Booklets Interview

After I presented a class in Sacramento, CA yesterday, one of the attendees, Ian Griffin, briefly interviewed me for his podcast. You can hear it through the link below. Thanks, Ian!

http://www.exec-comms.com/blog/business-communication/interview-paulette-ensign-the-tips-booklet-queen/

Until next time,
Paulette - forever enjoying opportunities to share this stuff
www.tipsbooklets.com

Your Very Best Booklet Clients

Warning: amazing grasp of the obvious alert.

Speaking with a colleague/good friend yesterday, he shared with me a simple observation he made. You may have already reached this conclusion. If not, here goes:

Do business with people/companies who have the money to buy what you've got.

I warned you, didn't I? Your logic may be saying that a particular market is your ideal audience for your booklet. And if they don't have the money to buy from you, where does that leave you? They may love what you have, need what you have, and want what you have. If they don't have the money, none of that matters, does it?

This is one (though not the only) reason I've been guiding booklet authors for years to sell in bulk to corporations, associations, and publications to use your booklet as a promotional tool. Many of these entities have the budget, and they are seeking to reach the same end -user that you are.

Find the people/companies with the money, and sell to them.

Until next time,
Paulette - reminding, confirming, and sharing info for your greatest success
www.tipsbooklets.com

Booklet Morphing

Booklets sometime take on a life of their own. A client recently sent me a booklet manuscript to review. Based on the content and some other elements of the document, I immediately suggested the manuscript become a book-size journal as well as a tips booklet. The client liked the idea, and hired me to edit the document to first make it into a booklet. When the first round of edits was received, the author said it needed to be split up into three booklets. Each booklet would have fewer words in it and would provide space for the reader to write comments after the tips, making these publications mini-journals. All this from a single booklet manuscript.

Until next time,
Paulette - encouraging morphing whenever possible
www.tipsbooklets.com

Life is a Series of Contests

While watching the television magazine, "60 Minutes," last night, I heard Andy Rooney make a comment during his closing few minutes of the show that captured my attention. It's the title of this blog entry: "Life is a series of contests." It got me thinking about the competition within ourselves and the competition with others regarding our respective businesses.

Within my own mind, I have contests about which product to develop or expand next, which market to address or abandon, what price to keep or increase, what terms to introduce. Once I win the competition with the internal committee in residence from the neck up, the external world takes over, imposing its own reality.

And winning the sprints may or may not win the marathon. (Trust me, this is metaphor. This personal machine was not built to do either a sprint or a marathon, I promise you.)

You could be bumping up against a wall with your booklets for any number of reasons -- the topic or applications or price are better for one industry than another. Look at other industries or other prices or other applications. Your own sales skills may need honing. Who among us can't use a little more fine-tuning in that area? Your internal voices are serving up large portions of self-doubt. And on and on.

Yes, life is a series of contests. Some are won, some are lost. All are teachers.

Until next time,
Paulette -- winning and losing just like everyone else, and staying in the race
www.tipsbooklets.com

More Pages or More Profit?

Like so many other things that are sold in this world, you are very likely to make more profit on fewer pages in your booklet. When you find yourself overflowing with content, divide it up into more booklets than one larger one. It gives buyers more options, greater opportunities to extend their sales activities with you. The per unit price is lower on a smaller booklet, which works well for many client budgets. Sell them different booklets throughout the year, at lower unit prices, higher quantities, multiple times a year. It works.

Until next time,
Paulette - encouraging good cash flow
www.tipsbooklets.com

Booklet Basics

Did you tell the basics when you wrote your booklet? It can sometimes be easy to forget that you've been living with your expertise for awhile, and that someone coming to your booklet may know very little about your topic. Think about the most basic level of information a person needs to know when first experiencing the subject. It doesn't mean you have to stay there throughout the entire booklet. It does mean you need to lay a good enough foundation that even a complete novice will feel comfortable exploring what you have to say, from the beginning.

