I think of each of my books as a puzzle, because if you have all the right pieces, and you put them all together properly, you end up with a masterpiece.
But, just like any puzzle, if you just randomly force the pieces into place you’re left with a mess. In this case you’re left with a mess that wasted a lot of your time and will never make you much money.
So, when designing, marketing, or pitching your book your main focus needs to be in showing the end user (the buyer) what benefits they’ll attain from investing their hard earned money and time into your book AND what sets your system apart from all the others.
Watch the words I’m using – when you were writing your book, your ONLY focus should have been to create a book that would help the “reader” to get specific results and to give them that information in an easy-to-understand and easy-to-implement fashion.
But now, your focus is no longer on the “reader” but on the “potential buyer”.
Here’s a completely different mindset that a person has when they’re deciding whether or not they’ll be buying your book as oppose to whether or not they’ll be reading your book.
Tailor your book design to the “buyer” and the contents to the “reader”
Now the buyer could be an individual, a group of people, a company buying books for their employees, a publisher, or a book store purchasing agent … but remember what we spoke about in previous lessons on marketing …
…No matter how large the group you’re selling to – you’re really only selling to the 1 decision maker in that group. Solve their problem, or give them an easy solution that works, and you’ll seal the deal.
For our purposes here, we’re going to call that uniqueness, your ‘USP’.
The letters ‘USP’, for those of you who have never heard of this term stand for ‘unique selling proposition’.
In other words, what’s differentiates your book from the rest of the pack?
Why should someone buy your book, or product, or service, or hire you, instead of any of the others in your industry?
Here’s a little exercise that will help you create your USP.
The single biggest benefit your reader will get if they buy, read, and implement any of the applicable techniques in your book?
Now condense the wording you used to describe that benefit, into one small sentence – or better yet, try to condense the benefit into just a few words…
List the top 3 attributes that set you apart from any of the others in your industry…
1.
2.
3.
Now combine your condensed (yet powerful and descriptive) sentence with your top 1 or 2 unique attributes.
That’s Your USP!
Now after you have a good UPS … and a good USP is something that’s normally very hard to decide on for a business, but after you do a survey and a teleseminar with a Q&A session – your USP is going to materialize from all the amazing content that your listeners gave you.
The value of surveying your list, no matter how small of large it is, and the value of staying in touch with them using teleseminars and free Q&As is ongoing.
Unless I find an even better way to reach out and touch my list from the privacy of my own home, with even less effort on my part and more convenient for all those involved, I just don’t see me stopping my survey’s and teleseminars any time in the near future. Each time I survey my list or do a teleseminar with Q&As the list of benefits I get grows.
…in fact, I was a guest on a call last week where I was introduced with a quick 2 or 3 minute introduction. Then I was handed the call and I did a full 70 minute educational teleseminar. During that call I pitched and filled up my next e-class, and then I stayed on the call for nearly 2 additional hours answering questions…
…one of the callers came on and before she asked her question she thanked me – she thanked me for about 3 full minutes – for being so generous with my time and staying on the call for so long. She said she’s been on loads of other teleseminars and has never seen a host or a guest willing to devote so much time for free…
…now that made me feel real good – and I’m always willing to stay on as long as my time permits because with every question a person asks me I’m learning more about how I can better service them in the future – with my books, audio’s, seminars, sales letters, newsletters, blogs, etc, etc, etc…
…and that’s worth more to me for the few hours I devoted to those listeners!!!