6 Things To Know That Help You Sell More of Anything - Part 1

If you're not writing (or thinking about writing) a book, you might think my ebook 6 Things You Should Know Before You Self-Publish doesn't apply to you. You’d be wrong. These six things apply to any sales situation and make your offer sell better no matter what it is. Don’t believe me? Let’s walk through it and I’ll show you how.

6 things you need to know about your offer:

What's it for?

That thing you're doing, even if it isn't a book: what is it for? What are you trying to accomplish by doing this thing and putting it out into the world?

1. Why this thing? You could have picked something else to do with your precious life energy. Why is this the thing, or the angle, that calls to you? What's so important about it?
2. Why you? What's your special combination of knowledge, life experience, weirdness, and magic juice that makes you the only person who can do this thing in the way you're going to do it? And why does that matter?
3. What are you trying to get out of it? If it's a business project, what's the specific thing you want it to do for your business? Generate new leads, gain media exposure, establish credibility, be a direct source of revenue? It might do more than one of those things, but you're going to need to pick one to focus on or you risk spinning your wheels.

So what is it for?

The more clear you are on what this thing is supposed to do, the easier it will be to create, design, and market it in a way that gets you where you want to go.

Who is it for?

Once you know what it is you're trying to accomplish with this project, it gets a lot easier to figure out who you're trying to help. Who's the most likely to benefit from what you're putting together? Who's going to do something about it? Who really, really wants what you have, even if they don't know it yet?

1. Why them? What is it about them that makes you want to help them?
2. What will be different for them after they've experienced your thing? What are their goals, hopes and dreams?
3. Why are they going to care about your approach? What makes you the bridge to their desires?

So who is it for?

The better you know your audience, the easier it is to reach them.

Do NOT gloss over this next step.

So we've covered the first two concepts: What it's for, and who it's for. Next is a really important step, and a lot of us completely drop the ball here. We live on assumptions, we don't think we really need to spell it out. But we do. Ready?

How will you know when you've made it?

So you know what you're trying to accomplish out there in the world, and you know who's most likely to benefit from your thing, but there's another critical piece to clarifying your own goals for the project: what does a win actually look like for you?

It's so, so easy to get sucked into someone else's idea of success. All the pretty people on Instagram show off their glowing, curated lives, and something in us says okay, if I had that vacation/house/body/weird cat, then I could feel successful. But would you? Is that what you really want?

Success could mean all kinds of things for you.

1. Having a certain number of clients, a certain number of subscribers, selling a certain number of tickets
2. Making it onto a certain show, a certain media outlet, a certain prestigious list
3. Hitting a certain level of income
4. Something else entirely

You can only drive in one direction at a time, and your money, time and energy are precious resources. So make sure you're spending them driving toward a definition of success that's actually meaningful and satisfying to you.

So how how will you know when you've made it?

The more clear you are on what success actually means to you, the easier it is to focus your efforts in the direction that gets you there.

Next time we'll get into the nitty-gritty parts, so stay tuned for Part 2!