Ah, the close, that magical moment when the prospect agrees to buy! All of the shrewd marketing you’ve been doing has led to this moment.How do you give your prospects that last little push to get them to actually close? One way is to use your book as a purchase incentive.

Dr. Charlie Pellerin, NASA’s Director for Astrophysics does just that with his book How NASA Builds Teams: Mission Critical Soft-Skills for Scientists, Engineers, Project Teams, and Their Leaders (Wiley, 2009). Dr. Pellerin is the NASA scientist who led the Hubble Space Telescope team. In 1990, after the telescope was already launched into space, he and his team discovered that Hubble was useless because of a flawed mirror. They staged a daring space mission to fix the telescope, which succeeded. The experience launched Dr. Pellerin on a quest to understand the leadership and teamwork failures that led to NASA launching Hubble with such a serious flaw. He undertook a 15-year study of leadership and teamwork, culminating in his book, and the creation of 4-D Systems, his consulting firm that teaches businesses how to build and lead successful teams. In order to close prospects on signing up for one of his paid coaching events, “How Did NASA’s $1.7 Billion Screw Up Deliver their Most Effective Team Building Results,” each attendee was offered a free copy of Dr. Pellerin’s book as a bonus for signing up. This purchase incentive both added value to each sign up, and placed a lasting reminder of Dr. Pelerin’s expertise on each attendee’s bookshelf—a very compelling marketing tactic!

You’ve made the close. Can you celebrate now? Unfortunately, no. Any experienced salesperson will tell you that a sale is most vulnerable to being undone right after the close. Immediately after a purchase new customers want (sometimes need) to be reassured that they made the right decision. One of the most effective ways to give them this reassurance is to surprise them with a free copy of your book, given as a purchase reward. This does two things: it lets your customers know that they have your immediate attention and appreciation, and confirms that you are the expert that they should be working with.

A case in point: Attorney Don Loose uses his books Estate Planning in Arizona (Wheatmark, 2008) and Arizona Laws 101 (Wheatmark, 2005) as purchase rewards. After each initial consult with a new client, Mr. Loose gives the client a free copy of one of his books. He observes:

“The clients are always pleasantly surprised to receive something that they didn’t expect to get. Also, it gives the client something tangible that they can take away. In the legal profession, where clients usually only get non-tangibles [results and advice], it is very reassuring to them to receive something tangible. Having the books has done a lot for my business.”

Of course, you probably shouldn’t give the same book as both a purchase incentive and as a purchase reward to the same prospect … which is a good reason to write and publish more than one book!

You make an offer to a qualified prospect. How do you make your offer stand out from all of the competing offers? How do you make the prospect feel safe selecting your offer? The answer to both questions is, by positioning yourself as an expert (preferably the expert) on what you offer. Buyers want to buy from experts. Buyers feel safe buying from experts.

You need to present substantial proof of expertise to truly position yourself as an expert in your field. Proofs of expertise include academics degrees, testimonials, books, keynote addresses, articles, white papers, speaking gigs, etc. Experienced marketers will tell you that of all these different kinds of proofs of expertise, a book is by far the best. It is the ultimate showcase for your expertise, because it demonstrates both your comprehensive knowledge of, and your dedication to, your subject.

Bernie Borges is the founder and CEO of the internet marketing agency Find and Convert, where he helps businesses produce sales opportunities through Internet Marketing. Mr. Borges is also the author of Marketing 2.0: Bridging the Gap between Seller and Buyer through Social Media Marketing (Wheatmark, 2009). He says of his book:

“I regularly compete for new business among other Internet marketing agencies. Without question, when I hand a prospective new client my book (or mail it to them if they are not local), I am immediately set apart from all of my competitors. Nearly each time, I win the new client.”

He wins the new client because his book positions him as the expert to be trusted (rather than his bookless competitors).

