While this may sound crazy, especially if you are revenue-starved, give it a bit more thought and you’ll see that I’m right.

Some customers are simply not worth the revenue they produce; because some customers are complainers, whiners, high maintenance, and end up costing you more in time, energy, and employee morale than they ever produce in revenue.

The truth is, most of us can identify these “problem children” customers a mile away. There’s just something about them that sets off the red flags early in the relationship, usually before any purchases have been made.

Learn to watch for these signals. Identify the kinds of questions, comments, and attitudes that you know are warning you that the person you’re talking to is a “problem child” customer.

Have a predetermined, polite, but firm routine in place for turning such customers away. You want to do it gracefully, because you don’t want to insult anyone or imply that they’re simply a “troublemaker” before you’ve even had a chance to get to know them.

But you and I both know that your biggest problem customers did not come as a surprise to you. Chances are, you knew in the first conversation you had with them, this person was going to be trouble.

Promise yourself that from now on you’re going to listen to your intuition, or your subconscious insight, or whatever you choose to call it… and you’re going to refuse to let those “problem children” inside your business.

You’ll be much better off without them messing up your employee morale, lowering your ROI, and costing you time and energy.

Spend the time you save on something much better – such as identifying, pursuing, and wooing your “perfect customers” instead.

The ones who are easy to work with, a joy to be around, most helped by your products and services, and produce the most profit for you in your business.

You’ll never be sorry you avoided a problem customer.

And every problem customer avoided makes room for a customer who is a delight.

Worth note: some of my best customers are members of the Writing Riches community. Just sayin’.

So often, as business people and entrepreneurs, and especially as freelancers, we seem to be chasing customers. This gives us an air of desperation. If you look at a customer, and all you see is a bag of groceries or a paycheck, guess what? The customer knows. They can smell desperation on you just like a dog can smell your fear. What do you do?

Sit down with a pad and pen and write up a description of your ideal customer. You know, the kind that doesn’t get on your nerves, the kind that pays on time, the kind that doesn’t balk at your fees, the dream customer. Once you’ve written out a good description of what this customer looks like, set that as your target. Pretend that for the next week or so that’s the only kind of customer that you’re willing to accept.

State your criteria publicly.

You don’t have to be obnoxious, you don’t have to state your criteria in the negative (“I don’t want a whining complaining customer”, etc.). You can state your criteria in the positive:

“Looking for customers who is smart, with it, understand the value of what we do, and who is willing to pay a premium price for a job well done.” Change up the specifics to fit whatever your situation is.

But be very clear on the customers that you won’t accept and work to discourage them from doing business with you. This will serve to attract the kind of customers that you want.

My friend, Michael Port, in his book, Book Yourself Solid, calls this the “velvet rope strategy.” We all understand the analogy of the velvet rope. It’s a barrier that implies, “you must meet certain qualifications before you cross this rope”… and the presence of a velvet rope invariably makes us want to cross to the other side.

Is it time for you to put up your own “velvet rope”?

Farmers understand the “Law of the Harvest”.

This Law is simple: to reap a harvest, you must sow the seed and tend the crop.

In other words, first you do the work and then  you get the result.

And you understand the nature of seeds: they take time and tending in order to make them grow.

No “instant crop” – no “easy harvest”.

In business…

No “instant income”.

Not even easy.

But simple. And reliable.

Communicate what it will cost your prospects if they don’t buy from you?

What will it cost them in time, money, and effort if they don’t solve their problem using your solution?

Just communicate clearly the cost of not buying from you today, and no “selling tricks” will be required.

What’s that you say? You’re not sure what it will cost them… or even if it will cost them anything at all?

If that’s the case, your problem is not a selling problem. It’s either a value problem or a value clarification problem.

Either way, you now know what to do next.

I walk up to you holding out two sets of keys, one to the new Mercedes-Benz automobile on the left; the other, a brand spanking new, Honda accord on the right. Which car is the superior car? If I offer to give you one of them, which one will you choose?

Almost without exception, everyone answers, “The Mercedes!”

Forgetting the question of German engineering versus Japanese engineering, for just a moment, stop to ponder why we all respond the same way.

The confident, secure, intellectually steadfast among us will launch into an explanation of why we chose the superior German automobile.

The facts, however, are simple. Most of us are not engineers. Most of us are not expert judges of the mechanical suitability of automobiles. We use shortcuts to make such decisions. One such shortcut is price.

