How Giving Led to $1,500,000
By John Milton Fogg
Lots of authors take custody of the "best-seller" claim for their book. Yeah, well... it may be a best-seller at the "Ain't Words Cool" book store in their own home town, but... It's a whole other thing to be able to say that a book has sold a million copies!
That's just what John Milton Fogg can claim for his book "The Greatest Networker in the World". How did he do that? John's answer is...
I gave the book away.
I wrote The Greatest Networker... in 1992. At the time I was the owner/editor of a publication named Upline, that served men and women in the network marketing profession. At that time, we probably had a couple of thousand subscribers at most.
I didn't have the money for the first-print run. A friend and mentor of mine in the business, Tom "Big Al" Schreiter, suggested I "pre-sell" the books to people who could sell them to others: book wholesalers, vendors to network marketers, people who had magazines or catalogs which sold books, tapes and tools. Tom told me to make a great low-price deal to these folks so they could make more money. That would pay for the printing, make a profit for myself and generate the money to print more books. Tom bought 1000 copies at $3 each.
I asked him how he was going to sell those books. He told me he wasn't. He was going to give them away.
That got my attention, so I asked, "Why?"
Tom explained he was going to "seed" the market. He figured people would like or love the book, and they'd come back and buy more to give or sell to other people. And, it would create word-of-mouth advertising for the book, which meant more sales for him (and me).
Tom also explained the idea of a "value-added" premium to me: He'd make an offer of one of his products to his people and give The Greatest Networker... away free as an incentive to buy. People would get a $10 value, which Tom only paid $3 for.
Good deal for him - helped him sell more of his products.
Good deal for them - they got a free gift, felt great and were more inclined to buy his offer.
I don't know how many of my books Tom sold over the years. I do know he made his investment back and them some -lots of some.
I knew a great idea when I saw one, so I started giving The Greatest Networker... away with every single subscription to Upline. My subscribers got a free gift and were more likely to buy the magazine to begin with. I got my book being read by the best possible people who could spread the word and help me sell more.
When the Internet came along, I put The Greatest Networker... up on our website and gave it away there, too.
Over the years I probably gave away 40,000-plus copies of my book. The cost of that was, say, $50,000. So one way to look at it was I gave away $50,000.
But I earned a buck a book royalty on all the copies of The Greatest Networker in the World that were sold. That doesn't include any "extra" money I earned from the wholesale or retail sales when people bought the book.
Do the math.
My guess would be all-in-all that's $1.5 million of net profit to me.
All because I gave my book away.
Here's yet another true story about the power of giving:
Do you know who Seth Godin is? (He's the other Internet Marketing guru besides Joe.) :-) Seth wrote The Idea Virus. That book started a revolution. Seth gave it away on-line. People told him he was crazy. More than a million and a-half of Seth's e-books are out there. AND, after he gave it away for free, he printed up a hardcover edition for $45 and made a fortune selling that! Go figure.
I had the fascinating privilege of interviewing Seth Godin for Networking Times magazine. He told me the following "Giving- Marketing" story and it just blew me away. This is utterly brilliant!
Seth knows a great folksinger who does music for kids. She has five CDs and she sells them on her own. Now, Seth doesn't do consulting any more, but this lady is a personal friend, so when she asked if he had any ideas on how she could sell more of her CDs, Mr. Permission Marketing (he wrote that book, too) complied.
Seth asked how much she sold her CDs for. She told him $15. Seth asked how much one cost her to produce and package. She told him 80 cents. So Seth said...
"Look, every time someone buys one CD, send them two. Nobody has any use for a second CD, because it's the same music. What are they going to do? They're going to give it away, probably as a present. One of these kids gives one of these CDs to another kid as a birthday present and they're likely to buy two, three or four more, because the parents get tired of hearing the same songs over and over again."
Like I said, "Brilliant." Each one of those give-away CDs that results in just one additional sale nets the folksinger $14.20. And as Seth pointed out, parents will probably buy two or three more, perhaps all five. And each time they do, they get an extra one free, that they turn around and give to a friend saying, "This is great. Little Harry will really love this."
Oh, that lady folksinger doubled, then tripled her business with that CD she gave away. |
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布施带来150万
作者：John Milton Fogg
许多作家都给自己的作品书冠以“最畅销”的名号，唔... 也许是的，不过可能只是在 Ain't Words Cool 书店（他们老家的 一间小书店）里是最畅销的... 而真正能销出100万本，那就是另外一回事了！
这也是 John Milton Fogg 对他的《世界上最伟大的网络》一书的要求。他又是如何实现这个目标的呢？ John 的回答是...
