Small Business Trends |
- John Locke Shares His Strategies for Selling a Million Books on Amazon
- Cash Flow, Complex Issues and Conversation: Back to Business
- A Timeless 5 Step Sales Philosophy From Mark Twain
- Did the Entrepreneurship Exit Rate Surge in 2011?
- What Caring Can Do for Your Business
| John Locke Shares His Strategies for Selling a Million Books on Amazon Posted: 30 Jan 2012 02:30 PM PST
Now that it’s a nominated best business book for 2012, I asked John Locke to share some of his secrets for writing, promoting and selling ebooks. Ivana Taylor: What was the tipping point that took your novels to the 1 million mark? John Locke: This is a very difficult question to answer and had you asked it six months ago I would have given you a different response. Back then I would have said it was a combination of the blog posts I’d written, emails I’d answered, Twitter contacts I’d made, and the Amazon sales engine that links similar books and identifies the categories readers search, such as Movers and Shakers, Top 100, and so forth. But today I have a different answer because, while my last two books were best sellers, neither did as well as my flagship books, Saving Rachel and Wish List. Those books drove my sales into the stratosphere. These days my blog is still effective, I have ten times as many subscribers as I did when Saving Rachel came out, four times as many contacts, and twice as many Twitter followers. And the Amazon sales engine is as effective as ever. My recent book, Call Me! got no higher than #20 overall. I look around and see other authors setting all sorts of sales records with a first book, and realize there are many roads to the top. But the tipping point to that top level of sales seems to be the book itself. Saving Rachel and Wish List caught the public’s imagination, and the sales were breathtaking. For an entire month I sold more than 12,000 units a day. At one point Saving Rachel and Wish List were #1 and #2 overall. On my best day I sold 30,000 ebooks. All the marketing methods helped, and the Amazon sales engine was a huge factor. But these days I’m convinced the major factor, or tipping point, is the book itself. Writing that type of book is like catching lightning in a bottle. And when you write one of those, you know it. But everything you write is not going to have that type of effect on the public. Ivana Taylor: You said, "Don’t let the things you don’t have prevent you from using what you do have." Do you have an example of this principle in action around marketing your books? John Locke: Here's one: I had no formal training as a writer. I never took a writing course, never attended a seminar or workshop. In other words, I had no experience. But I didn’t let that prevent me from using what I did have: imagination, drive, determination. As for marketing, I did have money to spend on ads and so forth, but the money I spent didn’t help. Cost-free marketing is the only type that generated sales for me. So if you don’t have money to invest, don’t let that stop you from using what you do have: enthusiasm, empathy, people skills. What I’m saying, there’s always a way to compensate for what you don’t have. If I’m not as smart as you, I’ll have to work harder. If another woman is prettier than you, you might have to be more charming. There’s always a way to compensate. Ivana Taylor: What do you mean when you say you don’t set sales goals, you set project goals. How does that work? What’s a project goal that a small business author might set and how would they track it? John Locke: I always tell people that goals should be low enough to hit and high enough to matter. A wonderful project goal for a starting author would be to get five, 5-star reviews for his or her book. That’s a significant goal when you’re starting out. Without a specific goal like this, you won’t do the necessary things it takes to achieve it. In other words, if you set a goal to get five 5-star reviews, you’ll be able to create a plan for hitting it. You’ll ask friends to review your book. You’ll read reviews others have gotten and it will dawn on you to contact the reviewers and see if they’ll review your book. These are simple things, but without the goal, you’ll never draw up the plan. Without the plan, you’ll never take the action. Ivana Taylor: You say that you should have a quotable quote for each encounter and interview. Why? How does this help your marketing? John Locke: Quotes are sound bites. People remember sound bites. If you listen to the evening news, it’s all sound bites. When someone tells you about a movie or TV show or comedy act they enjoyed, they’ll quote dialog or jokes, which are nothing more than sound bites. Monday I did an interview and got this quote in: “Wish List is half rocket ship, half roller coaster.” I spoke to the interviewer a full hour, but that’s the comment she remembered. Yesterday I got this quote in:
