Welcome back folks!

Yup, it’s that terrible time of the year … the worst possible … the return to work after New Years!    SCARY !!!!!

Okay, I exagerate. It is that time tho … Time to get your resolutions in place. Time to get your plans in place. Time to get off your duff and get moving! Time to get the year off with a BANG!

So that’s what I’m going to do …

One of the questions I keep being asked goes something like  “I’m not writing a how to book. I’m writing a xyz book. Can your system work for me?”. So far, with one exception, the answer has been YES!

But it’s obvious I’m scaring people off with the emphasis on fact based writing (aka how to books and similar non-fiction). 

So, I’ve decided to write a short Youtube course on “How to Select A Writing System” …. Only it turned out to be longer and containing more information than I envisioned. (So what else is new).  As of now, it’s four videos of about 10 minutes each! For Free?????? Am I NUTS ????? Well, yeah, but I’m also into giving lots of stuff for free (in the hopes you’ll buy something of course   maybe even this!!!!).

Anyway, that’s going to be my blog for the next two weeks; How do you choose a writing system? After all, there’s a lot of us competing out there and getting us all sorted into order is not a fun thing. So my blog is going to consist of the video and some comments to expand on the video.

First video blog is Wednesday …  but check up on Youtube … you never know I may be faster there!

(4/6 does not go evenly … so what am I going to do with the other 2 days? This is one of them …    The other I’ll devote to planning and the usual year end stuff! Or maybe I’ll have a special announcement … you never know! … meaning if I get my blasted todo list done!)

P.S.

This blog — and the forum — is meant to give YOU a place to ask questions and get answers. So … PLEASE let me know what you would like me to cover!

Tags: book, Building an eBiz, business, course, Creating Information Products, Free, how to, information, non fiction, special announcement, stuff, system, Write a "how to" book, writing system, Youtube

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Up until lately, I had thought that the sense of entitlement was limited to those who were younger than me. That my generation had created this sense as part of our growing up.

I was wrong.

My wife’s aunt demonstrated that very clearly. Because that was what was at the basis of her actions. She felt that she was entitled to anything Gerry had left behind.

As entrepreneurs we need to guard ourselves against this attitude … in ourselves, in our employees and in our clients. And learn to use it ethically.

So what is the sense of entitlement? It is a belief that for whatever reason, a person is entitled to something. That they have earned it, and they deserve it. That they should have it.

The truth, of course, is different. Yes, we may have worked for something. Yes, we may have, in the eyes of a rational God have earned it. But that is no guarantee that we actually will or should have it.

An entrepreneur sees this in their own actions. After all, we all work hard to build a business. We give up our time, energy and sweat. For those foolish enough we may even give up our family and health. But that is no guarantee of success. If it were far more people would be successful. And far fewer of the people who are, would be.

Life isn’t fair.

As entrepreneurs we need to leave the sense of entitlement behind. We need to try and try and try again. Sometimes succeeding, sometimes not. Sometimes failing through our own faults and sometimes suceeding despite them.

But never letting our sense of entitlement fool us into believing that we should stop or that we’ve earned our position. Because we haven’t. We may have paid for it, but we haven’t earned it.

We see it in our treatment of our suppliers. How many times have you said to a supplier … that’s too expensive, I can’t afford it. You should work for this amount. As if it’s their problem that you haven’t earned enough to pay the price. As Dan Kennedy recently remarked, “It’s not that the price is too high, it’s that your earnings are too low for it.”

We see it in our employees (or ourselves in that role).  We see it in how they treat customers. Do the customers owe us their custom just for having the products? Do they have to buy just because we’ve gone out of our way? We’ve all seen this sense of entitlement in the poor treatment we’ve had in major department stores. Clerks who were more interested in discussing their latest date than in serving the customer.

We see it in our customers. We see them believing that we should give them free information just because we did so in the past. We see them wanting to pay rates well below fair market. We see them chasing the cheapest price without regard for the quality of the product.

This sense of entitlement is a failing we all need to fight against. Both in ourselves and in others. The truth is much less pleasant but at least we deserve the result.

