Booklets and Your Assumptions

As humans of any flavor, assumptions are part of the deal. Some assumptions are useful and productive, and others are counterproductive, particularly when it comes to creating and marketing booklets. Here are a few to ponder. Notice what happens, especially, when absolutes are included.

1. Everything has been written on my topic already.

Do you personally own every single resource that's been created on your expertise? Of course not, no matter how large a library you have. So create your product anyway, and do it now.

2. No one is around or in buying mode in companies during December, much less during the week between Christmas and New Year.

Not only are there people who cherish this often-quiet time in the office, many times there is still money left in the current year's budget that comes under the "use it or lose it" banner.

3. It's impossible to reach anyone at big companies who would be large quantity buyers.

Yes, it is often a challenge to reach people. It can be easier during slow times like holiday season. Another doorway in to finding the right person can sometimes be to ask the Customer Service department to give you the right name and way to reach the person you want.

4. The price is too high/too low to be attractive to my buyers.

Yes, it may be one or the other. Find out by doing some research before your launch and by carefully monitoring sales once you do launch.

5. A tips booklet is too small to attract interest and sales.

That is true for some buyers and completely untrue for others. In many cases, the booklet is the perfect entry point to your business and your expertise. In other cases, a buyer wants more information right away. Having you information in multiple formats satisfies more people, including you as the business own.

6. "Such and such" is the only market for my booklet.

Probably not. It may be a logical starting point, and is rarely the finish line. Buyers can and do show up from places you'd never expect, and the places you expected may never end up buying at all. Brainstorm to identify other directions to go with what you have.

Look at just these 6 assumptions as a sample of your overall thinking. As soon as you notice yourself going to "all," "every," "always," "only," and other absolutes, the odds are high that your assumptions are not serving you or your people very well. You may be in for some very happy surprises once you let go of those assumptions.

Until next time,
Paulette - continuously amazed by the delightfully unexpected

www.tipsbooklets.com
www.CollectionOfExperts.com

Booklets - It's About Time

December often brings reflection on where the year has gone and what will come next, especially for cultures based on the 12-month Julian calendar of January to December. In some ways, it's an artificial structure. After all, you can start a project at any point and have it last for any length. You probably already noticed that to be true in creating and marketing a booklet or any other information product.

Let's look at 5 best times related to booklets and your business

1. Best time to map out a business development overview - now, no matter when "now" is. And revisit this on a frequent basis. Whatever seemed ideal to you when you set down your initial plan will definitely have things changing. You'll have different information, inspiration, and inclination as part of traveling life's path. Expect the inevitable change and use it to your advantage.

2. Best time to write your booklet - when you're ready, either prompted by internal or external motivation. You may be encouraged by your muse, your altruism, your checking account, or your next buyer who wants what you have yet to create. And it'll take you as long to write the booklet as it takes you - overnight or over years.

3. Best time to seek input about your product - before and during the development stages. Not only is it likely that you're too close to your own content, there are people in your circles who can give valuable suggestions for you to incorporate or discard. Everyone charges for this in some way, either in money or their expectation that you take their advice or that you return the favor. Sometimes the money is the least expensive.

4. Best time to declare your booklet "done" - when you realize you and everyone you know has reviewed it umpteen times and you're all sick of looking at it. A missing period, a misplaced comma, or a wrong digit in your telephone number may still survive all those reviews, and it won't really matter. It will get fixed and people will find you and buy from you anyway. It is not the end of the world.

5. Best time to market your booklet - any time and all the time. There is always some company, association, or website who has a need, a challenge that your booklet can solve. Depending on the industry you're approaching, some times of the year are better than others, based on their cycles. Someone needs what you've got at every point through the year.

You probably found yourself smiling or giggling as you read some of those, didn't you, as if your deepest innermost thoughts were being broadcasted to the greater world? Well, if you've been using your opinions about time that differ from any of the above as reasons NOT to move forward, please accept my personal invitation to view it from a different perspective. Just take a moment, that's all. See what it looks like. Experiment with just one area, as most tips booklets suggest to readers. Incorporate one thing from the above list and see how your results change. After all, it's about time, isn't it?