Until next time,
Paulette - being as inviting as possible
www.tipsbooklets.com

Booklets and Hardware Stores

There's an Ace Hardware store in my neighborhood. They generally charge more and don't have the variety of the big box stores like The Home Depot or Lowe's. They are more convenient, however, and seem to hire people who have good customer service skills. Today I got something in the mail from them, following up joining their 'club.' Many of the grocery stores have these clubs, too, where you get a discount or accumulate points or get some special offer. Well, the Ace Hardware store does, too. Today's offer from them was a $5 discount coupon for my next purchase (certain exclusions apply) and a pick-a-day double points. While these two things had some level of interest that would get me back into their store (which I'd be inclined to do anyway), I couldn't help wondering about the longer lasting effect of a how-to booklet on some relevant do-it-yourself task, with my local Ace Hardware address imprinting on the booklet. After all, once I redeem these two coupons they sent today, I have nothing more to keep. Undoubtedly they'll send more offers, more sales flyers, and the like. Imagine the cost effectiveness for them to include a coupon or two with a booklet. That won't get thrown away like the backing on these coupons will.

Do you have topics that a hardware store would find relevant? How about contacting their corporate marketing department, and tell them what you just read in the above paragraph. Save them money and make a sale for yourself.

And by the way, watch for things like this when they show up in your own mail. Lots and lots of marketing ideas probably come past you every day, just like the thing I just mentioned.

Until next time,
Paulette - grateful for what the world continues teaching me when I notice
www.tipsbooklets.com

Product Development vs. Marketing

Some people think it's one or the other. The fact is that you need to manage both, regardless of which you feel is your preference. You can make both be easy and fun, too, no matter what your current beliefs. Let's say you would rather market than create new products. Yes, there really are people who feel that way. Once the booklet is done, they would rather find lots of ways to market the booklet and not do any further product development.

Some simple ways to create more product are:
Have someone interview you about the topic of your booklet. That produces two new products -- an audio product hard copy CD and digital MP3. And that can actually produce two more products from that -- a hard copy transcription of the interview, and a digital PDF version. Now you have 4 new products, as easy as that!

You may think marketing is less than fabulous, and you'd rather create more products instead. Well, think about what other industries would be good to approach or what other countries or what other age group. It probably won't take you long to expand your market without much difficulty.

Either way, expanding your product line and your market are both vital and continuous cosniderations. Make them easy and enjoyable for yourself.

Until next time,
Paulette - simplifying things as much as possible
www.tipsbooklets.com

Booklets and Sponsorships

Conferences and seminars are good places for your booklet to be distributed free. Now, that didn't say for you to give it away. It said to be distributed free. Confused? Read on.

Every time you go to a conference or a seminar, you usually get a welcoming packet full of all kinds of things. Your booklet can be included as one of those things, production paid for by a vendor sponsor of the conference or seminar. Whomever is presenting the conference or seminar (i.e. an association or an expo company) will buy the booklets from you and sell them to a vendor sponsor for a profit. That way everyone makes money on the deal. The same is true for an association who wants to use your booklet as a member benefit for new or renewed memberships. The association buys the booklet from you and may have a vendor sponsor pay for production (or not), and then distributes the booklet free to their new and returning members.

These ideas can be done with either a printed copy or a PDF version of your booklet, and barely scratch the surface of ways that sponsorships can be crafted.

Until next time,
Paulette - sharing ideas to benefit as many people as possible
www.tipsbooklets.com

You are Most Important

This week's ezine by Marcia Yudkin totally echoed what I've been saying for years. See her take on it below.

               ** The Marketing Minute **
    brought to you every Wednesday by Marcia Yudkin
       Marketing Consultant, Author, Speaker
         http://www.yudkin.com/marketing.htm
            http://www.pressreleasehelp.com
              http://www.namedatlast.com
               mailto:marcia@yudkin.com

                  *******************

Go count the number of instances of "I" or "we" versus the
number of "you"s in your home page, brochure or sales piece. 
If you find a preponderance of first-person pronouns, call
Rewrite, because your pitch is jinxed.

"You" holds the most interest for the reader.  Faced with
"I" or "we" - or "he," "she" or "they" - typical readers
think, "So what?  What about me?"

People looking for a quick, reliable printer, for instance,
don't care when you tell them proudly, "We have an award-
winning, state-of-the-art plant.  Our mission is..."

Transforming self-absorbed copy into customer-focused text
forces you to add clarity and pep:

"Your printing is done overnight, done right - guaranteed."

