Subscriber MF writes:

“Right now I am having a very slow month — slowest in the history of
my firm.

“Bob, how do you or others manage the psychology of ups and downs
in business?”

This answer to this question has two parts.

First, instead of “managing” your worry and concern, why not just
get rid of those anxiety-causing slow times altogether?

And yes, there is in fact something you can do to either totally
avoid slow times … or failing that, certainly minimize their
frequency and duration, so it becomes a non-issue.

It’s my “double pipeline” lead generation strategy.

In a nutshell, you figure out how much lead-generating
self-promotion you need to generate enough inquiries to keep you
busy.

And then you do twice that amount of marketing!

By doing so, you will have two times as many potential new
clients and projects as you need.

So if Prospect W doesn’t come through, you don’t agonize over it
— because Prospects X, Y, and Z are waiting in the wings, ready
to pull the trigger on your services.

Second, have multiple streams of income.

That way, if your primary business gets soft for a time, then
instead of worrying about it … or sitting around with nothing to
do …

…you focus one of your other profit centers until the lull in
your main business is over.

That way, you are still productive — and you still have money
coming in.

Now, admittedly, these two strategies don’t actually address the
“psychology” MF asked me about.

But consider: You can use the first tactic to prevent or reduce
to near-zero slow times.

And with the second, you don’t really care if your main profit
center is in a slump, because you can stay active and profitable
with your other money makers.

In other words — problem solved.

Alfred E. Neuman famously asked: “What — me worry?”

And now, you don’t have to.

A few weeks ago, while in a doctor’s waiting room, an interesting
and nice gent named BC sat next to me, and we struck up a
conversation.

BC is from Scotland and is 92 years old. He revealed to me that
he came to the U.S. in his youth and started a furniture business
in Manhattan, which became very successful and grew to 5 stores.

He asked me if I wanted to know his #1 success secret, and when I
said yes, told me it was simply that he paid wages 20% higher
than any of his competitors.

The reason, he explained, was to keep good employees happy so
that they stayed with him and did not look around for a better
opportunity or jump ship when given jobs offers by other
businesses.

I think this is actually a very big point. Let me explain….

Many of us are essentially price buyers, meaning we get three
quotes, and invariably pick the service provider with the lowest
price.

In essence, we are saying that low price is the most important
factor in our purchase decision, ranking ahead of customer
service, quality of work, reliability, promptness, and contractor
expertise and know-how.

Isn’t that kind of stupid?

Smarter buyers of business, trade, professional, technical, and
health care services look for the best value — not the best
price.

I mean, say you had a tumor in your cranium, needed brain
surgery, and went to three neurosurgeons for opinions.

The first says the operation is $30,000. The second charges
$32,000. And the third, whose neurosurgery practice is called
Brains ‘R Us, quotes a fee of $300.

It’s certainly the low price. But would you go with it? I think
not.

Price buying leads to crappy work from inferior vendors often
found on Upwork and Fiverr, among other online service sites.

People who patronize such sites often look for the low-priced
vendor, usually to their regret.

So why do so many people always look for the low price in so much
else they buy?

I love this quote from John Ruskin: “There is hardly anything in
the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a
little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this
man’s lawful prey.”

There was a cartoon in a magazine showing two barbershops. The
sign in the window of the first said, “$5 haircuts.”

The sign in the window of the second barbershop said, “We fix $5
haircuts.”

I have certainly spent a significant portion of my time over the
years fixing $100 copy.

Back to BC….

He also told me the internet killed his furniture business, in
which his specialty was providing high-end furniture for wealthy
Manhattan businesspeople looking to furnish their entire large
apartment.

In his heyday, said BC, these customers trusted his judgment. And
so they loved the furniture he sold them and kept it forever.

But when the web came along, these customers saw that e-commerce
furniture dealers allowed returns, refunds, and exchanges if the
customer didn’t love the furniture when it was delivered.

Because of that, all of a sudden BC was inundated with calls from
customers who wanted to send back the furniture and try out
something else.

It was so expensive and so labor-intensive, and he hated it so
much, he soon closed the store chain and retired.

It seems that the internet is a mixed blessing for business.

For some industries it’s great. For others it is terrible. For still others,
it is somewhere in the middle, with both many pros and many cons.

