STEP ONE : Write out a vision for it.  I know…I know.  You don’t think this is important.  I’m telling you…if you’re not willing to do this step then you are not committed to creating this profit center and setting yourself up for failure.  Albert Einstein was no dummy when he said, “Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.”

You are able to relive a past experience vividly in your imagination, can’t you?  Well you can also get a preview of upcoming attractions with that same mind.  Denis Waitly, one of the great speakers on the topic of success says, “The more vivid the image, the more real the design for the future.”

You can use a beautiful journal notebook dedicated to your new profit center or you can create a Word document journal.  Take time to write out this vision.  Get a picture of where you are working in this vision, the time of day, who you are working with, activities you are engaged in, and how you feel at the end of the day.  What will having this extra income do for you?  Imagine how it will feel when you pay off debt, or have a dream trip, or buy some things you’ve been longing for.

STEP TWO: Decide how much money you want to bring in from this profit center in the first year, then second and third years.  Now double those figures.  I know from experience that most of you shot too low in your first projection.  I recently went to a conference where most of the audience were self employed men.  In a conversation with one guy, I shared that I was doing ok…I was making six figures…he didn’t miss a beat and said to me, “each month?”  Ok – money isn’t the only measure of success but I KNOW that you can bring in more than you think.

STEP THREE: What will you need to do to make this happen? Danielle Steele, the prolific fiction author, wrote many of her books during the night hours – she and her husband have eight children between them and she vowed to give the kids quality time during the day.  If she can do it, you can too.  If you are working full-time and want to grow a profit center on the side…you might just have to stop watching some television or playing computer games or checking email 20 times a day…you know what your time wasters are.  Find one you can live without or cut back on and use that time each day, five days a week to grow your profit center.

What will it take to bring in the level of income from your new profit center in the first year?  Get specific and concrete.  In my new profit center, if a certain type of writing project typically brings in $5,000 and I want to bring in $50,000 in the first year, I know that I’ll need approximately 10 projects in the first year.  Then break it down further – I’d need 1 project a month. Then what will it take to get the projects?  Do some research; find out how to reach the clients/customers you’re looking for.  Then create a plan to find them and get the projects/clients etc.

Ask yourself, what do I need to do this month toward my goal?  What do I need to do this week?  And what can I do TODAY to move this goal forward? Create YOUR plan!

STEP FOUR: Who will support you in this profit center?  Remember…dreams die in isolation.  So share your plan with at least one supportive person.  And, get help if you need it.  Don’t let the lack of a piece of information stop you – use the internet or pick up the phone and call someone to ask for help.

Research your idea on the internet; find professional associations dealing with it, read articles about it.  I found an information product through a trusted source that was created by someone who is already successful in the area – so I purchased it – it will save me incredible time in research and will save me from making some mistakes.  I am in coaching groups where I can get support, ideas and be held accountable.  I know I’ll succeed and have fun in creating this new profit center.  As Dolly Parton said, “When I’m inspired, I get excited because I can’t wait to see what I’ll come up with next.”  I’m excited for you and look forward to hearing about what you come up with next!

In the immortal words of Johnny Cash, “I’ve been everywhere, man.” In terms of the book industry, I’ve agented books; I’ve designed books; I’ve helped a dozen authors self-publish their own books – and I’ve advised hundreds of others not to self publish. I’ve worked on publicity campaigns with major publishing houses; I’ve done grassroots and highbrow marketing. I’ve had my own book go to auction to earn a six figure book advance, get published and make it on to the Amazon bestseller list. I’m currently in the glorious, grueling process of writing my next book: The Fire Starter Sessions.

So, naturally, I’m jaded. Really jaded. And yet! I remain ever devoted to the art of the book and the game of publishing. I’m a romantic. Just like Johnny. Creating a book is an intimate experience. You give shape to your innermost feelings, you share them with critics and other lovers of ideas and story. And then you shop that baby until the cows come home. How you do it is a very personal decision.

To Self-Publish or to Sign with a Publishing House? It depends how you define success. It depends what your motivation is – profit or creative gratification? It depends on how talented you are and how timely your material is. It depends if you’re really crazy, or just a little bit crazy.

The Pro’s and Cons and the In’s and Outs of Self Publishing and Publishing Houses:

DISTRIBUTION
Let’s start with the most important aspect of making a book. Forget content and design, forget marketing and PR…for a moment. Getting your product into the hands of booksellers and book buyers should be your A#1, paramount big daddy priority.