Until next time,
Paulette - who wonders when the best time is for you to invest in the Booklet Author Success series

www.tipsbooklets.com
www.CollectionOfExperts.com

Introverts and Tips Booklets

Over the years and just this week, there has been a continuous conversation about introverts and sales. A couple of useful quotes from two highly respected colleagues:

• "I love helping people who hate to sell minimize their reluctance." - Patricia Weber
• "I'd rather go to the dentist than to a party." - Marcia Yudkin

Marcia also made this point in her ezine this week:

"A quieter style can be strong, creative and alluring.  Too often, though, introverts swallow the myth that they compare poorly with chatterboxes when it comes to bringing in business."

When considering how you approach your booklet buyers, whether through web marketing promotion, by telephone, or in person, remember there are ways to work with instead of against your personality to bring the solutions you have to those who want them.

And by bringing those solutions to your buyers, you reward yourself with increased sales. Your booklets become the best business cards for everything you do.

Until next time,
Paulette - who understands and completely agrees with Marcia's point of view


www.tipsbooklets.com
www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
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Online Booklet a Good Idea

After recently writing about whether your bulk booklet buyers prefer paper or pixels, the following showed up in an Internet Retailer ezine. A savvy booklet author and marketer will see this industry intelligence for the great opportunity and invitation that it is.

The Internet kills off Penney's big-book catalogs

With consumers shifting to shopping online and placing fewer paper orders, J.C. Penney (No. 15) will no longer publish its twice-yearly big-book catalogs. J.C. Penney will shift more resources to the web and smaller specialty catalogs.

Whether you choose to approach the person/department responsible for marketing the primary website activities or go to those in charge of the smaller specialty catalogs, the electronic versions of your content can be used by a company like J.C. Penney in the same ways that they would have used your printed version -- to increase sales! What do you have that could be a match for a company like this? This kind of licensing deal to their marketing department could be huge for you and for them.

Until next time,
Paulette - appreciating how the changing times prompts new twists on old ideas

www.tipsbooklets.com
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Booklets are the Best Business Cards

Think about the pile of business cards you likely have in a rubber band in your desk drawer. When was the last time you glanced through that bundle, much less contacted anyone in there?

Yes, the title of this blog post is a bold statement, you're right. However, think about your attitude about the author of a booklet that is sitting in your desk drawer. That person makes a very different statement in your mind about the business they have, their credibility, their accessibility, and probably a few other good things.

Make your booklets be the best business cards anyone has, directly from you or, better yet, distributed by a company or association who bought them in large quantities from you, to help them further their own promotional activities.

Until next time,
Paulette - who rarely distributes standard business cards anymore

www.tipsbooklets.com
www.CollectionOfExperts.com
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One Size Fits All with Booklets and Marketing - NOT

It warmed my heart this week to see my colleague, Marcia Yudkin, talk in her Marketing Minute ezine about the need to market based on who your clients and prospects are and how they make their buying choices. Seems pretty obvious, doesn't it? Yet you may lose track of that as you get swept up in the enthusiasm of Internet marketing.

Marcia contrasted the common wisdom of current Internet marketing "squeeze pages" (give me your name and contact info and I'll let you in the door to then sell you what I've got) compared to the longer buying process of committees, considerations, and communication.

It can be tempting to succomb to what can seem easier (note all those wiggle words I purposely included there). The fact is that a large-quantity booklet buyer probably won't be attracted to what has now become an accepted Internet marketing approach, one that works well for a single-copy buyer.

Whether you're marketing booklets or anything else dealing with humans, one size does NOT fit all in your marketing approach.

