Autoreplies – Use Them

This seems like a no brainer
but, after contacting dozens
of no response companies
this week,
this reminder is clearly needed.

I’ve sent enough emails
to know
that not every email I send
actually gets delivered.
Many of us have.

This creates anxiety.
Anxious prospects are less likely
to trust and buy from a company.

So set up a separate cold contact email address
(on your website, your marketing materials, etc)
and have an autoreply associated with it,
stating that the prospect’s email
has been received.
If possible, add the expected response time.

It’s instant verification.
There’s no anxiety.
And it buys you some time
to respond to the email.

It is the online equivalent
of telling the customer
“I appreciate your business.
I’ll give you my full attention in a moment.”

Autoreplies – use them.

Published
Categorized as Marketing

Never Count Yourself Out

Last year,
I went on what writers call
the Great Agent Hunt.
I sent queries to about 50 agents.
Not one agent asked
to read the story I was querying.
Not one agent replied to my query.
They didn’t even bother to sent a rejection.

Last month,
I went on a rush Great Agent Hunt.
I sent out queries to five agents.
The next day,
I had signed with my dream agent.

I went from
not worthy even of a rejection letter
to
must sign her
in one year.

Jason Mercado,
founder and owner
of Just Cookies,
shares

“Never count yourself out.
I had to believe that
this company would come
into existence.
I got a lot of no’s starting out
and it would have been easy
for me to cave,
but I always believed in myself.
Every ‘no’ prepared me
for that ‘yes’
when the door to Carmelo’s opened up.”

Never count yourself out.

Definitions Of Rush

A month ago,
I sent out a rush query to agents.
I had a big contract coming
and I needed an agent to represent me.

One agent responded to my rush query
the very next day.
(She was my preferred agent
even before she responded quickly).
She not only responded
but she had read my manuscript.

Another agency responded to my rush query
in a week.
The assistant requested
the first three chapters of the manuscript
and said she’d put it in the queue
for one of the agents.

One of the agencies responded to my rush query
today,
a month after the query was sent.
She also requested the first three chapters.

A month to reply to an email
is NOT a rush response.

As Brent Leary
shares

“According to a recent
University of Massachusetts study,
if a video hasn’t started streaming
in five seconds,
about 25 percent of potential viewers
will bail before viewing,
and if it doesn’t start in 10 seconds,
that number almost doubles.”

I couldn’t wait for a month for a response.
I doubt your customers/business partners
can wait for a month for a response either.

How ‘rush’ is your rush?

Published
Categorized as Sales

Delivering On Expectations

A best selling writer once told me
the secret of her success.

She delivers on reader expectations.

When she promises a reader
an experience,
a type of book or product,
she gives that reader
what she has promised.
That experience could be
a book that breaks all of the rules,
that surprises.
That’s fine
as long as that is what she has promised.

Delivering on expectations
is how we build trust,
how we develop relationships,
a core customer base.

Examine what you’re promising
(through your marketing, branding, staffing, etc)
and then keep these promises.

Published
Categorized as Marketing

What Is Possible

I was working hard,
writing story after story
for one of my publishers,
earning what I thought
were okay sales.

Then I talked to one of my buddies,
mentioned what I made on a story,
and she freaked out.
She made 10x’s that level
on similar stories
placed at another publisher.

I didn’t know
those sales were even possible.
Once I found out they were,
I figured out how to achieve these sales
for myself.

Recently, I signed with a literary agent.
Yes, she’ll be shopping my stories around,
negotiating my contracts,
but best of all,
she’ll be sharing what is POSSIBLE,
what I COULD earn with these stories.
Some of these possibilities
will become my new goals.

There are people or businesses
achieving great things in your industry,
things you don’t think are possible.
Find out what these things are
and make them possible for yourself.

Discouraging Use Of Pirate Sites

Pirate sites,
sites stealing books
and offering them for ‘free’,
are one of the challenges
writers deal with.

Some writers post messages
about how pirate sites hurt writers
and take money from their pockets
which forces writers to work another job
and write less.

This is true
but people are both lazy and selfish.
I know I am.
The average person doesn’t care
about writers.
They care about themselves.