Self pub: If you choose to self publish, distribution will be your greatest hurdle. In the eyes of major book chain buyers, you’re a nobody. The head buyer at CostCo or Borders has established relationships with sales reps from publishing houses. They have buy-meets at book shows and scheduled times where they order dozens of titles at a time for the upcoming season. They won’t even take your call. You will have to hire an independent sales rep to pitch your title.

Or…you can go to local bookstores and pitch it yourself. It’s hell – a hell possibly worth walking through, but put your armor on, wear your lip-gloss and best smile, and be prepared to schlep books in your car trunk for weeks, months even.

Pub house: distribution is done for you. That simple. This is the single most important reason to try to get your self a book deal. Publishing houses have tentacles that reach far into book shows and bookstores across the world.

THE DESIGN PROCESS
Self-pub: guess what? You’re now a book designer, content and copy editor, color expert, typography and paper specialist – and you thought you were just a guy with something important to say. Even if you hire out your book to a graphic designer (and you probably should, for anywhere from $500 to $20,000 in design fees depending on the type of book you’re producing,) the aesthetics of the book rely on your approval. Do you know what cover will appeal to consumers next season? Do you have access to the recycled paper printer you want who can print in bulk? For better or for worse, you will have total creative control. Could be a beautiful thing.

Pub house: I know more than a few authors who didn’t know what their book cover was going to look like until they saw it for the first time on Amazon — tragic but true. You may have zero say in how your baby is dressed. Could be a disaster. Could be a beautiful thing.

TIME TO MARKET
Self-Pub: The turn around time with a self-published book can be as fast as you can drive the process. Once it’s written and edited, you can have a book in your hands in as little as two months. Zoom.

Pub house: Prepare to go gray before you see your book in stores. Unless you’re writing about a time-sensitive topic of major cultural relevance (like, a meteor drops to Earth and you happen to be working on a book about How To Survive A Meteor Crash,) then you’re likely looking at eight months to two years from the time you sign your publishing contract to the day your book is in the Barnes & Noble window. It’s a long time.

Traditional publishing is a lot like the fashion industry. There are a lot of players involved and they each need lead time to do their job: the editing department, the foreign rights department, the designer, the offshore printer, the marketing team who is selling to stores a two seasons in advance, the publicity team pitching to magazines three to six months in advance, and the warehouse who needs time to ship to stores.

THE MONEY
Self pub: If you do it right, you can be earning as much as $10 bucks a book, perhaps more. Yipee! Hopefully that’ll be enough to re-coup the capital you put in to fund the book – graphic design, perhaps an indexer, various registration costs, marketing, a hefty Fed-Ex bill… It could all add up to thousands of dollars — easy.

Pub house: A book advance is an incredibly civilized concept. You get paid in advance to write your book. Wow. You typically get a third of the advance money when you sign your contract, a third when you deliver your final manuscript, and a third when the book is off the printing press.

Most authors never see a dime after their book advance – simply because they need to sell enough copies to “earn out” their advance. After you’ve sold the amount of your advance in books (essentially paying the publisher back for their investment) then you start to realize a royalty on books sold after that – which is usually in the low range of a whopping $2 per book.

PUBLICITY
Self-pub: Got contacts? You better have. Facebook friends may not get you on the bestseller list. You need editors’ emails and TV ops. It’s timing consuming and critical. Not your thing? You’re looking at a minimum of $5000 to hire a publicist to run a decent campaign for you.

Pub house: They’ve got contacts – oodles of them. Media editors and producers are used to being pitched by publishing house staffers. But don’t think for a minute that your publisher will take your book to the mount and flog it. It’s a rare exception that any book is nurtured beyond a very concentrated, one-time push to the media that lasts about three weeks if you’re lucky.

Whether you self publish or land a book deal – publicity and marketing will ultimately be fueled by your stamina.

It takes a village to raise a book. But it takes your creative genius to make it, guide it, and carry it to the world – whether that’s with a prime-time media interview or small book signings where only two people show up – and one of them is your mom.

Johnny Cash lasted so long in the music business not just because he was a pure talent, but because he was a remarkable combination of tough-as-nails and romantic. Either direction you take — self publishing or landing a book deal — you will need to be steely, you will need to embody passion, you will need to take your show on the road…everywhere, man.

May applause follow wherever you go.

