Category: Sales

Every week,
there’s a new post
on Facebook
from a Mom
upset
because no one attended
her child’s birthday party.

Usually,
what happened was
the child went to school,
handed out invites
to dozens of kids
and then,
on party day,
is distraught
when no one shows up.

Of course,
no one showed up.

1) The person who decides
whether or not
a child attends a party
isn’t the child.
It is the parent or guardian.
That parent or guardian
might not have even seen the invitation.

2) The parent or guardian
is most concerned about the safety
of her/his child.

How safe will the child be
if the adult organizer of the party
couldn’t even be bothered
to reach out to that parent/guardian?
If the invites are being given
to random people?
If there is no discussion
about allergies or supervision?
If there’s no follow up
on the invitations?

That doesn’t sound
like a safe environment to me.

What does this have to do
with building a business?

Before you ask for the sale,
are you speaking
to the decision maker
(i.e. the ‘parent’ or ‘guardian’)?

Have you convinced her
you’ve met at least
her minimum requirements
for the product/service
(i.e. it is a ‘safe environment)?

If you answer ‘yes’
to these two questions,
you are more likely to seal the deal
(have a great turn out at that party).

Whenever I change something,
something like
where my books (products) are sold,
the pricing,
or
the length of the books,
I lose readers (customers).

Why?

Because they have to think
about the purchase.
There’s something new.
That causes them
to re-evaluate buying the product.

Steve Belmonte,
founder and CEO
of
AccuZIP,
shares

“People like consistency
and depending
and trusting their brand.

So that’s why
the price-lock guarantee
was hugely important
—they can depend on the fact
that their budget next year
will be the same
when it comes to this type of product.”

When you make changes,
be aware
that these changes
might cause customers
to re-evaluate their decisions.

Don’t make changes
for trivial reasons.

I knew as soon as
the missile strike
on Syria was announced,
that sales of my romance novels
for the day
and possibly the next day
would drop to zero.

External events
WILL affect sales.
We can try to mitigate this
by having different avenues of sales,
different sets of customers,
but there will be an impact.

So what do we do?

If it is a short term event,
I hunker down
and wait it out.
I get my shit together
so when impact of the event fades,
I can emerge with a bang,
selling as much as possible
as quickly as possible.

If it is a long term event,
I look for pockets of opportunities.
I might tweak the product
or my marketing or my sales approach
to better work
with the new reality.

There WILL be external events
that will affect your sales.
Know what they are
and figure out a plan
to work with them.

Some writers talk about
selling books.
That’s their focus.

My focus is building readership.

It might seem like
these two things are the same.
Readers buy books.
But they are very different.

Selling books focuses on today,
on the single transaction.
If I do X, how many units will I sell?

Building a readership
is long term.
It focuses on the relationship.
If I do X, how many units will I sell
over the next two decades?
Will my ‘forever’ readership
increase or decrease?

Unfortunately, many people
are solely focused on the sales today,
on that single transaction.

Seth Godin
shares

“The season ticket holder
bought a ticket
and got his games.
Even steven.
We owe you nothing.

The dedicated fan
sat through endless losing games.
Even steven.
Ticket purchased, game delivered.
We owe you nothing.

The problem with ‘even steven’
is that it turns trust
and connection
and emotions into nothing
but a number.
Revenue on a P&L.
It ignores the long-term
in exchange for a relentless focus
on today.
Only today.”

Are you selling a product
or building a relationship?

Amazon, as the biggest bookseller,
is my biggest ‘partner.’
They know how to sell books.
They have data
writers would dream of having.

The challenge is…
they don’t share it.

They don’t tell writers
that the best pricing is X
or the best length of pre-orders
is Y days.

However, we can guess
by what we’re allowed to do.

For example,
the average small publisher
is allowed to put a book
on pre-order
up to three months
before release.

Clearly, the ideal pre-order date
is three months or less.

A book hits the hot new release lists
for a month after release.
Clearly, Amazon customers
consider a book
less than a month old
to be a new release.

Combining this information,
I view 3 months before release
and 1 month after release
to be the best time
to promote a release.