Until next time,
Paulette - who is amazed that clothing manufacturers still think we believe one size fits all, too

www.tipsbooklets.com
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Booklet Becomes Entire Product Line - Great Example

Several years ago, my friend and long-time colleague, Andrew Chapman, wrote a tips booklet about how to get straight A's in college since he had done that very thing - got straight A's! He recently expanded that information to create an entire product line based on keeping a high college GPA and is now focusing on large-quantity buyers and licensees to use a range of formats of his materials as promotional tools.

You'll find an excellent example of how he presents this whole product line at:
http://www.collegestudentmarketingsolutions.com/solutions.html

Andrew also understands the value of joint ventures, in case you have any introductions you'd like to make on his behalf and share in the profits.

Until next time,
Paulette - expecting great results from this for Andrew and everyone else involved


www.tipsbooklets.com
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www.PublishingProsperity.com
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Booklets are Cheesy

Yes, some of them are. They have been poorly produced, their content is "ho-hum," or it's good content that wasn't professionally edited. And the booklet turned out cheesy for any or all those reasons, I agree.

However, if none of that is true, and you are comparing a booklet to a book when you say it's cheesy, then your perspective is limited.

* Susan Friedmann of www.thetradeshowcoach.com sold more than 250,000 of her booklets to a company who used them promotionally to increase their sales

* Peter Thomson of www.PeterThomson.com sold hundreds of thousands of his booklets to corporate clients who used them to increase their sales.

* I sold limited rights of a quarter million copies of my booklet to a then-major catalog company who increased their sales 13% by giving away the booklet free with any purchase in one of their catalog editions

And many, many booklet authors have had a wide range of positive results in using booklets as a marketing tool, income stream or both, regardless of whether they had a book to sell or not. 3,500 well-constructed words took less time and money to create, and served their readers and buyers (who are not always the same as each other) well.

Booklets cheesy? Depends on your point of view, doesn't it?

Until next time,
Paulette - who has made a living for 18 years on 3,500 words

www.tipsbooklets.com
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Paper or Pixels?

"Paper or plastic" is a common question posed at the check out stand at many grocery stores. You are asked for your preference of containers to carry out your purchases, even in these times of bringing our own re-useable bags to the store.

There are numerous elements in that exchange that are relevant when it comes to tips booklets and your sales.

When was the last time you asked your buyers (whether single copy or large quantity buyers or even the media) if they wanted the paper or the pixel (PDF) version of your product? People typically have a preference, and sometimes for reasons you might not imagine. Here are just a few things that influence a choice of paper over pixels or pixels over paper:

• immediacy of delivery
• cost
• conservation
• focus on content more than container or other way around

The key thing here is to ask what someone wants. If it turns out more of your people want pixels rather than paper, you directly benefit in both time and money. It costs you less of each to take the buying conversation to the next level. And as for the folks who bring their own bag to the store, well, the parallel to that with booklets turns out to be the licensing deals, where the buyer gets permission from you to do the production themselves.

Until next time,
Paulette - delighted by how pixels are increasingly being chosen, yet paper still matters

www.tipsbooklets.com
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It's All About ...

...them, not you and not your tips booklet or any other format of your product. That includes when you're talking with a colleague about possible joint venturing, or to a large-quantity prospect at a company or association.

Someone who has known of my work for many years contacted me last Friday afternoon to invite me into a joint venture with her. The entire time we were on the phone, the person made it all about herself and her achievements. While I agree it's useful to have some background about a potential business partner, there was no give and take, no balance, no real interest in a conversation as much as it being a monologue. Then she followed up on Monday with an email in the same way. What WAS she thinking? Even if there had been any remote match here in what she was proposing, there was less than zero interest in my part in doing any business with her. It's too bad, too, since I think she probably has a good product.

It is and will always be about them - whoever it is you are contacting. It is about how your products and services improve the business of the person you are approaching. There are endless ways you can positively add to their business. Focus on that and see the improvement in your business as a result of it.

