Hello! I wanted to say that our third book came out yesterday, and the posts from Habr also helped a lot (and partially included). The story is this: for about 5 years, we were approached by people who did not know how to think in design, did not understand different business issues and asked the same questions.
We sent them through the forest. In a sense, they politely refused, because they did not consider themselves entitled to give advice.
Because they haven't figured it out yet. Then we crossed the line of a small business and came to a medium one, reworking the methodology of plugging holes into normal processes, grabbed all sorts of shit like theft of our own employees, going off scale bureaucracy and other joys of a large company, then we sat down with game theory and came to a very logical and unexpected solution with major partnership.
Then they started answering questions. Tellingly, they were the same questions and demanded the same answers. Two years ago, the moral right to tell about what we have already seen along the way appeared. The book was finished six months ago. She finally came out yesterday.
When you write the third book, you already begin to figure out what and how. Below is a story about what you should know when you write your own. Of course, this is my personal opinion, and not a ready-made methodology.
How to write
Make up a rough table of contents, write 3-5 chapters with the most interesting. Then show it to the publisher. In the cover letter - briefly who you are, what you are, why it is important. We had a letter like this: “it seems to be the best systematic view in Russia on how to do small business.” Not without distortions, but there were simply no others. Just recently, Tinkov's book (judging by the language, Ilyakhov) "Business without an MBA" appeared. She's cool, she's about the same thing, there's a different look.
The publisher reads your prototype chapters and asks what the trick is. We say - we do not give advice on how to live. We talk about specific situations and what happened in them. How often. How to test a hypothesis with examples. What to look out for so as not to screw up.
Here is the title:
Our main goal is not to show “successful success”, but as it is.
You know, it's like marrying someone you don't know well enough. You can enter into an alliance “at random”, and then get a divorce, or you can find out something about your potential other half in advance. We are in advance. Even if something terrible comes up. Because they saw how people sold apartments in order to close the debts of their business. And then they stayed on the street with a family with two children.
If possible, avoid this.
So. Then the publisher says - in principle "for". And offers to send the manuscript. All that's left is to draw the rest of the owl.
I had already written two books by that point, and had a rough idea of the process. But it was very hard. We rewrote the book twice, because we were constantly discovering new and new things. It helped that we wrote down for Coursera in Russian in progress. There are many thoughts that went into the book. The course helped to understand what we want: there are also tasks and educational results.
On assignments, I came off and roughly understood what stories were needed in the book. Here are a couple of spoilers with answers:
Here is a sheet of text with examples
You decide to check if it is possible to sell ice cream on the beach in a resort town. How to empirically check what the demand for the beach will be?
[x] Buy ice cream at the grocery store, take dry ice, a box - trade it for one day
[] Buy a portable refrigerator and ice cream from a wholesaler and trade it for one day
[] Purchase everything you need to trade, and complete all legal formalities to get started
[] Ask friends from other cities.
The faster and less costly you test your hypothesis, the better. Demand will not be greatly affected by the origin of ice cream and other factors.
You have stuck the item "Toothbrush Vyrvizub", similar to the Toothbrush Vyrvizub, but less popular. It was planned that you would sell 2000 brushes in December, but in fact it turned out that it is already April, and there are still 1800 of them left. At the same time, Vyrvizub is taken at a rate of 250 pieces per month. You took "Vyrviglaz" at a very good price in November in advance. Return to the supplier can be no more than 30%. What to do in general?
[x] Return as much as possible to the supplier
[x] Try to sell them at a discount or with a promotion like “buy two for the price of one”
[] Leave them lying on the shelves - like, do not interfere, let them stand.
[] Leave them lying on the shelves, but move them to the worst place in the layout.
[] Remove leftovers at the end of the month and dispose of.
[x] Donate them (whatever is left at the end of the month) to humanitarian aid.Obviously you "froze" money into this product. Therefore, the task is to free up funds in order to invest them in a hot commodity, which will bring a large profit over the same period. First, you return what you can to the supplier, and then sell them on sale. Oddly enough, you can also use them for donations if you already do them - otherwise you will have to donate something that you have in a more liquid form.
The same question about brushes, but you just got them for sale. What is changing in relation to them now?
[] Return how much to the supplier
[] Try to sell them at a discount or on a promotion like “buy two for the price of one”
[] Leave them lying on the shelves - like, do not interfere, let them stand.
[x] Leave them lying on the shelves, but move them to the worst place in the layout.
[] Remove leftovers at the end of the month and dispose of.