That uncomfortable silence after a friend has told you his bad news or a rant of how overwhelmed she is. Break ups and broken arms and melt downs. Even for our best friends we don’t always know what to say or do to make it better. We fumble to fill the space with salving words, or sometimes worse, with solutions. When really, all we need to do is ask: How can I help?

This phrase works for tragedies and boo boos and bad days. It quells panic. It can create urgency or buy time. It’s effective with strangers and lovers.

Everyone understands it.

I learned this from my friend Michelle, who’s a super-sensitive Irish Italian social worker (read: hardwired to be helpful.) And even though she’s full of bright ideas and anecdotes, she has the presence to just pause and ask, How can I help?

It creates a soft space to meet.
It invites collaboration.
It empowers everyone.

While we all admired the screen villain l begged to disagree with Milind. I asked him if he ever recollected anybody being named Pran even before the villain entered Bollywood? The silence in response to my question told its own tale. ‘Pran’ was a rarest of rare names and the possible fact that few if any had that name may have nothing to do with the actor’s screen deeds. The evidence did not support Milind’s contention.

It may seem obvious but many neglect to remember this simple guideline to good thinking—the need for credible evidence. This form of thinking, called Evidence based Thinking or EBT is now being rigorously being applied in a range of subjects such as medicine, management, sociology etc.

An interesting example of EBT is available in a recent issue of The New York Times where an article sought to discuss what appears to be a curious phenomenon–the trend of reducing crime rates in the USA. The first half of 2009 has seen a sharp fall in crime rates across the country even in cities that have been the hotbeds of crime like New York and Chicago. Even cities hit hard by bank failures and the consequent loss of jobs like Charlotte, are showing reduced crime levels. What is even more surprising is that cities that are known to be traditionally crime free are showing increased crime rates.The writer’s conclusion? Astrologers and tea leaves readers may be better able to predict crime rates than scientists!

Let’s look at the inadequacy of traditional predictors and how EBT proves these to be inadequate:

THE ECONOMY: This seems fundamental but the evidence is stunning–the Depression era had lower crime rate than the Prohibition era!

MORE CONVICTIONS AND IMPRISONMENT: The incarceration rates have been increasing but EBT shows that crime rates have been zigzagging up and down seemingly unconnected to each other.

ABORTION RATES: It is suggested that legalizing abortions has helped in avoiding unwanted births. These unwanted kids go on to become criminals or so the theory suggested. But EBT shows that there are many countries that have legalized abortion but have not seen declines in crime rates.

GUN THEORY: Expanded gun ownership rights have deterred criminals who must now consider whether their victims are armed. Thus, the theory goes, with more and more people possessing guns crime rates can be expected to go down but EBT shows that while New York gun ownership is low, reduction in crime rates is the most significant in that city.

ILLEGAL DRUGS: It is suggested that illegal drug use drives up crime. EBT shows that the percentage of those arrested in New York with illegal drugs in their system has remained more or less flat.

To make a long story short almost all traditional predictors of crime have failed to stand up to careful scrutiny under the rigorous lens of EBT. Even the popular theory that poverty leads to crime, has been belied. Andrew Karmen, a criminologist at the John Lay College of Criminal Justice in New York noted, ‘There are people out there putting up with an awful lot of suffering and they are not complaining all that much’.

In medicine EBT shows that many medicines and surgical procedures including angioplasty and the removal of disk have little or no benefit to a patient and the situation can be managed simply by comparatively inexpensive drugs.

Management gurus who apply EBT say that ESOPs do more harm than good. Wall Street gives enough evidence of this with Merger and Acquisition failures almost 70%.

The summary–we need more rigorous research and must be wary of facile theories.

Two final remarks. When banks in India are the subject of discussion, critics say that government-directed lending is responsible for bad loans. EBT shows that the rate of bad loans is much higher among well-heeled borrowers. Bad loans in microfinance schemes are negligible even though the borrowers are among the poorest of he poor.

EBT also shows that the most attractive cities to live in India are NOT Mumbai, Bangalore, New Delhi. Which are the 3 best cities? Look for evidence on your own please.

From the beginning of time, as the world and life itself evolved, mankind has constantly striven to push the pace of progress, leaving the weak to die, and the strong to live and thrive. We called it the process of ‘natural selection’. And so it is today too, with even greater ferocity and ruthlessness.

Anybody within reach of reality, must always recognize the compelling need – of discomfort, of constant change, of threat to survival, of creating and fostering change, of continually learning, of challenging the established norm.

