September ‘21 Newsletter
Last week, our area got 12” of rain in less than 6 hours. We live on the top of what is called a mountain, although it’s not a very high mountain. Nevertheless, we almost never have any flood damage; but with the torrential rain that we had, our basement got flooded, and has to be totally rebuilt.
A friend whose house is on the Schuylkill River, though, had flood waters trash not just her ground floor but the 2nd floor of her house as well. She and her husband were not home, but when they went back to their home to see the damage, the water on the 2nd level of their home was over 2 feet deep. Others had trees fall on their homes, or, as in this image, their cars were flooded or even swept away. So I guess we were lucky that we only had a flooded basement. Instead of looking at the negative side of what we have to go through, considering the worse plight of others, I feel fortunate that we have much less we have to deal with.
1. In the News
This past month I was invited to be a guest on three podcasts. The first was Life Mastery Radio, hosted by Jackie Bailey and Todd Cudaback. Life Mastery Radio brings you inspiring information and transformative tips for making the most of your life. You can listen to that interview at https://youtu.be/4IZKTR2dPR4 or read a blog post about the interview at https://lifemasteryradio.net/topic-time-money/.
The second was The Drop In CEO podcast hosted by Deb Coviello. Deb and I talked about her recent book writing journey and the assistance she received from SkillBites to get her book published. On her podcast, Deb interviews CEO’s and industry leaders who are doing the work of transforming their businesses so other business owners can learn how to take control and build a strong foundation of purpose for their companies. To subscribe to this podcast, go to https://apple.co/3jN1ZrD
The third was the Employee to Entrepreneur podcast hosted by Kim Speed. As the name connotes, this podcast is geared to helping those who have made the leap from the corporate world to being an entrepreneur. Kim has also created a Facebook group, The Employee to Entrepreneur Society. To join this group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/509214859680503/
2. Newest Author
SkillBites’ newest author is Deb Coviello, whose book, The CEO’s Compass: Your guide to get back on track, was published last month. The book helps CEOs systematically identify their team’s current blind spots and determine seven key areas they need to focus on to create a plan that is sustainable so their business can get back on track in days – not months.
The book can be purchased on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3jNWPvi
3. Upcoming Events
I am part of a vibrant community called JVology, which has 2 upcoming events. The first is called 7 Steps to Unlocking Lead Flow with Joint Ventures, taught by Jay Fiset, and is happening on Monday, September 13 at 6 pm Mountain time, 8 pm ET. If you want a strategy for getting an abundant and steady flow of leads, this will be a good opportunity for you. Make sure you stay til the end, as Jay will be making an exclusive offer ONLY AVAILABLE ON THE BROADCAST for you to join the JVology community. It’s free to attend. Click here to register.
Are you interested in learning how to attract more clients, earn more income and grow your business by leveraging the power of joint ventures? If so, you should plan to attend JVology LIVE, from September 22 – 24. I’ve gone to this event in the past and felt it was so worthwhile that I’m planning to go to this one as well.
The event is virtual, so you don’t need to travel anywhere. During this event, you’ll discover the art and science of joint ventures. This is a strategy that can work for you even if you don’t have a big list, a hot product, or currently know any of the big names in your niche.
You’ll get to meet a ton of people, gain lots of new leads, and even gain a bunch of partners willing to promote your offerings. You’ll learn the top systems and strategies to form profitable partnerships, which is the most efficient way to create success.
Click here to see all the details and sign up for the event!
Another event to watch for is the SkillBites Gift Giveaway, “Catapult Your Book: Strategies for Success”. This event will run from October 4 – 24. It will over twelve valuable resources to help business owners leverage their books, such as by getting speaking engagements, running virtual summits, generating hot leads and converting more prospects into customers. Best of all, you can get any or all of the resources for FREE! The registration site isn’t up yet, so if you want me to let you know when the registration page is ready, email me at judy@skillbites.net.
4. The SkillBites Show
Each month, we bring you an expert to help you get your book done, leverage your book, grow your business or improve your life. The shows are recorded, so if you can’t listen to one live, you can listen to the recording by clicking here.