我把这本书免费送出去。
我是在 1992年写的《最大的网络》。那个时候，我有一个名为 Upline 的刊物，也是该刊的编辑；这个刊物主要面向网络营销行业。当时我大约有几千个订户。
我没有钱来开版出书。我的一个在这个领域的朋友兼导师，人称“老大”的 Tom Schreiter 建议我将这本书“预售”给那些有能力卖书的人：图书批发商，网络市场的卖家，或者是有杂志或产品目录可以用来做广告卖图书、磁带和工具的人们。Tom 让我用最低的价格来和这些人作交易，以让他们能赚得多点（这样他们推销的积极性也会更高）。使用这种方法可以支付印刷费用，同时积累利润来印更多的书。 Tom 本人以每本3美元的价格买了1000本。
我问他要怎么来卖这些书。他告诉我，他不卖，他要把这些书白送出去。
这引起了我的注意，因此我问他，“问什么？”
Tom 解释说，他要培育市场（它称之为“下种子”）。他觉得会有很多人喜爱这本书，他们将会回来买更多的来送人或销售。同时人们又会口口相传的为这本书广告，这就意味着他和我将会卖出更多的书。
Tom 又对我解释“超值”礼品的意思：他会提供这样一个优惠：把《最伟大的网络》等作为免费礼品与某产品捆绑赠送，以此作为刺激购买的一个激励措施。顾客得到的是一个价值10美元的礼物，而 Tom 只为之花了3美元。
对他来说，这是一个很好的交易，可以帮他卖更多的产品。
对大家来说，这也是一个很好的交易，他们得到了免费的礼品，感觉很好，也更愿意继续买他的产品。
虽然我不知道这几年 Tom 到底卖出了多少，但我知道他不仅赚回了他的投资，并且还额外赚了许多。
当我看到一个好主意时，我会立即敏锐的捕捉到它。因此我开始把《最伟大的网络》送给所有 Upline 的订阅者。
我的订户收到了免费的礼物，就更愿意来买这本杂志。而我的书也被最有可能宣传或帮着我卖的人阅读。
当我们的网站成立时，我把《最伟大的网络》放到网站上赠送。
这些年来，我总共送出了大约40,000本书，成本大约为50,000美元。因此从另一个角度来看，我布施了50,000美元。
但是，（无论是谁）每卖出一本《世界上最伟大的网络》，我都可以获得一美元的版税。这还不包括我自己在批发和零售中的“额外”赢利。
你算一下。
我的估算是：总共我会有150万美元的净利润。
所有这一切，只是因为我把自己的书给布施出去了。
下面是另外一个关于布施的力量的真实故事：
你知道 Seth Godin 是谁吗？（他是除 Joe 以外的另一个网络营销大师，呵呵 :-) ） Seth 写了一本书，叫《思想病毒》。这本书发起了一场革命。Seth 把这本书放到网上提供免费下载，大家都说他疯了。这本电子书的下载多达150多万次。然后，他又出版了精装版本，标价45美元，并在销售中获取了巨额的赢利！你自己去想想这件事。
我有一次有幸为《网络时代》杂志采访 Seth Godin。他给我讲了一个“布施营销”的故事，我听了感到非常震撼 —— 真的是非常精彩！
Seth Godin 认识一个出色的民间歌手，她为孩子们作音乐。她有５张 CD，并准备自己销售。当时 Seth 已不再做顾问工作了，但是这位女士是他的私交，因此当她问 Seth 有什么办法可以卖更多的 CD 时，这位“许可营销”先生（“许可营销”也是他写的一本书的名字）同意为她出主意。
Seth 问她的 CD 售多少钱一张；她说15美元。Seth 又问，生产一张 CD 加上包装成本总共是多少？她说只有80美分。因此，Seth 说：
“你瞧，每次人们买１张 CD，给他们２张。第二张对他们没一点用处，因为两张的音乐都是一样的。那他们拿第二张会怎么处理呢？他们会把它做为礼物送出去。一个孩子把一张 CD 做为生日礼物送给另一个的孩子，后者可能就会再买两张、三张、四张或更多，因为父母们讨厌一遍又一遍的重复听同样的歌。”
就像我刚刚说过的，“太精彩了”。每送出一张 CD，都能带来一个额外的销售，使这位歌手增加14.2美元的利润。正如 Seth 指出的那样，父母们可能会再买两、三张，甚至全部的五张碟。每次购买，他们都会得到额外的一张免费 CD，他们会把这张免费碟送给一个朋友，并且肯定会说类似的话，“这张唱碟非常好。您的小 Harry 一定会喜欢的。”
哦，通过这种赠送 CD 的方式，这位女歌手的事业成两三倍的增长。 |