[] Donate whatever is left at the end of the month to humanitarian aid.Yes, that's right, in the case of implementation, you are neither warm nor cold from their presence. We just move them away, and if the cost of renting a place in the layout does not exceed the profit from them (most likely not, in bad places), then let them lie. They will slowly bring you money.
Should a small store in advertising compare itself with a large one?
[x] Yes, because being second in the market and biting first is always cool. AVIS strategy - "We work because we want to get around them, we have something to strive for."
[x] No, because you need to stand out on your head, and not belittle your neighbor
[] No, because then the big one will be offended and “press” the small one
[] Yes, because the prices are better in the small one, and everyone should see itYou will now laugh, but options 1 and 2 are correct. Yes, it is worth it for the reason described - this is a strong position. But no, it's not worth it for the second reason described, because it's a long-term position. The stores are already at war, so (3) is irrelevant, and prices are not described in them. In addition, in a village of 700-900 inhabitants, information about prices is available not in advertising, but at attendants. Instant and accurate. It might be better to spread the word about comparison products rather than clicking on it in an ad.
What can it mean if a person on the street does not know how to find your store - one of the 20 chain stores?
[x] That he's a visitor
[x] That you're not good enough at local marketing
[x] That he's an idiot
[x] That you're not good enough at global marketing
[x] It's okay, not everyone should know this, maybe we sell French literature hereIt could mean anything, yes. Only those who are part of your target audience should know about you. You have to work with them.
There were 120 candidates, 30 you called for an interview, 5 were taken to the store, 3 remained after the first three days. Those 25 who did not pass the interview, need to answer?
[x] Yes, let them know the position is open.
[] No, do not write once again, so as not to remind you of the negative. And it also wastes your time.Everyone needs to answer. This is etiquette. And each of them is your potential client. Maintain good relationships.
The client bought a chair a week ago, lost the receipt, and wants to return it because he didn't like it. The chair is still in the package. Is it possible to make a return?
[x] yes
[] No
[] At the discretion of the sellerAccording to the law on consumer protection - yes, you can without a check. It is necessary to confirm the fact of purchase in any other way - a bank statement, an entry in your database, or witnesses will do. The reason for the return is not important, only the time is important.
The client bought the book a week ago at another point, he wants to return it because it does not fit the wallpaper. We return?
[] Yes
[x] No
[] At the discretion of the sellerA book, a newspaper, sheet music, a bra and other strange things are things that cannot be returned by law. And it would be cool, right?
Crime statistics by region tell you that there is a 0,273% chance that you will get hit in the head while carrying money to the bank. You carry money to the bank every evening. Daily revenue averages 30 thousand rubles.
Cash collection for a year costs 40 thousand rubles, the bill for treatment, let's say, is 5 thousand rubles, after which you return to normal without harming your business. Is it economically justified to take risks in this way?
[x] yes
[] NoThe probability reaches unity per year, that is, the expectation of losses is 35 thousand rubles. And collection - 40 thousand rubles.
There are no practical tasks in the book, but there is a lot of real information. Here is an example:
Okay, back to the project. After all, you are writing. By the way, doing this together is many times easier than doing it alone, because where one stopped, the second already knows what and how to say - and there is an opportunity not to “hang out”, plus a second point of view. Once upon a time, many years ago, the first published material - back in Astrakhan, in a newspaper - we also wrote in two hari. I recommend. Night gatherings with a huge pile of printouts, pens in the "Mug" for football (because only she worked) - this is a bonus.
The next step is for the publisher to take the manuscript. Reads and confirms his opinion that the book will be normal. In our case, the opinion was: “Oh, I also got something for myself to manage the publishing house.” Otpad.
Then the contract and everything.
Agreement and all
The publisher wants an exclusive license, that is, uploading a copy without typos to Flibusta will not work. More importantly, the publisher wants a worldwide license, which means that it will not be possible to translate and start selling on Amazon. But at the same time, the publishing house wants 5 years, and then it is necessary to re-sign. This means that there are only a couple of years left until the moment when I make a gap of 1 day in order to transfer my first book to the pirates already officially and correctly.
Now there is a trend in the development of dofig home smart speakers and wireless headphones, so the podcast market is coming to life in the West. We will notice this in a year, but audio versions are needed now. Consequence - you must immediately sign an add-on about audio. It’s better to write the audio version in the author’s voice, but I don’t pronounce the letter “r”, so I rrrjoyfully announced this and got the opportunity to choose the announcer. Urrra. The problem with the audio version is the tables. They are in the book. Heavy ones are taken out by reference.