JM, who blames the web in part for the closure of his New Mexico
bookstore, says, “People were happy when they came in, but wanted
us to have the resources and pricing of online or they would not
buy.”

For those who embrace the internet, and don’t love bookstores or
brick and mortar, BC’s and JM’s woes mean little.

But writer LD echoes the sentiments of many when she writes, “A
town without a bookstore is a town without a soul.”

And I like a local furniture store, too.

“Kaizen” is the Japanese philosophy of making continuous
improvements.

Given that there is hardly anything we do that we can’t do
better, this is a smart approach to business.

The problem, however, is that our time and attention is already
absorbed by pressing tasks, deadlines, and responsibilities.

So making improvements in our systems, processes, skills, and
products too often falls by the wayside.

My solution is a business tactic I call the “kaizen break.”

Notice that as you are working frantically on getting through
your to-do list, you invariably tire.

And when you do, you take a small mental break … maybe 5 or 10
minutes … before either returning to the major task you were
working on — or moving to the next major task.

During these breaks, we often waste time, or at least are fairly
unproductive, doing everything from watching a quick YouTube
video or getting a coffee refill, to petting the dog or staring
out the window.

So here’s how to turn these short bits of wasted time into
profitable time with my “kaizen break” method.

In a kaizen break, instead of futzing around, you do a short task
— usually one with no urgency — that can produce an incremental
improvement in your business.

Example: A few weeks ago I presented one of my standard webinars,
“Effective Business Writing.”

Over the decades, I have presented versions of this basic program
on how to write better and faster dozens of times — earning
hundreds of thousands of dollars teaching it over and over.

Whenever I give one of my talks, I always think of ways,
immediately after presenting, to make it better.

So, after my most recent lecture, I printed a hard copy of the
PowerPoint.

The next day, during a short break between copywriting projects,
I went over the slides with a pen.

I made a few corrections, added a few points, and then faxed my
small edits to my PowerPoint designer for a minor update of the
file.

The result?

In a brief pause between intensive writing, during which I
otherwise would have sat here contemplating my nave l, I instead
made a small but useful improvement to one of my core products.

Namely, a workshop that I get $5,500 a day to deliver to my
corporate training clients.

For me, turning dead time into productive time like this, and
wasted time into a money-maker, is a no-brainer.

Thanks to my new “kaizen breaks,” I am making small non-urgent
but valuable improvements to my systems and products almost
every week of the year.

And now, you can, too.

Recently, a colleague handed me a book on communications she got
at a seminar on that topic from the speaker.

I flipped through it and immediately thought of a comment I read
in a book review once: “This is a book that should never have
been written.”

And increasingly, in this era of self-promoters and CreateSpace,
the rise of books that should never have been written — or
published — is increasing at a tremendous rate.

I call these works — most not worth the paper they’re printed on
or the price of a Kindle download — “flimsy books.”

And I urge you to neither read, buy, nor heaven forbid, write and
publish such books.

They are 9 times out of 10 a waste of both the writer’s and the
reader’s time, effort, and money.

Why?

Because these flimsy books have a number of characteristics in
common, which make them good for lining bird cages or starting
fires in the fireplace — but not so good for actually reading.

>> To begin with, flimsy books are actually flimsy. That doesn’t
make them bad in itself, but is an identifying trait.

When you see a flimsy book, your first impression is that it’s a
pamphlet, not a book. And actually, that is essentially the case.

The communications book I was given has barely 50 pages with text
on them … and the page size is small.

Reason: Authors of flimsy books are more interested in having a
published book for use as a marketing tool or to enhance their
reputation, rather than writing a good book.

So they tend to dash them off quickly, often without much effort,
thought, research, or editing.

>> Second, the vast majority of books I am referring to as
“flimsy” are self-published, more often than not today on
CreateSpace.

Again, that doesn’t make them bad in itself.

However, anyone who has written a book for a big publishing house
knows that those books almost always get a lot more attention to
detail — especially in the editing, proofreading, and production
process — than self-published books.

My editors at these publishing houses are tough, and don’t let me
get away with being lazy or doing a half-assed job, or being
unclear or incomplete.

Most self-published authors I know don’t hire a copy editor, and
so their books lack this essential quality control.

