Tag Archive for: desicion making

A couple years ago we were looking to publish Making Money Is Killing Your Business, our first book. It was in the hands of the largest business book publisher in the world. As I learned what the contract would look like, I discovered what a lousy deal every author gets with giant publishers. We would lose ownership of the book to the publisher, get paid a tiny fraction of the revenue, and not see any of it for up to 18 months.

But the alternative was equally uninviting. If we didn’t let the giant publisher own the book, we would have to start our own publishing company with no knowledge of the industry, give up on distribution through all traditional bookstores and spend at least $25,000 on design, layout, websites, printing, and fulfillment.

Two years ago publishing a book yourself was an even scarier option than today – it was a generally new way of doing things. Doing a deal with a giant would save us the $25,000 we didn’t have, and get the book into all major brick and mortar and internet book channels immediately.

We had a decision to make. We believed in our book and that it would have a major impact for small and local business owners worldwide for decades to come, long after a giant publisher would have lost interest in it. But we had no clue how to publish a high-end hard back book and get it out to the world around us. And we didn’t have $25,000 to risk on printing thousands of copies of something that might sell less than 100 copies.

Decisions Based on Where You Want to Be
This was a Trapeze Moment for us. A Trapeze Moment is one of those times in a business where the only way to get to the next place in your business is to let go of something you’re hanging on to for dear life. We had been profitable for a couple years and were “hanging on” to that with a death grip. The last thing we wanted to do was go backwards again and throw another $25,000 at this business.

But businesses don’t grow by hanging on to what they’ve got. They grow by making decisions based on where they want to be, not on where they are. If we make decisions based on where we are, where do we think we’ll be next year? The same place – on the treadmill.

So we dove in once again, let go of profitability, borrowed $25,000, started a publishing company from scratch with no knowledge of the industry, and printed thousands of copies of our book. A year later Making Money Is Killing Your Business was rated #1 Business Book of the Year by NFIB, not because it sold a million copies, but because they believe it was the book that had the greatest impact that year. That was what we were shooting for – a book that transformed businesses, not just an interesting read.

Risks Create Rewards
Two years later we’re into our second printing and book sales are increasing every month, something the giant publishers said could never happen after the first year. The book has been translated to Chinese and is selling well in China. Other translations are on the horizon. Because the revenue deal is so bad with giant publishers, we would have to sell 100,000+ books through them to equal the profit we have realized from the first printing. And we would still not own the book.

As the book gains momentum, we are glad we made the decision to start our own publishing company. Others are now coming to us to publish their books and we have three more of our own already in the works. And publishing isn’t even our core business, just something we did because we had to in order to keep control of a book that is central to driving 3to5 Clubs forward throughout the world.

Leap Forward
Every business has Trapeze Moments. It’s scary to let go of the one we’re hanging on to, do a backflip and trust that as we reach out the next trapeze will be there. But it’s what business owners do. They make decisions, not based on where they are, but where they want to be.

What Trapeze Moment are you facing right now? Make the decision based on where you want to be, otherwise you’ll end up where you are again next year – on the treadmill.

Make the leap!