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STAY IN ONE FIELD
. . . AND OWN IT by Dan Poynter
Once you select your subject. Stick to it;
stay in one field. Too many authors and author-publisher-speakers write a book
on a subject they know well—aimed at their own (reachable) field. With
this formula, the book is a success, and they suddenly think selling books is
easy, so they write about a totally different subject. It flops because they do
not know how to reach the buyers in this particular market. They do not really
know who their buyers are, what their buyers need and where their buyers are.
They are starting over.
One day, I received a call from a customer. He
said “I’m a chiropractor, and I recognize that while chiropractors
are good at what they do, they are not good at running their offices. But I
have solved that challenge. I have just finished my book titled How to Run Your
Chiropractic Office.” “Sounds good,” I said and I thought to
myself: “now here is an author who can look into the mirror and see a
refection of his customer. He knows who the customer is, what the customer
needs and (most importantly) where the customer is.” Chiropractors are
easy to locate because they have to have a license; they are on lists.
Then the doctor went on, “I have a packaging idea I would like to run
past you”. I leaned back in my chair and listened. The caller said
“once I sell this book to all the chiropractors, I’ll go through the
manuscript with search & replace and change the word
“chiropractor” to “dentist” and sell the same book to all
the dentists. Next, I’ll sell to all the medical doctors. Isn’t that
a great plan?”
“No,” I said, “It sounds great but
it’s a terrible idea. First off, it will not be all that easy to sell your
peers. It will take reviews in your magazines, displays at your conventions,
lots of mail and telephone calls. Finally word-of-mouth from one doctor to
another will sell the book.
“The average sale is made after the
prospect has said 'no' six times.” —Jeffrey P. Davidson, author and
speaker, The Washington Post, 1985. “Do you really want to learn all about
dentists: read their magazines, join their associations, and attend their
conventions? You don’t have time for that.
“What you should
do is publish this book. Then publish the advanced book, then the office forms
book and then the little books chiropractors give to their patients. You want
to become known as the publisher for the chiropractic industry.” Soon
other chiropractors will approach you to publish their books.
New
customers have to be bought; existing customers are free. Anyone who has ever
been in sales will tell us, it is far easier to sell an additional product to
an existing customer than it is to find a new customer. Stay in one field and
keep adding products until you own the territory.
Next: Combine your
products in a “Power Pack,” a higher priced package.
Dan
Poynter does not want you to die with a book still inside you. You have the
ingredients and he has your recipe. Dan has written more than 100 books since
1969 including Writing Nonfiction and The Self- Publishing Manual. For more
help on book writing, see http://ParaPub.com. © 2003
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