While "you" almost always packs more power than "we" or "I,"
take pains to aim your "you" properly.  I've recently seen
copy written as if wealthy homeowners are mowing their own
grass or bank executives counting bills at the teller
window.  In those cases, the "you" should be something along
the lines of "your staff."

Define carefully your "you."  Then and only then, pursue.

                *******************

MEDIOCRE MARKETING COPY NEEDED:  Find out if you're eligible
for a no-cost marketing makeover.  For my upcoming six-week
course on no-hype copywriting, we need more raw materials
for participants to practice on.  If you have a web page,
brochure, postcard or sales letter that is not delivering
results or that you know is weak or confusing, submit it by
Friday, March 16 for consideration.

Read the conditions of this offer here:
http://www.yudkin.com/copywritingcourse.htm

Learn more about the upcoming one-time-only course on writing
on-target, punchy, persuasive marketing copy:
http://www.yudkin.com/copycourse.htm

                  *******************

If you enjoy The Marketing Minute, please forward it to
friends and colleagues.  It comes to you every Wednesday
from publicity and marketing consultant Marcia
Yudkin, author of Web Site Marketing Makeover and
10 other books.  P.O. Box 305, Goshen, MA 01032.

         http://www.yudkin.com/marketing.htm

For a free weekly marketing tip, subscribe: 
http://www.yudkin.com/markmin.htm

---
Until next time, 
Paulette - thinking of YOU!
www.tipsbooklets.com

Why Free Isn't Good Enough

The following is an article from a recent ezine by Jill Konrath of Selling to Big Companies. See her contact info at the end for more of her great stuff.
======================
Why Free Isn't Good Enough

The brutal truth is that they're not interested in your free trials, free assessments or free workshops. Even though you may think that it's a great deal, corporate decision makers don't. They're not stupid. They know there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Everything that's free ultimately requires two things:

• An investment of time.
• And a decision – which also takes time.

That's why free isn't selling these days. People don't have extra time to waste. Either something is worth doing or it's not. Free is entirely irrelevant.

Recently I was talking with a person whose service was actually FREE. His company analyzed corporate phone bills to help company's save significant revenue. He was paid on a contingency, so the actual out-of-pocket expense paid by the client was non-existent. Yet he still found it difficult to get appointments.

Why? Because he stressed that his service was free. When I hear that as a decision maker, my immediate thought is, "What's the catch?" I know nothing is free.

So even if your company has something it gives away for free – don't lead with it. Instead, focus on the business value. Unless decision makers know that it will reduce costs, increase productivity, shorten time-to-revenue or such, they won't clear time on their calendar for you. Remember, it's all about business. It must be worth their time – even though it's FREE.

Jill Konrath

SellingToBigCompanies.com

============================

Until next time,
Paulette - throwing "free" into the back end
www.tipsbooklets.com

Booklet Rules Don't Matter

Today's post follows perfectly on the heels of yesterday's about perfect booklets, or not. For the past 16 years, certain guidelines have worked exceptionally well in writing and producing booklets. It's what I've consistently taught clients and audiences. Today, all bets are off. Here's why.

A couple weeks ago, an order came in for 500 copies of a booklet from the ebooklet catalog at my site, without the buyer ever seeing a copy of the booklet at all. It was the title that grabbed them. Today, the same client came back around and wanted pricing for many, many more printed copies of that booklet, as well as price quotes to license as many as 200,000 copies of it. This is all good, yes.

Here's the part that amazes me. The booklet author "broke" lots of the suggestions -- okay, rules -- I continuously advise. The booklet used some multi-colored clip art within the booklet, which I always advise against using additional color because it increases production cost. The writing style has lot's of "don't's" in it, which I always say tell the reader what TO do rather than what NOT to do. And there's a number of tips starting with "if," which is another thing I edit when working with someone's booklet.

So, this booklet may have a sale of 200,000 copies licensed, with the full awareness of the client, and the author did it contrary to my best suggestions. Are you still laboring over the perfection of your own booklet? If so, redirect your efforts to your title instead!

