089: Why a Book is The Best Business Card with Doug Brown

Learning to Sell Makes a Difference

Doug Brown has led award-winning and high-performance teams as well as pioneered, profitable programs for companies. He has advised companies such as Intuit, CBS, Proctor & Gamble, Embassy Suites, and Inc. 500 companies to Inc. 5000 companies.

Today, he talks about his book Win-Win Selling: Unlocking Your Power for Profitability by Resolving Objections and how you can effectively leverage a book to grow your business.

What We Discuss with Doug Brown:

  • Growing up in a sales environment 
  • How you can leverage sales
  • How to use leverage webinars to grow your business
  • Why Doug wrote a book on resolving objections
  • How a book gives you instant authority
  • The power of having a great book cover
  • Understanding the sales process behind selling your book
  • Knowing your end purpose for writing a book
  • Why you should be selling your book on Amazon

[01:15] Doug’s Sales Journey

Doug started earning at 3 years old, sweeping floors for his dad. By 5, he was thrust in front of customers selling things through his dad’s business. He eventually ran his dad’s business. Doug’s mom, on the other hand, was selling Avon products.

With two college degrees and $20,000 in student debt, Doug had to figure out how to make money. He switched jobs from the hospital to a telecommunications company and tripled his income in sales. He never went back.

Doug built his own companies, one of them was a telecommunications auditing company that supports training companies.

[06:20] How You Can Leverage Sales

Sales is a leveraged activity. It’s about creating more with less. Get a percentage of whatever you’re selling. So for a $250,000 consulting job, you get to keep 90% of that. 

This is opposite to when you’re only charging an hourly rate, you might make a good living but you won’t gain the leverage because you’ve put a ceiling on yourself.

[09:03] How to Leverage Webinars

Attract your visitors. Have some type of attraction mechanism, be that a quiz or a free report. 

Creating a gap. Once they’re in the web training, the key is to educate them and to create a gap between where they are and where they want to go. And you fill in that gap with your expertise in the webinar, but you create another gap by doing that. 

Offer your service. After you’ve helped resolve their challenges through the training, give them a pathway out which is your service or offering. Just make that offer at the end of your web training. 

Follow up. There will be a percentage that will get it, a percentage that will not, and a percentage that will get it later on. So you have to continuously follow up with those people.

[11:38] Why Doug Wrote a Book on Resolving Objections

An author in hiding. Doug has written several books but has never published them because he has always written for himself. So he finally published the book, Win-Win Selling: Unlocking Your Power for Profitability by Resolving Objections

Helping people in sales. Doug saw two things salespeople have the hardest time with: how to get qualified leads and how to convert.

In the conversion process, the number one thing that they struggle with is the objections that come up. So he decided to write a book on the reasons why objections come up and then give people formulas to handle those objections without having to memorize scripts.

[15:00] How a Book Gives You Credibility

The book is one of the best business cards you can use. People know how much work it is to write a book. 

It’s tangible. There’s something about holding a book and reading it. So we all bond with books.

It’s a conversation starter. Your book is a way for people to get to know you. They want to come to you for the “how” because they trust you. Don’t overstuff your book with too many ideas.

[21:50] The Power of Having a Great Book Cover and Great Title

Testing out a title. People voted on the title Doug used for his book. He tested out 7 titles to people he knew and didn’t know.

Finding data. Mockup the covers with three different titles and do a split test to see how many clicks you get. You can do this if you don’t have the following to ask. 

In sales, it’s not about what we want. But it’s about what a market will buy.

Colors can even result in a huge variance in people paying attention. 

You can’t vary yourself too far away from what the book genre looks like. On Amazon, people will look at the books that look familiar to them in the area they want to buy books. So you want to emulate what’s successful and what works, the genre, and the titles. 

[26:05] Understanding the Sales Process Behind Selling Your Book

Think like a seller. There are tons of books being written but the question is whether you can sell it. There’s a process around selling your book and pushing it forward.

Get the attention of the reader. To do this, you have to be willing to be a marketer and a salesman.

[28:03] Knowing Your End Purpose for Writing the Book

Think of selling your book as a solution. Think about the ideal reader as to how you’re going to help solve their problem, you’re not going to go wrong in every single step of the way.

Call your reader to go somewhere else. Calling them to do something is very important.  When you fail to do this, you’ve lost the opportunity of the book. You’re losing the opportunity that the book can provide you which is they want more of you.

Writing a book is great but what is the end purpose of writing a book?

Do your best to write a book today. Better to write a book today then think about writing a book tomorrow. Do the best you can to tell people about it.

[30:35] Why You Should Sell Your Book on Amazon

Write more than one book if you can. Amazon is a product-based industry. It rewards Amazon sellers who have more than one product. 

The more you sell, the more attention you get. If a buyer walks in your shelf that has multiple items, Amazon thinks you’re a real deal because you’re selling things and you’ve got lots of products. So they’ll give you more attention and more opportunity.

Think about creating a workbook version of your book or part two or the book you want to write next. 

Create a system that shows you how to do it quickly. You can write several books easily with the right system in place. 

Episode Resources:

Know more about Doug Brown on Business Success Factors.

Grab a copy of Doug Brown’s book Win-Win Selling: Unlocking Your Power for Profitability by Resolving Objections

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