I’ve been selling scores of books on Amazon lately, and I’ve got a bit different approach than many.

When I order a used book from Amazon, usually I don’t get anything other than Amazon’s automated response. Then, an agonizing amount of time later, I get the book. That’s OK, I suppose. They are a lot cheaper, and most people selling books aren’t professionals.

But, you see I’ve been reading the very excellent book, “Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results” (Bryan Eisenberg, Jeffery Eisenberg), and I know better. Silence is no way to treat customers, and even if my customers aren’t really likely to become repeat customers it is still a good habit and state of mind to treat them well.

I’m treating my whole Amazon experiment as a chance to learn how to sell, how to package and ship, and how to do basic accounting for it all. It’s kind of a trial run for the clothing store I’ll be opening soon.

Yeah, that’s nice, what’s the point?

One of the things I’m doing to distinguish myself as a seller is to always follow up after I’ve shipped. That means I need to write up to a dozen response emails a day. I want to be efficient, obviously, yet I don’t want to just use the interface from my shipping software, Endicia to mail my customers. That’s too impersonal.

I’ve settled on using MailTemplate for OSX Mail.app. Using it, I simply made a responder template. After I ship a book, I right click on the order message, select “respond with mail template | shipped your book”, update the subject line, and I’m done. Easy, fast, and personalized.

Despite my troubles with Audible.com, I’m pleased to report that my first audio book is a real winner. I’m learning a lot from “Never Eat Alone : And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time” (Keith Ferrazzi, Tahl Raz).

I’ve been listening to it every day on my commute. The narrator is very good, and the content is top-notch. Keith is full of personal stories about connecting with people and building your network. He’s got a lot of advice as well. I’m actually thinking that I may need to purchase the paper book to have his tips ready-to-hand. So many are so good, but they slip your mind if you can’t flip back and refer to them.

What I’m learning

Networkers don’t have to be jerks. At its heart, networking is about making friends and being helpful to them. It isn’t about callous and shallow usage, and is certainly not about favor tallying. Those realizations are worth the price of the book to me.

Right at the start of the book, Mr. Ferrazzi says one of his ground-rules is that you should never keep score. That’s liberating. I started doing this a long time ago with lunch dates. If I go to lunch with a friend, I like to alternate paying, but I explicitly agree with them that we aren’t tallying prices. If we go to a more expensive restaurant one week and a lesser one the next time, we know that it will equal in the end. That little agreement has made a difference in comfort for us. I’m looking forward to seeing how deliberately not keeping favor tallies will enhance my social network.

Definitions

I kept being a bit put off about Keith’s apparent ease with the word "friend". Just today, I heard “Of course, everyone has at least ten friends.” Really? I got to thinking about that and came to an observation. I think that Keith just defines the word differently than me. He says friend where I’d say acquaintance, and he says close friend where I’d say friend. Defined like that, of course I have ten “good acquaintances”.

Actually, I’ve decided to try his definitions on for size. I think it may make a difference in my social experience.

Not ready for a conclusion

I’ll have more observations as I listen more to the book. For now, extremely worthwhile, if a bit mentally or emotionally challenging to consider trying to enact in my life. So far I’d give it an early "A" grade. I think it has the potential to deeply influence more than a few lives, which not many books truly do.

Technorati Tags: keith ferrazzi, never eat alone, reviews

If you do more than market, and actually have to fulfill orders, you know what a pain it is to do shipping. I’m super pleased with the Endicia online postage/software system, and I’ve reviewed it on this blog’s sister site.

I’m starting a series of articles with gems I find in the marketing books I’m reading. Yes, it is true, you really can find wisdom in dead-tree books!

Today’s gem is from “Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results”. I’m really enjoying this book and learning a lot from it. The gem I’m going to share is one that I felt compelled to walk around at work and read to coworkers.

