Ignore What People Care About . . . If You Want To Hear The Sounds Of Silence
Topics: 400 year project, breakthroughs, business, entrepreneurs, leading, management, irresistible forces
The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.
–Peter F. Drucker
What do you want that you don’t have?
Where will you learn how to get it?
If you are like most people, you only want to consider information that’s narrowly focused on your issue. If you want to lose weight, you want to read about that. If you want to make more money investing, you want instructions on that subject. If you want to get a promotion, you’ll read and watch videos about applying for jobs.
What if someone wants to teach you one thing that will give you everything else? You won’t pay any attention. Why not? Because that’s not what you’re looking for.
I learned that lesson the hard way and want to share it with you.
With the experience of promoting our global business bestseller behind us, I felt confident that the next book could be launched with a smaller, more focused effort. I was boldly assuming that the bulk of those who had read and liked the first book would be hungry for more.
I must have forgotten Peter Drucker’s point about few people reading business books. If hardly anyone had read the first book, just getting all those people to read the next book wasn’t going to generate a lot of sales. The rest of the sales would, in fact, have to come from people who were fascinated by the new book’s title or concept.
From the time that the book was conceived, we began to speak about managing to take advantage of irresistible forces just as often as we did breakthrough solutions. But a funny thing happened when we did: The audience for breakthrough solutions would be ten times larger than for irresistible forces. As you can imagine, that reaction didn’t bode well for book sales from those newly exposed to this work.
The ratings we got from those who heard both messages were similarly high. Unfortunately, we had picked a subject that wasn’t as appealing as creating breakthrough solutions. We were up against the irresistible force of executive indifference.
What was the lesson for your intrepid irresistible force authors? Use your new management process to pick future book topics. Knowing how fruitless it is to do local publicity for a book that’s not in distribution, we decided to focus on markets where we got strong distribution.
Unfortunately, that was nowhere other than our offices and our publisher’s warehouse. Favorable reviews didn’t exactly pour in either.
Speaking with Peter Drucker about the modest interest in the book, he was full of explanations. In addition to not following his advice about waiting until the market further developed for our first book, we had written a very sophisticated book that would not appeal to everyone. In fact, Peter confidently reported that it might take 50 years before The Irresistible Growth Enterprise would be fully appreciated by readers and applied broadly.
His advice: Don’t write any more books for a while and focus on making our best ideas simpler and easier to understand rather than developing more sophisticated methods and ideas. Now I followed his advice. I hope you will learn from my experience and do the same.
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
Previous Articles Highlighter:
How To Increase Sales, Subscriptions, And Traffic With Action Words (1)
Add an incentive or benefit to your order. Here are examples of action words and calls to action you can use on your Web site, in your email and in other marketing materials.
Tips To Guarantee Effective Communication (2)
Words vary considerably with regards to their value for communication as they differ in their level of abstraction. The greater the level of abstraction, the less meaning or specificity they have.
The Power Of Writing Articles (3)
According to statistics, the number of Internet users in the United Kingdom increased by 171.5% from 2000 to 2008. In fact, 68.6% of the total population in the UK is now using the Internet.
Ignore The Experts . . . If You Want To Make Foolish Business Mistakes (4)
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.
Get The Results You Desire With Effective Communication (5)
Topics: effective-communication, effective-communication-skills, communicate-effectively A common definition of communication is: "the transmission of meaning to others". However, "the meaning of communication is the response you get" more appropriately describes an effective transmission of our messages.
Writing An Article Aligned With Your Passion (6)
The fact that you are working within your area of passion, as well as providing a product or service via the internet, makes article writing or writing many articles an attractive marketing exercise for you.
How To Use Ebooks To Start A Viral Marketing Campaign (7)
This makes it easier to make your ebook go viral.) If you are a member of social network sites like Twitter or Facebook, post a short note to let others know the ebook is available.
Take Time To Submit An Article (8)
Remember that even though the reader is seeking the information from your article, you must try to capture their attention in the first few sentences, as there are many articles in contention for the readers time and money.
