Ignore The Experts . . . If You Want To Make Foolish Business Mistakes
Topics: expertise, adventures of an optimist, publishing, business, personal development, 400 year project
No one in his right mind would sit down to write a book
if he were a well-adjusted, happy man.
– Jay McInerney
Most of us are geniuses only in our own minds. Whenever we feel “sure” we can’t miss, lie down until the feeling goes away.
Instead, seek out people who have been around for decades doing what you want to do. They will be right about 90 percent of the time. Ask them to explain why they conclude what they do, and you’ll be able to spot when they are wrong.
Here’s an example of what happens when you ignore such excellent (and accurate) expert advice.
Peter Drucker knew a glutton for punishment when he saw one. Like a mother who doesn’t remember the pain of childbirth, I soon found that I missed not writing every day after finishing my first book.
Over my career, I’d written more than my share of articles, workbooks, and research papers. The writing always seemed so rewarding to me that I really didn’t care if anyone read the work. Even writing the first book (which had become painful at the end) became a happy memory in the rosy glow of postpublication applause.
Needing no more encouragement than the itch to write again, I immediately began working on a new book proposal. At least I had learned one lesson from the first book: Don’t write the book before you have a publisher unless you plan to self-publish.
Having been featured as one of the top two new books in our publisher’s large catalog, naturally I expected they would be quick to grab a new book from us. Unfortunately, experience had taught our publisher that a sequel sells a lot less than the original book; they would be content to wait to see how well the first book sold before considering a second work. There was no rush.
However, that’s not how I felt. I had all these important ideas I wanted to write about. I began shopping my proposal around to other business book publishers. These clever businesspeople also wanted to see how the first book did before making a commitment. Many of them candidly told me that if my first publisher didn’t want a second book, they didn’t want to take a chance either.
Fortunately, not everyone felt that way. We found a bright young publisher who had specialized in reprinting English books in the United States that had been originally published elsewhere. He wanted to launch a line of original titles and thought it was a great idea to have two of the coauthors of our first book as his first writers. We liked him and he liked us. We were off to a great start!
Peter Drucker, however, scolded me rather severely: It was madness for us to write major books more often than every five years. Peter said he would never do that because all you do is steal sales from the last book. Books like our first book, he warned us, could take as long as two or three decades to be understood and appreciated. After all, Herman Melville sold fewer than a hundred copies of the classic novel, Moby-Dick, during his lifetime.
I politely (and stupidly) disagreed. I thought that a second book coming out sooner would deepen interest in the first book by demonstrating the practical value of the problem-solving processes it contained. Well, I was 100 percent wrong in that conclusion.
Here I was with all kinds of expert evidence I was on the wrong track. I ignored it all, and I was wrong.
Don’t make the same mistake.
Donald Mitchell is an author of seven books including Adventures of an Optimist and The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution about business model innovation. Read about creating breakthroughs and receive tips by e-mail by registering for free at
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