How Close Are You to the Money?

John Kremer made an important point in his comment to yesterday's post here on this blog. The point refers to the return on your investment of time. John said he's basically a lazy man. I prefer to view it as being efficient. I like to get as close to the person who will buy the most as I possibly can. It's not always possible to do that in a straight line, and other times it is.

My earliest days in the booklet business were fueled by garnering publicity excerpts in magazines. It brought lots of single-copy sales plus opened the door to some much larger things in the way of bulk sales and licensing opportunities to expand my product line. Those publicity excerpts were not too different in concept from the end result of the social networking today. It's casting a lot of seeds without knowing which ones will take root and how they will develop. There's just more technology to do it. And you already know where I stand on technology (read yesterday's post).

Going after bulk sales to companies and associations can take longer (or not!), and, in a perfect world, is a direct route. I say in a perfect world because I've had experiences of being bounced around from executive to executive until the final buying decision was approved months later. However, that decision was usually a pretty substantial buy.

Bottom line is that what often works well with sales is like lots of other things in life. A balanced and varied diet maintains the health and well-being of your company. (and your physical health and your financial portfolio!).

Until next time,
Paulette - who loves the phrase, "Show Me the Money" as much as anyone else does
www.tipsbooklets.com -- where you can subscribe to my ezine and get a free report

Booklet Promotion is Endless

I am admittedly a later adapter of technology. It's just how I'm wired. And once I do jump onto a particular bandwagon, it's obvious how helpful it turns out to be. My overwhelm with technology is something I see in many other people when it comes to both technology and marketing. I mention them together because they are increasingly part of the same thing.

Years ago, John Kremer wrote "1001 Ways to Market Your Book." I've got three editions of this book, each thicker than the one before it. John talks about a matrix of 5 -- doing 5 things to promote your book everyday. He added a lot about the Internet in his most recent edition that came out a couple years ago. John's book runs a gamut of book marketing approaches and his book is also very useful for booklet authors.

Between his book, and the increasing number of online possibilities, I go into overload. How about you? LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, my blog, everyone else's blog, and on and on and on. Yes, it could be time to find an intern who does nothing but social network promotion for me. Many people enjoy the technology, get a kick out of the marketing, and would love the idea of helping someone. Yup, I think that's my solution, at least for now, anyway.

Until next time,
Paulette - digging out from the technological avalanche
www.tipsbooklets.com