Tags: attitude, basis, belief that, Building an eBiz, Building an eBiz, business, Dan Kennedy, earnings, entrepreneur, health, sense of entitlement, time, time energy, truth

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It was James M Barrie through his character Peter Pan that said “I’ll never grow up”. (Well, actually I believe it was Disney that first paraphrased him).

But there comes a time when everyone needs to grow up. And a time when everyone needs to not grow up!

From an entrepreneur’s viewpoint growing up is a two edged sword. Well, make that a triple-edged sword!

An entrepreneur must grow up enough to recognize and accept his own mistakes. After all, risk is the name of the game being played. And sometimes the other half of the risk game (impact) is in the negative when the risk bill needs to be paid.

There are two parts to the risk equation. Unfortunately, most people don’t understand the equation. An entrepreneur must understand the equation because he’s going to be playing the risk game.

What’s the equation? Risk times impact equals exposure. In every day English, risk is this bad, bad thing. We expose ourselves to risk. We’re caught by risk. He risked everything!

But risk really only means a probability not equal to one.  In short, if it isn’t certain, it’s a risk.  Good, bad, doesn’t matter. (Webster’s defines it wrong btw it has a very precise mathematical/probabilistic meaning). The good or bad is part of the risk impact (which can be good or bad). So winning the lottery has a risk associated with it (about the same as being hit by lightning) plus a good impact. So it has a net good exposure … if nearing zero can be called good! Until you buy the ticket … then it has a bad net exposure. Why? The cost of the ticket is usually higher than the exposure.

The point is that if you are going to play the game, you better grow up quick and realize you aren’t going to win all the time! That’s the other half of the game, you see. Sometimes when the impact is good (or even great) the risk just doesn’t come through. And sometimes, when the impact is bad it does. The key is to learn how to manipulate the risk so that it happens more often when the impact is good and less often when the impact is bad.

And that just because you’ve failed doesn’t mean that you did it wrong, or you’re wrong or anything else. It just means you weren’t lucky this time.

Of course, you also need to learn from what you’ve done. Which takes maturity.

The other cutting edge is emotional maturity. Learning to accept others’ failings. Learning to accept your own failings. In short, growing up emotionally.

The final cutting edge is the back edge.

Learning to NOT grow up.

Keeping that sense of wonder that opens your mind to new experiences.

Keeping that sense of exploration that what happens if … that opens your mind to constant learning.

Keeping that sense of fun, that is its own reward.

It’s this last blade that is the true cutting edge of entrepreneurial thought. The edge that cuts through the calcification that seeks to stratify those who do not understand the true entrepreneurial spirit.

Tags: Building an eBiz, business, entrepreneur, learning, nearing zero, Peter Pan, probability, risk game, triple edged sword, winning the lottery

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So over the last two weeks I’ve talked about the four types of books and why the Content Mapping System works for them – or doesn’t.

While the system isn’t a panacea and it doesn’t work for all books, it does work in most cases for how to books and why to books. In short, most non-fiction.

This is true because most non-fiction books are fact based regardless of their organization. Even if they are a simple collection, they still need to be organized. If they are a how to, they still need to be organized. So it doesn’t matter if they are sequential, fact-based or collections, they are still a set of facts that need to be organized. And the best system to do that is the Content Mapping System you can find here in video form (for free) or here in book form (not free).

A minor exception to the above rule is sequential based books. With sequential or process based books you need to add pretty pictures. In other words, flow or process diagrams. But the basic Content Map system works quite well and does allow for adding this type of information. (Yes, believe it or not it is a function of the tool. We don’t talk about it very much but it is part of the proper use of the tool.)

The major exception to the above are time based books. These are histories, (auto-)biographies and fiction. Because they are time based they need a tool which is time based … in other words a time chart based system. Sorry but the Content Mapping system just isn’t the right system for those books.

A couple of final comments.

First, an historical analysis is not a time based book. It is primarily a fact based book. Having said that you may want to use a time chart to help document the  occurence of the actions which you are analysing. This leads to the second comment.

