I participated in a zoom call today to brainstorm how to help market a book that is being published early next year. I joined the call because the author is a loose acquaintance of mine as well as the host of a podcast I listen to frequently.
There were about 20 people on the call.
From my perspective, it was a clusterf**k.
It took me back to the many meetings I was forced to endure during my working career. There was no agenda, other than “we’re here to discuss how to promote the book” and “get some volunteers to help”.
Ugh.
I know how to run an extremely effective meeting. I wanted to jump in and run this one, but that was not my place.
There were some decent ideas suggested for ways to promote the book. There were also a bunch of misguided meanderings and discussions. Mostly, there were a lot of random ideas being sent back and forth through the Zoom chat box.
The meeting ended with no call to action, no assigned tasks, no deadlines, no deliverables, no next steps and a few loose commitments by some of the participants.
The day before the meeting, I sent a one page document to the host with my suggestions, caveats, next steps and prerequisites. I also stated what I could do to help.
This document was never brought up during the call.
During the zoom, I suggested starting a channel on the group’s forum so we could collaborate further. The host agreed so after the call I created the channel and posted my document as a starting point.
Here’s my takeaway.
There were friendly, articulate and educated people on the call. Very few will take any concrete action to promote the book other than mention it on their social media and to their friends.
The book, if it sells well, will do so because something – a podcast, an interview, a Tedtalk, or speech goes viral. In other words, he will need to get lucky. Fortunately, he also has a publisher and a PR firm helping him, so perhaps they will be able to present him with interviews, TV spots or promotional opportunities that increase the chances of a viral moment.
It’s strange to observe all this as a contributor, but not the leader.
What is glaringly obvious to me is that a little bit of organization and leadership could make a huge impact here. The volunteer efforts need to be coordinated and managed to be impactful.
I’ll do my part to help with that as much as I can.
But I am not the leader.
I have to keep reminding myself, as with many things, “This is not my problem to solve.”
And that, for me, is tough. Because I know how to fix it.