Usually partner rules are based
on logic.
By sharing their rules,
these partners are sharing
their secrets.

Pay attention.

Yesterday, we discussed
how early buyers
are more valuable
than late buyers.

This is important
to keep in mind
when bundling older products.

We do this quite often
in the Romance Novel industry.
We’ll group all of the stories
in a series
into one convenient boxed set
for readers.

The prospects
most interested in this boxed set
will be the late buyers.
The early buyers will already have
the individual stories.

There’s a temptation
to add ‘extra content’
to the boxed set
to try to incite early buyers
to buy the boxed set also.

Resist this temptation.

This tactic punishes early buyers,
communicates
that they were fools
to buy the product early.
These customers will remember this
and will wait to buy your next release.

It also makes late buyers unhappy.
These additions are new.
They haven’t been proven,
haven’t been given the stamp of approval
by other buyers.

Reducing the price
on a bundle,
however,
has little impact on early buyers.
They usually aren’t as price sensitive
and they prefer to have the product first
even if it costs a little bit more.

And it makes the more price-sensitive
late buyers
happy.

When creating bundles,
consider your different types of buyers.

Yesterday,
I talked about customers
who pre-order,
who plunk down payment
before the product is ready.

There’s also a group of customers
who wait.
They wait until there are reviews,
until they know EXACTLY
what they’re receiving.
Often they’re waiting for the price
to drop.

If you asked me,
while I was in my writer persona,
while I was in ‘public’,
which group was the most important,
I’d tell you that I love all my readers
(customers)
equally.
They’re all special to me.
It doesn’t matter when they buy.

But this is client k
and there’s no reason
to bullshit you.
These two groups are NOT equal.

I’m a small business.
I prefer to receive cash now,
rather than six months from now.

I prefer to have customers
who will buy at full price,
who will buy before the product is successful,
who will MAKE that product successful.

If it weren’t for the early buyers
making the product successful,
the late buyers wouldn’t even
be interested in it.

Yes, try to make the late buyers happy
but NEVER at the cost
of the early buyers’ happiness.
They are your most important customers.

I always make my books available
for pre-order.
Readers can buy them now
and the books will be delivered
to their eBook readers
on release day.

The latest trend
in the romance novel industry
is putting pre-order books
on sale.

This makes NO sense.

Pre-order folks are superfans.
They love our books.
That’s why they don’t need reviews
to pre-order a book.
They are going to read the books
whether they are on sale or full price.

And their primary concern
is reading books FIRST, not price.
Lowering the price makes NO difference to them.
NONE.

Giving out a gazillion advanced copies
WILL make a difference to these superfans.
It will make them extremely grumpy
if they don’t receive one.

Don’t reduce the price
for customers
who don’t care about price.

If I don’t interact
with readers,
I don’t sell books.

Usually my sales funnel
looks like this…
I post marketing.
A reader makes a comment
about that marketing.
I respond to that comment.
She buys the book.

My reply is an important part
of the process.
If I don’t reply,
the reader doesn’t buy.

This is the same
now that I’m selling
thousands of books
as it was
when I was selling
hundreds of books.

The only difference is
when I post marketing,
more prospects comment on it.

Laurie DeJong,
Founder of
LDJ Productions,
shares

“The best way I’ve found
to build the business
is [knocking on doors].

When I say ‘knocking on doors,’
I mean really, really pursuing them
and leaning on industry newsletters,
finding names of people,
and then just emailing them
and following up every other week.

I was trying to be
as persistent
as you could be
without getting annoying.”

The knocking on doors
never stops.
Embrace that part
of the process.

I once worked for
a major beverage company.
It had one main competitor.

Customers would switch
back and forth
between these two companies.

The beverage company
would lose a customer.
The competitor
would gain the customer.
Four or five years later,
the opposite would happen.

Losing that customer
gracefully
ensured the company
gained that customer
in the future.

Mike Michalowicz
shares

“Let your client know
that they’re always welcome
to bring their business back to you,
no questions asked.

Since nobody can predict the future,
you may want to make sure
your customers know
you’ll happily take them back.”

Keep the door open
for your former customer.