For Heaven Sakes, Let them Pee

Imagine you are sitting in a car in the middle of a long road trip. You really have to pee. It is all you can think about. Your eyes are peeled for the nearest rest stop. […] Meanwhile, your beloved is sitting next to you, chattering about how lovely the scenery is. Needles to say, you’re not that interested nor are you being even remotely attentive.
[…]
I think that many visitors to online retail stores are on a long road trip and they have to pee. They have a goal and they want to be successful in that goal, they aren’t looking to be distracted until that goal is satisfied. […] And what is their experience at your store? My guess it’s almost exactly like our poor driver’s experience: they’re trying to ignore information that’s distracting, annoying, and as far as they’re concerned, completely irrelevant to their goal. They’re wading through banners and sale stickers. They’re searching through a sea of chattering navigation links.
[…]
Ask yourself: when she arrives at my store, does my customer have to pee and, if she does, am I letting her? […] Respect the fact that many customers have something in mind when they arrive and that they’re not looking to be distracted. When they arrive, let them pee. You’ll be amazed how interested they get in the scenery when they’re done.

I think that is an absolutely brilliant observation and metaphor. Why do I need to register at your frickin’ site? Just let me put things in the cart! Quit upselling so hard (you listening, GoDaddy?).

Technorati Tags: Marketing, bryan eisenberg, jeffrey eisenberg, call to action, conversion

As an online entrepreneur, I am always eager to learn, and I am nearly always busy. I’ve been trying to follow Steve Pavlina’s advice to read a book a week, but I am having trouble finding the time to sit down and read. I’m wonderful at devouring fiction. I can finish fiction in just a few days, because I am good at picking it up and putting it down again, filling in free moments with a good book. But, the kind of books I’m reading now don’t really lend themselves to that kind of treatment. However, I’m having a lot of success listening to audiobooks on my iPod. Starting and stopping is a snap, and the bookmark is very accurate. I can back up a few missed seconds with ease, too.

One good resource for audio books and interviews is LearnOutLoud. That link is to their free section, which is pretty well stocked with audio files of interest to entrepreneurs. For example:

• Zaadz Notes on Love is the Killer App - condensed “lowdown” on Yahoo!s Chief Solutions Officer’s book “Love is the Killer App”
• Who are These People - Marketing to 18-54 year olds
• The World is Flat - Thomas Friedman’s controversial and relevant book.

In their pay section, there is much more content, of course. For example:

• Cracking the Millionaire Code: Your Key to Enlightened Wealth
• Millionaire MBA NLP techniques applied to building a company.

Technorati Tags: audiobooks, learning, ipod

Making a storefront is usually a time consuming, fiddly process. I like to roll my own with Zen Cart, but many will find this too much work and too prone to consuming entire days and weekends. If you have an Amazon Associate relationship (very easy to set up), you may find that the associate-o-matic software hits the sweet spot for you.

Use it to set up a niche store

You simply install the software on a site, and then use it to create a full-fledged store in your niche. It pulls all data from Amazon, so you just need to pick your sections and do some look-and-feel customization. You don’t have to enter descriptions and prices at all, which saves loads of time. All sales are fulfilled through Amazon, and you get your affiliate cut of all those transactions. Pretty nice for just a bit of configuration work, and a $99 license fee.

Technorati Tags: Amazon, Amazon associate

Need advice and discussion about income streams that you can take “offline”? I just finished listening to the four part series “Establishing your first income stream”, by Internet Business Mastery

These podcasts are packed with useful information and ideas. In particular, I got a lot out of the discussion about how to tell how seriously to take a competitor. For example, one thing they mention is “does the person have an ‘about me’ page?”. If not, they are less established and less a threat.

Conclusion

My only real complaint is that they are overly focused on eBay, which is not where I am currently putting my energies. That made these ‘casts marginally less useful to me than they could have been. Regardless, they are well worth a listen by any startup net marketer.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

Technorati Tags: podcasting, podcasts, ebay, reviews