The system allows you to use pictures and diagrams when they communicate the information better than words. Don’t be afraid to use them! After all a picture is worth a thousand words. This also applies within your book. Sometimes words are not the best tools to communicate with. Sometimes pictures are. Never be afraid of diagrams. And don’t forget to use boxes … those little  quick fact summary boxes you see in some books or at the side of articles. They help to seperate the book and to emphasize key facts.

So enjoy the Content Mapping System and learn to write books in less than 24 hours. Just remember that the system doesn’t work for all books, just non-fiction. It works great for how to books!

Enjoy, learn & get earning.

Glen Ford
& the LearningCreators team

Tags: analysis, argument, based books, biographies, book, brain, brainstorming, Building an eBiz, business, collection, collections, complete system, course, Creating Information Products, Diagram, ebook, exception, fact, Fiction, fiction book, flow, form, histories, how to, internet marketers, map, Mapping, mapping system, method, non fiction books, occurence, organization, presentation, presenting information, pretty pictures, process, semantic network, sequential, set, structure, summary, system, technique, time chart, tool, Use, Write, Write a "how to" book, Write a "how to" book, writing, writing hints, writing how to books

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The fourth and final type of book is the collection.

What is a collection type book?

A collection type book is a collection of facts presented in a book format. Uhh… Okay, try this recipe books are collections. So are shopping catalogs. So are 50 best & 100 best and 500 best … add your own noun (dogs/cats/cars/boats/pirates … every one of those have been used).

In short it’s a bunch of short articles gathered together and presented as a book.

So what is the best way to organize such a book?  Well, actually you have a choice.

One technique is to take a bunch of 4×6 index cards, write the title on the top, and then any facts. Then sort the cards. Viola!

Hey, it works! Elegant it ain’t and with a couple of major weaknesses.

A much better technique is the Content Map system. Start by filling out the Focus section at the top but do it on two sheets.

The first sheet will be the template for each of your articles. Remember that your collection book can be thought of as a series of articles collected and organized into a cohesive form.  Now create the structure for your article. All the regular rules about arguments and presenting information apply. With one exception. The number of “chapters” doesn’t have to be exactly five plus two. You still need an intro and a conclusion and you shouldn’t have more than nine total. But the actual number of “chapters” can be whatever makes sense to you.  Each of these “chapters” will become a section or paragraph for the book. The final step is to estimate how big (in words) each of these “articles” will be on average. You may find you want to write up a few “articles” to help estimate the average size.

Now take the second sheet. This will be your book itself. Just follow the usual steps for designing your book. However, when you write a topic which is an article, don’t bother to write up anything below the topic. Just mark it with a big “A”.  Get fancy, put a circle around it if you wish! When you finish you’ll have the structure for your book. Estimating involves mixing the usual technique with the values you calculated above.

From there just follow the rest of the system.

So does the Content Map system work? Yup!

Tags: argument, brain, brainstorming, business, collections, conclusion, creative brain, debating sense, ebook, fiction book, flow, form, histories, how to, index cards, internet marketers, map, Mapping, non fiction books, noun, paragraph, pirates, presentation, presenting information, recipe books, semantic network, Sequence, sequential, shopping catalogs, Use, Write a "how to" book, Write a "how to" book, writing hints, writing how to books

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So the first type of book we’re going to talk about is the Fact Based book. There is a reason for that. It’s the type of book that our system of writing is best with.

It’s a good thing then that most How To Books are fact based.

So what is a fact based book?

As I’ve already said it’s your standard how to or why to book. In this type of book, the author concentrates on assembling and presenting facts (or opinions). Basically, think of it as an argument in the debating sense of the word. The author lays out a series of facts which make his point and convince the reader to do things the way the author wishes.

So why is our system the best method of designing and writing such a book?

First, the answer lies in the question. An argument is designed. It really doesn’t matter what form that argument takes – book, webinar, speech, debate – a well designed argument must be designed. It doesn’t just happen.

Second, a well designed argument follows a structure. A very flexible structure, true, but a single structure nonetheless. Specifically — intro, body, conclusion. Just like your teachers told you so long ago, “Tell them what you are going to say, say it, then tell them what you said.”

Finally, the creative brain doesn’t work well in structured ways. Rather it works by making connections, which can be totally illogical in their arrival.