Until next time,
Paulette - always happy when a booklet author makes a big sale
www.tipsbooklets.com

Perfect Booklets

In the April issue of Prevention Magazine, the following excerpt jumped out as something to share with you:

"Imagine half a class of art students is asked to churn out as many clay pots as possible in a semester, while the other half is asked to create one great pot. Ironically, those aiming for quantity over quality produce the best pots, says James Longuski, PhD, a NASA veteran, in his book, The Seven Secrets of How to Think Like a Rocket Scientist. "When we aren't focused on perfection, we learn from out mistakes and our skills naturally evolve," he says. So if something doesn't turn out right, chalk it up to a learning experience -- and dive back in."

To you, the person who wants to get that one booklet perfect, and you keep working it and working it, get it to the point of being very good, and leverage it into some other format or related topic. What you've done in the first effort is the ideal learning tool to make subsequent efforts that much better.

Until next time,
Paulette - who had a typo in the first 100,000 copies of her booklet
www.tipsbooklets.com

Booklets and Advertising

As yesterday's blog entry mentioned, the earliest marketing efforts for the booklet, "110 Ideas for Organizing Your Business Life," upon which an entire business was built over the past 16 years, started with publicity excerpts. The first 50,000 copies were sold one at a time through publicity excerpts. That happened by sending a booklet and a cover letter to hundreds of magazine editors, inviting them to excerpt from the booklet into an article they would write for their magazine, provided they put the complete ordering information for readers to get their own booklet. Tedious yet effective. Because of that and how the marketing activities unfolded since then , it's been the mantra to honestly say "over a million copies sold without ever spending a penny on advertising." It remains true today.

I recently saw a comment in an article by a local colleague, Henry DeVries of http://newclientmarketing.com/ that perfectly framed for me the concept of advertising (paying money in exchange for space to promote something). It was this: "Advertising – Isn’t it ironic that none of the great advertising agencies built their clientele by advertising?"

Henry spent many years in the advertising industry, so he knows whereof he speaks. And that's good enough for me! I'll stick with publicity and direct sales, thank you.

By the way, Henry is presenting a workshop in southern California that may be of interest to you.

Learn Trade Secrets of Turning Your Expertise

Into Great Business Leads

“How To Win Clients Through Speeches and Seminars”

An All-Day Workshop for Professionals, Consultants and Small Business Owners

Friday, March 30, 2007

Irvine, CA 92612 (near John Wayne Airport)

See his website for more info and to register

http://newclientmarketing.com/

Until next time,
Paulette - spending time and money wisely for the best ROI
www.tipsbooklets.com

Booklets and O, The Oprah Magazine

You may know that my earliest booklet marketing (and sales!) were through publicity excerpts in magazines. That's why I just had to bring you the following excellent article that was in this week's ezine from Joan Stewart of www.PublicityHound.com
==================

Good news for the gazillion Publicity Hounds who want to get into
O, The Oprah Magazine.

It clinched the top spot on Adweek's Hot List of magazines,
published yesterday. The list honors magazines with a track
record of advertising and circulation growth.

Overall, O's circulation was flat, but the fact that it's as big
as it is and still managed to grow nearly 10 percent in ad pages
in a very competitive category was the reason for the honor.

Oprah's magazine dethroned "People" magazine, last year's Hot
List champ, which this year didn't even make it into the top 10.
This year, "Real Simple" was ranked Number 2. "Us Weekly" held
steady in the Number 3 spot.

More, the magazine for middle-aged women, ranked fourth.

Condé Nast dominated the middle of the order, placing Teen Vogue,
Glamour, Allure and Wired in Numbers 5 through 8.

So what does all of this mean to Publicity Hounds?

Lots of ads usually translate into a bigger magazine with more
room for editorial copy. And bigger magazines mean more
opportunities for pitching.

Successful pitching, on the other hand, requires an intimate
knowledge of the kind of editorial content the magazine wants.
You also must be patient, persistent and have story ideas that
are customized for a particular magazine.

Susan Harrow's ebook "Get into O, the Oprah Magazine" offers in-
depth case studies of publicists who have gotten their clients
into the popular publication.

One of the secrets, Susan says, is that you must be willing to
wait up to two years before the editors review your pitch and say
yes. If you're willing to stay the course and keep in touch with
the magazine, you'll have a big advantage over most other people
who give up after two or three months.

