes me a smart-ass, but it gets me where I want/need to go.
Mozette, I admire “smart-asses” who don’t take no for an answer! It does get you where you want to go. I also love your reminder that just because people give advice doesn’t mean they know what they are doing. It pays to check people out before following their advice.