As an author it is important to be visible to your target market so attending (and preferably being a guest speaker at) a relevant event on a regular basis (e.g. networking meetings, seminars, conferences etc) is a good thing to do.

These are book selling opportunities and if you want a best selling book you need to remember that the clue is in the word “selling”!

Master salespeople are adept at utilising powerful psychological strategies to influence people and here are three from my personal top ten that can be easily applied by authors to improve their book sales.

1. People will buy from people they like

Extensive psychological research demonstrates the importance of ‘liking’ in persuading people.  Master salesman Joe Girrard (In the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s “greatest car salesman”) credits liking as one of the most important factors in closing sales.  The fastest and most effective way to encourage people to like you is to use the rapport building strategies from Neuro Linguistic Programming.  People like people who are like them.  Matching the behaviour of people when you meet them will enable you to establish deep levels of liking.   When they like you they will assume that they will like your book.

2. People will buy if other people are buying

The impact of other people’s behaviour on our own is powerful.  We will view a specific behaviour as correct to the degree that we see other people doing it. It is possible to encourage someone to take a specific action (such as buying your books) by demonstrating how other people are taking that action.  Utilise this persuasion strategy by making frequent use of testimonials from existing readers/customers, and by using stories about how existing readers made the decisions you want your prospective reader to make.  This strategy is particularly effective when people are feeling uncertain.  When people are feeling uncertain they are more likely to use the actions of others as guidance.

3. People will buy if the decision is consistent with previous commitments

The drive to be and look consistent is a powerful motivator of human behaviour.  Utilise this strategy by getting your prospective reader to commit to something during your conversation and then use it to leverage a decision later in the sale.

So for example I may ask (as an author of a number of sales related books), “So improving your sales ability is important to you, isn’t it?”

At an appropriate time in the conversation I remind them of their earlier commitment and ask them for a decision.

“So as you said earlier improving your sales ability is something that is important to you, so you will benefit from the closing methods outlined in “Bare Knuckle Selling”.  Did you want a copy of “Bare Knuckle Negotiating” to go with it?”

Good luck and good book selling!