So I don’t talk about me.
I talk about
how no one risks jail time and fines
for nothing.
I ask readers to think about
what these pirates could possibly be gaining.
I express concern
for the readers’ security,
especially as many of my readers are women.

This is also true.
I AM concerned about my readers.
I don’t want pirates using my stories
to hurt other people.

This tact works.
And unfortunately
my warnings were reinforced this week
when many of the pirate sites
were hit with a virus.

When you sell benefits,
sell the benefits for your prospect,
not the benefits for you.

Published
Categorized as Marketing

Growth Rates, eBook Sales And Ignoring Threats

James Surowiecki
in the New Yorker
shares

“It’s true that,
between 2009 and 2011,
e-book sales rose
at triple-digit annual rates.
But last year,
according to industry trade groups,
e-book sales rose just forty-four per cent.”

This slowing growth rate is natural.
If in year 1, sales were 0 units
and in year 2, sales were 1 unit,
that’s an infinite increase.
If in year 3, sales were 2 units,
that’s only a 100% increase over year 2.
The unit increase was the same.
The % growth is lower.

Does that make e-book any less of a threat?
No.
Of course not.

This article is filled with justifications
about why Barnes and Noble should ignore
the e-book threat.
There are dismissive comments like
“Against that,
the Codex Group finds that people of all ages
still prefer print for serious reading;
e-book sales are dominated by genre fiction
—“light reading.”
with no mention that one genre alone,
Romance,
consists of 16.7% of the U.S. consumer market.

This justification might make the people
at Barnes and Noble feel better
but it doesn’t eliminate the threat.

We all do this.
I was ignoring a certain threat
to my business,
hoping it would go away,
justifying why it wasn’t really a threat.
You’re ignoring a threat also.

Let’s accept these threats
and prepare for them.

Do You Need A Web Presence

Does every small business need
to have a web presence?

Lisa Fugere
at Radius Intelligence, Inc.
shares

“Using Radius data,
we calculated the online activity
of U.S. businesses
with fewer than 1,000 employees.
We looked at how many businesses
maintain websites, Facebook pages,
Twitter handles, Foursquare listings,
and online reviews.

Despite the surge in Web adoption
throughout the last decade,
an astonishing 62 percent
of small and midsize businesses
don’t even have websites.”

In other words,
no, not every small business needs
to have a web presence.
I’m certain quite a few businesses
in that 62 percent
are financially healthy and successful.

Evaluate for yourself
whether or not
you need a web presence.

Published
Categorized as Marketing

Get In The Water

One of my buddies
wants to be a chef.
She’s been talking about this for years
and hasn’t done anything about it.
Every day,
she watches food networks and cooking shows,
spending hours
watching others do what she dreams of doing.

If she had spent the same hours
doing rather than watching,
she’d be living her dream right now.

Srinivas Rao,
author of The Skool of Life,
shares

“As you stand on the shore suiting up,
you can watch other surfers
catch wave after wave,
in anticipation of the perfect ride.

But you’re not going to catch any waves
unless you’re in the water.
The more waves you go for,
the more you’ll catch.

The game of life is quite similar.
It’s exciting to watch people start companies,
push their limits,
and experience new things.

But living vicariously through other people
just means you’ll be standing on the shore
watching others catch waves
your entire life.”

Get off the shore
and into the d*mn water.
We’re supposed to LIVE life,
not watch it on TV.

Going Back To School

A decade ago,
a loved one and I started writing.
He had natural talent,
a talent I envied.
Because he had this natural ability,
he didn’t take classes.
He didn’t read books
on how to improve his writing.

I didn’t have this natural talent.
I worked hard.
I took a writing class
or read a writing book
every month.

Now, I’m the better writer.
Seeing this,
he has started taking classes
but he will never catch up to me
because I continue to take classes also.

Rohit Bhargava
CEO & Founder of
Influential Marketing Group,
shares

“There is one stunning fact
about millionaire self-help gurus
that might surprise you.

Most spend hundreds of thousands of dollars
every year on personal training,
experiences and learning.

They overspend on themselves
—and see the return of the investment
in the people they meet
and networks they build.

What’s the conclusion?

Overspending on personal development,
instead of expensive clothes or jewelry,
tends to pay back tenfold over time.”

In September,
many students will be returning
to school.
Consider refreshing your knowledge also.