If you ever find yourself stuck on a particular issue – it could be you aren’t sure what else you can do to sell your book, it could be that all the publishers you have approached have said “No” and you don’t know where to turn, or it could just be a bad case of writer’s block. But wherever you are stuck, a good way to become unstuck is to remove yourself from your ‘traditional’ thinking… or ‘flipping’ your mindset.

Let me tell you a story…

A few years ago I had a client whom I assisted in my business on an administrative basis – doing work for him which was charged by the hour.  I kept a time-sheet of my hours worked and sent him a bill at the month end.  Pretty standard so far.  However this guy never used to pay me on time.  He’d always delay and make promises which weren’t kept and I had to spend valuable time chasing him.  After a couple of months like this I used to dread being given work by this guy, so something had to change.

This was my most extreme case, and I did always get paid in the end, but it left me with a bad taste in my mouth.  It depends what industry you are in, but for me being in the service industry, clients love the work you do when you do it – when you are helping them to meet their objective or getting them out of that hole, but the ‘relief’ feelings they had at the time have faded by ‘bill paying day’ and you are then at their mercy as to when and even if you will have your bill settled.

After much thought and a flash of inspiration on the subject, I decided to charge my time out in ‘Time Bundles’ – clients pay upfront for a 10 hour bundle and I work through the bundle, keeping a time sheet and contact the client when we’re getting low so they can ‘top up’ their bundle.  An interesting thing happened.  Not only did I always get paid, but because the client had already paid for my services in advance, they quite rightly wanted to get the most out of me, giving me the usual ‘immediate’ tasks to do as well as other things they had been sitting on.  Suddenly, I had them ringing me and asking for work to be done, rather than me ringing them and asking if there is anything I can do to help.

I’m a massive fan of anything that makes me more efficient and allowed me to use time more effectively, and so the time I used to spend doing client ringrounds to seek work to do, could now be spent on assisting even more clients and finding new ways to look after the ones I had!

By ‘flipping’ the traditional service payment method, I found a system which is win-win all round.  I had positive cash flow, the client gets a willing, fully focused assistant, I’m keen for them to get their full value, they are keen to get me started on their work, which reduces their ‘to do’ pile, which makes them feel better, which gives me a happy customer and so it goes on!  This is just one way of turning a ‘traditional’ system on its head and it may not work for every situation, but what can you ‘flip’ to work better for you?

One way I get ideas for my business is to look at other industries.  What are other companies doing that you could do?

My local beauty salon creates ‘gift certificates’ for manicures and facials to sell before Christmas as gifts.  Lots of retailers sell gift vouchers.  One Christmas I had an idea to issue ‘Dream PA’ gift vouchers to sell for a ‘one off’ office de-clutter session.  It’s not traditional for a Virtual Assistant like me to sell ‘gift vouchers’ but what the heck!  It gives me sales in December for fulfilment in the early part of the year after – a traditionally quieter time; it is low cost to produce gift cards and makes an unusual present for someone who wants to get organised or who just needs a ‘boost’ rather than regular ongoing assistance.  This is flipping your mindset.

If a writer finds a way to sell their services to people as a ‘wedding gift’ for another couple – this would be going after a market that isn’t immediately obvious.  It’s unusual, but by flipping their mindset they could capitalise on the fact that marriage nullifies any former wills so there is a need there – and perhaps older family members would rather buy a useful gift for the young couple who have already been living together, rather than another towel bale?!  Travel agents have been doing this for years – allowing different family members to pay into a ‘pot’ for the honeymoon fund!

A PR Exec or Event Manager could look to the mobile phone industry and borrow their ‘Pay as you Go’ idea?  If they market to small businesses who are more wary of paying for retained services than larger clients, the savvy PR could charge clients for PAYG opportunities where there is no monthly ongoing commitment rather than a ‘retained’ fee.

These are business ideas not book ideas but you get the principle.  Be open to seeing opportunities wherever you are because in reality there are no ‘new’ ideas!