Let me present a different scenario to you. Let’s suppose that I pull up in your driveway in a brand-new Mercedes-Benz. I park, hop out, walk up to you and hand you the keys. I say, “This car is yours for only $5,000 cash, right now.”

What is your response?

If you’re like most of us, your response is, “What’s wrong with it? Is it stolen?”

You instinctively know the price is too low. Either there’s something mechanically wrong with the car, or it is stolen.

The tipoff is the price.

It’s no different in business; if you respond to marketplace pressures by lowering your prices, customers make a series of assumptions. They assume that you have somehow also lowered the value of your offering. Or, worse, they assume that the offering was never worth the original price you quoted to begin with.

Many studies have indicated it’s possible to increase sales, simply by increasing price. The explanation is simple: people assume that a higher price means higher quality.

In order to put this principle into practice, you must of course supply value for the dollar. In other words, after the transaction is complete and the customer has had the opportunity to experience or use your product, they must feel as though the benefits of the product outweighed the expense of the purchase.

This is actually easier to achieve than most of us believe.

Once you have accomplished building a product offering that is worth what you’re asking for it, and once you have set a price that indicates that your offer is a valuable one, you can be confident that your business is built on a solid foundation.

So the response that is appropriate in economic times like these – times when there is more pressure on businesses to provide value – is simple: provide more value, at a higher price.

In any economic circumstance, cutting your prices can be equal to cutting your throat.

This is fortunate for you because it means that even becoming adequate at follow-up places you leagues ahead of your so-called competition. If you actually become good follow-up, you can easily own the marketplace.

There is a momentum that builds with follow-up that is difficult to describe, but easy to identify once it begins to yield fruit.

It’s like the snowball effect; what begins as a tiny snowball rolling downhill, picks up more and more mass as it proceeds, and it also picks up speed, so that by the time the snow ball reaches the bottom of the mountain it is a massive, irresistible avalanche.

Promise yourself that you will begin to follow-up with every prospect and every customer.

While having an elaborate and sophisticated follow-up system is indeed the mark of a mature and highly profitable business, it isn’t necessary to build a complex follow-up monstrosity in the beginning. You simply have to identify what the next logical step is in any follow-up sequence.

Begin by speaking out loud, or writing on paper, a simple series of “if-then” statements about your interactions with prospects and customers.

“If a customer comes into the store but doesn’t buy, then follow-up with a phone call three days later.”

“If the initial follow-up call does not result in a visit to the store within three days, then follow up with a postcard making a special offer to the customer.”

“If the customer response to the offer on the postcard, then send a thank you gift to the customer’s office and make another offer.”

It never has to be more complex than figuring out the next logical step based on the action the prospect or customer just took. The key is to document these follow-up steps with each customer, and begin building a predetermined sequence that applies to all customers who meet those specific “if-then” conditions.

Before you know it, your follow-up sequence will become a massive, irresistible avalanche of profits.

In Dr. Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence, he cites a research study showing that simply adding the word “because” to a request multiplies the likelihood of compliance.

Interestingly, the study seems to indicate that the legitimacy of the reasons supplied did not seem as important to the outcome as you might suppose. In fact, it seems hardly necessary to have a real reason at all.

For example, you might ask to cut line at the post office, and be more likely to get a “yes” response from the person in front of you if you simply frame your question by saying something like, “Would it be possible for me to please cut a front of you in line, because I’m really in a hurry.”

That’s hardly persuasive salesmanship, yet having some reason seems to be better than having none.

I’m not suggesting that you engage in meaningless marketing. I am suggesting that you take the extra step that most people do not … and supply good reasons for your promotions and campaigns. Practically said, this means simply telling the truth about a situation.

If you own a retail store, for instance, and you need to sell your overstock of a certain line of kitchenware, it’s much better just come right out and say, “We thought these would sell better, they didn’t, and now we need to get rid of them. So we put them on sale to motivate you to buy them.”

While that may not seem like brilliant copy, and admittedly it isn’t, it is a legitimate reason why you’re lowering the price of your merchandise. People respond to such reasoning, and the result is usually more profits.

This is not a new concept. John E Kennedy wrote an entire book on the subject, called Reason Why Advertising. I highly recommend that you read this work, and apply its principles to your own marketing.

It doesn’t matter if we know about the deadline far in advance-activity always increases as the last few minutes tick off the clock.

