Music for Profit

The concept that makes this book a unique and valuable addition to a musician’s bookshelf can be summed up in a single word: “Service.” Unlike so many other business development books that teach marketing and sales, this one is geared specifically toward small businesses interested in providing service to customers. And service to your fans is one of the most important principles that MusicForProfit.com keeps trying to hammer home. (See community of raving fans, and  taking care of your customers, and Rule #3 of the 4 business principles to follow)

I have read through it once, and now I’m going to go back for a deeper read a second time. In the meantime I’ve been recommending this book to pretty much everyone who is currently focused on developing an in-person relationship with paying clients.

Two Action Items (one free, one almost free):

• Sign up at ThinkBigRevolution.com and notice how Port profits from this rabid community of fans without trying to sell them anything.
• Get the book at Amazon: Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even If You Hate Marketing and Selling

Tags: booking, Business, service

Beyond Authority: The Principles of Persuasion and Influence from Haas Alumni Network on Vimeo.

In the post a week in tweets where I took the best of my very active week on Twitter, there is a post via @workfromwithin – a video from the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. I have repeatedly been referring to this video in conversations with, well, everyone. There is so much content in this video, it’s like a dense book.

If you’re this type of geek like me – interested in sales, marketing, and the psychology behind it, then do yourself a favor and watch this very long video. If you’re super busy like me, then do it in chunks. I’ve been watching it 20 minutes at a time over breakfast.

Here’s a couple of one minute tips I picked up from the video:

• Physical proximity is a strong indicator of the strength of an online relationship (ie you email and connect online with whom you see more frequently in person)
• The “four walls” sales technique is a great way to generate copy that focuses on the benefits of the benefits that are of interest to your psychographic, instead of the features and tech specs. Example: Customer cares about their offspring’s education, not how many entries are in the encyclopedia.

There’s more, but you get the idea. Watch this video and pick one thing that you can apply to improve your daily life and business in a non-manipulative fashion.

Tags: Videos