The Role Of A Proper Press Release In Your SEO Services (9)
Online press releases are one of the viral marketing tools used for website promotion in search engine optimization campaigns. They are formal statements about something useful and newsworthy. Press release distribution on the web is a kind of media outlet from which your end users get their news.
The Article Directory Explained (10)
It is recommended that if you are going to use an article directory to submit articles to increase awareness that you do it on a basis of an informative and helpful topic, related to your core activities; providing some insight or a solution to a problem, without directly marketing your services to the reader.
To Attract A Larger Audience And Sell More Books, Consider Becoming An Online Book Reviewer (11)
Jason Breyan got busy telling people about the site, and hits on our site began to climb. Soon we were attracting thousands of visitors a month. Some of them were clicking on our link to buy the book on various online book sellers.
Article Submission And Related Services (12)
One has the opportunity of utilizing an article submission service whereby the service provider will submit your articles on your behalf, which would most likely involve thousands of submissions. This would be predominantly applicable to those seeking a large amount of exposure for their product or service.
Mastering The Art Of Article Writing (13)
A motocross friend of mine told me something years ago I have found useful in numerous situations: "If you have a $10.00 head, buy a $10.00 helmet." If you want professionally written content that captures your target audience and sells the click on your link in the author's box expect to pay more than $5-10.00 per article.
Learn The German Language (14)
The spelling is often hard for english people, so you have to hear the words to learn them. After a while you will like to learn the german language.
Is Your Article A Winner Or Not (15)
Surely you have come across some articles that have merely been thrown together just to provide a mass of words, sentences and no actual coherent concept behind the writing itself.
How To Use Effective Communication Skills To Get What You Want (16)
For communication to be effective, it is important to understand how the people you are interacting with may interpret your message. We obtain information through our senses, and it is therefore recommended that you include aspects of the visual, auditory and kinaesthetic language to appeal to all listeners.
Increase Sales With An Easy-To-Navigate Web Site (17)
11. Avoid "entry" pages (home pages with animation) visitors have to click on to enter the site because they don't indicate what your site is about. 12. Avoid frames, drop-down menus, and pop-up windows.
5 Irresistible Reasons To Write A Short Book First (18)
To speed up your writing time, write your book in chunks, chapters, sections and parts. Writing this way will allow you to refine, repeat and repackage your information. Develop a continuing flow with a website, a stream of articles, reports, follow-up products and even services to build your book, your brand and your profits further.
Ensuring Your Article Submission Strategy Evolves (19)
The last thing one needs to do at this point is to become complacent about article submission activities, by mere virtue of the fact that you may have been involved in the industry does not mean that your articles will surpass those new kids on the block.
3 Ways To Keep MS Word From Killing Your SEO Strategy (20)
Taking these few extra steps before you start typing, can eliminate hours of reformatting and ensure that your content is properly read and ranked by search engines. Creating an effective SEO marketing campaign means that you sometimes have to take into consideration all of the small changes you can make as well as the big ones -- every bit counts towards higher rankings!
Newer Articles Highlighter:
5 Keys To Effective Content Writing (1)
Avoid technical language at all costs. 5. Quality Content. Visitors to your website are looking for relevant, helpful, high-quality content. They are visiting because they have a problem to solve or a challenge to overcome, so make sure that your content delivers a solution.
How To Use Twitter To Build Business Relationships (2)
If you follow a lot of people but nobody follows you, you will raise a flag. But if you have thousands of followers and only a few follows, you need to have important content that others will enjoy.
Increase Your Traffic By Writing Articles (3)
The best way you can increase traffic to your website for a short period of time is to write and submit newsletter articles. The beauty of this method is that anyone can do it all you need is a good idea, the ability to write accurately and some spare time.
When Good Social Marketing Gets Wasted (And How Good Copywriting Can Save It) (4)
So I went to her site. I was looking for a continuation of what I read on Facebook. Instead, I found beautiful photos, links to a press kit and a place to sign up for a free consultation.