Another example: Bad boy chef Anthony Bourdain, host of the Travel Channel’s long running show, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, is one of these most recognized experts in the culinary field. This didn’t happen by chance; it happened as a direct result of his publishing the book, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (Bloomsbery, 2000). Before the book’s publication Mr. Bourdain had a respectable career managing the kitchens of several restaurants in New York. Since the book’s publication he’s:

• had two wildly successful televisions shows
• published nine more books (including a trio of well-selling mysteries)
• had a sitcom character based on him
• launched and run an award-winning blog
• been a guest on Top Chef, and several other television shows
• had articles published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Observer, Gourmet, Maxim, Esquire (UK), Town & Country, and many other magazines and newspapers
• made a cameo appearance in a major motion picture, and
• been hired as a writer and consultant for the HBO series Treme

The publication of Kitchen Confidential was the watershed event that set Mr. Bourdain apart from the tens of thousands of other chefs out there. It’s what allowed (and allows) him to make offers to publishers and TV producers and have these offers be taken seriously and accepted.

Positioning yourself as an expert is key to marketing your business successfully and nothing positions you as an expert better than a book.

You’re using your book as an integral part of your marketing. It’s an advertisement on Amazon getting you wheelbarrowsful of new leads. It’s a key component in your fantastic multi-faceted multimedia lead follow-up system. Clever you!

Now all you need to do is qualify these leads to determine which of them are, in fact, good sales prospects. You need to get qualifying information:

• Which leads are ready to—nay, urgently must—purchase now?
• Which leads have the financial ability to purchase one or more of your offerings?
• Which leads meet your many other customer requirements?

What you need is a lead-qualifying process that encourages your leads to give you this information, and provides them with a variety of avenues to do so. Your book can be used in this lead-qualifying process in two compelling ways: to teach your leads to qualify themselves, and to point your leads to your online lead-qualifying landing pages.

Your book can include content that educates and informs potential customers about how to pick the right offerings and providers. It can help your prospects understand the various price points for different offering and providers, so that they can pre-select good matches pricewise. (Do you want to spend any time talking to a lead who can’t afford to purchase one of your offerings?) Your book can provide a checklist of qualifying questions your potential customers need to answer before they start shopping in earnest. In short, your book’s content can be used to train your leads to self-qualify and self-disqualify.

Placing the web addresses of your lead-qualifying landing pages at tactically appropriate points throughout your book is another incredibly effective way to use your book to help qualify leads. If, for example, your book is about “marketing using social media,” at the end of your chapter on using Facebook include the web address of your lead-qualifying landing page for your “Getting Started with FaceBook” webinar. At the end of your chapter on Twitter include the web address of your lead-qualifying landing page for your “Grow Your Business with Twitter” training program.

As marketers we qualify leads so that you we can spend our valuable time and money on those sales prospects who really could become good customers right now. Why not use your book to make this critical step in the sales process that much easier?

So you’ve got a thousand leads in your database. That’s a thousand people who’ve given you permission to communicate with them about your products or services. Guess what? The vast majority of them are not ready to buy from you right now, but will likely buy from you sometime in the future. If you don’t want these leads to go cold, you must have follow-up systems that keep you in front of them over time. Periodic and consistent follow-up via mail, email, phone, and/or text messaging is essential. For this you need content, and lots of it. That’s where your book comes in. It can provide content for your follow-up systems in two powerful ways: as a source of excerpts, and as a generator of announcement-worthy news.

In all likelihood most of the thousand leads in your database haven’t read your book and don’t own it. They aren’t familiar with the great expertise-confirming content it contains. Give it to them! If your book is about weightlifting, excerpt individual exercises each month and include them in your e-zine or printed newsletter. If your book is about codependency, excerpt a poignant story of overcoming it. Passages from your book are incredibly powerful in this context, because while you’re reminding your leads that you’re out there, you’re also providing them with proof of your competence and know-how.

