First Word

This is a rough draft of the Introduction from my forthcoming nonfiction book Nothing Sells Your Business Better than a Book.   Introduction When I open my presentations, I ask two questions: “How many of you throw away books in the trashcan?” I follow this question with the next one, “How many of you throw away brochures in the nearest garbage can?” The second question provides the audience’s a-ha moment. Most people feel value when they buy or are given a book. A book has weight. It has pages. It has merit. It conveys the perception of knowledge and expertise and time and money to publish. A feeling of guilt or at least a sense of environmental responsibility overcomes the desire to toss all that time, money, expertise, and most importantly “paper” into the garbage can. On the other hand, how many flyers, tri-fold brochures or one-sheets create such a moral or ethical dilemma that you actually feel guilty to throw it away? I’ll be honest. I’ve thr...

In my not-thinking-ahead way I got myself into a situation. A local promoter asked me for my speaker's sheet. I haven't been on the speaker's track in two years, and speaking can breathe new life into sales and present new opportunities. Seizing the day, I quickly put together my speaker's sheet and to my surprise I was booked at numerous organizations. Knowing full well that the best way to leverage speaking is to have a product or service to sell, I realized I was now in a bind without anything to back up my talks. Being a quick thinker and a professional writer and author, I took the concept from my presentation and quickly developed a book concept. Problem somewhat solved, right? No. I now have to write that book as quickly as possible to leverage the upcoming opportunities. So here is my announcement. My new book Nothing Sells Your Business Better than a Book is being written to be released in the next month. Yes, I'm crazy and yes, I'm a publisher so th...

Blogging makes a great tool to market your business. Many free and paid services are available. I'm going to weigh in on my opinion based on observation and use of the tools. Blogger -- I obviously prefer Blogger. I use it for this blog, and I have been satisfied with its capabilities for what I do. And that is key to the process. What are you going to do with it? Now video blogging has become a big deal, and many marketers have promoted its use as popular. I see many sites now use video blogging, too. For what I do, video blogging isn't key. So my use of the video feature isn't as critical. Most sites now offer that feature (more or less in capability). Blogger allows you to insert a video. The problem I found is that my iPhone capabilities make it nearly impossible to send a video to my computer (too much bandwidth is required). So if you do intend to video blog, it's more dependent on whether or not you have the video-making capabilities. Additionally, some blogs ...