Booklets - Giving Away Your Booklet

There are times when it makes total sense to give away your booklet. In fact, some booklet authors ONLY give it away because they decided to make that a clear and conscious strategy for market their business. Other booklet authors give away their booklet in addition to selling it. There is no "right" way to do this, only ways that work for you.

The longer I'm in the booklet business, the more important it has become to tune in to the many ways booklets are used, both online and offline. Because of that, I've created a live teleclass that I'm giving away, at no cost. You can attend this free one-hour content-rich session on Thursday, December 9 starting at 2:00 pm Eastern. Register for it at www.tipsbooklets.com/teleclass.html

The live session is no cost to you. Go on, what the heck are you waiting for? Go register now. You'll be so glad you did, I promise.

Until next time,

Paulette - who is excited to share ways for you to increase your reach and your bottom line

www.tipsbooklets.com

www.CollectionOfExperts.com

Booklets - Building Blocks of Branding

Liz Goodgold of www.redFIREbranding.com and I recently shared a speaking venue at an event about marketing with books. She generously offered to let me bring you some of her ideas so you, too, can light a fire under your branding efforts.

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So, Just What is Branding?

Branding is fun, hot, and creative. It is not difficult, it is not complicated, and you can do it.

What branding isn’t: it isn’t a hot iron searing into your hide (although with the proliferation of outrageous tattoos, that might someday be true). And it isn’t your logo, Web site, TV commercial, or slogan. It is, rather, the sum total of all of these marketing messages, including unintended ones, delivered via blogs, e-mail messages, social networking, and voice mail greetings that influence how others see you.

Your brand is not what you say it is. It’s what others say it is. Branding is perception.

You might walk around like William Hung believing you are destined to be a rock star on American Idol (remember “She Bangs”?), but in reality you can’t carry a tune. In fact, Hung became famous not because he can sing, but because he can’t!

Expanding Upon The Differences

Your goal is to find the background, nuances, specialty, or way of doing business that sets you apart from your competitors and then exploit, promote, and publicize these differences (your brand) into every single customer or prospect touch point.

If you are a dentist, for example, you can create your point of different based upon these options:

• Your Target Customer - children’s dentistry
• Your Way Of Doing Business – sedation dentistry
• Your Atmosphere – gentle, soothing (ex: Gentle Dental)
• Your Background – dental surgeon with over 20 years of experience

Quality, Service, and Price are NOT Points of Difference

As you’re determining your brand DNA, it’s important to dig beyond the obvious. Your key points of difference cannot be price, quality, and value. In fact, the assumption is that you have all of those traits before you even consider being in business.

Here’s a company that doesn’t get it: JC Penney. In a previous series of ads, the retailer did a good job of connecting with the customers by talking about the concern with price. But, then they tout that JC Penney is all about price, value, and style.

You need to focus on the things that really set you apart.

Hot Examples

Here are a few hot entrepreneur brand examples:

• Photographer Kristen Peelle is correctly positioned as a high-end, exclusive photographer; her image is burnished by demonstrating to her clients and prospects that taking good photographs to exceptional images is her specialty. This is an expert who not only takes out ugly “exit signs” or water sprinklers that taint a photo, but also nips in waists, eliminates unusual clothing issues, or takes out a few wrinkles.
• Mary Berney created The Dating Café. The challenge was to communicate how her events targeted specially for singles over 40 is better and different than just going to a bar. She now fully explains how she provides different and structured ice-breakers that start a meaningful conversation.

Find a Target and Stick with It

Many marketers will tell you to define your target customer by age, gender income, or zip code. Instead, target by your prospects’ mindset. In other words, get into their head to determine if they consider themselves health-minded, eco-conscious, frugal, a competitor in any circumstance, etc. This additional layer will help you create better copy, promotions, and marketing that will appeal to them.

Determine who Your Target Isn’t

Just as important as determining who your target is, create a list now of who your target isn’t. Perhaps you’ve already developed a screener for clients you accept. Knowing who should never be your client or customer will help keep you branded, delivering special experiences to a specific target.

