Sales. The word that so many people dread. Without it, selling your book or running any type of business would be almost impossible. This is why I’m excited to have sales expert C. Lee Smith on the show today. Lee is the CEO of SalesFuel, Inc. He’s a credibility expert, keynote speaker, behavioral analyst and the author of two books. His first book is Hire Smarter, Sell More!: Using Talent Analytics to Discover Sales Rainmakers and Avoid Toxic Troublemakers, a book about building and maintaining a high-quality sales team. His new book is SalesCred: How Buyers Qualify Sellers, a book about sales credibility, a quality all sales people must have to build trust.
Lee walks us through why he wrote his books and the benefits of being published has had on his credibility as an expert and a business leader. He also explains how he chose the credibility niche when there are so many books on sales and trust already out there. He shares some of his marketing experts which may or may not include leaving his books at an airport bookstore. We talk about why it is so important to get to know SAM or sales and marketing, even if you don’t want to. Lee also shares why sales is actually helping people, so there is no reason to be afraid of the “S” word.
Show Highlights
- [02:18] Jonathan is on a mission. He got the idea for Arrow Striker 15 years ago. A couple of years ago, he felt prompted to write the book and get it done. His “why” is that he felt he was supposed to write the book.
- [03:49] The story is based on a story in the bible in the Old Testament.
- [05:08] His “why now” has to do with getting life experience. COVID also made him ask what’s next? Now felt the time to create the book. He knew he had to start.
- [07:16] The struggle of how much faith should I put in my book? It was clear to Jonathan to make the book faith-based.
- [08:29] The concept is about the King of Israel striking his arrows on the ground only three times, when if he had done it more times he could have completely defeated his enemies. We need to make a difference every time we strike our arrows.
- [09:58] It’s a matter of prayer and finding what resonates when deciding how much faith-based content to put in your book.
- [12:53] Be very clear in the description of your book about what your book is based on.
- [13:15] The hardest part of writing the book was getting going. Once Jonathan started following the SPS blueprint things started flowing. Mind mapping the chapters helped him a lot. Deciding whether to self-publish or traditional publish was another roadblock.
- [14:29] He made his company the publisher of his book.
- [18:46] He likes the control of self-publishing.
- [20:55] He’s also trying to create an overall package with supplemental videos and a children’s book. He’s building the brand.
- [21:45] His main goal with the book is to figure out who the pastors are that are buying the book. Then he wants to move them over into other services. They also have an email list. They might have some giveaways also.
- [23:21] Jonathan also has a lot of other book ideas.
- [24:36] He is also building a launch team. They have a network of pastors that will really help get the word out when these people leave reviews. They hope to get 300 people to write a review and share. He also has a box of promotional goodies to give to the endorsers of the book.
- [26:59] It’s his hope that this will help the book stand out.
- [27:41] They’re also building out all of their text stuff and social media. They have a book trailer coming out also. The plan is to leverage all of the pieces.
- [29:17] The second edition of Published has a lot more launch content than the first.