Every author is, simply by virtue of having published a book, also an expert and a celebrity. As an author/expert/celebrity you are yourself an unending source of announcement-worthy news. You hold book events. You get book reviews. You do radio interviews. You win book awards. People blog and tweet about your book. One very successful client I work with sends email notifications to her entire leads database every time her book gets any kind of mention in the media or the blogosphere. She also sends them invitations to her book signings and events, and notifications of upcoming media appearances. This puts her in front of her leads month in and month out.

Whether you are using excerpts or your status as an author/expert/celebrity to follow up with your leads, having a book helps keep those leads HOT—and you might earn you some royalties too!

Most potential customers aren’t ready to buy from you when they first hear about your products or services. They’re more likely to buy sometime in the future. For now, you’ll want two things from them: their contact information and their permission to continue communicating with them.

In short, you want them to become leads you can follow up with later so that when they are ready to buy, you come immediately to mind.

Your book can be used in two ways in the lead capture process: as a lead generator or as an incentive given in exchange for contact information.

One of the more effective ways to use your book for lead generation is to print links in your book to pages on your website that are designed to capture people’s contact information. For example, if your book is about making independent films, then at the end of the chapter on financing you can include a URL to a landing page where readers can sign up for your Financing Your Independent Film newsletter.

This method works very well. Why? Because, by buying and reading your book on the subject, the people who sign up for more information have already demonstrated significant interest in what you have to offer.

Your potential customers are increasingly being bombarded with requests for their contact information through many different media: email, snail mail, TV, magazines, text messaging, newspapers, billboards, voicemail systems, phones, etc. It’s very hard to get your message heard above this cacophony. What you need, therefore, is an exceptional tangible incentive that you can give in exchange for your potential customer’s contact information. One author I work with gives seminars where he offers a free copy of his book to any attendee who signs up for his email newsletter. Another author lets people download his eBook in exchange for an email address and permission to continue communicating. (Many who download the eBook like it so much that they end up buying a printed version later.)

Using your book as a tangible incentive in your lead capture process is incredibly powerful, because while you’re obtaining leads you’re also providing something that will convince them that you’re the expert they can trust and should do business with.

Whether your book generates leads for you or gives people an incentive to become leads, you’ve got to admit: your book is an incredible tool for growing your business.

Publishing Secrets for Entrepreneurs: Save a Ton of Time and Avoid Headaches by Leapfrogging Over a Minefield Designed to Slow You Down

Free Special Web Seminar

Wednesday, November  17, 2010, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern / 11:00 a.m. Pacific / Noon Arizona

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THIS FREE EVENT!

Publishing a book is one of the single most important activities you can do as an entrepreneur to grow your existing business, create new revenue streams, or enter an entirely new business. Each month, hundreds of entrepreneurs sit down to write their first book, knowing that it can be the best investment of time they can make to grow their business quickly.

However, publishing a book can be a complicated process that costs a lot of time and money—time and money you can’t afford to waste (particularly in this ongoing recession.) For every newly-minted entrepreneur-author each year, there are hundreds who never get off the starting blocks.

On November 17, you’ll have the opportunity to participate in a full-hour exposé revealing how you can shortcut your path to publishing success. From simple manuscript on your computer to finished book in your customer’s hands, this webinar is a step-by-step recipe for planning a book-publishing project that will help you achieve your goal of becoming a published author faster.

These insider publishing secrets will skyrocket your ability to generate revenue from the sales of your books and transform your readers into “raving-fan” customers for your products and services!

Our presenter is Grael Norton, a Senior Faculty member of the Authors Academy.

Here are the details for the webinar:

Date: Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Time: 2:00 p.m. ET, 1:00 p.m. CT, 12:00 noon MT & AZ, 11:00 a.m. PT

Here is a partial list of what we’ll discuss on this webinar:

• Why should entrepreneurs publish a book? With everything else there is to do on a typical day, why spend time on this?
• The three options for publishing your book. Discover the advantages and disadvantages of each and how to figure out which one will generate the most success for you
• How to choose the right publishing business model. Choosing the right publishing model can save you time and money; choosing the wrong one can ruin your business!
• How to price your book. Your strategy for pricing your book has serious consequences; learn how to decide which price point is right for your project
• How to print your book. Printing your book is a critical detail; advances in technology provide more options than ever. What should you look for?
• Where to sell your book. Publishing a book can give you access to some of the best advertising for your business available online today … and it’s 100% F-R-E-E!
• eBooks. There’s a bunch of new devices and formats for reading electronic books. Should entrepreneurs focus on getting their content on these devices?