“Tax day” in the USA doesn’t sneak up on any of us-we all know it happens April 15th (or in the case of this year, the 18th). Yet year after year, tax preparers are deluged during the week before “tax day” — swamped by people who were only motivated to act when it looked as though the clock was about to run out.

There’s a reason why so much direct response advertising is filled with the words “for a limited time only”.

“Limited time marketing” gets results.

The trick, of course, is that it doesn’t work as well as it once did. People understand what’s happening, and are not as easily moved by those same old, tired words, “limited time only”. Now,  we must be more creative in communicating the scarcity of time to act.

Notice that I’m not commenting on whether there actually is a limited time or not. I’m assuming that if you say time is limited, that the offer is about to run out, that quantities are low, that this is the absolute truth. That these are real limits that you’re simply letting people know about.

No matter what you are marketing, there is always a limit. There are only so many units you can ship… there is only a certain amount of time you can maintain the sale price… there are only a certain number of days you can legitimately continue to offer an “end-of-the-year sale”.

I’m suggesting that you look carefully for the “ticking clocks” that are already present in every one of your offers, and make those time constraints explicit for your customers. In other words, talk about the limits.

The way to do this effectively is to talk about it in very specific terms.

Don’t take the lazy way out and simply say “for a limited time only”.

Talk about he exact time the sale ends, on what day.

Explain exactly how many units you have left, and why there won’t be any more.

Even if the reason is simply, “we’re tired of making it in this color”, tell that story. Truthful stories about real ticking clocks are powerful customer motivators.

Try it and see.

Now let me warn you.

You will be tempted to disregard the advice I’m about to give you as overly simplistic at best.

At worst, you will rationalize and begin to enumerate the reasons why doing what I’m about to suggest is not possible in your business.

You will have all sorts of excuses about why your business “is different”.

You will tell me that your customers are too sophisticated, too sensitive, too demanding.

You will be wrong.

No offense intended, but those are the facts.

All right, enough with the preamble already.

You’re probably thinking, what is this magical advice you’re about to dispense?

It is…

Always make an offer.

Put another way: always sell something. Always.

In every single ad.

In every billing statement.

In the Yellow Pages.

On your website, in your emails, during your presentations.

Always.

If your business is anything like most of the businesses I encounter,, your biggest marketing challenge is most likely the fact that you are not making enough offers.

Why is it that people who are called to be entrepreneurs, a high calling in life indeed, seem to have some sort of complex about asking people for money?

Perhaps it’s because as children most of us were taught some core values by our mothers. For almost everyone of us, those core values included these two:

1. Don’t talk to strangers.

2.   Don’t ask for money.

Can you see the potential conflict inherent in such values for the entrepreneurial business owner?

Our business life depends on talking to strangers, and then asking them for money.

Something to think about.

Something to change.

Start this way…

Always make an offer.

Here’s the sad news: “brand building” is a door that is pretty much closed to the small to medium-size company.

In today’s over-communicated, oversaturated marketplace, the sheer mass required to achieve brand awareness is quite simply out of financial reach for all but the biggest companies.

And one could argue that such strategies don’t always make sense for big companies either.

Here’s what does not fail: holding your advertising and marketing accountable for its own results. It doesn’t take a “rocket surgeon” to understand direct response marketing. In fact, the steps are simple:

1. Launch a marketing or advertising campaign that you can measure (phone calls completed, postcards returned, e-mails collected, sales made, etc.)

2. Observe whether this campaign results in actual dollars coming in the door.

3. If the answer to number two is “yes”, repeat the process as needed. If the answer is “no”, if dollars do not flow in the door, try something else!

Is this a bit oversimplified?

Yes, but not much.

In fact, if you were to just follow this “oversimplified” formula to the letter, you would still be a lot better off than most businesses in America.

Make this promise to yourself: I will not engage in any marketing or advertising activity unless the results of said marketing or advertising activity can be objectively measured.

Then follow through on that promise. This alone will bring you more profits.

It’s unconscionable, in this day and age, to spend money on advertising and marketing that doesn’t work. It was much easier to excuse in the old days. In the old days, the media was a monolithic, inscrutable, impenetrable mysterium.

As a small business owner, you were at the mercy of your media sales rep. The salesperson from the newspaper, radio station, or TV station, called on your business and made a persuasive pitch for the latest advertising “package of the month”. You bought, often out of desperation or obligation.

If your business was of a slightly more affluent nature, your media sales rep was more intent on getting a longer-term commitment from you. In that case, you were pursued for an annual contract, usually persuaded to sign up for the long-term commitment by some sort of rate concession or extras “thrown in” to the package.