The payoff can be huge.

Denise Loren, whose company makes DVDs for dogs and was featured
in O Magazine, got her products into more than 100 retail outlets
after the article appeared.

Even nonprofits can reap the benefits. Genevieve Piturro, who
founded the pajama project, a charity to give new PJs to poor
kids, went from five chapters to 30 and growing. She got 9,000
new PJs donated and a donation of $5,000 after appearing in O.

Read more about what you'll learn in Susan's ebook at
http://snipurl.com/1cas5

==============

Until next time,
Paulette - remembering from where she came
http://www.tipsbooklets.com

Booklets - Where Do You Start Selling?

The adage of starting with who you know has been bearing itself out here lately in my own business activities. Between public seminars in the works in these next months (see the following link) http://www.tipsbooklets.com/index.php?page=speaking.htm
and newly-bundled products and services at this link http://www.tipsbooklets.com/index.php?page=prodlist.php&c=27
the orders start from people who have already been in the circle, people who are familiar with my products, services, and business practices. Then it ripples out from there.

Amazing grasp of the obvious? Could be. It's an important reminder, I think, in case you are one who insists on reinventing a wheel each and every time you look at who to approach with your booklets and other related products and services. Start where you know. Your previous and current clients and prospects, your colleagues, professional associations in which you are a member, your neighbors, relatives, friends, people you've done business with, and, well, you get the idea. Bring the best of what you've got to the best of who you know.

Until next time,
Paulette - encouraging you to make life easy for yourself and others
www.tipsbooklets.com

A Booklet or a Book or a Newsletter or a Blog?

That's a conversation that used to happen. It was about which ONE of those publications was the best one to do. It's now AND not OR. And in my opinion, any of those can be the starting place. It really doesn't matter. Start anywhere and expand or contract into the other three. Each one of those formats will appeal to some slice of the population and will cross-market to your other formats. Worried about the time it takes? Do it piece-meal. There's increasing popularity in writing a book by creating a daily blog entry. I've also advocated writing a book by creating a series of booklets and then combining them. If you've already done the book, you've got lots of material to slice up for blog entries, tipsbooklets, and newsletter articles. Like so much else in life, no matter where you start, the important thing is that you do start!

Until next time,
Paulette - finding each day to be full of starts
www.tipsbooklets.com

Booklet Exceptions

Conventional wisdom is a good starting point with many things. I personally get a big kick out of the exceptions, though. A few of them came to mind today when thinking about booklets.

1. A electrical manufacturer's rep based in a US-owned off-shore territory was the first to buy a large quantity of my booklets in the early 1990's. They would never have been on my target market list, yet their payment cleared my checking account beautifully, and they distributed a few thousand booklets to an audience I never would have reached on my own.

2. A booklet author who writes about ways to support local political campaigns licensed her booklet to an investor relations department of a corporation for a tidy mid 5-figure payment, and they said they'd probably only produce 100 printed copies of the booklet. Clearly there was no price sensitivity on the part of that corporate department.

3. A client purchased several hundred copies of a booklet from an author based solely on the title of the booklet, without ever buying a copy of it from the ebooklet catalog on my site or hard copy from the author. This is one of the reasons I don't ever bother talking statistics when people ask what the best-selling booklets are on my site or wonder how much they can make. It's anyone's guess because things like this happen.

Don't you just love these things that fly in the face of how things are usually done? 'Works for me! Please let me know if you have more of these to add to the mix.

Until next time,
Paulette - always enjoying blazing that trail
www.tipsbooklets.com

Booklets Coming to a City or Country Near You

In case you're not a subscriber to the monthly ezine, Booklet Tips from Paulette (yeah, yeah, same name as this blog, I know), and you've been reading this blog with great interest, you'll want to know I'm traveling a bit in the next few months. Not only am I traveling, I'm bringing a fabulous workshop along with me. I'll be coming to:

• Sacramento, CA
• Chicago, IL
• New York, NY
• Birmingham, England

For all the details, go to http://www.tipsbooklets.com/index.php?page=speaking.htm
You don't really want to miss this, DO you?? Nah, I didn't think so.

Until next time,
Paulette - whose got the travel bug
www.tipsbooklets.com