How To Sell a Brand New Product

A reader writes:

I accepted a sales job for a new "bookzine" (book magazine) even though I have no experience with sales, thinking they would most likely train me or perhaps they would at least give me some leads. (I'm supposed to sell ad space for this publication.) However after accepting the job, there was no "they" but only "she", the publisher. She also turned out to be the writer, photographer, layout artist, financier and has no experience with sales. The supervisor she hired is supposed to help us, but somehow I don't think he's doing a good job. (He's also charged with administrative work) The publisher expects us to go out everyday to do sales calls, since she'll be publishing her bookzine this September. So far most of the companies we've managed to send a proposal do not want to advertise because we are a new publication and company, and they don't want to take the risk. I'm thinking of quitting, but I feel sorry for leaving my boss, especially since she'll be publishing a bookzine with no ads in it. Please help.

Before explaining how to sell an untested product, we need to do a bit of air-clearing. Let's face it, you made two dumb mistakes in accepting this job. First, you accepted a job for which you weren't qualified. Selling is a skill and all skills require some kind of training and experience. Second, you didn't investigate your employer before accepting that job. What were you thinking? You should have known what you were getting yourself into.

Not to worry. All is not lost. The main problem with selling an untested product is getting started. Here's how:

• STEP #1: Count your blessings. Startups generally have low operational costs so that they can become viable as quickly as possible. That's probably the case here, and you only need to make a few sales to get the publication bootstrapped. Once it's successful, then you should be able to sell the product more easily.
• STEP #2. Understand the prospect's resistance. Your prospects are simply being smart by not buying into your new product, because the risk is remain high. To get initial advertisers, you'll need to lower the risk threshold so that buying into your product (i.e. buying some advertising) is more of a "no-brainer."
• STEP #3. Use past performance to create credibility. Assuming your employer has a track record of success with this type of venture, than you need to emphasize that success in all your sales materials and sales calls. If there is no track record of success, then the venture is just so much silliness, in which case you might as well bail out now.
• STEP #4. Give away some free product. Find most reputable company that you can, and give them your product (in this case some ad space) for free. Then use the fact that the reputable firm is your customer to prove to prospects that your product is credible.
• STEP #5. Tie payment to performance. Make it clear that you don't expect to get paid unless your product delivers. In your case, you should propose that every advertisement have a call to action, so that the customer can measure the impact of the advertising.

Let us know how it works out, OK?