From Selling Cars to Publishing Romance Novels
How my father’s marketing wisdom still holds true.
IN THIS ISSUE OF MORE MILES TO GO...:
Laura’s Idle Chatter: How My Father’s Marketing Wisdom Still Holds True
Shop Talk: The State of My Publishing Company
Bodywork: A Five-Minute Stress Buster
Letter from the Editor
FEATURE ARTICLE: LAURA’S IDLE CHATTER
From Selling Cars to Publishing Romance Novels: How My Father’s Marketing Wisdom Still Holds True
If you don’t know me, you don’t know that my family and I sold cars for a living for many years. If you do know me, you know this already and know what a savvy businessman my father once was. He did things his way. And he scaled his business from a simple mom-and-pop he began in the garage of our house to a large empire specializing in highly sought-after sports cars.
However, now that my father has passed and I’ve moved ahead into the publishing business, I’ve found that his renegade marketing wisdom still holds true. I want to share some of that here. It was hard to choose, but here are three things I’ve learned from my best business teacher.
Go slow and present beautifully:
Honor and know your product, my father would say. He would also say to pay attention to detail and showcase only the best you are able to. Whether you are creating a product or buying something for resale, detail it to perfection and make it the best you can.
To support this claim, I have memories of my dad taking a white handkerchief and spit-shining the emblem of one of his prized automobiles. Whatever was in his inventory always looked the best it could be, and he would do all in his power to make his presentation shine. He carefully selected each unit, allowing him to marry that unit with the ideal person to drive it.
Make people feel special:
My father was a master at making people feel special; he liked to know his customers and call them by name, know their stories and their history. This allowed him to place each of them with the perfect vehicle he had in inventory, as I noted earlier, and word-of-mouth marketing took over from there.
This idea also held true with our newsletter. My mother toiled early and late to create a special newsletter for our customers. As a team, we would hand-address each issue to each individual using a black Sharpie marker. Of course, this is hard to do with the advent of social media, to be sure. But being authentic and giving insight into who I am will hopefully bridge that gap in space.
Keep it simple and clean with attention to detail; less is more:
Lower volume, better quality. As you may expect, my father never put a car on the lot that wasn’t perfect or the best he could make it. Presentation was everything. This is an important lesson I will carry forward into book publishing. Even though I’m operating on a shoestring and writing shorter books to begin my publishing company, I will aim to put my best into the world. For me, this means using what I have and creating a product of the highest quality, even if it is on a tight budget. This is how my father started, too.
In conclusion:
On many days, I miss selling cars, talking cars, and mingling with car people. But my father is gone now, and it is time to move on to find my own space in the world. Whether I am writing books or selling widgets, his philosophy still holds true, though. I’ve seen it time and again; attention to detail is what captures the mind and touches the heart. And so I thank you for stopping by, dear reader. This is sacred wisdom, and I hope by my sharing it, you feel special, too.
SHOP TALK: THE STATE OF MY PUBLISHING COMPANY
Things have taken a bit of a U-turn with the state of my budding publishing company, Violet Prose Publications. With some urging from my brother’s colleagues, I have committed to developmental editing, polishing, and publishing his book. I still have a new spicy romance AFTER THE RAIN in the oven, but this project of my brother’s is a good-sized one, and I will have to focus on this for a while. In other news, Woman’s World magazine has rejected yet another of my shorts (the one I hoped would be published for Mother’s Day), but I remain hopeful and have a new one started for them. I will most likely share the reject in a future issue, as I still think it’s pretty darn good.
BODYWORK: A FIVE-MINUTE STRESS BUSTER
For many years, I have used Young Living products and essential oils. In a recent online article, I was pleased to find a reference to a study claiming that Rosemary Essential Oil can be used as a quick stress-buster.
According to my Young Living manual (Essential Oil Pocket Reference), a drop of Rosemary Essential Oil into the palms and then inhaled will calm the nerves. This information is backed by a study found in Psychiatry Research. Lavender Essential Oil is also an excellent choice, too. Young Living stresses the use of therapeutic-grade essential oils, but rosemary and lavender are everywhere these days. So, if you need a lift, do give this a try.
I plan to share more essential oils and Young Living wisdom in the future as their products work in tandem with my personal wellness philosophy.
On that note, you can read more about stress-busting and my personal wellness philosophy in an article in the Toolbox called Relaxation Rescue; I hope you will check it out while you are here.
A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:
Thank you again for subscribing to More Miles to Go... I appreciate your time and interest in my writing work and wellness philosophy. The comments are open. If you’d like to support me, please click on the little heart “like” button below, or feel free to leave me a comment. I want to know you and would love to hear from my readers. My dad made friends with all his interested patrons, and it was the secret to his success. In kind, I value you and your precious time. See you down the road in two weeks.
Laugh and Be Well,
Laura
well done is always Laura