Book Review—The Introvert’s Edge
The Introvert’s Edge: How the Quiet and Shy Can Outsell Anyone by Matthew Pollard with Derek Lewis (© 2018 Rapid Growth L.L.C (Published by AMACON: The American Management Association)
If you are an extrovert, don’t worry about the title of this book. It does include tips for you!
I had to smile when my most extroverted friend wrote this to me recently. It is something that most of us introverts know well by now:
I’m loving the lock down. I had waaay too many responsibilities before. I even straightened a few of my drawers the other day. Such small improvements give me great satisfaction and happiness.
Many extroverts and introverts are discovering or rediscovering the pleasures we introverts have enjoyed since birth – the freedom to be alone and focused solely on ourselves and what we want to do.
So what do you, as an author or a self-employed person with a book have to gain from this book?
A way of marketing that took me almost a decade to put together. A way of marketing that pulled my back-of-the-book index creation business out of debt after I’d lost everything I owned at the turn of this century.
I spent hours taking workshops with marketing expert Robert Middleton, listening to tapes by other marketers and reading books on marketing and sales for over a decade.
You can know what I know and more just by reading Matthew Pollard’s book.
Why should you do this? Because when you write a book you should also be writing your marketing plan for your book. And this is a great time to do that.
If you are new to self-employment and writing a book, or an author who is self-publishing, you can save a lot of time and money with Matthew’s book, and perhaps also by signing up for Matthew’s free one-year mentorship plan.
If you’re experienced in sales, this book will show you a number of ways introverts can flourish both in marketing and sales to work more efficiently and comfortably with clients.
You’ll see how introverts can even beat extroverts when it comes to using non-traditional sales techniques that work better the pushy traditional methods.
What really sparked for me most about this book was Matthew’s humility about how he came up with these techniques and his inspiring revelations at the end of The Introvert Edge about his own disability he has had to overcome to succeed in sales work.
Here’s what Matthew admits (on page 159) about how he learned his techniques:
I can’t claim credit for any of the building blocks I’ve presented in this book. As I said I pierced them together from YouTube videos when I was eighteen years old…You can go out and find plenty of sales books on each aspect. [For example] I didn’t invent the idea of continuous improvement. I’m just figured out that it works for introverts’ sales too.”
Continuously evaluating one’s sales techniques periodically is a great idea that I did not learn from any of those workshops and materials I studied about making sales.
This practice of continuous evaluation (which he’ll show you in detail) should be included in your book marketing plan. And I’d suggest setting a benchmark too for how many copies you want to sell by when, and how you will accomplish that goal.
Many books aimed at small business people emphasize making a business plan, but even as of now, small business people do not need such a plan. That’s because business plans do not usually result in the ability to get loans or government assistance either for self-employed or truly small “main street” businesses.
If you’re an author, don’t be discouraged that book publishing is down and local libraries and bookstores are closed now!
It will be a very different world by the time they re-open. That world will be way more digital than now. Perhaps for some countries support for small businesses, self-employment, and creative people may even increase. We don’t know what our futures hold.
As I’ve written, this is a good time. Seize the day! Get The Introvert’s Edge and start to put your book-marketing and sales plan in motion!