In our agreements, we also changed the order of approvals (not “the publisher offered, but the author did not go anywhere”, but a more correct one) and the citation order (I can quote up to half of the book on the Internet). Over the years, the MYTH has become so friendly to the authors that it's a feast for the eyes.
If the first time we were simply offered the cover, now we were asked to fill out a brief. As a result, the design turned out as we wanted, and not as it went. And without a capital set. And with more or less correct kerning. And without turning off the title in the center.
For MYTH, this was somewhat bold. But I'm happy.
In parallel, work is underway with the editor and proofreader. These are the publishing services that are included in the provisioning package. The editor in our case offered to swap a couple of chapters for better logic, requested a bunch of footnotes with explanations, showed where to add a couple of chapters and about what, tracked the logic and everything else.
The proofreader just pissed me off. I returned the first version back with a comment that all edits that do not concern errors should be rolled back. Because the proofreader decided that he himself would like to write a book and corrected everything in the language to the level of the official police protocol.
The publisher said yes, they overdid something. And they did okay. But still, there were language corrections, so I had to read everything carefully. By the way, it is a special joy in defending the language to say that if anything, I will change all the terms to the word "horseradish", because the plant and it is literary. You can't argue with that within the rules. After this discovery it became somehow easier.
Oh, and one more thing. They correct in Word, and somewhere from the third iteration they only look at the edits. Therefore, if you add something with an Easter egg in white text on a white background, then later, in the layout, they roll up the styles and everything becomes black. Pay attention to the Latin name of the sales funnel (specifically funnels) in the table of contents.
promotion
When you have a drafted draft file (no imprint and no cover), you have to give it to people for reviews. We gave it to Evgeny from Vkusvill, and they wrote a review, from which it is clear that they met everything about the same there, but they are somewhat afraid to tell. A couple more people simply did not have time to read (we gave it to friends from large businesses, and there many had the nearest window in May, when the circulation was already leaving the printing house), Tinkov did not answer at all.
It turned out that MIF does not label the files it sends. That is, when leaking into the network, it is not clear who leaked it. Here's how: I'm not against leaks, but I want to know the vector. That's why we labeled ours. The technology was described in the fantasy of my childhood - I recommend the story "The Destruction of Angkor Apeiron" by Fred Saberhagen.
Circulation comes almost last. This time the format is smaller than “Business as a Game” and “Business Evangelist”, the paper is thick and white (it was thick and yellowish), a bug with a ribbon-lace that can fly under the cover in production and do like this has been fixed:
This is a rare case on "Business as a game"
Then you all agree together to participate in the promotion. I already knew that I would have to talk with journalists, participate in broadcasts, do an autograph session (refused), this year an Instagram broadcast was added. Plus there were requests for additional materials. As usual, journalists will be given chapters to directly quote. I think they will like the logic of the “Why pay taxes” decomposition. Spoiler: not because it matters. But because there is the Gafin principle - you evaluate the chance of getting caught and the benefit from the crime. And if it is, it has a rationale. Plus other reasons. And the rational game is that there are smart people in the tax office who build restrictions precisely on this principle. True, Russia's problem is that there are still traditions.
The book itself
There are five main parts:
- Preparing for a project before you even start doing something: these are basic things like understanding what you are getting into. The story is this: there is a chance to earn a lot and lose a lot. And that's exactly a couple of years of your time. The first chance is low, the second is higher. If you could buy such a lottery ticket instead of starting a project, would you take it?
- Now the numbers: we calculate the financial model, conduct reconnaissance, set up experiments. The most important part of the project, because if you don’t understand on the shore what is possible and what is not, then everything will be bad.
- Opening the first point on the example of a store, everything from start to finish. Here you can find some of my posts from Habr, adapted for the book. Why shop? Because there are all the operations that are typical for other types of business offline, plus more.
- Marketing is basic. We hardly touch online (specific details become obsolete during the release of the book), but we give general principles on how and what to evaluate.
- Personnel is a damn important chapter on how to manage a team at a basic level for introverts.
As usual, all this with a bunch of stories. Another major from my childhood read the last book and said he was very happy. I think he is waiting for another hello from the past.
And practice, lots of practice. Pay attention to the latest story on this strip
Some chapters are very large and dense in terms of information:
Picture-canvas under the spoiler
This year we tried an exclusive with a publisher: it is very important for them to see sales on their online store and collect the first audience (otherwise we would sell everything directly from our website and in our stores). Therefore, they only have a book for two weeks, but for this they invest much more in promo than usual, and promise a good numerical result of sales.
Here , you can buy it there. Well, I want to say thanks to all those who asked us uncomfortable questions (about half - on Habré), which helped to really go through what is important.
Source: habr.com