So why does our system work so well? Because it allows you to generate ideas in arrival sequence but places them in a structured format. We do this with a technology called structured brainstorming and a tool called a structured semantic network diagram. Sometimes this is called a structured idea map or mind map. But SND is the proper (and generic) name. But call it what you will, you start off with unordered ideas and end up with a structured document.

Of course, to do this involved some 60 years of experience in multiple disciplines. And the whole process involves more than just the content map.

But the essence of why the process works for fact based books is in the content map.

Unfortunately, that isn’t the case for all types of books. In our next post we’ll look at a version that the system won’t work for. And give you some hints to a version which will.

Learn & Earn

Glen Ford
and the LearningCreators crew.

Tags: brainstorming, business, creative brain, debating sense, LearningCreators, method, process, semantic network, speech debate, technology, Write a "how to" book, Write a "how to" book, writing how to books

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Last week  was just one of those weeks!

You know the ones, where things start out bad and then head for worse.  The week before had ended by finding out all the mistakes I made in one (count ‘em) one article. Eh, not really a biggy … these blog posts are done in a hurry (in case you haven’t noticed) and they don’t get edited (usually) so they’re bound to have a few errors. But ddddumbbbbb muckups bug me. After all these are just short articles … just how many mistakes can I make in 400 – 600 words after all? Answer … LOTS!

So I guess I set myself up by demanding error-free results of myself!

And I’m not about to add time by doing an edit to these posts. So I have to lower my expectations of myself. Not something I like doing! (Can ya guess?)

Then I broke my glasses. Doing nothing. Just sitting there and they went pop! The frame finally gave up the ghost.

Needless to say I did not need that to happen. Now, I’m a little old. Actually, I’m getting a lot old. And my poor eyes are beginning to not know if they should be near-sighted (always were) or far-sighted (ahh age — isn’t it wonderful?). So they’re both. (Hey, I’m normally confused. Why shouldn’t my eyes be as well?) In short, I need bifocals — expensive bifocals. Expensive as in I don’t have the money for them bifocals. (Now remember this is Monday … and still going downhill!)

Next off, I started off the week ending one series without having an idea for my next series. No big deal. Happens whenever I end a series in the middle of a week. I usually need a day or so to come up with the next series. And by Wednesday, I had an article — after all it was Rememberance Day and most of my uncles were in the war.  So by noon, I had an article laid out in my mind. Just one but hey, I can come up with a single no prob.

Unfortunately, it was like 5:00 by the time I was able to get working on anything to do with the business. B&*^@#%! Okay, no big problem. A day late won’t make THAT much difference — although doing it on Wednesday made more sense.

On Thursday … I got too b*^&^%%&% busy! Again!

Doing what? Taking phone calls from headhunters who really, really wanted to tell me about this great job possibility they had. Okay. I can deal with that. Money is money. I really don’t mind helping them do their job — especially if it is going to bring me work. Unfortunately, one of those was the type I ABSOLUTELY HATE. This was a guy who barely spoke English, who proceeded to describe this great job in some city in Canada called “Saskacheywan” (actually in Regina,  Saskatchewan). Now, I have to admit it was the type of work I do and yes, I have experience doing exactly that type of work. However, 1 hour later I’m killing myself laughing at him. When I asked the rate they were looking for the response was $35/hour all in.  Given that the daily allowance by the government is roughly $25/hr that wasn’t what I would call a realistic rate. Especially given that the area is still paying boom time rates and a normal rate for that type of work is just a leeeetle bit more than that. Normally, I try to turn recruiters down professionally … there are exceptions however! (FYI, that’s offering $35,000/yr for a $70,000/yr job … not counting relocation expenses or boom times). Oh, and to make matters worse — the job was first advertised six months ago!

Oh, yes, and the others who spent a great deal of my time (not wasted just spent), all had jobs that paid less than normal (around 2/3’s).  At least they were local and somewhat in the ballpark given the market.

I also spent the rest of the day working with a client (fixed lowball price to boot) who actually hadn’t done what they thought they had done. So I ended up having to create a form so they would at least be able to do the work properly and then sent them back to do it all over again! Can I charge for that? Of course, not. So much for making my costs back!