“Submitting a book for publication is also submitting to the
discipline of the market,” says my Facebook friend WC.

“Indeed, there are worthy self-published books, but I tend to
agree that added prestige is given when books are published by a
major publisher.”

>> Third, you don’t get much for your money with flimsy books.

The flimsy communications book I am using as an example is, as I
said, barely 50 pages and less than 15,000 words total.

By comparison, my average 200 to 300-page trade paperback for the
big publishers is 80,000 to 100,000 words — so the buyer gets 5
to 6 times more content than in a typical flimsy book.

>> Fourth, as mentioned in my first point above, the motivation
for publishing a flimsy book is more often than not marketing —
either to sell for maximum profit with minimal effort … or to
serve as a sales or reputation-building tool.

As Dr. Jeffrey Lant notes: “A book is a brochure that will never
be thrown away.”

>> Fifth, most flimsy books I review are — uh, how can I put this
— just not very good.

It is painfully obvious that they have not been fact-checked,
proofed, researched, or written with careful attention.

In so many flimsy books, the writing is disorganized, the text
meanders and is full of pointless digressions, and the coverage
of the topic is woefully incomplete — with much of the key
information missing.

But — why am I complaining? Why bother to protest? Is there
really any harm caused by the growing practice of writing,
publishing, and selling flimsy books?

Answer: Yes — some. And here’s why I think the world would be
better off without so many — or even any — flimsy books….

Reason number one: The existence of flimsy books cheapens the
value of real books.

When I started writing books in 1981, having a book published was
prestigious. But flimsy books make people think less of books and
authors.

Reason number two: People write and publish flimsy books to
convince others they are experts.

To write a 300-page book that is vetted by a top publishing house
does require some expertise or at least a lot of research.

Writing a flimsy book, not so much.

Reason number three: Flimsy books are a major source of “content
pollution” — which I loosely define as books, reports, courses,
and other materials that, to put it charitably, should never have
seen the light of day.

You may disagree. But that’s the way I see it.

Before you ask or say anything, yes, I have written a few
books that are small and slim.

But, of my 95 published books, I have written many that are
200, 300, or 400 pages — and in one case 800 pages.

So my average book is indeed a real book, and not a flimsy
pamphlet.

So many people allow themselves to be defeated by either
rejection or lack of persistence.

“Persistence” is the ability to keep moving forward … and
pursuing your goal or objective … even in the face of failures
and setbacks.

“Rejection” is a more specific case of lack of persistence after
a disappointment: giving up too easily when people say “no” to
you.

Calvin Coolidge said, “Your ability to face setbacks and
disappointments without giving up will be the measure of your
ability to succeed.”

But most people don’t. They give up quickly. Fold too easily. And
as a result don’t get what they want.

The solution is the “2/24 formula.”

It’s simple.

Say you have a negative result. It could be anything from a
publisher rejecting your book proposal — to a potential speaking
client choosing your competitor to deliver a keynote.

The 2/24 formula says that, within 24 hours of your rejection,
you make not one but TWO more pitches for the same project or
work with two new prospects.

So in the case of the book proposal, you turn around and submit
it to not one but TWO other publishers.

Why does the 2/24 formula work?

For three reasons.

First, because it is a formula, following it becomes almost
automatic. So it gets done by you consistently.

The 2/24 formula removes the decision of whether to wallow in
misery … or get up, dust yourself off, and try again … because
the formula says you HAVE to move forward and do so immediately.
It’s mandatory.

Second, the “2” part — by making TWO sales calls for every
rejection, you double your chances of closing a deal.

Third, the “24” part. The formula requires you to take swift
action — within 24 hours. And as my friend Joe Vitale and others
have said, “Money loves speed.”

One more thing….

The old saying … “There is no failure, only feedback” … is mostly
true.

You only really fail when you stop trying and give up.

Rocky Balboa states this idea eloquently here:

Subscriber CG writes:

“What advice would you give a writer who has many interests and
talents and finds it difficult to choose a topic, theme, or genre
to write in?

“If they are new to writing full-time for a living, must they
choose a focus area to be successful?”

This aspect of freelancing — generalist vs. specialist — has
changed somewhat during my 4-plus decades as a freelance writer.

When I first started freelancing, the magazine market was wide
open — and welcome non-specialist writers with welcome arms.

