Daily Archives: February 8, 2007

My First Sales Meeting!

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Eoin Purcell

New Experiences
I did something I have never done before on Tuesday, I took a sales meeting with a major wholesaler. Needless to say I was terrified, I was surprised and I was woefully under-prepared for the meeting but it did give me an amazing experience and one that I know I can improve upon.

A couple of things stand out as guides that I guess I should really have known in advance but which I know for certain now.

    1) Wholesalers have a very fine sense of the market (they need to) as such they really only care about the books that they know will sell. A meeting with them then is one where you should really know their market and not try and sell them something that they cannot sell to their retailers.
    2) Fancy sales material is next to useless. What matters is if the product meets their needs. Is it the right Price? Does it have wide enough appeal? Will it look good on shelves? If you can fit these key points on a single sheet (and you should be able to) then that will do the trick.
    3) Don’t waste time. Buyers are busy, they are busy doing a lot more than you think. Get in, get the books over and done with and get out.

I know these are probably terribly obvious to most people who have ever spent a day selling but to me they were new and I thought they might be useful.

The crowning value of the trip though was that it has instilled in me a new found respect for all things data and sales system based. I know why people who sell things want the system to work and to have data in the right place at the right time: It stops you looking like an idiot in front of people who you are asking to give you money!

Fortunately my inexperience did not do us too badly. All but one of our forthcoming titles got some orders and one or two did pretty well by my book. So I cannot have been too bad!

Feeling less foolish by the hour
Eoin

Independent Bookstores

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This LATime spiece brings out my capitalist side. It is actually a sterling feature and well written offering a good analysis of the ills of independent book stores. But, and it is a big but, it is defeatist, un-knowingly nostalgic for better times and forgiving of Independent Bookstores’ failings.

The closing paragraphs offer little hope and even less comfort to the trade. What os even worse they offer scant promise to innovators or new entrants:

He’s full of plans for improving the Booksmith’s website, tying the store more firmly to the Haight-Ashbury community, doing more events — making it both inescapable and irresistible for those who live in the neighborhood.

Frank, who owns the Booksmith building, is helping out the new team by offering a below-market rent. He couldn’t think offhand of a store anywhere in the country that has successfully reinvented itself and moved to a secure financial footing, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

“Someone needs to take bookstores to another level,” Frank said. “Because this level sure isn’t working.”

Either you are in business to make money or you are in business for the wrong reason.
That is a simple rule and one to follow closely in publishing and book selling. Making money allows you to do the things we dream of doing, losing money secures only pain and suffering. It is time for independents to stop complaining, they are starting to remind me of Farmers*. There are huge changes ongoing in publishing but no company has a right to survive, no retailer a right to profit. The sooner the sense of entitlement gets forgotten the sooner independents will begin to work their way into profit and relevance once more.

Enjoying the snow: it’s not nearly as nice as for these guys though
Eoin

*I love farmers for their food and effort and I will happily pay premium for quality but I hate the way Farmers campaign and complain on an almost constant basis about their industry and how they deserve extra support for their businesses!