On our next SkillBites Show our guest will be Sue Allen Clayton, who has been a self-employed one-person business owner for more than 25 years. After a long career as a freelance writer, Sue founded the Solopreneur Academy for Women in 2018. She is author of Solopreneur Success: How to Plan, Create and Run a One-Person Business as well as several other books. She lives on Long Island, NY with her husband, solopreneur daughter, and three rescue dogs.
Sue will be reviewing her 7 steps to thrive as a solopreneur.
Last month, my guest was Nicki Chang-Powless, an Amazon Bestselling Author of “Putting the Pieces Together: Your Survival Guide to the First Five Years in Business” and an award-winning Business Strategist. The topic for the episode was Powerful Strategies and Systems to Solve Overwhelm. Nicki offered members of the SkillBites community the opportunity to have a complimentary Breakthrough Strategy Session with her, a value of $500. To take advantage of this, go to NCPConsulting.net/apply and use coupon code SkillBites.
If you missed this presentation, you can listen to it by clicking here, or you can read a summary of the show on the SkillBites blog by clicking here.
SAVE THE DATE: Next month, my guest will be Kim Speed, founder and CEO of Purple Moon Creative, Brand and Marketing Boutique, where she shares her brand expertise and business knowledge with budding and building entrepreneurs. She is the recipient of the 2019 Most Influential Business Woman in Brand Development, and is the Amazon best-selling author of Branding on a Shoestring. How to recreate your small business identity and increase sales results in 83 days or less.
Kim has worked as a graphic designer, art director, and creative director during her years in the corporate world and has had the pleasure to work with fortune 500 clients including Coca-Cola, TD Bank, Ford and Molson Coors. Kim’s design skills drew her to the world of advertising, and once she began her journey, she gained experience and expertise in brand strategy, writing and marketing.
Kim will discuss the importance of creating a personal brand and how to create that.
Do you have expertise that you believe would benefit the SkillBites community of entrepreneurs and authors? If you would like to be the guest on the monthly SkillBites Show, contact me at judy@skillbites.net or 610-783-4519.
5. Tip of the Month: Boost Book Sales by Collaborating with Other Authors
Collaborating with other authors is a great way to increase book sales, and there are multiple ways to do this.¹ Authors looking primarily to increase awareness of their books and generate leads can collaborate by doing a book giveaway, where each author offers their eBook for free, and each author gets the names of everyone who chooses to download their eBook. Readers have a strong incentive to sign up for the giveaway so they can get several eBooks for free.
There are sites and tools that facilitate this. Book Funnel, for example has a Group Author Promotions feature that allows an author to create a promotion or join an existing one in formation. Prolific Works offers a similar feature. A third avenue is BookSweeps, which, for a fee (around $50) organizes, curates all the promos and advertises them to readers.
When joining a group promotion or creating your own, you want to make sure that the others in the promotion are in your same niche or genre, the books are all at least as professional as your own, and everyone agrees to promote the giveaway when it launches.
Another collaboration tactic that is similar to giveaways is group promotions. In group promotions, each of the authors heavily discounts their book to boost sales over a short period of time. The increased sales helps improve the ranking of the book, which can lead to organic promotion on the book retail sites and further sales at the book’s full price.
A third collaboration tactic consists of multi-author box sets, where each author contributes a book and the organizer bundles them into a big box set. Each of the authors promotes the box set at its launch. So if there are 10 authors and each contributes $5000 for advertising, that creates a $50,000 advertising budget, which will substantially increase awareness for all the authors and lead to significant sales.
If you’ve come across any innovative ideas for book marketing, please share them with me so I can help more authors be successful.
________________________
¹ Ideas presented here were originally shared in a blog post by Ricardo Fayet at https://mailparrot.reedsy.com/emails/ab3ee6ed91?utm_source=mailparrot&utm_campaign=marketing_author_collaboration_part_ii_2021_08_19.
6. Earn Commissions For Referrals
Do you know anyone who has been wanting to write a book but has been stalling? Let them know that SkillBites offers a variety of services to make book writing and publishing easy, quick and convenient. When you sign up to be a SkillBites affiliate, you can get a commission for each person who signs up to purchase SkillBites services through your unique referral link. To obtain more information and to sign up for our referral program, click here.
Thanks for supporting SkillBites. If there is anything you think we ought to be doing better or anything we should be doing that we’re not, please let us know. We value your input.
Cordially,
