Wednesday, January 15, 2014

13 Book-Selling Tools


As an author, especially of non-fiction books, you are likely looking to sell your book to organizations or businesses.  You’ll no doubt need information and useful resources to assist your sales efforts.  Many can be found in a new book, Changing The Sales Conversation: Connect, Collaborate, and Close by New York Times bestselling author Linda Richardson (McGraw-Hill Education).

Here are 13 sales tools, as excerpted from the book, that could be applied to your book-selling efforts:

1.      TimeTrade enables you to schedule appointments effortlessly in 30 seconds or less, and faster scheduling means more time for selling.

2.      Lead411 provides client addresses, business e-mail, and executive e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

3.      NetProspect was voted the most accurate business-to-business (B2B) contact information software.

4.      iSell lets you quickly identify names of clients to call and what to say based on relevance and sales triggers (an event that causes a client to identify and prioritize solving a problem), and it automatically prioritizes prospects to cut research time.

5.      iMeet enables you to lead online video meetings and connect with clients by simply having them enter the URL of the meeting room at which point the tool automatically dials the client’s phone.  Because software is not downloaded you reduce time and hassle.

6.      Bloomfire is another collaboration tool that enables your company to share best practices such as proposals and templates and allows you and your colleagues to vote the materials up or down so the best ones rise to the top.

7.      Datahugs is a lead-generation tool that enables you to automatically pinpoint who knows whom and how they know them across your company’s entire network of connections by scanning contact information in e-mails—no data entry necessary.

8.      Hubspot creates an all-in-one marketing solution for your company to generate leads.  It takes the best of inbound marketing methods, tweets, and blogs, consolidating this disconnected stream of information into one spot to save time and increase results.

9.      HootSuite is a social media dashboard that allows your company to connect multiple campaigns, identify and grow audiences, and distribute targeted messages.

10.  Mobile video calling tools include Tango, Apple’s FaceTime (a selling point for its iPad), Yahoo’s OnTheAir, Microsoft’s Skype (for both video and audio-only calls), Google Plus (200 aps for video calling feature), Hangouts (free video service for two- to ten-person video calls), and the independent service called Zoom that offers an app that works on Macs, Windows-based PCs, iPhones, and IPads at no cost for groups of up to 15 participants.  These tools save travel time and money but more importantly add a visual connection to any phone call to allow you to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

11.  Presentation and video tools include YouTube (video sharing and a great credentialing tool), Brainshark (online and mobile presentations), and Snagit (pick up and share an image).

12.  Salesforce.com offers a range of powerful tools, such as Chatter.

13.  Apps for managers and salespeople, such as Salespod, enable sales managers to manage and coach salespeople, manage clients, and capture information in real time.

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, Media Connect, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2014.

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