So open your calendar right now and block out an hour at 2:00 p.m. Eastern / 11:00 a.m. Pacific for a behind-the-scenes look at publishing secrets that will help you build your platform and your business!

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THIS FREE EVENT!

Why should I buy from you? Because you wrote the book on the subject, that’s why! Nothing establishes your credentials as an expert more than a book. And being an expert is what convinces customers to open their wallets and buy things from your business … especially during bad economic times.

About two years ago, near the beginning of the Great Recession, I was speaking with an attorney who published a book on estate planning with Wheatmark. He told me that as soon as the recession started two areas of his business dried up virtually overnight: entity formation and construction law. No surprise, as these types of legal work come mostly from the hard-hit real estate sector. In the next breath the attorney said, “Thank goodness for the book, because the increase in estate planning work more than makes up for the lost entity formation and construction law work.” The book brought the lawyer more leads, turned more leads into genuine prospects, and converted more prospects into clients, because people wanted the person “who wrote the book on the subject” to do their estate planning.

How does having a book help your sales? Here’s the logic:

• To get a sustainable level of sales in your business you need to be exceptionally good at marketing
• To be exceptionally good at marketing you need to be exceptionally good at convincing potential customers that your products or services can solve their problems
• To be exceptionally good at convincing potential customers that your products or services can solve their problems, you must be perceived to be an expert in your field
• To be perceived to be an expert in your field you need to be able to present proof of your expertise to potential customer in an array of forms, from consulting sessions to speaking gigs to articles to books

Of all these forms, the book is the ultimate showcase for your expertise, because it demonstrates both your comprehensive knowledge of your subject, and your dedication to it.

So, congratulations on having written a book! Your business thanks you!

People no longer respond to advertising the way they used to, especially the usual “interruption-based” advertising. You’re watching a program and you’re interrupted by a commercial. The ad itself isn’t relevant to you—you didn’t ask or look for it. You’re annoyed and can’t wait to get back to the program. It’s similar with magazine and newspaper ads. However, your book can be an effective ad without interrupting your prospects; in fact, they won’t even view it as advertising!

Let me explain. The most frequently visited site for researching a product is Google and the most frequently visited site for shopping for a product is Amazon. If I’m interested in getting the air inside my house or office cleaner and greener, I may go to Google and type in cleaner greener indoor air to find out how. (If I’m interested in finding more in-depth information, especially information I can purchase, I type those same words into Amazon.)

Want to be found on Google without having to advertise or spend a lot of time and/or money on search engine optimization? Have a book listed on Amazon. Of all the websites out there, Amazon is the largest single source of information indexed on Google. What this means is that Google respects your book’s page on Amazon more than some other page someone put together on the same topic. You’ll rank higher in the search results because of your book’s listing on Amazon.

I’ll prove it to you. Type cleaner greener indoor air into Google and see what you get. The very first search result is a link to a book on Amazon, above even the website dedicated to that very topic. Because I’m looking for information on this subject, this link is a free ad for the author, Mark R. Sneller, and his book. I have the opportunity to buy it, but, perhaps more importantly, I now view Dr. Sneller as an authority on the subject.

When have your book on Amazon you get, in essence, a free and permanent ad for you and your goods or services. It’s the best kind of ad because it isn’t perceived as advertising. Your audience doesn’t feel like they’re being sold to. And every time someone buys your book, you get a royalty, but more importantly, you begin the process of convincing potential customers of your expertise, authority, and credibility … the first step toward making more sales.

In this digital age, a book on Amazon is the most effective ad you can have.