What is curiously missing from these approaches of the past is attention to the primary goal of all advertising and marketing: to actually make your cash register ring.

In fact, discussions of such crass activities as ringing cash registers were often discouraged by media sales reps. They were quick to start mumbling some sort of arcane mantras about “building your brand” or simply “getting your name out there”. As if you could pay your lease by “getting your name out there”. Last time I checked, the bank wasn’t accepting “name recognition” as lease payments. They still prefer dollars.

Even so, even though most of us knew that the advertising sales game was rigged and the small business owner was its unwitting victim, we also knew there was little we could do about it. No more.

Now, thanks largely to the power of the Internet, and the nearly limitless transparency and instant access to information it provides, the world has changed. Google proved the efficacy of one of the oldest forms of selling known to mankind: direct response marketing.

As sophisticated as Google Adwords may appear at first, it is really the digitalization of simple direct response advertising. It is mail-order gone high-tech.

This ought to get you really excited.

Because it tells of possibility.

While it is not necessary to do all your direct marketing on the Internet, what is salient is how irrevocably the Internet has proven the worth of direct response marketing itself. It works, and works with ruthless efficiency.

Advertising and marketing can (and must) be measured. No more fuzzy talk about “getting your name out there”. Now, the game is very simple, just as you always suspected it should be.

The most important question in marketing is simply, “Did it make my cash register ring?”

If the answer is yes,  if a given campaign brought profits in your door, then it was a success.

If the answer was no, if you threw money down a hole and no money came back out, then it’s a failure. Or at least seriously in need of some alteration.

The point is: you can know.

The message is clear: stop paying for marketing you cannot measure. And for goodness’s sake, stop paying for marketing that doesn’t work. Today it is possible to know, without a doubt, whether it works or not.

For many, this is a new way of thinking. It will require a bit of a stretch of your mental muscles. But that shouldn’t be too difficult, especially because one of Earth’s most wonderful delights is about to become yours: the ability to say “no” to advertising salespeople who want to push packages on you!

“Packages” that are unmeasurable, unwarranted, and unintelligent.

And now you will be able to say “no” with confidence, knowing that you, and you alone, know what’s best when it comes to marketing your business.

Imagine living in a world where your marketing and advertising is a source of profit you can rely on, instead of being a cost you resent.

Simply by reading these words, you’ve already taken a step into such a world. Rejoice. The keys of the kingdom are yours.

Say it with me: “No more lousy, stinking marketing that can’t be measured.”

A private group I am part of has been hashing over something I posted late last year – a little piece called “Is Marketing Evil?”

In this discussion, the inevitable debate erupted over what the difference is between persuasion and manipulation. Says one of my companions: “the difference is the intent.”

Well and good, and I have often said the same thing. But… here’s my question:

What if your intent is good but your premise is wrong?

For instance, what if you believed smoking was good for unborn babies, and you passionately cared about those babies, so you tried to persuade pregnant woment to take up smoking?

Your intent would be good, but your facts are wrong.

So, in that case, does it matter whether we classify “talking someone into something” as “persuasion” or manipulation?

Does that mean that all persuasion is in fact manipulation, and vice-versa?

What do you think?

This method is, I believe, recession proof. In fact, it may be fueled by the recession. Here’s the scoop…

This strategy is very similar to our former strategy, in that your goal is to buy products for cheap and sell them for a tidy profit. The difference is you’re going to focus on regular products rather than stuff like antiques or collectibles, and you’ll be buying these products from completely different sources.

What you’re going to be looking for are simply liquidated items. Closeouts, overstocks, or even fixture sales when retail stores and other businesses close down because of the “poor economy”. You are ready know how I feel about all that “bad economy” talk. Most businesses don’t fold because of the economic conditions around them-they fold because of a failure to adjust to those convictions when it was possible. But I digress.

Again, this is not a strategy that’s going to appeal to most info marketers, but some of you will be immediately drawn to this idea. I believe it is even scalable-once you get a system perfected, you could conceivably hire other people to help scale up your efforts at finding cheap closeouts and then turning them around at a profit.

The best part of this strategy is, it actually works better in tough economic times, because they’re always stores liquidating their stock and going out of business. Now, you should know by now that I don’t take joy in anybody’s economic failure-but this is a real opportunity that some of my readers will seize upon and profit from. And I certainly have nothing against that.