Until next time,
Paulette - still trying to shake off the "stuff" this woman left all over me

www.tipsbooklets.com
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So Many Booklet Prospects, So Little Time

Many booklet authors suffer an embarrassment of riches when it comes to prospective directions to go with their booklet and other information product sales. That was the case with a booklet author I recently spoke to. She created an excellent and lengthy list of directions to go to sell large quantities of her booklet and related info products. The list included companies, associations, websites, retailers, private practitioners, and more.

First we discussed approaching any of the private practitioners through their professional associations instead of individually. That immediately led to talking with people the booklet author knew, to get introductions to the associations and also to companies. The more the booklet author and I talked, the more people came to mind for her to approach, even though we started the conversation with "who do you already know to put at the top of your list to talk to?" It wasn't until we started exploring specific directions did specific names come to mind.

The more we talked, the more the booklet author came up with people -- family members, professional people she had gone to, neighbors, colleagues.

How do you streamline your process, especially when you have many, many directions to go? Sometimes it's a direct route to identify those people you already know, and other times it takes roaming around in your thoughts to be reminded of who those ideal people are. Regardless of how you do it, start capturing names and ideas so you always have a destination in mind no matter how you're feeling at any given moment.

Until next time,
Paulette - remembering how some of the least likely prospects turned into the biggest and best sales

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
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Hot Topics and Hot Sales for Booklets

What's the hottest topics for writing tips booklets? It the one(s) you get most excited about. Simple as that. Many people talk about writing to topics in great demand. Some oldies and goodies are things like food, kids, pets, money, and sex. If you have to do specific research on a topic and it is a stretch for you to be passionate about it and it needs separate marketing from a business you already have, you are likely to have different (lower!) sales results than when you create products representing something that's meaningful to you and that you're already promoting. It will probably be harder for you to sustain your own interest over time.

In the past few weeks, a wide range of fascinating booklet topics have been birthed by people whose life is represented in their booklet. Here's a sample of those topics:

• How to Choose a Nursing Home - from a geriatric specialist who works in nursing homes
  
• Tips for Girls Volleyball - from a former pro women's volleyball athlete
• Selecting a Financial Planner & Managing Your Money - from a financial planner
• Self-Care for Caregivers - from a long-time spousal caregiver
• Guide for Single Women to Find Their Guy - from a single female author on the same topic
• Parenting the Troubled Teen - from a pediatrician who works with teens
  
• Creative Ways to Use Leftovers - from a military wife who does this for her family

While food, money, and kids are among the topics represented in that list, they are done by people whose lives are greatly involved in those areas.

The above list doesn't scratch the surface of the thousands of booklet authors, worldwide, who are writing and selling their booklets. These people have a passion for their information and have contacts they are approaching for large-quantity sales.

Next time you ask yourself what the hot topics are for booklets, ask yourself what it is you bubble over about anytime you've got the opportunity to share your knowledge with anyone who will listen. That is your hot topic. Start writing your tips!

Until next time,
Paulette - always happy to explore this with you to discover your hot topic


www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
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How to Talk to a Large-Quantity Booklet Buyer

"I've got something that will help your company/association make more money."

How would that grab your attention when someone starts a conversation with you that way? I'd probably at least let them get another sentence or two out, wouldn't you? It's all about the buyer and the buyer's needs/wants -- and it always will be.

It's about getting some idea of what may be helpful to them, and then verifying that with them. Yes, it can and is as simple as that. The size of the booklet, the length of it, the number of pages, the cover design, the number of ink colors on the cover are all much later in the conversation.

First it is and will always be about how your product can make your buyer's life more (revenue/profit), better (position out in the world), or different (from their competition). When you address the buyer's wants and/or needs, you start a relationship, one that can last for years.

Until next time,
Paulette - reflecting on the fact it's about them not you/me

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
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Booklet Buyers and Timing

What story are you telling yourself about the perfect time to contact large-quantity buyers? You might be saying it's too late or too early or the wrong time of year or the perfect time of year. In some industries, yes, there is an ideal time to approach them. If you miss it, you'll probably need to wait a year for the next point in their cycle. Calendar companies are a perfect example of that. They are more than a year ahead in planning, manufacturing, and distributing their calendars. If you have a booklet or other product you want a calendar company to consider, that's the kind of lead time you're looking at.

