Tips on Tips

Where Tips Can Improve Your Life

What is your natural inclination – to lead or to follow? Of course, variables keep the answer to that question from consistently being only one or the other.

There was little doubt from early on that I found my joy in doing things differently, in being a leader whether out in front of the crowd or leading from behind. Other leaders influenced and impacted the path, and still do to this day, as do followers in different ways.  

Stumbling into crafting, marketing, and selling TWO MILLION copies of a generic how-to tips booklet on organizing your business life in 1991 was a happy coincidence. The development of a slightly unique publication was a combination of more happy coincidences, building the plane while flying it, plus heightened awareness, courage to do brand new tasks, and doing them with little money. 

Today there are growing concerns about saturated markets of buyers and certain topics, the impact of artificial intelligence, upheaval around the world, health challenges, and many other things that can and do intrude on commerce, peace, and daily life. 

While these provide a backdrop that can and does become all-consuming, there are still lots of opportunities to bring your expertise, your experiences, your dedication, and most of all, your vision to people who value what you’ve got to share. And that can happen whether you’re primarily a leader or a follower.

Many things in life go in cycles. A downturn in business and finance lasts just so long before reverting to an upswing. It can seem you and I have minimal impact on changing the direction or pace of that cycle. In one moment no idea helped improve things no matter how hard you tried or how much you brainstormed. Then things made a 180° turn with one phone conversation or the passing of time. 

Yes, a downturn can be the end of the business in some cases. It can also be the catalyst to continue exploring whatever you can and being open to pivoting, as many have done during the 2020 COVID pandemic. 

An idea you had that seemed a perfect match that no one saw as you did all of sudden had many people eager to explore a joint venture with you. The time was right. You were simply ahead of the curve when the idea first came to you, or you didn’t know the question(s) to ask that allowed a clear pathway to proceed.

Real life examples in my journey include:

• Numerous small publishing companies were reluctant to offer tips services to their book author clients until one day a small publisher saw it as a great idea. Both lead and follow.

• A mid-size public relations company saw the merits to offering tips products services to their clients, when no other PR firm saw the connection or benefit. Both lead and follow.

• A major manufacturer of a well-known office supply product took six years to say a tips booklet was not the right size to match any of their products’ packaging. Lesson learned! 

• Decades before realizing Amazon book authors never knew who bought their books, I identified solutions to fix that problem so the author, buyer, and even Amazon benefit.

• Exploring a joint venture with a professional resource serving a similar audience at an eye-to-eye high-end position, swap leader and follower positions as appropriate.

You might have missed an important awareness that stalled  a big idea six years ago that people are now banging down your door to implement. A market you thought would be ideal had no takers until you were personally introduced to someone who was jumping out of their skin, eager to get started with what you suggested, hook, line, and sinker.  

It’s useful and realistic to share when an otherwise mostly strong leader showed different colors. Very early in my booklet journey, I had an idea that one of the big office supply retailers could be an ideal client. They already bought morning drive time radio advertising. It made sense that my “organizing your business life” tips could slide right into a 30-60 second ad spot. What a win, what a coup that would be.  I then got a bad case of phone paralysis. For 2 hours I dialed (eons ago, landline, dial phone!) up to the last digit of the phone number and couldn’t bring myself to complete the whole number. Finally, I got annoyed with myself and said  “whatever happens is whatever happens.” The big cosmic joke when I got through was that the VP of Marketing I was calling was not in the office that day!! 

Yes, things like this can and do happen.

When you see yourself as more of a Follower, and do everything you can to stay within your comfort zone with tried and true pathways leading to predictable results, you may consider teaming up with a Leader and creating a formalized joint venture relationship. That can be done in a Letter of Agreement stating what each of you will do, how the revenue will be shared, and overall, the where, why, what, how, and when of the arrangement. That agreement can be for a single project or moving forward together without necessarily forming a new company for your relationship.

An example of such a relationship being beneficial to you and your joint venture partner is when one has substantial skills and talent in one area and is the obvious person for those tasks, and vice versa. In one joint venture, my colleague is definitely better at the sales process than I am. It’s not that I am lacking in sales skills. However, my colleague is head and shoulders better at that. Plus, there is an identified imbalance of who does more of the heavy lifting and, because of that, needs to be the lead in conversation. My part is no less important to create what we are offering. We are eye-to-eye when it comes to brainstorming, where neither of us is either a leader or a follower.

Another example where a joint venture can make sense is you’ve got an idea for a new product, process, or application. Your nature may be to stay more behind the scenes, doing great research, formulating the structure of your idea, and NOT reaching out to potential buyers. Simultaneously, you know someone who is the consummate “people person” whose joy is interacting with potential clients, and who you like and trust. Joint venturing can be  ideal in a situation like that, all things being otherwise equal.

Take a moment to focus on what your natural inclination is in the Leader, Follower, or It Depends categories. Think about what’s more possible when collaborating with others. It may be something you never considered or even occurred to you before. That collaboration represents each person’s brilliance providing more light to more people than diminishing what’s possible.

Visit www.TipsProducts.com to learn more about lots of things, including how we can travel part of the journey together.

NOTE: There are two recent additions to the website, both on the same page - https://www.tipsproducts.com/media

1. Interviews I’ve recently done (and more to come)

2. Newsletter Archives, all of 2023, each month’s issue moving forward.

Another BIG NOTE

How Tips Products Can Expand and Accelerate Your Amazon Book Sales Before, During, and After Your Book is Done

This is a topic I’ll be presenting a lot throughout 2024. I’ve already done multiple presentations of a 1-hour free Masterclass, 4-session fee-based workshop, podcast guest, and summit session presenter. Being uniquely qualified to provide solutions for Amazon book authors to attract more traffic to their website that and create relationships with their book buyers, please consider bringing this information to your audience, followers, list subscribers, members, or other gatherings who can benefit. The workshop is fee-based and affiliate-friendly to you. It is the beginning of more workshops I’ll be developing that equip Amazon book authors and you to reach and help more people while making more money.

Let’s chat!

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