Remember the last time you took a new job with a new employer? The reasons that brought you to that decision were undoubtedly many and complex. Did anyone ever ask you why? Probably not. Why don’t you do something different and start asking new hires why they decided to join your company?

Asking this question will provide you with insights on several levels. You’ll learn about your organization’s reputation in the industry. You might gain insight into your organization’s relative position on salaries and benefits. You might learn something about your reputation as a leader. You’ll gain insight into your new hire’s decision making process. You can gauge their reaction when asked an unexpected question. Lots of good information, don’t you think?

This is a great place to reiterate the value of silence when asking a challenging question. Years ago, when I was in sales, I learned a valuable technique. It was presented as a sales technique, but I’ve learned that it works in many different situations for many different people including salespeople, customer service representatives, spouses, parents, and leaders, to name a few. It’s deceptively simple, as many effective techniques are, and it works like this. When you ask a question, shut up until the answerer answers.

Sounds pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? Try it, and you’ll discover how difficult it is to execute. Most of us are uncomfortable with silence, and so we jump in to fill it. This behavior has lots of consequences—different ones in different situations—but all of them serious. In the sales world, the commonly held wisdom says it this way: The first person who talks after the question loses. When a questioner fills the silence after their own question, they do lose, big-time.

This is a perfect question to use to practice and develop your comfort with silence. It’s the really at the end of the question that guarantees the need for the answerer to pause to consider their reply. The addition of that simple word pushes the answerer beyond the quick, glib response they might have had ready after considering how much truth you’re looking for.

So, ask this question and wait, comfortably, while maintaining eye contact, and then wait some more. You’ll continue to be surprised how critical silence is for getting good answers to questions, and this question will give you lots of opportunity to practice.

Every successful organization I’ve encountered, as a consultant or as a consumer, is passionate about their customers. When people in an organization hear their leaders at all levels talking about their customers at all times, it’s easy for them to get the message that customers are important.

But talking about customers isn’t enough. Ever notice how fast you can mentally turn someone off when you decide that what they’re talking about doesn’t apply to you? It’s amazing to me how many people believe that if the words “customer service” aren’t in their job description, customers aren’t their responsibility. I decided recently that I wouldn’t return to a particular restaurant because of misleading menu copy. The last complaint I heard about an e-business was over their packaging materials. Menu copywriters and purchasers of packaging materials are examples of people who may not realize that they are responsible for customer relationships. Leaders who ask questions about customers help people in all positions understand that learning the needs and wants of customers is everyone’s job.

So, the questions you ask about customers direct, remind, and encourage your people to get and stay curious about your customers. The answers you get from your staff will provide a virtually unlimited supply of information to act on. Answers to this question will fall into four categories.

1. People will not be able to answer. Don’t panic. This response tells you that you and your leadership team have some work to do. Some people will need to be reminded that they have a responsibility to understand their customers. Some people will need to learn the concept of serving internal customers. Some people will need help to see how their work links to the work of others within the organization to ultimately serve your external customers.

2. People’s answers will be wrong. Don’t get mad. This is a perfect time for a follow-up question. What leads you to believe this? would be a good possibility. People may have been given incorrect information, may have jumped to a conclusion from a single encounter, or may be relying on old data. Helping people learn their customer responsibilities and fostering continued dialogue can clear up this misinformation.

3. People’s answers will confirm things you already know. Don’t get complacent. These responses, while comfortable, need to be looked at carefully. Do you really know your customers well or are you collectively operating on old data? Funny how one question leads to another, isn’t it?

4. People’s answers will surprise you with insights you’ve never had. Don’t be embarrassed. These are the most exciting answers of all. Insights are a function of viewing the status quo with new eyes. If you lead an organization filled with people who consistently scan their environment, think about what they see, and draw insightful conclusions…well, things hardly get better than that!

Using Fingertip Marketing to Sell Your Books

Q: What is Fingertip Marketing?
A: Fingertip Marketing is defined as, any marketing that adheres to the following two requirements:

1. It is free of charge.

2. It includes no verbal sales pitch to anyone.

You communicate through your computer keyboard using your fingertips.