Sometimes logic gets in the way of taking action rather than supports it. A booklet author who wrote a booklet for college students was happily surprised when a college made a fast decision to purchase a quantity of his booklets in the spring for the incoming students arriving in late summer. The entire transaction took about 6 weeks - record speed for such a purchase. Other colleges could have a similar process that happens in January or some other point in the year. This particular one happened in the spring.

Let your clients and prospective clients be the ones to tell you what their timing is about rather than you attempting to second-guess it. Stay in motion, filling your pipeline with people and organizations who are interested in what you have when they are ready.

Until next time,
Paulette - who can't even count the number of guesses that have been off the mark, in a good way

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign

Give Your Booklet Away to Make Money

Today was the first of the 3-part Booklet Author Success series. It was even more fun than I thought it would be. That speaks to the difference between creating something in a vacuum and then putting it into real time. I mapped out 4 questions for each of he 3 booklet authors, including a completely open-ended question, providing a certain framework, and then let it rip. Each of the 3 booklet authors not only brought their unique perspective to the conversation, they added things I had overlooked, and we all shared some chuckles along the way.

One of the big things I originally overlooked was the technique of giving away the booklet, in printed copy or as a download, as a way to generate other sales in your business. Years ago I had a client who did that very successfully with his family law practice. He strategically gave copies of his booklet about ways to diffuse the battle of divorce to professionals who were in a good position to refer the level of client he was seeking. That meant judges, mediators, therapists.

Today, Caleb Scoville of www.northbankaudio.com talked about some promotional campaigns he recently did where he focused on the collaborative Collection of Experts booklet he was in as a give-away to successfully reconnect with previous clients and prospective clients and generate new business as a result of it. That was, of course, only one of the things he shared with us.

The other two booklet authors on today's call (Peter Thomson from the UK www.PeterThomson.com and Andrew Chapman www.achapman.com) brought completely different experiences to the discussion about product development and big sales. In case you missed this, you can still sign up for the remaining 2 calls in the series, and get downloadable audio recordings and text transcripts of all three calls. Do it now! Just one new idea or perspective could catapult you to heights you never imagined.

Click here to reach the Booklet Author Success series

Until next time,
Paulette - who happily had way more fun today than anticipated

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
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Who Does Best Selling Their Booklets?

Many people think it's best to write a booklet based on "what's hot." That will typically be topics like money, foot, kids, weight, sex, pets, or trends or items in the recent news. Yes, there is a continuing demand for those topics, no doubt about it. Strange as it may seem, though, there is no guarantee those will sell any better than a booklet on road safety, better blogging, forgiveness, or model railroading as a hobby.

You may wonder how the heck that's possible. It's actually quite simple. When you have expertise in and enthusiasm for a particular subject, it's easier to "get that all over people" than when you are writing about something you believe to be a popular topic where you have no first-hand experience or passion. Your first-hand experience is likely to also include knowledge of resources who would find your booklet useful for their own (promotional) purposes. You've got a leg-up over the people who are purely doing research as an objective exercise to get the job done. You also have contacts, whether direct or several times removed, to reach the decision makers who will buy your booklets.

So the closest thing to a magic bullet in all of this is to write on what you know. Write on what excites you. You're going to find it so much easier to engage people when you do. Then your biggest challenge will be how quickly you can deliver all those booklets they want to buy!

Until next time,
Paulette - speaking from first-hand experience and observation about all of this for almost 2 decades

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
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Why a TIPS booklet?

People have periodically asked me if they could do a booklet that has little stories in it or is made up of quotes or poems. They wonder how or if that would work. My answer is yes, it could work just as much as tips work. It's just a completely different intention for the content, though the marketing applications could be the same.