Speaker and author Liz Goodgold is a considered a fireball of energy with over 25 years of experience in marketing and branding. She is the author of RED FIRE BRANDING: Create a Hot Personal Brand and Have Customers for Life and DUH! Marketing.Liz has worked for such major clients as Quaker Oats, Times Mirror, and Arco Oil as well as with small business owners and start-ups. Her specialized, one-on-one branding and coaching programs spark new ideas that deliver sure-fire results. An often quoted expert, Liz has appeared in over 500 media outlets including ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNBC, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. She also was the branding columnist for Entrepreneur magazine reaching over 1 million readers per month. www.redfirebranding.com

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Until next time,

Paulette - whose booklet brand has been out there since 1991

www.tipsbooklets.com

www.CollectionOfExperts.com

Booklets - Too Close to See the Starting Point

Last weekend I spoke at an event about marketing books. Most of the attendees had written at least one book. When later looking at the website of some of them, while there was truly a wealth of information on their site, it became obvious to me that the wealth of information also became a detriment to them.

In one case, there was a topic I was personally interested in, as a newcomer to the topic. What I found was that the site owner's expertise was represented at only an advanced level and not at a beginner level. This person has had a lot of success as an expert, yet wondered why sales were difficult at the website. My hunch is because those who were starting as beginners were only being offered the advanced information.

This can be an easy oversight the longer you've been establishing your expertise. Remember there are many people who want what you have. However, in many cases, they need to start at the beginning so they can grow with you and keep coming back for the next level of knowledge as they are ready for it.

Do a booklet with basic information, and do it now.

Until next time,

Paulette - remembering the elementary school kids I taught who held a violin for the first time in third grade

www.tipsbooklets.com

www.CollectionOfExperts.com

Booklets - Change the Boring "101" to an Exciting New Product

"101" is a popular number to use for the number of tips, ideas, ways, or whatever in a tips booklet. I've personally never been fond of it since my own style is to differentiate rather than to fall in line with what a lot of other people do.

However, if your booklet has any number other than 104 (either less or more than that), consider adding or subtracting to what you have so that it is 104. By doing that, you end up with two years' worth of a tip a week. That gives you the opportunity to send your community one useful tip from your expertise each and every week, keeping you in front of the people who want what you've got.

AND ...if that gives you that opportunity to stay in touch with your people on a weekly basis, it also gives anyone you'd like to license your tips to the same marketing opportunity. The licensee can drip a tip on their mailing list, subscriber list, list of prospects and/or buyers, each and every week. And the licensee pays you for the right for them to use your content in that way.

If you're nowhere near 101 tips at all, and you're closer to 52 tips, well, then you've got one year of weekly tips. Not so bad, either, is it?

Until next time,

Paulette - reminding you of the salable products you've got that are right under your nose

www.tipsbooklets.com

www.CollectionOfExperts.com

Booklets - Long Deadlines Are Often Deadly

How likely are you to actually get around to writing your 3,500-word tips booklet that you declared your intention to complete by Spring of 2011, when this is now almost Winter of 2010, roughly six months away?

Some reasons you could be telling yourself are related to time and having enough of it. That's a frequently used catch-all. You might also doubt your ability to write, or are unsure about the demand for what you've got.

No matter what, it comes down to the value you place on the tips booklet in your life. Yup, as simple as that. If you thought that booklet would open doors for you to places you want to go, that it would increase your revenue and profit (certainly not necessarily the same as each other), that it would accomplish some milestone, you'd do that booklet faster than a New York minute. In fact, the fastest that I've ever known a booklet author to create a tips booklet was when he sequestered himself overnight in his hotel room after attending a workshop I presented that day.

You'd find time. You'd start writing and then refine your information. You'd think about likely buyers of your booklet. You'd get beyond the reasons so you could create results.

Until and unless you believe there is some kind of value for you, you can set any deadline you want, and the odds are high that it probably won't get done.

By the way, that's the same deal with the people you approach to buy your booklet. Until and unless you communicate the value of your booklet to them, they will tell you to call them again next year. Uh yeah, right.