In this article, you will find many examples of fingertip marketing. The address is:

www.eBook-marketing.com

Q: How did you come up with Fingertip Marketing as an effective way to sell eBooks?
A: When I was writing my first paperback book, I thought my marketing work was over.

I actually believed that I would be in a universal listing that bookstore managers and librarians would see and then order my book.

Boy, was I stupid!

The truth is that the author must do all of the marketing of his/her book.

There is no universal listing that will get libraries and bookstores to order your books.

You have to become a “salesperson.”

Most authors that I have met are not salespeople. In fact many authors I meet despise salespeople.

The Insurance Sales professional

Think about how the typical insurance sales professional works each and every day.

The insurance salesperson has to call on people called “suspects” of which many are not interested in his/her product. Most people will not be interested in buying insurance.

From the group of “suspects” evolves a smaller group called “prospects.” Prospects are people who are interested in buying insurance.

Out of that smaller group called “prospects” evolves “customers” or the people that actually purchase the insurance policies.

The next day the salesperson gets up in the morning and begins the procedure all over again. Every day is exactly the same as the day before.

Does this sound like fun? It can be a great deal of fun. But most authors I meet would never be comfortable working in an environment like that.

Characteristics of the insurance sales job.

Many insurance sales professionals work eight to twelve hours a day, five days per week. However, they must meet with they’re clients when the clients are ready. Many successful insurance professionals spend weekends selling insurance.

Insurance salespeople are usually restricted to handling specific insurance products and they are restricted to a specific geographical territory.

The Traditional Book Author

Here is the typical day of a book author once the book is published.

The author makes a list of bookstores, contacts the Bookstore Manager or the Community Relations Coordinator, if it is a chain bookstore.

The author then makes a sales presentation to interest the store in carrying the book.

The author will try to schedule a book-signing event or just get the bookstore to place a purchase order for books right away.

The bookstores are called “suspects.”

Most bookstores already have enough books on their shelves so the author has to employ super sales skills in winning over the bookstore decision-maker to buy books or schedule a book signing.

If the store agrees to purchase the book, the decision-maker will tell the author that they will only deal through an established book wholesaler. They do not purchase books from individual authors.

The author must call the book wholesalers or large distributors and sell the wholesalers or distributors in carrying his/her book.

Excellent sales skills are needed for this process.

Several follow-up sales calls are made by the author and hopefully the wholesaler or distributor will agree to carry the book.

Now, the author will go back to the bookstore and offer to present a book-signing event.

The bookstore CRC will jump for joy to get the author signing booked for that day.

Author signing events are usually booked up eight weeks in advance to make sure there will be books available to sell.

The bookstore orders 40 books from the author’s wholesaler. The books will not be paid for until after the completion of the book-signing event.

The author goes to Kinkos or some other office print shop and creates banners, bookmarks, and other marketing materials. The author pays for the materials.

The author calls radio stations, writes news releases and calls personal friends to attend the book-signing event.

The book signing is held. Fifty or sixty people show up to listen to the author.

Five people purchase books.

Immediately, after the book signing the bookstore sends the remaining 35 books back to the publisher.

Thirty days after the book signing the author goes to the bookstore and asks for payment for the five books sold a month before.

The bookstore requests the author to invoice the store at this time. The publisher will receive payment and the author receive a royalty check for those five books purchased from the wholesaler within 90 days of the book- signing event.

Any unsold books that were returned in damaged condition will be credited against royalty payments.

Returns can run between 7% and 35%!

Does this sound like fun to you? How much money does it cost you and how much time will you spend selling five books at a signing?

This is a very realistic example of booksignings. In fact, if the author sells five books at the event the store considers it a success! You have introduced many people that will purchase other books while they are in the store or at a later date.

If you were to present this book-signing example to successful insurance sales professionals that are earning over $100000 per year, they will simply not believe you!

The author spends too much time selling for too little money.

The eBook Author

The eBook author writes a book.

The eBook author posts books on Mightywords.com.

