His newsletter yesterday had some interesting observations about selling life story products and services in a recessionary environment:
"Hard financial time..."
"Everyone's feeling the pinch..."
"Nobody's buying..."
These are generalizations that you and I are constantly being bombarded with. They are not universally true. While it is true some people are having hard times, some people are feeling the pinch, and some people are not buying, it is not true that this is universally so for your entire contact list. For example...
My friend Don said to me, "My stocks have lost half their value but that's my kids' inheritance. They'll rebound eventually. Meanwhile my retirement income and my wife's are allowing us to have a comfortable life."
My friend David offered, "My state pension is not about to go away, and I'm comfortable for the rest of my life no matter how old I live."
Let these statements remind you that your memoir business need not be on hold until the economy gets back on its feet. You can make your business grow right now--regardless of the doom and gloom you hear and read everywhere.
Below are a few ideas gleaned from the curriculum of my forthcoming Business Development Seminar Tele-Class beginning Thursday, February 19.
1. Review your list of clients and prospects (people who have not become clients but whom you assessed as genuinely interested) and evaluate their income levels.This may call for "best guesses" and that is fine. Use cues like a) "when we get back from our cruise" to add someone to the direct marketing list I am helping you devise and cues like b) "do you offer scholarship/reduced rate" to take them off this action list. (Later, you can offer scholarships to these individuals to fill in a lower than expected enrollment but don't invest prime energy in them at this stage.)
With the list you have just devised of interested and financially stable individuals, begin a direct marketing campaign. That is, you e-mail, call, or snail mail the individual to let him/her know of an upcoming program, a new product, or simply your schedule availability. This effort will produce new active clients. (Introverts will prefer e-mail and snail mail. These are fine first contacts in this campaign, but the best results come from the phone call!)
2) Once the old list is "milked," generate new contacts. In my estimation, the quickest, best source of new clients is the speaking engagement at libraries, clubs, conferences. Again these must target individuals whom you can reasonably expect to be interested in producing a memoir and who can afford your product.
For instance, a presentation on Five Things to Keep in Mind When Writing your Memoirs (the outline of which is part of the Soliel Lifestory Network Affiliate Package) at a library in a fairly wealthy community is likely to attract just the kind of person who will purchase your product. A number of attendees will realize that, while they might go it alone, they would do better to hire your services--as workshop leader, co-author, editor. Of course, you mention these services in your presentation and have promotional materials available to hand out.
To learn not only ideas about business development but to acquire the habit of thinking and acting like a successful business person and to do so in the context of other memoir professionals like yourself, I invite you to enroll in the upcoming business growth tele-class by clicking on the link below
Make 2009 the year you finally understand how to run a financially successful business.
15 Weeks to More Lucrative, More Enjoyable Business Practices
I think the PLC LifeStory is not just for the wealthy. In fact some of our biggest successes have come from people of moderate or "regular" means. I think Denis has a lot of good advice above, but I would encourage our LCs not to prejudge anyone based on their perceived economic status. People will find the money when they buy into the emotional significance of what we do.
