Mistake #1 – The message lacks focus or clarity. You are more likely to receive voice mail today than actually connect with person you are trying to contact. That means you must be prepared to leave a clear, concise message. Business people are too busy to listen to a lengthy message that is not focused and you lose credibility if you cannot state your objective without rambling. The average executive in an organization receives dozens of calls every day and many of them are from sales people trying to sell a product or service. If you ramble on, your prospect will probably press delete without listening to entire message. Keep message brief and to point. Plan what you are going to say BEFORE you call so you are prepared.

Mistake #2 – The message is difficult to understand. A sales person recently left me a message and he spoke so quickly that I did not understand most of his message. I knew it had something to do with Internet and getting top placement in search engines but I couldn’t decipher his company name and most of his message was unintelligible.

If you have an accent, recognize fact that some people may find it more difficult to understand you. That means you may have to repeat yourself or slow down in order to be understood. This also applies if you have an unusual name. Make it easy for people to understand you.

Authors, publishers and business owners are great at getting their books written and launched. But after initial one-year honeymoon, sales slow down. To counter this, make sure to let your audience know about your book's benefits and how it can help them in their lives. Keep your book alive and selling well for years when you write a sales letter.

You can write your first sales letter in less than two hours. As you practice, you will be able to write a short one in only one hour.

What Every Sales Letter Needs to Pull Orders and Profits

1. Start letter with a benefit-driven headline and include headlines throughout.

Example: "Want a Quick and Easy way to Quadruple your Online Income in Four Months?

If you answered, "Yes" to yourself, headline succeeds, because you will keep reading. If you said, "No, I don't believe this, but I'm curious about where this is going," headline still succeeds. You win when your headline seduces your potential customer to read on in your sales letter and finally to decide to buy.

2. List top five benefits of your book with bullets.

To define your top benefits start with a list of challenges your client or customer wants solutions for. If you are not rock sure of who your audience is and what they need, your sales copy won’t work.

Essentially, you need to say how your book will make someone's life easier or richer in time or money; how it will entertain or inspire; how it will make readers be more successful, more attractive, healthier; how it will help them feel better and avoid catastrophe, sickness, or surgery.

Remember to highlight your book's ultimate benefit above others. This could be opening headline. If you list more than five benefits use strongest three to five as your bullet points. Sprinkle rest throughout your copy.

3. Address your potential buyer's resistance.

Tell a background story about where your audience is NOW so they will connect emotionally with your solutions. If your book is designed for people who want to write, sales letter should focus on fact that many people don't write books because they doubt that their books will sell well enough to justify all effort; they worry that a book may not be significant enough, that writing it will take too long and publishing it will cost too much; and besides, they really aren't writers." One, by one, a good sales letter will address a potential buyer’s major concerns.

4. Provide a quick overview of book’s features.