Effective Website Marketing Tips: Forget What You Love And Focus On Your Market (5)
Finally, people buy what they want, not what they need (or what we marketers think they need). As a fitness expert, you might realize that children need programs to develop healthy eating and exercise routines, beginning in first grade.
7 Top Tips For Writing Blog Articles (6)
Because it is easier to read and digest, readers are more likely to slow down for listed material than they are for material that is written in multiple paragraphs. If you have found a list that you like on someone else s blog, repost it on your blog using only the bulleted phrases and add a link to the original.
Copywriting Tip: Effective Website Content Positioning Begins At The Top (7)
Sometimes you need images or before-and-after pictures to illustrate your services. A real estate agent sells houses so why not show photos of houses? A weight loss expert shows a person morphing from fat to thin - why not?
Article Marketing - A Great Way To Promote And Market Your Online Business (8)
Marketing to them both ways, online and offline, will give you the maximum exposure you are looking for. If you are directing people to your website be sure to give them the opportunity to sign up for your ezine or newsletter and also for a short, free report or other information.
5 Essential Copywriting Tips To Improve Your Sales Copy (9)
There are a multitude of topics to consider when writing text that is to be copy written. You should also take into consideration, certain marketing aspects of the article you are writing.
Using An Article Directory (10)
Some people may use your article that you have written about a real life experience, as a guide for themselves. This happens specifically when people travel and they require an insider or experienced viewpoint when traveling to an unknown or unfamiliar destination.
Article Marketing As Part Of Your Daily Routine Online (11)
The most important aspect of article marketing is continuing to write new articles as often as possible, and then to submit them to the article directories. I write new articles every day, and submit them to Ezine Articles before I do anything else.
Express Yourself Through Creative Writing (12)
All of a writer's emotions, apprehensions, and ideals can form into words and therefore convey meaning to the readers. Conventionally though, this type of art is classified into two - the non-creative and creative writing.
Article Marketing- How To Use Article Marketing To Benefit Your Business (13)
Connie Ragen Green teaches you how to write articles and eBooks to build an online business, as well as how to use the technology needed. Visit www.EbookWritingandMarketingSecrets.com to find out more.
How To Make Money With Private Label Rights Articles Without Endless Hours Of Work (14)
Some writers and software designers make most of their money when they are creating a new product, and this means that they like to focus on this way of making money, rather than rely on getting customers which they don't know how to do and have not got an interest in.
Article Writing From An Academic Perspective (15)
When evaluating an article, always consider your personal view on what the author is presenting; this can be backed up by any criticisms of the article and may serve to establish the validity of the article writing process as well as the presentation and conclusions of the article being analysed.
Marketing Destination And Source (16)
Another benefit of the various article directories is that the articles may form the basis of the content that you may be seeking, this content should however be used via the appropriate permissions and procedures as specified by the article directories; as there may be a copyright issue that can arise.
Snail Mail Or E-Mail Trail, Marketing Which Wont Leave A Mess? (17)
Proving that fast and furious often is not the approach required in order to win the race? And whilst advertising is very much a big part of marketing using 21st century powers of technology might well leave your company back in the dark ages!
Article Writing Can Be Fun (18)
As I said previously - yes. The idea here is to not feel in any way obliged to conform to any specific format. As soon as you are told that you need to include this, this, and this, that's the end of it.
Ebook Writing Process: The Last Stages Prior To Publishing (19)
At the very least, you will have an idea of what your potential buyers will get when they buy your ebook. Insane 300+ page writing and selling ebooks blueprint and how-to videos showing every single step in detail at www.thewealthyplumber.com.
The Publishing Industry And What You Need To Know (20)
Without these behind you it is extremely unlikely any publication will ever think about hiring you, especially as many well established writers and sub-editors are being made redundant as serious cutbacks across the entire industry are necessary.
Permalink to Ignore What People Care About . . . If You Want To Hear The Sounds Of Silence