The vast majority of freelance magazine article writers wrote on
almost every subject imaginable — for any magazine they could
sell their idea to.

As for books, in the early part of my author’s career — I wrote
my first book for McGraw-Hill in 1982 — I felt pretty confident
that if I came up with a good book idea, my agent would be able
to find a publisher for it.

And it pretty much worked out that say for a decade or three.

In copywriting, I was niched from day one as an industrial
copywriter, primarily because I had an engineering degree and was
a techie.

But most of the copywriters back then — and there were fairly few
freelancers — came from ad agencies and would work on any type of
product for any type of client. They were generalists.

Today, it’s a bit different….

There are still plenty of magazines buying articles from
freelancers, but magazine publishing is in a downward spiral …
and so writing articles is no longer the plum assignment it was
back in the day.

Books are even more difficult.

Book publishers today only want to buy books from author’s who
have something known as a “platform.”

The two components of a platform are (a) the author has
credentials and experience in the subject matter of the book he
wants to write and (b) also has a built-in audience which
presumably will buy his book.

And of these platform components, (b) — the ability to sell lots
of copies of the book — is much more important than (a), the
author background and qualifications.

The problem is that it is difficult if not impossible to have a
strong platform with both components, (a) and (b), for more than
one or two niches or topics.

Therefore, if you publish through mainstream publishing houses,
as I do, you cannot get publishers to buy books from you in
multiple niches — e.g., gardening, computers, marketing, pets,
and whatever else interests you — because you simply can’t have
strong platforms in more than one or two areas.

The problem still exists if you self-publish.

For instance, I publish an online marketing newsletter with
65,000 subscribers.

These people trust me for marketing advice and many will buy new
marketing books from me.

But if I tell them about my new book on real estate (and I have
coauthored two), most won’t be interested or buy — because they
come to me for marketing and not real estate advice.

So back to CG’s question: “If they are new to writing full-time
for a living, must they choose a focus area to be successful?”

I’m afraid, CG, the answer is: yes, they must focus on a niche,
topic, or area — at least at the beginning.

There are so many more freelance writers and copywriters today
than when I started, competing with one another, that
specialization is often the key to gaining competitive advantage
and succeeding.

Once you have many long years of experience behind you, then
specialization is not as critical, because people hear about you
through the grapevine, and if your reputation is good, many want
to work with you … although even then, the specialist usually has
the edge over the generalist.

I suspect my answer will distress CG, whom I think is a
renaissance person with wide-ranging interests who wants to write
about many subjects — but will have trouble getting clients and
projects without choosing an area of focus and sticking with it.

I empathize, because I too love to write on a wide range of
topics.

But I was lucky in that regards, because I started in a day when
generalists, not specialists, ruled.

As a result, I was able to get contracts from major publishers to
write books on many subjects that interested me — everything from
sex and Star Trek, to careers and computers, to essays and short
stories, science and vocabulary … to name just a few.

I am glad I did that when it was possible, because today, it is
much more difficult to sell a book outside your main subject
matter expertise …

… although I just did, writing my first biography, to be
published in October by Quill Driver — enormous fun for me!:

https://amzn.to/2HXYaun

Times keep changing, and for writers with wide-ranging interests,
not always for the better.

Regular readers of the Direct Response Letter know that I tend to
favor lower prices on information products — both my own and
others.

Yet despite that, I have to warn you that there is one major
drawback or risk of taking low-priced training.

And that is uneven and unreliable quality.

For instance, back in the day, I taught at the Learning Annex in
New York City, which offers courses on many interesting topics at
low cost.

As an instructor, I could take the occasional course for free,
which I did.

And while some of them were excellent, a few were taught by
subpar seminar leaders — who, as a former Annex instructor
myself, I know were paid very little.

Outside of NYC, I’ve had somewhat less luck with inexpensive
courses offered at local high schools and adult education
programs.

For instance, pre-internet, I had a traditional mail order
business selling paper-and-ink reports and books, which I ran out
of my basement.

The reports were “typeset” on an ordinary IBM Selectric
typewriter in Prestige Elite and “printed” on my office
photocopier.

The covers were actually typeset by a typographer and photocopied
on green paper, to add a more “expensive” look to the reports.