I could have pontificated on the subject for an hour, but people appreciate the economy of words a sound bite offers. I believe authors should set a plan for each interview. In the past three days I’ve done five interviews, and had a specific plan for each. I went to each site and became familiar with the type of interviews they’ve done in the past. I tried to figure out the best way to approach the upcoming interview. I’ve heard authors say they’ve done so many interviews they could do one in their sleep. Don’t worry, they say, they’re good on their feet, they’ll just wing it. “Just winging it” is another way of saying you didn’t bother to prepare (that’s my sound bite for you!) Ivana Taylor: This quote was a whack on the side of the head for me, "My work isn’t 10x worse and theirs isn’t 10x better for the price." How did you set the pricing for your book? What advice would you give other business authors about pricing their book? John Locke: You should always have a reason for your actions. I set my prices low because I wanted to make buying my books an afterthought. Also, I was writing day and night at the time, so I figured to make volume sales. So those were my reasons for the 99-cent price point. But circumstances change. On February 1st, Wish List will be available in mass-market paperback in every bookstore and retail outlet in America. I set the price extremely low for a paperback book: $4.99, because I'm trying to get noticed in a new market. But I don’t want to self-compete against my ebooks, so for the first time, I’m raising the prices of my Donovan Creed series. Am I abandoning my core readers? No. All future Creed books will still debut at 99 cents for a period of time that allows my loyal readers to download them at my “friendship” price of 99 cents. After that, I’ll raise the price so as not to hurt sales of the paperback versions. My Emmett Love and Dani Ripper series will continue to be sold for 99 cents unless the circumstances for those books change. So my advice is to have a reason for your pricing. It can be based on experimenting with different price points, or some other factor that makes sense to you. From Small Business Trends      |
| Cash Flow, Complex Issues and Conversation: Back to Business Posted: 30 Jan 2012 11:30 AM PST I heard this statement from a small business owner several years ago — "run your business lean and mean," he said. But the difference between talking about it and doing it, you know, making the tough decisions to remove the fluff, manage the details and strategically market your message – is the difference between staying open and shutting your doors. COMPLEXITY (Management)In “Losing Control Is Complexity's Greatest Risk,” John Mariotti highlights the fact that small business owners have to eliminate waste. This includes managing and eliminating complexity where ever possible. Complex systems that could be updated and simplified are costing you money now, but they cost you a whole lot more in a crisis. What's the process for communicating with your staff? How do you train new members of the team? Consider the tools that you use in your sales process or the system that you use to manage your people. How efficient are they? Is there a better option that's easier to use, even if it cost a little more? Remember: If it's easier to use, but it cost more up front, then you have to run the numbers and see which one is more profitable over time. But complexity is not the only issue to pay attention to. CASH-FLOW (Money)John says, "Cash is like oxygen; if you run out of it you die." Have you ever discovered an opportunity for your company and the biggest issue between you and the next move was the cash-flow? Do you have enough money on hand to maintain and innovate, simultaneously. "Cash-flow is…very often the limit to growth, and can be the ultimate cause of the demise of a business," John says in, “Cash IS Still King.” And he encourages small businesses to keep as much on hand as you can. Because if your credit line is suddenly cut in half or off, it could cause a serious problem. Streamlining your company and maintaining a healthy cash-flow are business basics. And so is marketing. CONVERSATION (Marketing)In “How To Get Your Customers To Do What You Want,” Ivana Taylor says "words disappear." She says, "There is a distinct difference between the words that we say and the objects around us. Conversations…disappear. Objects take up physical space." Which means—we have to find a way to make our words stick. We have to communicate in a style that makes our conversation concrete and memorable. That's where "strong simple mission statements" like Apple's "Think Different" and Burger King's "Have It Your Way" come in. It makes it easy to grasp the idea that Apple products are outside the box and Burger King intends to cater to you. Ivana offers and explains a simple technique to help you get to your strong and simple mission statement. Ultimately, our marketing message has to be "lean and mean" too, just like our staff and money management. Let's face it, so much of our business is about getting to the heart of the matter—in every department, especially marketing (at least in my mind).
From Small Business Trends     |
| A Timeless 5 Step Sales Philosophy From Mark Twain Posted: 30 Jan 2012 08:30 AM PST There are and will always be steps in the sales process. They actually have changed very little since 1865, when Mark Twain created what might be one of the first sales training manuals “The Successful Sales Agent.” He was not only an author but a very savvy businessman who understood the power and importance of personal sales and training. He created a sales training program for all of his, “outside sellers”, who sold his books to the public. No email, no social media, no video, no blogs just people taking products and services directly to the people. Personal branding at it’s best and most basic. Mark Twain understood and appreciated the value of a sales process 147 years ago. He sold thousands of copies of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, through "subscription agents", salespeople who would pre-sell his books door-to-door using sample pages of the books. Here are the five progressive steps from The Successful Sales Agent to what he called “Canvassing” taken in the following natural order:
*From Hamlin Hill, Mark Twain and Elisha Bliss (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1964) He opens the manual with this statement:
Is this sales 101 or what?
