Start using Kindle to ramp up your income

I’ve had one ‘physical book’ published and, boy, what an effort that was.  My ‘two minute message’ book earned me a bit of money and enhanced my reputation as an ‘elevator pitch’ guru. Since then I’ve written ten ebooks (for kindle and other devices), which has given me a lot more money and was a darned sight easier. The smallest of these ‘books’ is about four A4 pages (so we’re not talking blockbusters); it costs a few pence to buy and has more than doubled my website hits. That was the idea.

You might be the next J.K.Rowling with a fortune earning novel up your sleeve. Or you might be more like me: You got some expertise and knowledge and you want to use it to earn enough to pay for your next big family holiday (and the one after that).

Leaving aside your blockbuster novel, there may be other things you long to get distributed; your family history, your poetry anthology, your ‘how to’ booklet, your hobby experiences, your book of cartoons (I’ve done that!), your ‘ten ways of …’ your travel advice, your promotional pamphlet – and so on.

You could also write a business article or booklet to promote your expertise and attract interested visitors to your website.

Think about offering ‘instruction and training’ messages – anywhere, anytime via kindle or smartphone. I’m starting to offer versions of my top-level sales training programmes on kindle (or ipad, iphone, android etc). This is getting practical tips and information to sales people at their time and point of need.

You might want to do the same for your hobby, be it photography, wedding planning, travel, gardening, artistic skills. Your kindle ‘book’ can be about your hobby or passion.  You can see my range of offerings at http://www.kindlebooksplus.co.uk

Is it easyto do? Short answer is ‘yes’. Get your word document (of good content) sorted and I’ll tell you how.  Click the website for more information.

Get writing.

Ditch the ‘SWOT’ concept and learn to love ‘OTSW’

Business people waste a lot of time doing ‘SWOT’ analyses. All sorts of irrelevant things get listed as ‘strengths’. ‘Weaknesses’ become lists of things you can’t (or don’t do).  You’ll get better results with an OTSW approach to business planning and action planning.

Focus on the ‘opportunity’ you want to pursue, then identify your (internal) strengths that bring this opportunity closer. Identify the external threats (i.e. things outside your control) and your (internal) weaknesses that inhibit your progress. This analysis will give the best basis for action planning.

A ‘strength’ is only a ‘strength’ (in my view) if it helps bring an opportunity closer; otherwise it is just an academic fact. Likewise, a ‘weakness’ is only relevant if it is inhibiting progress towards an opportunity. I’m not fluent in many languages (some people even question my command of English!). That’s a fact – but it isn’t a ‘weakness’ in pursuing my activities.

I’ve run planning sessions where people list all sorts of (supposed) weaknesses which are merely lists of things that they don’t or can’t do.

Ditch SWOT immediately and fall in love with OTSW.  It’ll be a big weakness if you don’t.

‘From bellman to twitter – the lessons for today’

William Shakespeare, a master of the spoken and written word never read a ‘proper’ newspaper; they didn’t exist in any great form when he was alive. Important announcements, messages and warnings would be proclaimed by the town crier / bellman. These were clear, succinct and to the point  - and the Bellman’s proclamation (shout) would be, typically, half a minute long.  The bellman’s posted notice would be on a single page and written so the ‘common man (assuming he could read) would understand it .  No ‘flashing’ powerpoint images (or even ‘non flashing’ ones); just concise verbal and spoken clarity.

Jump forward a few hundred years (and a few trillion powerpoint slides) and we come to twitter. Expert tweeters among you will know the skill in getting your point across in 140 characters or less. We live in a world on newspaper, tv and media communications but we can learn a lot from the ‘bellman and twitter’ demands for clarity and brevity. We also live in a world of powerpoint and have enjoyed its usefulness and endured its ghastliness. If I had £1 for every powerpoint presentation I have slept though, I would be very rich as well as being very rested.

‘From Bellman to Twitter – the lessons for today’ happens to be the title of my latest set of speeches and workshops. What a lucky coincidence. You can find out more at http://www.williamfreeman.co.uk  Look at the ‘training’ page – and, while you are there, take a look at the other pages too. Oyez!