Only when you can catalyze change continuously, can you truly consider yourself to be leading on the edge.

The arithmetic is very simple. The size of the pie being constant, to eat more of it, somebody else has to go hungry. That is, unless somebody has the wisdom and the ability to make another pie and another. Business and Life strategies are increasingly pointed in this direction. How to make another pie!

Here is a Do It Yourself Kit that each individual would find useful in the marathon race for survival and growth especially in these times of uncertainty.

1. Believe in Yourself – You Count!
1.1 List your Strengths.
1.2 List successful Moments of Truth in your life.
1.3 List Positive Feedback you have received.
1.4 Write an Appreciative Letter to yourself.
1.5 Write One Thing you do well that others don’t or cannot do.
2. Put Your Entire Energy into What You Do- It’s Your Signature!
2.1 Make every moment special.
2.2 Check what you have done for excellence.
2.3 Set standards for yourself.
2.4 Sell your work to yourself.
2.5 Make a Masterpiece of any work you do.
3. Value and Respect Others, No Matter Who They Are or What They Do – You Can Learn From Anyone!
3.1 List Your Everyday Advisors and their Key Advice.
3.2 Write a positive note on How to Use each Key Advice.
3.3 Make it important to Try each Key Advice and Record the Result.
3.4 Write down Who You Discount or Discredit as Capable of Sound Advice and Why.
3.5 Write down at least 2 Good Points about those you have put in the “Discredit List”.
4. Experiment and Experience Life – Move Out of Your Shell!
4.1 Describe a Typical Day in your Life.
4.2 Write what New Things you have done each day for the past Ten days.
4.3 Write down Things that you want to do in Life but do not dare to.
4.4 Write down Positive Outcomes and Negative outcomes for each.
4.5 Write down How you will Handle each Negative Outcome successfully.

5. Learn to Forgive Yourself and Others – But Do Not Encourage Incompetence!
5.1 Make a list of all the mistakes you can recall you have made in the past one year.
5.2 Put down reasons for each mistake and classify them into 3 categories – PERSONAL ( identify whether Lack of Knowledge or Lack of Personal Competence / Skill / Ability ), CIRCUMSTANTIAL ( Due to Situations out of Your Control ), or PROVOKED ( because of Other People’s interference/ incorrect advice / involvement).
5.3 Write down consequences of each mistake.
5.4 Decide how you will handle each consequence to produce a Positive Outcome.
5.5 Examine each PERSONAL error and write down what you have to do to strengthen yourself in the areas of Knowledge, Skills and Capabilities to improve your overall Competence.
6. Keep an Open Mind, Learn to Coexist with Differences – In People and their Opinions and Views.
6.1 Make a list of people you do not like – people known to you personally or professionally.
6.2 Write what you find wrong with each one of them.
6.3 Put down honestly, at least one clear bias or prejudice you hold against each one.
6.4 Examine the link between your bias or prejudice and your judgment about these people.
6.5 Write down honestly any small agreement you may have with each view or opinion you have rejected or discarded.
7. Take Charge of Your Life – Be Alert at the Wheel, Learn to Accelerate, Chart Your Course, Follow the Signs, Decide Your Breaks, Fill Your Tank and Turn On the Music too!
7.1 Write down One Dozen things you are trying to accomplish at the moment.
7.2 Write down your progress against each one – use a scale of 0 to 10 where 10 is the maximum accomplishment score.
7.3 Put down what is blocking you against each of these one dozen items.
7.4 As a consultant, recommend to yourself, what you should do to overcome these obstacles.
7.5 Write down how you will celebrate each success in overturning each obstacle, and make sure you do it.

8. Make Sure You Have Passengers in Your Car too – Carry Others along with you, Create Wealth for Others too!
8.1 Make a list of the closest people you live with and those you work with.
8.2 Write down for each one what you think are their needs and concerns.
8.3 Write down what you do well and what capabilities you possess to do those things well.
8.4 Put down against each thing you do well, how you can help each one of the people you have listed earlier.
8.5 Make a silent promise to each one you have listed that you will help them in someway, no matter how small.
9. Be Humble Not Arrogant, but Market Yourself Vigourously and Honestly!
9.1 Write down a complete list of all your possible strengths and capabilities.
9.2 Create affinity clusters of these and write down the results they can help produce or deliver, regardless whether you currently have the opportunity or not.
9.3 Write down who needs to know about each of these strengths and capabilities.
9.4 Make an appointment with at least 3 key people from your list.
9.5 Discuss your strengths and capabilities with these 3 key people and ask them how and when they can use your talents.