Please take a few minutes to read the “Successful Sales Agent Manuscript” written in 1865 by Mark Twain and marvel at how the fundamentals of salesmanship that we follow today have not changed at all. Fast forward to today and add in some fancy technology, uber cool new media, a ton more competition and being in a completely different time in history and those five progressive sales steps from 1865 are still the steps we take to deliver the products and services we market and sell today. Ask yourself:
We can learn a lot from Mark Twain about sales:
From Small Business Trends     |
| Did the Entrepreneurship Exit Rate Surge in 2011? Posted: 30 Jan 2012 05:00 AM PST Several commentators have recently highlighted the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s finding that the share of U.S adults starting or running a new business increased by 60 percent from 2010 to 2011. While I understand the desire to focus on the positive after so many years of declining entrepreneurial activity in the United States, I'm not sure the GEM results really signal good news about entrepreneurship. To see why requires an understanding of the difference between the stock of entrepreneurs and the flow into entrepreneurship. Think of entrepreneurship like a bathtub of water. The stock of entrepreneurs is akin to the level of water the in the tub. The flow into entrepreneurship is similar to the amount of water coming through the faucet. Unmeasured in this analogy is the flow out of entrepreneurship, which is like the amount of water going down the drain. The GEM report indicates that America opened up the entrepreneurship valve on the faucet. Inflow increased by 60 percent from 2010 to 2011. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data says the amount of entrepreneurship in the tub went down. The government agency reported a 2 percent decline in the share of the labor force working for themselves from 2010 to 2011, following an 8.5 percent drop in the self-employment rate between 2006 and 2010. There's only one way to reconcile a big jump in the number of people going into business for themselves with a continued decline in the number of people in business for themselves. That’s an increase in the number of people who ran their own companies leaving self-employment. Like the bathtub, we can't have more water flowing out of the faucet, but a lower water level in the tub, unless more water is going down the drain. I don't think we should celebrate the increase in the number of people entering entrepreneurship in 2011. This rise must have been accompanied by an even greater rise in the number of people exiting entrepreneurship.
From Small Business Trends     |
| What Caring Can Do for Your Business Posted: 30 Jan 2012 02:30 AM PST What can caring do for your business? We’re sure everyone who has ever patronized a business where folks don’t care knows the answer to this question. But just in case you need some more help on the subject, here are some thoughts on how you can take things to the next level. In the TrenchesWhat simple caring can do for your business. If you want to know what truly makes a difference with your business, the answer may just be caring. Think caring about the product you create and the service you offer doesn’t matter? Think again. Seth Godin’s Blog Basic lessons in starting up. Follow one entrepreneur’s journey as he attempts to open a retail business in one of the toughest economies in the U.S. It doesn’t matter what kind of business you’re trying to start, you will find this story entertaining. Failure Club Spreading the WordCreating your own business media platform. Chris Brogan has created a brand new Website to help entrepreneurs to create a brand new media platform, no matter what business you happen to be running. Here’s a much more detailed look! Shhh! The Secret Show Lessons from Hollywood. The thing that small business can learn from Hollywood’s recent obsession with piracy is simple…focus on facilitating sales, not loss prevention. Nobody is suggesting that theft is justified, but getting your product to customers is ultimately most important. Chris Brogan Local Biz Renaissance?Bypassing the big guy. Two kinds of small businesses are joining forces to supply food from farm to table without a layover at your local big supermarket chain. Small tech startups have focused on helping small food producers (farmers) bring what they raise and grow directly to the consumer. WSJ Wealthy investors are targeting small businesses. Would America’s wealthiest investors rather put money in a locally owned bakery or restaurant than in a high-tech startup? Some recent indications say they might. What could big investment dollars mean to small local businesses like the one you own? Bloomberg Businessweek Social IntelligenceWhy your business needs video to thrive. As has been alluded to in earlier links, developing media platforms (including video) for your small business can be very important, particularly because it’s easier and cheaper than ever to get your message out. Youngentrepreneur Always support your fans. Whether they are fans of your destination (as in this post) or fans of your product or service, understanding the importance of these people in spreading the word about your business can be critical. Make sure you help them in every way as they help you. Small Biz Survival Standing AloneWhere differentiation really counts. It’s not enough for your product or service to be different. The real question is whether your product or service is different in a way customers care about. Remember, when it comes to setting yourself apart, the customer is what counts. Instigator Blog Enchanting financial forecasts done right. This is a post looking at something you might not ordinarily equate with being magical or inspiring. Yet financial projections need attention and care that will raise them above the humdrum. How to Change the World From Small Business Trends     |
In 2011 I wrote a few 
| You are subscribed to email updates from Small Business News, Tips, Advice - Small Business Trends To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
Niciun comentariu:
Trimiteți un comentariu