For a step-by-step guide on how to write your booklet NOW, and start selling them immediately after that, you'll want to have How to Promote Your Business with Booklets - 4th edition. If you have been thinking about getting it and have yet to do so, we need to talk about what value you're looking for and how this will provide that to you!

Until next time,

Paulette - a former New Yorker who is about NOW rather than later, even in California

www.tipsbooklets.com

www.CollectionOfExperts.com

Booklets and Technology -- Overwhelmed or Overjoyed

When it comes to marketing your booklet, are you overwhelmed rather than overjoyed by the endless possibilities with social media? Do you find yourself paralyzed instead of in possibility mode, thinking the entire world is passing you by, so why bother?

There is a simple cure for this. Think about any one thing you can do, and do it. See if any of these feel more do-able or prompt other ideas that are:

• Send the PDF of your booklet as an email attachment to the people who attended a recent workshop or teleclass you presented as a way to stay in touch with your past, present, and future clients.

• Write an article that includes excerpted tips from your booklet, referencing a way for the reader to get your complete booklet. Include an invitation to visit your website. Post the article at your website or at an article directory or both, or send it to an online or offline publication for reprint.

• Offer a copy of your booklet to your ezine readers, Facebook "friends," or Twitter followers in exchange for their email address as a way to stay in touch, add to your list, and announce the availability of your booklet.

• Post a tip from your booklet at Facebook or Twitter, with a link back to your site.

• Introduce your booklet to decision makers of organizations to which you belong, for them to buy copies from you for them to use as a fundraiser for the organization.

For more step-by-step suggestions of basic, simple ways to dip your toes into the large sea of social media and other non-Internet sales possibilities, rush right over to get your copy of Promote Your Business with Booklets right now. Be sure you've got the latest (4th edition). It also comes with stories of what other successful booklet authors have done. Go on, go get it. What are you waiting for? You CAN do that, and you'll be so glad you did.

Until next time,

Paulette - teaching you to take one step at a time toward the results you want

www.tipsbooklets.com

www.CollectionOfExperts.com

Booklets - Branding Matters

A booklet is...a booklet.

It's not a brochure, a pamphlet, a book, or any other things some people may call it. In fact, those other words describe something different than what a booklet is.

Now, if you think this is merely a matter of semantics and my being super-sensitive about a brand I've spent the past almost 20 years reinforcing, think about the importance of branding in a different context.

Cher, the well known singer and actor, is recognized far and wide very simply by that name. When you see or hear that name, it brings to mind certain things that have become her trademark during the decades she has been doing what she does. Would she be the same recognizable person if people casually and interchangeably referred to her as Cheri? No, that is someone else.

A booklet -- and a tips booklet, at that -- is something different than a brochure, pamphlet, or book. Stay conscious and consistent in the words you choose, especially when it comes to building the brand that is your business.

Until next time,

Paulette - part of whose brand is Paulette, not Paula or Pauline

www.tipsbooklets.com

www.CollectionOfExperts.com

Booklets - The "So What" Test

When you contact someone to invest in a large quantity of your tips booklet(s), does your communication with them pass the "so what" test?

Imagine this: you answer your phone to hear "this is Joe Shmoe and we have the greatest thing since sliced bread. We're so excited about it that we're completely jumping out of our skin...and on and on and on."

Or the same thing in a letter that accompanies a sample of your booklet: "I just finished this booklet that took me 12 years to write. As you know, surveys say the best thing since sliced bread these days is wheat. Wheat is grown in the months of... and on and on and on."

So what??? Who cares???

In both those instances, you lost the receiver of your communication, I am very sure. No matter how good the content is in your booklet, the person you're contacting must be told immediately how this tips booklet will help them. Period. That's it. Will it help them sell more of their product, get more market share, save money, increase their customer base, or other things that matter to your buyer?

It has to be in the first or second sentence, or don't bother. You can tell yourself all kinds of reasons why someone isn't buying from you, when it probably comes down to your not telling them how your tips booklet is beneficial to them.

THAT is so what!

Until next time,

Paulette - encouraging you to focus on how your booklet benefits your buyer and to clearly communicate it at all times

www.tipsbooklets.com

www.CollectionOfExperts.com