Month: December 2010

You learn that, in the book world, PR is everything. When you walk into a bookstore, you are walking into a treasure house of 140,000 books. Online at amazon.com, there are some 8 million books. Somewhere in your mind, dimly, you knew that, but nothing drives it home so much as walking into a bookstore and seeing rack upon rack of beautiful books and then you go find your section and see all the racks of beautiful self-help books and then, tucked into a small shelf on the bottom left, there is your one-and-only, your own beautiful book. Ahhh, you sigh, your book, your dream, has magically materialized and actually exists in a real bookstore in real space in real time. Then your eyes widen, you look around, and you think, “Gadzooks! (or some such expletive) How am I going to get my book noticed?”

Aren’t we all so busy that our conversations revolve around how overwhelmed we all are and how complicated life seems? How all these labor-saving technologies we created have only serve to create more labor?

I hit the Wall of Overwhelm. And I saw that I had become the Nightmare Boss—the one that says that all you’ve done isn’t enough, that you aren’t rich enough, famous enough, or thin enough. You haven’t fully funded your IRA, you haven’t become a #1 New York Times bestseller, your buns aren’t steel, you didn’t win a World Series of Poker bracelet, and you weren’t in The Secret. You’d better hop to it, girl!

The magic number for a book to be considered successful is 10,000. When The Wealthy Spirit reached 12,000 books sold, my editor called me and said, “We’re ready for your next book!” And so I got the contract to write Zero to Zillionaire. The Wealthy Spirit has now sold nearly 20,000 copies and Zero to Zillionaire is approaching the magic number of 10,000 copies sold.

The good news is you don’t have to have a blockbuster like The Da Vinci Code in order to be successful with your books. You only have to sell 5,000 to be in the top 2% of bestselling books. That looks a lot more doable than selling a million, doesn’t it?

The simple fact is networking works if you work it. You can’t just go to one meeting every other month, give three people your business card, and wait for the phone to ring. If you’re in business for yourself, you have to make the phone ring in other people’s offices. The best way to make a networking group work for you is to remember these three simple principles: Visibility, Credibility, and Likeability.

“I don’t care how many degrees you have on the wall, if you don’t know how to sell, you’re probably going to starve.”—George Forman

A lot of business owners think they are selling, when really all they are doing is marketing. Do you know the difference between the two?

It will cost you a lot of time, energy, and money if you don’t.

I learned this lesson the hard way when I hired a woman to help me make sales in my workshop business.

“Chellie, an editor is interested in your book!” my agent, Lisa Hagan, exclaimed happily. “I sent her a bunch of proposals, and she returned all of them to me except for yours! Now she wants to talk to you.”

My heart was thumping and my breath came fast. This could be the break we’d been waiting for. Lisa and I had been working together to find a publisher for my book, “The Wealthy Spirit” for over a year, through endless rounds of interest, rejections, almost-deals, and deals that fell through.

“Deb likes your book, but has some changes to suggest,” Lisa went on. “Here’s her number. Good luck!”

I love advertising my business through networking with other upbeat business people. There are many networking groups in every city—trade organizations, Chambers of Commerce, Rotary Clubs, national associations, etc.

But you don’t have to restrict yourself to business organizations. Parties are unofficial networking groups. One January, I was invited to a friend’s New Year’s Day party, and I only knew a few people there. My friend, Victoria, introduced me to a woman friend of hers who was reading my book and enjoying it.

“You have to meet George!” she told me. “He has your book and he has been faithfully reading it one page every day. He would love to meet you.”

Imagine

An inspirational radio show had me crying on the 405.

I was on my way from a holiday party in Palos Verdes to a family dinner in Chatsworth. I knew it would be a two-hour journey between parties, but was willing to pay that price to attend both. Tired of music stations, I searched the talk show formats. Political rants? No, thanks. News? Nope. Then I heard the familiar voice of Garrison Keillor, with his radio show, A Prairie Home Companion. Music, light banter, jokes, stories…ah, perfect!

Garrison started talking about John Lennon and his legacy of music. He wondered what people of the future 200 years from now would think of his memorial plaque in New York City that said “Strawberry Fields”—would they remember John and his music? Or would they think that someone grew strawberries there?

After light chuckles from the audience at that, Garrison announced a sing-along of John’s song, Imagine.

Each night, the little spider at my front gate works busily, weaving his web to catch his morning breakfast. He is diligent and hard-working, he studied design and construction, and he makes a fine web.

But very morning, I break his web apart as I pass through to collect my morning newspaper. I’m sure the spider sees the destruction and whines, “Why does this always happen to me? I work as hard as any other spider I know. I’m so unlucky! It’s not fair!”

I was speaking at a 12-step meeting recently, and this Twelve-Step program for Financial Stressaholics suddenly came to me. With a wink and a nod to Alcoholics Anonymous and twelve-step programs everywhere, here are the twelve steps to treat your money disorders – spending bulimia and income anorexia.