If you’re interested in knowing more about how to do this, you’re sure to enjoy my new video training and “how to” manual, “10 Proven Ways to Make $10,000 Per Month”. You can only get it if you’re a member of my Writing Riches Community. Click here to learn more.

NOTE: Right now, membership is a no-obligation $47… but in LESS THAN two weeks, at the end of January, the price goes up to $97. Click here right now to lock in your Charter Rate and save $50.

What makes this strategy different from some of the others on the following two points:

The strategy focuses only on physical products.

You have your phone ringing off the hook with people who want to sell their products to you dirt cheap!

So here’s how it works… First, you figure out what product you’re going to sell. Maybe you’re going to sell antique pocket watches, baseball cards, unusual artwork, or other items of that nature. Just make sure that there are loads of people already buying this stuff.

Next, you need to quickly educate yourself about these products. This is pretty easy to do online, especially if there is a “community” of people who are interested in the stuff you’re going to be selling. Do a little research on eBay and Google to find out how much interest there is in the specific items you’ve chosen.

Next, just find cheap sources of the same products. Once you’ve done your initial research (like looking at closed eBay auctions), you’ll have some idea of what the minimum prices your items can be sold for might be. Then all you have to do is find a good source of buying those items below that price. Craigslist is a good place to start.

I realize this idea will not appeal to everyone, but trust me: it has legs. This dog will hunt. If you’re the kind of person whose juices are already flowing over this idea, I recommend you get to work. You have cash in hand by this weekend.

If you’re interested in knowing more about how to do this, you’re sure to enjoy my new video training and “how to” manual, “10 Proven Ways to Make $10,000 Per Month”. You can only get it if you’re a member of my Writing Riches Community. Click here to learn more.

NOTE: Right now, membership is a no-obligation $47… but in two weeks, at the end of January, the price goes up to $97. Click here right now to lock in your Charter Rate and save $50.

This one is surprisingly simple.

Don’t write it off only because it seems easy.

In this method, you simply by, tweak and then resell products that come with private label rights (PLR).

PLR products are information products that are purchased with the understanding that you have the right to modify the product and do with it as you please.

The interesting thing is, that while hundreds of people may buy the same PLR product that you just bought, very few of them will ever do anything with the product.

Out of those who actually take some sort of action, almost all of them will resell the product exactly as they received it.

Which means you only have to make the most basic modifications to the product, such as changing the title and the cover graphics, and you have a completely unique product.

Spend a bit more time on the project, and customize the product, and you can resell it to consumers yourself, or even sell the entire product (site and all) to another marketer at a hefty profit! Simple? Yes. Profitable? For sure.

If you’re interested in knowing more about how to do this, you’re sure to enjoy my new video training and “how to” manual, “10 Proven Ways to Make $10,000 Per Month”. You can only get it if you’re a member of my Writing Riches Community. Click here to learn more.

If you already sell information products-things like e-books, special reports, or other downloadable information, you got the hard part already done. You’ve created a product.

My suggestion is to add value to that product, and sell it for a much higher price than you’re currently getting. How do you do that? Simple…

Turn your digital products into physical products-and pocket a hefty profit!

For some reason, people may be willing to pay only $27 for your e-book… Or maybe you’re getting $37, or even $47… But take that same e-book, put it inside an attractive three ring binder, and add audio CDs of you reading the material out loud, and suddenly customers may be willing to pay $197… $297… Or even more.

Like most of my other “more money methods”, this is not something new. Motivational speakers and self-help gurus have known the secret for a long time. That’s why your favorite motivational speaker may charge $15 for his book at Barnes & Noble, while he charges $197 for the CD training set based on the book… And $5000 for the live seminar training that contains the same information!

So, time to start thinking about what products you have gathering “digital dust” on your hard drive. Could you dust them off, turn them into physical products, and charge more money for them? Chances are, the answer is yes.

If you’re interested in knowing more about how to do this, you’re sure to enjoy my new video training and “how to” manual, “10 Proven Ways to Make $10,000 Per Month”. You can only get it if you’re a member of my Writing Riches Community. Click here to learn more.

You bet you can!

Namely, by blogging as a business model. There are dozens of different ways to make money from a popular blog… but they all start with you sitting down and writing something.

Your best bet is to start a blog that caters to a very specific niche; a group of people who are inordinately passionate about a specific topic. If it’s something that you yourself are passionate about, that’s probably best. Your own interests will help sustain you in the early days when you be putting in lots of effort for seemingly small rewards.