By Friday, I should have gotten use to the way my week was going. But of course, I didn’t.

In fact, I made the mistake of reviewing the week. After all, that’s one of those things I do. It helps to get things done and focus on achievements.

Except this time.

I got nothing done last week. Absolutely NOTHING! Even my one blog post was actually written the week before — mostly!

Then to make it into just a wonderful week … I got ripped off. Yup. My car was broken into in my driveway sometime Friday night. I figure it was teenagers but still they stole a brand-new GPS that I bought with money I don’t have.  And worse — I have to replace it because I’m travelling to Ottawa for stage 2 of the clean up of my father-in-law’s apartment.

However, today — as I was writing this rant — I realized that I did accomplish one thing. I learned something! And Wednesday I’ll share it with you on my next blog post.

Get Learning, and Get Earning

Glen

& the LearningCreators team.

Tags: book, Building an eBiz, business, how to, Learned, LearningCreators

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My background is in IT. I’ve been creating websites since the web was initially opened to the public. I even know why HTML is scripting not programming,  what the initials mean and where it came from. (HyperText Markup Language was a subset/supraset of  Standard Graphics Markup Language. SGML was a statndardized set of codes which controlled the big printing presses. Think typsetters marks).

In fact, my consulting business is in IT. Most of the training we do is in IT (or management skills).

But in this business I am first and foremost a business manager. An entrepreneur.

And at some point I need to decide. Is the work that needs to be done worth my time to do it? Would I be better off hiring someone and letting them do the work for me? Even though I can do it, it may not be worth my time. Better to throw $$$ at it than the one asset I can’t replace or increase – my time.

Lesson Learned #9:

Money or Time

If you want to play, you’ve got to pay. Your time is always more valuable than the guy beside you. The key to success is to know what you need to do, what you shouldn’t do and who to hire to do it instead. The corolllary is that hiring the cheapest isn’t necessarily the best way to get the job done. Sometimes, paying more is a better investment.

Tags: book, Building an eBiz, Building an eBiz, business, business manager, consulting, consulting business, entrepreneur, how to, Learned, Lesson, Lessons, lessons learned, Management, management skills, time lesson, training, Write a "how to" book

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Following on the last two lessons … there’s only so much work that one person can get done. After all, you got into this business to give yourself a little extra income or to be able to spend time with your family, not to spend 20 hours a day working.

At some point you need to decide what has to be done by you. And what you can give up and let someone else do.

Then you need to give the latter away. Let someone else do it. Yeah, it might cost you a few bucks but if you’re careful, it will cost you less than trying to do it all yourself.

Outsourcing is the micro-entrepreneur’s friend.

Lesson Learned #8:

You’re only one person! Get Help When You Need it.

Sometimes, there is too much work for one person. Sometimes, it’s work that you’re just not good at.

Learn to recognize when you’re not the best person to do the work. Then outsource it.

You’ll be happier and more efficient. The job will be done better. And your company will be stronger.

Tags: Building an eBiz, business, company, family, IM, income, job, Learn, Learned, Lesson, Lessons, lessons learned, outsource, Outsourcing, person, point, source, time, work

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When you start planning to do something like this there is a tendency to think you can spend all your time on the project.

And a tendency to think that the business is going to stop while your are converting.

But that’s just not true. Unless you can get the the changeover done in one day, you still need to release blog entries. You still need to drive traffic. You still need to deal with work not yet complete.

All the little things that continue to need your time while you’re busy doing something else.

And don’t try to hold up the blog. Remember it is a key source of traffic and without traffic you don’t have a business. So keep the blog going.

Lesson Learned #6:

Don’t Forget That The Business Is Going Ahead Without You

Even though you’re busy trying to change some element of the business you need to allocate time to the business.

You need to keep up blogs and other traffic sources. You need to keep your new courses and continuity programs going.

So don’t forget to allocate time for ongoing operations. And don’t try to shut down anything.

Tags: blog, Building an eBiz, business, Change, continuity, course, IM, Learn, Learned, Lesson, Lessons, lessons learned, planning, Project, source, time, traffic, work

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