10 Tips In 2 Minutes - Live From The Festival of Books - April 26, 2010 - Segment Five

Live From The Festival of Books – Betsy and Renee recap the various ways that writing a book can benefit business owners. Writing a book is a great device for differentiating yourself in the marketplace, and for putting your expertise out there. Small business owners who write about their businesses become experts on the topic, allowing them to then do PR campaigns and speaking engagements talking about that expertise. Betsy is working on a book called Board Women, which provides advice to women of all ages—but especially coming out of college—on how to approach the end of their careers, particularly serving on corporate boards. But as Betsy has discovered, writing the proposal to go to agents and publishers is just about as complicated as writing the book itself. However, if you’ve written your book, you really feel passionate about it, but still can’t get a publisher to pay attention, remember that there are increasing opportunities in the realm of self-publishing. Also, think about the internet as an opportunity to write as well. You can blog, create a website for yourself, or start to build up expertise by posting comments on various professional sites.

2Minutes&More with Betsy Berkhemer and Renee Fraser airs every Sunday at 1pm on KFWB NEWS TALK 980. Tune in for a full hour of tips for business success.

Live From The Festival of Books - April 26, 2010 - Segment Four

Live From The Festival of Books – Betsy and Renee visit with writer Bruce Dundore, who also serves as Creative Director at Fraser Communications, about working with Daryl Wizelman on his book Heart Leader: A Personal Journey To The Heart of Business and Life. Bruce collaborated with Daryl as his writing partner to create what would eventually become Heart Leader. Bruce notes that writing partnerships are good for business owners who feel the task of writing is too daunting. Bringing in a writer as a partner who loves and lives to write suddenly makes the thought of writing—and compiling and sorting through countless notes and memories—less scary, and makes the process of writing far more productive and constructive. Bruce also notes that the publishing business is taking on fewer and fewer writers these days, similar to the movie business relying on “tentpole” movies to bring in their profits and taking less chances on scripts and ideas that are “unfamiliar.” The silver lining these kinds of changes bring to both industries, Bruce observes, is they leave a lot of room open for independent players to get involved, especially for writers who decide to go the self-publishing route.

2Minutes&More with Betsy Berkhemer and Renee Fraser airs every Sunday at 1pm on KFWB NEWS TALK 980. Tune in for a full hour of tips for business success.

Live From The Festival of Books - April 26, 2010 - Segment Three

Live From The Festival of Books – Betsy and Renee chat with April Winchell, author of Regretsy: Where DIY Meets WTF. Her book was inspired by the website Etsy, an eBay for handcrafters where people can knit, sew, make crafts and sell them online. The title, Regretsy, reflects the most regrettable handcrafts she has found (so far) while trawling around on the website. As April explains it, the questions she keeps in mind while searching for items are: a) who would buy it; b) who would make it; and c) what they were thinking when they made it? April says she has always had a passion for the strange, misguided, or anything that misses the mark in some way, be it acting, music, or movies. Before writing the book, one of the things April was known for was having one of the largest documented collections of bad music on the internet at www.aprilwinchell.com.

April notes that, originally, her book began as a website, which she still maintains today. After getting the name “Regretsy” from a comment her friend made in an e-mail discussing Etsy, she discovered that the domain was surprisingly available. She purchased the domain, and after leaving it untouched for a few months, came across a reminder in her inbox that the site was still up and waiting for her to work on it. On her site, April makes “snotty commentary and jokes,” as she calls them, about the “crap” people post on Etsy. But really, as April notes, she is just saying what people browsing the crafts are actually thinking. Her site went live on Saturday, October 3rd, 2009, and a friend asked if she could drop a link to the site on Buzzfeed. By Monday, Regretsy had 31 million hits, and the site would go on to be profiled by the Wall Street Journal twice in two weeks, and eventually listed in the top 5,000 websites in the United States. In the beginning, April says, she didn’t link to the sellers because she thought they would be embarrassed, but then she started hearing ‘link back to me’. Now, she says almost everything she links sells, and she even has galleries of pictures of people posing with the items they bought. Additionally, all of the money raised from items sold on the site goes to benefit various charities.

For April, laughter is important and a lot of the people she hears from are suffering during these difficult times and find laughing at the items on her site to be a release. Etsy is very successful, and April thinks that if you make the atheistic they promote, then you’ll do very well there. However, if you create something unusual or off the beaten path, she doesn’t think people will find you. And in her opinion, those are the people that pay their listing fees and really support the infrastructure of the website, but don’t get promoted or listed on the front page or in gift guides. So in a strange way, Regretsy is able to provide those individuals with a somewhat unconventional platform to promote themselves. April says she is always receiving craft submissions and welcomes anyone who wants to submit their work to do so by going to www.regretsy.com.

2Minutes&More with Betsy Berkhemer and Renee Fraser airs every Sunday at 1pm on KFWB NEWS TALK 980. Tune in for a full hour of tips for business success.

Live From The Festival of Books - April 26, 2010 - Segment Two

Live From The Festival of Books – Betsy and Renee continue their conversation with Daryl Wizelman, author of the book Heart Leader: A Personal Journey To The Heart of Business and Life, as Daryl shares some of his favorite stories and lessons from the book. Among his favorites is the story about “Rotten Ralph,” a street-wise fellow from Brooklyn with a tough exterior who lived with Daryl and his mom for 21 years. As a kid, Daryl used to walk home from school past a McDonalds, where he would typically encounter a bully who had it out for him. One time, when Daryl came home whimpering, Ralph asked what had happened. Once Daryl told him about the bully, Ralph told him to get in his car and they sped off to the McDonalds. When they walked into the McDonalds, the bully was there sitting in a booth. Ralph walked over to the bully, sat in the booth, pulled out a Colt .45 revolver and told him “If you touch my kid again, I’m gonna kill ya.” Obviously, as Daryl remarks, it’s a very intense and non-traditional story for a book about business lessons. But in his case, the crux of the story is for the first time in his life, a parental figure was protecting him, inspiring Daryl to take on that principle as a business owner. As Daryl proclaims, “It’s my opportunity and my obligation to protect the people that work for me.”

2Minutes&More with Betsy Berkhemer and Renee Fraser airs every Sunday at 1pm on KFWB NEWS TALK 980. Tune in for a full hour of tips for business success.

Live From The Festival of Books - April 26, 2010 - Segment One

Live From The Festival of Books – Betsy and Renee are joined by Daryl Wizelman, author of the book Heart Leader: A Personal Journey To The Heart of Business and Life. According to Daryl, there’s too much in our society that says “you’re not okay” or “you’re less than”, and writing this book allowed him to point out to people that “you are great, no matter what tools you have.” The philosophy behind Heart Leader is treating people who work with you more like family than you would typically treat an employee. Daryl not only believes that you can increase the profits of your business by treating people better—such as cutting down on recruiting and training costs—but that his approach creates synergy inside and outside the organization. One of the lessons in Heart Leader that exemplifies this approach is posing the question “Will you forgive me,” instead of telling someone “I’m sorry.” As Daryl explains, when you say “I’m sorry,” you have all the power in the situation; however, when you say “Will you forgive me,” you give a sense of empowerment to the other person.  For more on his book go to www.darylwizelman.com

2Minutes&More with Betsy Berkhemer and Renee Fraser airs every Sunday at 1pm on KFWB NEWS TALK 980. Tune in for a full hour of tips for business success.