But don’t let those early days discourage you; if you’re blogging about something you care about, and it’s something that lots of other people care about as well, you can indeed make good money doing it. How? Here are just a few thoughts:

1. You can make money by promoting and selling your own products to the people who read your blog. This is something that I myself do. It works.
2. You can promote affiliate products to those who read your blog, and earn a commission.
3. You can sell advertising space on your blog to businesses who want to reach the people who make up your audience.

Those are just three ideas that can help you monetize your blogging efforts. There are many more ways to make money with your blog, and there are lots of resources to help you get started (just use that reliable old research tool, Google, and you’ll see what I mean).

Well, what are you waiting for? Start blogging!

If you’re interested in knowing more about how to do this, you’re sure to enjoy my new video training and “how to” manual, “10 Proven Ways to Make $10,000 Per Month”. You can only get it if you’re a member of my Writing Riches Community. Click here to learn more.

Nothing wrong with that-the shovel sellers did not force the minor’s onto the frontier. They simply realized that people digging for gold needed tools and supplies, and they were happy to be of service.

The same is true of the online business community. They need to buy pics and shovels, too (shopping carts, web design, and how-tos on marketing and copywriting, for instance).

Most people teaching online business will discourage you from getting into the “marketing to marketers” business. I suspect that much of that rhetoric comes from people wishing to keep new competitors from entering the market, if at all possible.

But the fact is, the “how to make money” market is one of the more lucrative markets in existence. That’s because people who are looking for new methods of generating cash are willing to spend large sums of money to get that information.

This means you can make more profit with fewer sales.

Good business.

The key to being successful in selling to this market is you simply cannot engage in “regurgitation marketing”. In other words, come up with something new to teach, or come up with a new way of teaching an old thing-do not simply copy what you’ve seen others do. If you engage in the “copycat” practice, it won’t take long for people to identify exactly what’s going on.

This will, at best, limit your sales.

You shouldn’t be discouraged, however, if this (marketing) is the area that ignites your passion. There’s always room for someone with a new voice, a fresh twist on an old concept, and someone who’s good at simplifying the complex business of marketing online.

If you’re interested in knowing more about how to do this, you’re sure to enjoy my new video training and “how to” manual, “10 Proven Ways to Make $10,000 Per Month”. You can only get it if you’re a member of my Writing Riches Community. Click here to learn more.

In the retail world, it’s no secret that if you are a small player your best bet is to locate your store somewhere near what’s called an “anchor”. You may have trouble getting people to visit your barbershop if it’s located out in the sticks… But have every chair. From dawn till dusk if it’s located next door to Walmart.

That’s what it can look like when you take advantage of a large stream of traffic you did not pay to generate. All it takes is a little strategic thinking.

So how do you find one of these “big parades” and put your wares in front of the crowd? Online, it’s easy.

Think of sites like eBay, Yahoo auctions, and Amazon.com, for instance.

Lots of people make their living online by taking advantage of pre-existing crowds generated by bigger companies. Can you do the same?

If you’re interested in knowing more about how to do this, you’re sure to enjoy my new video training and “how to” manual, “10 Proven Ways to Make $10,000 Per Month”. You can only get it if you’re a member of my Writing Riches Community. Click here to learn more.

And the easiest money you’ll ever make is through selling more products (and more expensive products) to your existing customers.

So if the hard part is making the first sale, doesn’t it make more sense to focus on making those repeat sales? And doesn’t it seem like a stroke of genius to set things up so that that second sale (and all those that follow) are automatic?

That’s the thinking behind monthly subscription products.

You sell a product to your customer wants… And then do so automatically every month after that. No additional persuasion required.

If you are selling downloadable, digital information products, this becomes all the more simple: the transaction, delivery, and re-billing are all handled automatically. Hands-off, no additional work required.

Just like yesterday’s tip, it might be easy to dismiss this oneness “something you already knew”. But even if you already knew about the concept of recurring memberships, have you been reaping the benefits?

If not, may I suggest considering this as part of your arsenal? May I suggest that every sale you make from now on should, if possible, lead to automatic sales on the backend?

Not only will you be able to start each month at some number above zero, but presumably if your product is good you will start each month at a higher revenue number than the month before. Always a good trend in business.

If you’re interested in knowing more about how to do this, you’re sure to enjoy my new video training and “how to” manual, “10 Proven Ways to Make $10,000 Per Month”. You can only get it if you’re a member of my Writing Riches Community. Click here to learn more.

