When thinking about a sales process, often times there is (much) more than one point where you need to “sell.” Every time your customer must make a decision, you need to make a sale.

Your brochure cover needs to sell the first page. Your 2nd paragraph needs to sell the 3rd. The front cover of your book needs to sell the back cover, which needs to sell the inside flap. Your tweet and email needs to sell the click.

When you think about it this way, getting your product into someone’s hands is actually a complex, multi-stage process. But it’s logical, it’s (sorta) controllable, and you can prepare for every step of the way.

Sure, it’s more work, but if you do this I think you’ll find yourself swimming in far greater success than if you don’t. Your roll.

For now, Goscha, Avallon, and Newman are on a mission to turn every wall into an opportunity for creativity. “We’re not selling a dry-erase board, we’re hardly selling a dry-erase surface — we’re selling a dynamic environment,” Avallon says. “Whether it is in your work, school, or home, it is something that just energizes you. There aren’t really any other products like it on the market.” [Inc]

(HT: VentureBeat)

Looks like he’s been doing pretty well, too.

(The kind where I can’t sleep until I’ve exhausted myself with effort, which, I think is how it should be when you’re trying to start several gigs at the same time (we’ll leave the wisdom of that “several” part for later).)

The urgency I feel is uncomfortable, yet, it pleases me. This is the exact state I’ve heard other entrepreneurs describe as the kick-start that began their ascent to a defined success.

Your back is against the wall.

It’s a feeling of your back against the wall. Somewhere, somehow, something draws your final straw.

It might be your $8.57 debit charge bouncing. Or the useless task you must do at work, because someone told you so again. Or a social injustice you witness and can’t bear to see once more. A problem that still isn’t solved.

Whatever it is, it puts a line in the sand over which you vow never to cross.

I think this is key to building the stamina a startup requires. If you haven’t drawn that line, then you’ll continue to back up, to avoid the necessary risk, to put off the needed sacrifice.

Once you hit that wall, it becomes the foundation of your defense from failure, lost potential. It’s the launch pad you use to finally catapult toward the vision floating around your head. And that’s when you begin leaping forward.

Is your back against the wall?

…we do have to work closer to the limits of our abilities [Joel]

Most of the time we talk about taking too much risk. But, what if you’re taking too little?

Remember, you just might succeed, if you do.

Suddenly, profit on each piece was 20 to 25 times what it had been. It turned out that gut instinct and experience were less effective at predicting what readers and viewers wanted — and worse for the company — than a formula. [Wired]

This idea is one of the hardest nuggets in marketing/copywriting for a rookie to come to peace with. When creating an ad, an email, or any marketing piece, it is far easier–and much less risky–to model a previously successful piece than to reinvent the wheel on your own.

In fact, this is recommended by the advertising masters most of us aspire to become. It takes a combination of acute intuition, depth of prospect knowledge, and finely-tuned skill to create a blockbuster ad or campaign. Most of us are lucky to cover 1 of these areas; few (if any) of us cover them all.

So to get around this, we look back on proven ads and let them guide us. Re-purpose the ad for your market, modeling the persuasive steps it took. More often than not, a blockbuster in 1 market will go blockbuster in another.

If I could accurately model data and use an algorithm to predict human behavior, I would let the computer tell me what to do. I can’t do that when I create an ad, so instead I look to those who’ve gone before me for advice.

Very few of us have the gumption to create magic by ourselves. And with the plethora of research and proven formulas available to us, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be a last resort.

If you read The Four Hour Work Week or any other tome on personal effectiveness, then you know this. It’s how you build up momentum for the rest of the day. It’s when you’re most energized and alert.

Write first, check email later, deal with bullshit last. Often, this works.

But sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes I stare at the screen and that blank son of a bitch stares right back. Silent, mocking, bright.

Or maybe I’ve already knocked out my usual few hundred words of garbage, but the real writing has refused to start. The engine is revving but the car is going nowhere.

My personal doomsday.

I’m stuck, I’m pissed, and I can’t get out.

Here’s what I do.

I back out, all the way. I remove my corpse from the bloody confines of whatever Writing imprisoned me and GTFO for a few minutes.

It’s called a retreat.

No, it’s not a defeat.

And in this moment of complete surrender, I refuse to feel bad about myself, because I’ve survived and I will attack once more, harder.

I keep that Writing out of my head for a long time. Usually a third or half a day.

I do this because I’m not a nihilist. Because a day of poor writing doesn’t feel good. Because there’s no use beating a dead horse.

And at that moment in time I don’t need negativity. I need to take down some other, lesser, easier tasks unrelated to the Writing. I need them because they give me momentum. They remind me that I’m a finisher.

They help me pick up speed.

So after a period of self-loathe, I feel good about the retreat because those little tasks give me a running start.

And some walls are easier to climb when you have a running start.

So when the writing doesn’t come, I back off and divert my attention. I start with baby steps and get up to a sprint. And then I try the Writing again at full speed, feeling good.

And if that doesn’t succeed, tomorrow is a great day for winners too.