10. Keep revisiting Your Goals ( roadmap ) and Keep a Clear Eye on the Road too – Stay Focused on the Present while Working out the Future!
10.1 Write a list of everything you could possibly want in life.
10.2 Qualify each one as Short Term, Medium Term and Long Term, using your own definition of the time frame for each.
10.3 Put deadlines for all Short Term goals and list at least 10 immediate activities or tasks you need to perform to achieve them.
10.4 Draw flexible time-lines for each Medium Term and Long Term goal and list at least 10 short term activities / tasks you must perform to achieve each one.
10.5 Raise red flag check points on all time framed activities and tasks.

‘You   charge a fraction of this amount for your public  speaking courses.  Why are you charging so much for your lateral thinking workshop?” was  the common  refrain. I realized that a certain psychological phenomenon was  at work. I reacted creatively.  I lowered my fees for my public speaking  workshops and even accepted a small honorarium and sometimes did  it free. I then raised my fees for my lateral thinking  working again in keeping  with my expertise  in that subject and its possible beneficial impact on my trainees.

It worked.

What was happening here ? Here I was,  lowering my fees in one workshop and starting  to get  higher fees for my other  offering! 

Our mind is susceptible to anchoring .The initial impression or opinion or experience influences  later developments even  though  the latter  may  be  unconnected with what happened in the past. 

Let me give you another example. In a class on lateral thinking I asked my trainees to write down on paper the first 3 digits   of their mobile phone number.  Then I placed before them a bottle of perfume and asked them what according to them was the price of the bottle. I found that all of them had suggested a price that was not very different from the  3 digit  numbers they  had jotted down . The actual price was in fact in double digits !  The telephone numbers had obviously no  relationship to the perfume bottle price .

The minds of my trainees were  anchored by the 3 digits. 

To add to the fun when I showed them other perfume bottles  and found that   they were willing to pay prices not very different from their offer for the first bottle irrespective of the actual price of the product. The later bottles were of much better quality and much  higher prices. This reminded me of my predicament when I quoted much higher fees for my lateral thinking workshops.  

You may have noticed in negotiations with  unions –or even your domestic help—that they start with what you may feel is an absurd amount .The latter also  knows that the demand is very high.  Their  intention is to anchor your mind to the figure quoted . Your tendency is to negotiate a figure in relation to that figure on a plus minus basis usually the latter!

When a creative enterpreneur decided to start a chain of coffee shops in Chennai that would sell coffee at more than  double the price at the adjacent Udipi hotel he was considered stupid. After all , the reasoning went , the Udipi price   would serve as an anchor and who in that conservative cost conscious city would pay twice that amount for a cup of coffee. But the entrepreneur  had other ideas. He created a teenage friendly ambience ,with rock music , exotic coffee flavours, unmatched by Udipi hotels. What he  did was   to ‘shift’ the anchor. He succeeded [KWIKY’S] . Thereafter  his  prices became an anchor for other chains.

Have you considered that the first job you accepted influenced your entire career thereafter ? If you took up your first job  without much thinking –say you got carried away by the salary  –you may have found that you were stuck with a boring demotivating situation . You are now at your wit’s end . I had that experience.You find it almost  impossible to change careers and had to suffer in silence for the rest of your active life– bored and fed up.

How can one  avoid  anchored thinking?

Before you buy anything  expensive ask yourself if you have been anchored by anyone or by any advertisement.

Even  a  little thinking on this score will alert you and save you a loss. Examine all your  past decisions for their  long term effect . Resist the temptation to grab the first  thing that comes along. Wait and ponder.

Contemplate the anchors in your life.  Re- examine them and ask if they are relevant today and in the future .

This will open your mind to new avenues.  Many years ago I went to a cinema hall in Mumbai determined to see the film Poonam Ki Raat  a  1960’s  suspense thriller . My thoughts on what price to pay to the blackmarketer—I was aware that the tickets were being sold in black—were anchored by  my  allowance which I knew  was a fraction of the going rate at the blackmarket . I bargained smartly and got the ticket at my anchor rate. I was about to congratulate myself when the ticket seller played spoilsport.

‘Saab Kishore Sahu murderer  hai’ he said .It was like your car tyres had been intentionally deflated .