Affiliate marketing is when two marketers come together – one with a product and one with an audience – and they split the profits on any sales they make together. The affiliate sends traffic to the product creator’s sales page, and the product creator closes the sale and gives a commission to the affiliate for every paid referral.

You can become an affiliate for nearly anything – from Dell computers to beer-making machines to books and products on sites like Amazon.

This will be old hat for most, perhaps.

But let me ask you this, O Grizzled Veteran…

…do you have a systematic, strategically planned program of making affiliate recommendations?

I thought not.

You can get started right now by thinking about what might already be on people’s minds — you know, like their New Year’s Resolutions.

For that category, you could make affiliate recommendations for products that deal with weight loss, exercise, finances, relationships, productivity… oh my, there’s a lot of opportunity here, yes?

Put your thinking cap on, sharpen your pencil, and plan your promotions.

If you’re interested in knowing more about how to do this, you’re sure to enjoy my new video training and “how to” manual, “10 Proven Ways to Make $10,000 Per Month”. You can only get it if you’re a member of my Writing Riches Community. Click here to learn more.

Lots of us have resolved to make more income in 2011, and presumably also keep more of it.

In this series, I’m focusing on the “how to get more income” part of the equation.

If you run a business… sell a service… or sell products… you can use these some (or all) of these methods to bring more money your way.

So let’s get started.

My first suggestion in this series – that you can get more money though writing – will not surprise you, perhaps.

But the world is moved by words; and you can induce that movement by using the right words; and that movement can include the movement of money to you.

How can you “write your own paycheck”? Simple:

• Write sales copy to sell more of your stuff.
• Write sales copy to sell more of other people’s stuff.
• Write just about any kind of copy for hire, and get paid to do it. Yes, there are still people out there who will pay you handsomely for good copy.

But here’s the most potentially lucrative way to write your way to more money: write and sell your own information products (special reports, ebooks, home study courses, etc.).

I have a friend who is cranking out short but very useful “how to” reports (20 pages or so) on very specific topics… and selling piles of them at $19 each.

Why can’t you do the same? Answer: you can.

Just about every person walking the face of this earth has specialized knowledge other people would be willing to pay for. Why not turn that knowledge into income?

If you’re interested in knowing more about how to do this, you’re sure to enjoy my new video training and “how to” manual, “10 Proven Ways to Make $10,000 Per Month”. You can only get it if you’re a member of my Writing Riches Community. Click here to learn more.

See how long it takes before you see a “branding” commercial.

These are commercials that work to make some kind of “indelible impression” on the mind of viewers. An impression about the business.

Why do they do this? In the hopes that somehow, someday, someone will buy something.

And maybe it works.

But who knows? How do they measure it? Does it really cause anyone to buy anything?

Repeat after me: “If I can’t measure the results of a marketing activity, I shall not engage in that activity.”

Want to improve your marketing – and make it marketing that can be measured, every time? That’s just one of the things we deal with at http://writingriches.com.

Click here to watch a video that explains why you might want to consider joining us.

One of the most valuable lessons I ever learned about communication is this: the communication is not what you mean to say, it’s what the other person hears.

If your communications are not getting you the results you want, it might be time to ask: “What do you think I’m trying to say?”

The minister responded, “Oh, so you’re going to sell people stuff they don’t need for a living? And you’re okay with that?”

My young college friend was stopped in her tracks. She promptly changed careers.

I wonder what would have happened if that minister had, instead of making a blanket judgment (um, what happened to “judge not, so that you will not be judged”?)… if instead of crushing a young person’s dream… had said something like:

“Wow! That’s great. You’re going to earn your living by telling people how companies add value to their lives? I admire you for taking on such a challenging and rewarding profession.”

I wonder.

I’m not saying there isn’t a lot of sleazy marketers out there – because we all know there are.

I am saying we need more people who will bring honor to our profession. What do you think?

The reason we are turned off by “pushy” salespeople is their attempts to be likable are almost laughably transparent. And absolutely inauthentic.

The key to creating a bond through your writing (and any other form of communication that involves language) is surprisingly simple.

Be yourself.

For sure, be the best self you can authentically be. But don’t try to be something you’re not; people can smell that incongruence a mile away, and it’s definitely a turnoff.

So how does this apply to writing in order to achieve bonding?