Networking: ‘If they’re not interested, move on’. WRONG, WRONG WRONG

This is a common view of how to do productive ‘face to face networking’. This approach advocates that you only spend time talking to people who are interested in what you have to offer.  I disagree strongly (as is obvious from title of this blog entry).  I can see where advocates of this approach are ‘coming from’ but, in my opinion, they are confusing networking with face to face selling.

The strength of networking is about building contacts one at a time. The purpose of networking is to establish these contacts and build a conversational rapport with them.  For the sake of argument, let’s say that  you have 50 contacts.  If each of these has 50 contacts then you are in a network of 2500 contacts.  The purpose of networking and sharing information about what you ‘do’, means that your value story can be spread across this network.

I’m a networking junkie and always have been (even before the word was used in this context). This is partly due to my dislike (and some fear) of hard nosed face to face selling.  Most of my business has come from networking with the vast majority coming from second level contacts – i.e not my direct contacts.  If I had taken a hard nosed sales view in building my contacts I would have seriously curtailed my business income.

So even though you might not want to buy from me, I’m still very happy to talk to you.

Try me. Better still, try one of my books.

FORGET OBJECTIVES HOWEVER ‘SMART’ THEY ARE

Everyone would agree that a clear ‘objective’ helps to keep focus on the task in hand. Pundits tell us that our objective should be ‘SMART’ (i.e. ‘specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound’).

 But the fact that we have to have such a mnemonic to remind us how an ‘objective’ should look proves that there is something about the concept (or the word) that puzzles most people – or at least me.

 ‘Setting objectives’ in this way often takes more time than it should and as a result tends to get ignored. Or not done very well.

 So if you are one of those people who find it difficult to set a ‘smart’ objective, take my advice and stop torturing yourself. Forget that particular ‘O’ word. Erase it from your memory bank together with its so-called ‘smart’ mnemonic colleague.

 Think instead of the ‘OUTCOME’ that you want. This, much better ‘O’ word will get you thinking automatically about the measurable result you seek, without forcing you to go though the hassle and angst of applying unnecessary mnemonics (that you probably can’t remember).

 Trust me; I’m smart about these matters.

MEANINGLESS TITLES & OTHER EMAIL FRUSTRATIONS

If you’re of an age (like me), you’ll remember the schoolyard game of chain-tag. Person ‘A’ is nominated to be ‘it’. A touches B, then A and B link hands and capture C. Then A, B and C go after D – and so on. The chain builds up. It’s a good playground game but it’s a lousy email one – and there are many folks out there playing it.  I’m talking about the habit of clicking ‘reply all’.



If the incoming message has a ‘cc’ list, never ‘reply all’ unless everybody really needs to read what you have to say. Would you pay postage to every recipient?  Stick a label on your keyboard stating “every email ‘reply all’ address will cost me £1 (or your currency equivalent)”

Get your headings right too and don’t use an old email to generate the address list. I had one with the subject heading ‘party arrangements’ where the message content had nothing to do with the title.



Make your titles as meaningful as possible. The best one I received had the message title ‘confirming Tuesday meeting – no need to reply’. That style of heading almost makes it unnecessary to open the email.

Write your biggest point first – include it in your message title if you can. If you leave it to the end of your message to say, ‘by the way, can’t make Tuesday, how about Wednesday?’ there’s a chance I’d have deleted your message before reaching that part of it; if you forward a message, add some value in the process. For example, you could write: “the net of this message is (write a couple of crisp clear sentences). I think option A is best; we’ll discuss at our next committee meeting”.


Here are my six golden email rules: 



1. Don’t use incoming emails as a lazy address book

2. Make your message heading as meaningful as possible

3. Open your email message with your big gun

4. Get a life, not a lot of ‘cc’ acquaintances: Imagine every ‘cc’ person will cost you the price of postage stamp. Are they all really necessary? Go for minimalism. 

5. Add value every time you forward, or question if you need to

6. Question if a phone call would be better. – or a quick shout across the office.

So reduce stress in your life and start doing this right away.

Especially if you’re writing to me.