Anyway, to improve my business, I signed up for what looked like
a promising course — “How to Make Money in Mail Order at Home in
Your Spare Time” — at a local community college.

But when I got there, the instructor picked up a textbook and
began reading in a monotone, “Mail order marketing is defined
as….”

And I realized: she was just a business professor at the college,
and she had never operated a mail order business in her life.

She knew nothing about mail order outside of what she had read in a
textbook, which became immediately apparent to the bored and — as
she nervously kept reading — increasingly dissatisfied students.

Finally, I got up the courage to raise my hand — and when called
upon politely asked her, “Do you actually have your own mail
order business?”

She admitted she did not. I asked if anyone else in the classroom
did, and no one raised their hand.

“Well, I do,” I said, asking her, “Do you want me to teach the
course?”

She said yes, and I did.

Maybe I wasn’t great.

But my fellow classmates seemed thrilled to get first-hand
guidance in mail order by someone who had actually done it.

And the professor was obviously relieved at not having to fake
her way through material she clearly knew nothing about.

Now, if you take low-priced local training — which, unlike
courses you buy online, do not issue a refund if you are not
satisfied — you don’t risk much money.

But of course, you do risk wasting your time, which is arguably
even more precious.

So how can you profitably learn from “cheap” training in your own
backyard, without getting too badly burned?

Easy: Simply ask if the teacher is an active practitioner in the
topic.

For instance, if the course is about bookkeeping, is she or has
she been a bookkeeper? If it’s about training a puppy, is she a
vet, dog trainer, or even a dog walker?

If the answer is no, run.

Why?

Because if the instructor is a professor or other teacher, but
has never done the thing being taught, you are getting theory —
which in practical subjects like parenting, pet care,
bookkeeping, tax preparation, small business, or marketing, is
fairly worthless.

And the teacher being a great lecturer won’t make up for it: The
course might be enjoyable, but you won’t learn much that is
useful.

On the other hand, an instructor who is an active participant in
the field can pass on his “expensive experience” to you — giving
you a fast start and saving you from going down the wrong roads.

The expertise and rock-solid knowledge can more than make up
for the teacher perhaps not being the best seminar presenter.

And if she is not only a genuine expert but also a good lecturer —
as experts often are, in my experience — then you’ve struck
learning gold.

Online, you are a bit safer, because if the course is not to your
liking, you can — at least from an honest seller — get your money
back.

Locally, though, you — as the old saying goes — “pays your money
and you takes your chances.”

The other day, I got an e-newsletter with the lead article
titled, “How to Improve ROI from Your Business Meetings.”

And my immediate thought was: that’s easy — don’t HAVE business
meetings!

In my nearly 4 decades in business, I have yet to find a bigger
waste of time than face-to-face meetings … with the possible
exception of social media.

Back in the day, pre-email, pre-internet, and pre-skype, I did go
to some meetings with local clients here in NJ.

For out-of-state clients, we typically had the meeting over the
phone.

And guess what?

I consistently found that we could accomplish the same thing in a
20 to 30-minute phone call with the distant clients …

…as I did in a 2-hour face-to-face meeting with local clients.

And 2 hours was the actual meeting time. When you added in the
round-trip car ride — an hour each way — the meeting took 4
hours, or half a day of my time.

So now, no matter whether the client is down the block or in
Australia, our meeting is via phone, email, or Skype.

I just don’t meet with people in person, unless they are willing
to pay a hefty fee to do so. And often not even then.

My Facebook friend PO writes: “Business meetings are the death
knell of profitability, productivity, and employee morale —
senseless.”

Another FB friend, BM, cites a study about meetings from the
Organizational Development group at MIT.

This computer-simulation study concluded that the optimum number
of people to have in a business meeting for maximum productivity
is 1.3 — which can mean just me if I’ve gained some weight!

DG comments, “Business meetings should be concise and pertinent.
And if they fill up someone’s calendar, my suspicion increases as
to their necessity and value.”

JF opines: “The bigger the organization, the less productive the
meetings in my overall experience.”

JL says this about meetings: “If you take an hour’s salary
for each person in the room plus the cost of someone making an
agenda and a report and then compare that with what came out of
it, you’d have to ask yourself why you did that. Meetings: yuk,
gag, awful.”