Today is Wednesday, so this post is on Outstanding Performance.
I did a launch campaign for my new book “Straight Talk for Success” yesterday. My goal was to make it an Amazon.com best seller. I accomplished that goal. By the end of the day, “Straight Talk” got as high as number 6 in the Motivation category, number 29 in Business and Investing, and Number 168 overall. The Motivation category was my target. My goal was to crack the top 10. I did it.
I want to thank everybody who bought a copy of “Straight Talk for Success” yesterday. I am delighted that so many of you chose to help me reach my goal. I am overwhelmed by the response to “Straight Talk.” Amazon.com went into backorder. I have decided to extend my bonus offer until the end of the week. If you purchase a copy of “Straight Talk for Success” in the next few days, you’ll receive all of the bonuses I offered for purchasing it today. Go to http://www.StraightTalkForSuccessBook.com/booklaunch to purchase your copy and receive your bonuses.
I’d like to use this successful campaign to illustrate the key points about outstanding performance. All outstanding performers have three things in common:
• Outstanding performers are lifelong learners.
• Outstanding performers set and achieve high goals.
• Outstanding performers are well organized.
Each of these keys to performance played an important role in the successful launch of “Straight Talk for Success.”
“Straight Talk” is my seventh book. I know how to write books. However, until this campaign, I didn’t know a lot about selling them. As I was writing “Straight Talk” I realized that I had something special going. But a book that nobody buys or reads is like a tree that falls in the forest with no one there to hear it fall. I decided that I was going to do everything I could to get this book in front of as many people as possible. That meant I had to learn how to sell, as well as write, books.
And so, my education in book marketing began. I engaged Peggy McColl to teach me her book launch formula. I worked with her individually to get a grasp of how to launch a best seller. It was an eye opening experience that taught me the basics of internet marketing. As I worked with Peggy, I spent a lot of time learning about Web 2.0 and social networks. Nancy Marmolejo taught me a lot about MySpace and Facebook. John DiPietro showed me around LinkedIn. I discovered Naymz on my own. In short, I learned everything I could about selling on the web in general and selling books on the web in specific.
At the beginning of this process, I decided that I was going to set a goal of becoming an Amazon.com best selling author in the motivation category. I defined best selling as being in the top 10 in this category. This was a definite stretch goal for me – a relatively unknown writer. I achieved it.
I was excited when I woke up yesterday – and a little bit fearful. I said to myself, “What if no one buys ‘Straight Talk’? I’ll feel like as if I’ve failed – and this one will be a public failure as I launched the book with so much fanfare.” Then I said to myself, “Bud, you did everything you could to reach your goal. Trust that your best was good enough.”
And so I went to my office, fired up the computer and watched “Straight Talk” move up the Amazon.com charts. By the end of the day, I was really glad that I had set a stretch goal for myself. This experience once again proved to me the power of goal setting.
Personal organization is the third component of high performance. This campaign required a tremendous amount of organization – not my strong suit. So I followed Tim Ferris’ advice. As he recommends in his great book, “The 4-Hour Workweek”, I outsourced the organization of my campaign. Peggy Murrah, my Virtual Assistant, did an unbelievable job in managing the details of the campaign.
She followed up on my invitations to joint venture partners. She made sure she had their photo’s, blurbs and gifts. She created the sales page and the bonus page. She even added a partner less than 24 hours prior to the launch. She seemed to anticipate all of my questions and concerns, often answering them before I even voiced them. She tracked sales all day. She was, and is, terrific.
The common sense point here comes from my experience launching “Straight Talk for Success.” If you want to succeed, become a lifelong learner, set high goals – and then do whatever it takes to achieve them, and pay attention to the details. I had a successful book launch for three reasons. 1) I learned everything I could about selling books on the web. I learned a lot about social networking. Most importantly, I put this knowledge to work. 2) I set a high goal for the launch – one that scared me a little. I achieved this goal because I put in the time and effort necessary. 3) I know that I am not good with details, and this was a detail oriented effort, so I outsourced the details to someone who is great with them. If you become a lifelong learner, set high goals and do the work necessary to meet them, and get yourself organized, you too will become an outstanding performer.
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading. Log on to my website www.BudBilanich.com for more common sense and to subscribe to my weekly newsletter “Common Sense.”
I’ll see you around the web and at Alex’s Lemonade Stand.
Bud
PS: Speaking of Alex’s Lemonade Stand, my fundraising page is still open. Please go to www.FirstGiving.com/TheCommonSenseGuy to read Alex’s inspiring story and to donate if you can.
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