An hour later the book is selling over the Internet. Mightywords is handling payment and fulfillment of each order.

There are no book returns.

Then the author posts the book to other eBook selling websites, negotiating all contracts by e-mail. The author never has to speak to another individual and waste valuable time over the telephone.

The author takes a sample chapter or an article and submits this information to top websites that may be interested in the author’s subject area.

Offering content for web visitors greatly enhances the value of the already popular websites. Almost all of the website content managers will jump for the opportunity to give their web visitors more reasons to come back to their websites.

The sample chapters and articles are given in exchange for links back to the author’s book listing at Mightywords.com, the Booklocker, 1stbooks Library, or perhaps the author’s own website.

If you can propose just four or five new article postings each day for just five days per week, you can achieve tremendous success in selling your eBooks.

This is a great technique used by authors that have to work a regular job for a living. The authors can create and deliver their proposals by e-mail. They don’t have to make business contacts during working hours. By working just a few hours each night and on weekends, each author can drive thousands of readers to his own website within just a few months.

Once the article is posted to a website it will stay in a particular location for a while and then will be “archived” for new subscribers to read later on.

The article will include links back to the author’s website or a designated book selling website and will be referenced by major search engines.

This gives the author a major boost in popularity.

A great benefit of this type of selling for an author is the fact that no words are spoken. No sales skills are needed. If the eBook author prices the book at only $10 per book and each contact for the month sells one book per contact, the author will sell over $1000 in volume the very first month of book selling!

The author will receive anywhere from 25% to 100% of the sales totals based on the arrangements made with eBook sellers and eBook publishers.

For this example let us assume that the author earns $500 clear profit for the first month of selling eBooks.

How much did the author have to spend in marketing the eBook?

Zero!

The author did not have to make banners, bookmarks or other marketing materials.

The author did not have to make a single phone call.

In the second month, if the author executes the same marketing strategy, another 100 eBook sellers or book referring websites will be added to the author’s sales force.

Again, if each eBook publisher only sells one book, the author has $500 plus another $500 from the original websites that are selling or referring his book from their archived web locations.

If the author keeps up this pace and the book selling websites are only sending one new book buyer each month, the author will keep $39000 the first year.

If the author adds a second book, the total could be $78000 or more.

Also, remember the author will receive around 100% of what is selling from his own website.

We are not factoring in you working more than two or three hours per day. We are not factoring in the fact that you can set up an affiliate program like Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble and bring potentially thousands of potential book-sellers to link over to your website and send you business.

The example is based on each of your website content contacts. Each of the contacts has your sample chapter or article sending you just one customer each month!

You are adding hundreds of sales people each month that are working 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. There are no product or territory restrictions.

You may wish to go back and send each contact two or three articles thus doubling or tripling your eBook sales.

You still haven’t spent any money!

Show this model to insurance sales professionals.

Watch how huge their eyes become when they listen to your eBook-marketing plan!

Q: Can I sell my very first eBook without spending any money?
A: Yes. Actually you will have to pay a small amount of money for eBook storage charges but the fee is only $1 per month at Mightywords.com.

Let’s begin by showing you how to take care of marketing your eBook on Mightywords.com

After you sign up you will receive confirmation e-mail and the URL (universal resource locator) of each eBook you upload. Once you have that URL or Internet address of your eBook, consider that a website. In order to sell your eBook you must market the eBook effectively yourself.

You will be put in the Mightywords.com website so people can find you but just as you are listed in a traditional bookstore with a traditional bound book, it is still up to the author to push the book.

Fortunately, you don’t have to spend any money to accomplish this goal. The magic about using the Internet for marketing is that you always have two choices to make. You can pay for marketing or you can get it for free.

It may cost money to get featured on Amazon.com or barneandnoble.com. When you enter a brick and mortar bookstore and see books facing out on a table, the publisher and sometimes the author paid for that placement. Book placement in a retail store just isn’t a whim of the store manager or the favorite employee’s choice. You spend money to get the best position in the stores.