A tips booklet is intended to directly instruct the reader about something. It's not to say stories, quotes, or poems wouldn't be instructional. They are probably a little less direct though. The reader also has a preferred learning style. Some people just want to get right to the point. Others like to be lulled into learning (now that's a turn of a phrase, isn't it?). Yet others are not interested in learning as much as wanting primarily to be entertained or to find some escapism.

The booklets can be sold in bulk as promotional tools for companies and associations just as a tips booklet would be. Many companies and associations buy books of every size and subject to use as gifts and promotional items. So the marketing would be the same no matter what your content.

Like everything else in life, there really isn't one size that fits all. However, my work since 1991 has been all about tips booklets, which are perfect for the "bottom line" kinda person I am.

Until next time,
Paulette - quickly getting to the point

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
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Licensing Your Booklet and Other Info Products

Want to "rent" your booklet content out, with your client doing the work and paying you for it? Then you'll definitely want to attend this week's special teleclass session I'm presenting on the telephone.

Thursday, August 6, 7:00 pm Eastern

License Your Info Products and Contents to Websites,Companies, and Publications

Paulette Ensign - lecture with Q & A presented as part of www.PublishingProsperity.com

Granting specific rights to use your content or produce your information product is among the least-tapped revenue sources and ways to extend your message within and beyond your country, at 100% profit.

Learn to leverage the material you've already developed by "renting" it out.

Give your client specifically defined non-exclusive rights to:

• produce your information in the format you've developed it
• use it in English and/or other languages
• benefit from downloadable versions
• re-purpose parts or all of your content in literally endless ways

Discover how you can create it once and make money over and over with your client doing all the work!

Session registration includes mp3 audio recording and PDF text transcript.

Details and Registration

Booklet Sales - It's Been a Whole Week

Booklet authors never cease to amaze me. Sometimes it's "good" amazement and other times it's a complete groaner. This week brought one of the latter. Someone who took an in-person workshop I presented earlier this year emailed me to say her booklet was finished and she didn't realize how hard it would be to sell booklets. I continue reading the laundry list of places she sent the booklet, all of which seemed logical for her topic. And then the crowning glory of the email: "It's already been a whole week since I sent the letter and booklet, and I haven't sold anything yet."

Okay, now I know I've been in this business a long time. But really, did you expect to have results from corporate decision makers within a week? I couldn't help myself but to reply with "tell me what you've done after you've tried something that really didn't work."

A week? Sheesh. It's very likely the recipient hasn't even unearthed the envelope that contains the booklet yet in a week, much less thought about if it's something that fits a promo campaign or not and talked to everyone else who has to sign off on it for the purchase to happen. So folks, let's get some reality base here. While corporate sales are most definitely a reality, happen a lot, and can be very lucrative, they do take time. It can be weeks or months. A week? Verrrrry rare.

Until next time,
Paulette - wondering where I neglected to teach this part during that class and in my materials

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
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www.tipsbooklets.com
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Booklet Benefits

What's the benefit of your booklet to the recipient? That seems like a simple question, yet one that many booklet authors never consider. It does get somewhat complicated, too, when your buyer is a corporation or association or website rather than the end-user.

So let's back up here for a moment. You write your booklet because you have information to share, whether from your professional life or personal life. You write your booklet because you want it to market your business and/or to bring in new revenue directly by selling it. Okay, so those are the benefits to you, the author.

Back to the benefits to the recipient. The large-quantity buyer and the end-user do have some similarities in how the booklet benefits them, or rather CAN benefit them. It will make their life more, better, or different in some way. The booklet can make the large-quantity buyer's life better as a vehicle to help them sell more of their own product or get their own word out there further. The booklet can make the end-user's life better by bringing new knowledge to them that will enhance their life.

It is ALL about the benefits of your booklet. Keep that in mind when talking with anyone and you are very likely to benefit by selling a whole lot more booklets.

Until next time,
Paulette - bringing good stuff to better serve people

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign