| Why It Can Take Months To Sell Books To Non-Retail Buyers (But it is worth the wait) by Brian Jud Bowker | Wed Feb 17, 2021 Many independent publishers try to sell their books only to bookstores and other retailers. Their efforts consist primarily of securing distribution partners to funnel books to retailers who put them on their store shelves. There the books remain, nestled among their competitors for a quick comparison of benefits and prices. The point-of-purchase sales process may take 10 minutes, since the risk of making a wrong decision is low. If the book does not meet expectations it is returned, and eventually makes its way back to the publisher. Other publishers realize the vast opportunity of selling their books to non-retail buyers, but approach the sale in their traditional manner. They expect a similarly short selling cycle because they are unaware that retail selling is much different from the process for selling books to non-retail buyers. Primarily, corporate buyers do not purchase your books to sell off a shelf. Marketing people use your book’s content as a tool for selling more of their products. Or, Human Resource managers use your content to motivate, educate or reward employees. Additionally, there is little formal distribution structure in this segment. Publishers must make the sales calls themselves, or work through promotional-products salespeople. These independent sales representatives grow their businesses by seeking and selling to a continuous source of new prospects. They learn their prospects’ needs, propose solutions, make multiple presentations, negotiate the terms of each sale and service the business once the order is placed. In some cases, a small order of a few hundred books may be ordered in the first meeting. But for large orders, the sales process takes considerable time, if for no other reason than that the buyer’s risk of making the wrong decision is considerably higher since their purchases are not returnable. Here is a description of the typical steps required to make a large-quantity, non-returnable sale to a professional corporate buyer. Step One: Search for prospects to create new opportunities Create a prospect list to find new buyers for your books. These could be marketing people, C-level executives, HR managers, sales managers, meeting planners, association executives, teachers, and prospects at government agencies or at schools. Step Two: Qualify and prioritize your prospects Not all prospects are equal in their ability to purchase your books. Some may be entrenched with competitive products, have no budget to purchase, or may have recently concluded a promotional campaign and are not currently in the market. Decide which are the best sales prospects at this time, and concentrate your sales efforts where they should get the greatest return. Step Three: Meetings with each prospect Once you have a few good leads, meet with them to introduce yourself and your ideas. You may have to meet several times to learn the buying criteria, objectives for the campaign, and agree on plans about how to proceed. Step Four: Write your proposal Create your plans and budgets describing how your content will most cost-effectively reach the stated objectives. Organize this information into a proposal describing why your proposition is the best solution among competitive proposals, given the buyer’s objectives. Step Five: Make the initial presentation Next, present your proposals to the decision makers. If there are multiple decision makers (or if the potential order is very large), you may have to return several times to meet with each, securing the agreement of every person involved in making the decision. Step Six: Negotiate Rarely is your initial proposal accepted in totality. All parties typically negotiate in good faith to get the best deal. Negotiate in a way that creates long-term relationships resulting in recurring revenue. Step Seven: Service the order Once the order is placed, track it closely to make sure the correct books are shipped at the right time in the right quantity. Each of these steps could require a few weeks — or a few months — to complete. You can perform all these steps yourself, or you can hire promotional salespeople to do them for you. Or, my company can sell your books for you on a commission basis. Regardless of who does it, all these actions must be taken in the proper sequence to consummate the sale, build the relationships and create lasting revenue. And that takes time. ————————————————————————————————————- Brian Jud is the author of How to Make Real Money Selling Books, the Executive Director of the Association of Publishers for Special Sales (APSS – www.bookapss.org), and the administrator of Book Selling University (www.booksellinguniversity.com) Contact Brian at brianjud@bookmarketing.com or www.premiumbookcompany.com. |