By marketing your eBooks over the Internet, you will always have a choice to pay or not to pay. Elect not to pay. Once you have extinguished all of the free marketing resources then make a decision to pay. You may surprise yourself and really find some great things that work for you without spending a dime for marketing expenses.

I am betting you never run out of effective free Internet resources.

It is absolutely impossible to run out of free Internet marketing opportunities.

Marketing On Mightywords.com

The following Steps will help you succeed in selling your eBooks with Mightywords.com:

1. Go to the section on Mightywords.com that is labeled the “Writer’s Corner.”

Read and re-read all of the free help given you on this site. Visit this site often as Mightywords adds additional Internet marketing resources.

2. If you have a website, join the Mightywords.com affiliate program. If you don’t find the program listing on
Mightywords.com, go to Fatbrain.com’s website at:

www.fatbrain.com

This affiliate program is great. Rather than creating a space on your personal website you get to create your own personal eBook Store, which is stored on Fatbrain.com’s server. You receive an Internet URL that you can link to your site or send to friends and insert in your marketing information. You can give your own special name to that store. Every time someone uses your unique eBook store to purchase eBooks, Mightywords pays you commissions.

You can earn up to 20% of the selling price at this writing. Even if you don’t sell any of your eBooks through this linking process you may earn money on selling other “favorites” that are sold from your web links.

3. Contact discussion lists on the Internet and offer a free chapter of your eBook to the list manager. Copy and paste the sample chapter of your eBook and send this to the list manager. This is an effective technique I personally learned from Angela Adair-Hoy the author of How to Write, Publish and Sell eBooks. (Buy it, Angela has great information) You can find the URLs of the discussion lists in Chapter Seven of this book and on my website.

At the end of the sample chapter insert the precise link to your eBook located on Mightywords.com or the precise links to your Mightywords website store, or both. Make sure you insert the full URL with “http” included. This way a person can open the URLs by clicking on your text e-mail.

4. Conduct a search on Yahoo, the famous search directory. Look up the topic area of your eBook. Put yourself in your reader’s shoes. What kind of information would they be looking for that your book is a perfect fit?

For example, if you have written a Southwestern Style Cookbook, who would be interested? Would people that are vacationing to Arizona or New Mexico be interested in southwestern style cooking? These people may be interested in Cowboy Poetry, or travel information.

Lets assume they enter search words like, cooking then Arizona or New Mexico. Your job is to search using the same words. Take the first 10 search returns and send an offer to the webmasters at each website. Offer to send the webmasters free articles or free chapters that will be posted on the websites. Top websites usually offer free content to their visitors. In exchange for posting your free chapter, tell the webmasters you will provide content with the consideration that you receive a bi-line that tells webs visitors where they can purchase your eBooks. Most webmasters will respond favorably to your offer.

5. Look up e-zines that fit your eBook genre. An e-zine is a newsletter that all the great websites offer to their visitors. E-zine editors are ALWAYS looking for articles.

E-mail a proposal to the e-zine editor and offer to submit an article or free chapter of your eBook.

You may even offer the e-zine editor non-exclusive serial rights to post a chapter for each issue in exchange for an advertisement in the e-zine.

You will offer the free information in exchange for links to your eBook store or your unique eBook Internet URL.

6. Contact your local newspaper and give them a similar offer.

7. Contact the editors of association newsletters that focus on your subject area. Make the newsletter editors the same offer. Association members have computers. They have the ability to purchase and read your eBooks.

8. Ask about speaking to the group on your topic. In exchange for speaking have handouts ready that include complete ordering instructions on how each member can order your eBook from Mightywords and other eBook order fulfilling websites.

9. Offer to teach a class based on your eBook at a community college. Make your eBook the required textbook. Print it out and put it into a binder. Set a price and get it into the college bookstore.

10. Read everything you can on marketing books and eBooks over the Internet. Create a marketing plan and do at least 3 eBook marketing activities each day.

Always believe in yourself. Your efforts will pay off with persistence. As you talk to other people about your newly published eBook, your friends, co-workers and relatives will give you valuable insights on other free eBook selling opportunities.