In my experience, most people who write for the purpose of strategic influence (to get other people to do something) develop a rather formal way of writing. Part of what happens when they adopt that formal style of writing is their natural voice disappears. It’s as if this particular style of writing sends the unspoken message, “I’m not going to let you know anything about me, because if you did you wouldn’t like me.”

This is where we get rules of thumb like, “never talk about religion or politics”. That’s good advice if you don’t want to offend anyone. But how will you bond with people if you never let them know who you really are?

I’m not suggesting you try being purposely offensive. I’m simply saying let people see the “real you”.

You don’t have to write long diatribes about politics or religion. But you can certainly mention who you voted for, where you go to church… as well as the fact that you like to bowl, you’re vegan, you raise greyhounds, and even more unusual things (like your fear of wigs, or how you still watch Saturday morning cartoons).

All of this does start from a premise, which you need to be aware of: it is that you are, in ways that count, very similar to your prospective audience. I’m assuming that you’re in business because you have a love of certain things, and that you share those things in common with your customers and potential customers.

Thus, as you strategically reveal true qualities of your personality, your customers will be struck by a sense of recognition. And what they recognize is themselves. This, my friends, creates bonding. And it’s not the result of manipulation; it’s the result of being real.

Fair warning: this technique will not work if you’re the exact opposite of your customers.

I once worked with a client with a rather substantial business. During our first meeting we were discussing his customers and his prospects. I asked him, “What can you tell me about your customers?”

His answer startled me: “I don’t like them very much.”

It wasn’t difficult to figure out why his company was experiencing a downturn in business.

Do you like your customers very much?

And, more telling: are you very much like your customers?

While you don’t have to be like the people you sell to, it certainly doesn’t hurt.

And I propose to you that if you don’t like the people you sell to, it might be time to consider another line of work.

We obsess over our favorite celebrities, their lifestyles, relationships, and illnesses.

In her book, Fascinate, Sally Hogshead claims that the ability to create fascination is one of the most powerful ways of influencing behavior. She says, in fact, that it is “more persuasive than marketing, advertising, or any other form of communication.” While I don’t agree with all her conclusions, I do recommend her book.

So how do you make yourself, your ideas, your products and services more fascinating? The answer is surprisingly simple. Human beings are fascinated by a fairly narrow band of phenomena. Some things to keep in mind when writing to influence, with the end of creating more fascination in mind:

1. Curiosity. Who among us does not understand the intense allure of curiosity? This powerful point of fascination is magnetic in its ability to draw people into your story, to make them want to hear your message.
2. Fear. While I absolutely do not advocate the invocation of fear as a tool of manipulation, the recognition of pre-existing fears can be a powerful illumination for your communications. Know what makes people afraid, and you know how to engage them in conversation.
3. Power. Whether they admit it or not, nearly everyone wants more influence over others, in some way. “Power” in itself is neither good nor evil, but its appeal is nearly universal.
4. Identification with the object of their admiration. This is the very source of intense devotion, the driving force behind “fans” of all kinds. When we grant a person or even an organization our admiration, we experience an intense desire to be identified with that person or organization.

What is it about you, your company, your organization or product that already fascinates your customers?  Are there ways in which you can focus more on those aspects that are natural points of fascination for your audience? Are people fascinated with the wrong things about you? Are you?

All questions worth considering.

Strategy in this context means: the overall approach to achieving the outcome you want.

This may not be as simple as you think.

Even if you know your desired outcome is the sale of a product, you have only identified the target; that is not an answer to the question of strategy. The question of strategy is: how will I hit the target?

One possible strategy is: the creation of advocacy in the mind of your prospects. Let me explain.

The most straightforward product sale can be strongly influenced by first defining a position of advocacy you want the reader to adopt.

For instance: let’s assume you sell a highly commoditized product, like machine screws. How on earth could advocacy for some position or other influence the purchase of machine screws? Well..

Perhaps you begin by realizing your company has a commitment to using only the finest quality materials in the manufacture of your machine screws. Perhaps you further realize that you have unusual attention to detail in your manufacturing facility, and that this grows from the quality philosophy of your business. Maybe you believe that a lack of such strong standards is one of the things that have contributed to our current economic woes.

In the above scenario, you might choose to write and publish an essay on the importance of high standards not only in the manufacturing process, but also as the foundation of success upon which our country was built.

You might even go so far as to suggest that the solution to the economic problems facing our country is rooted in a return to this kind of commitment to quality.

If you publish this essay (or blog post, or podcast, or brochure, newsletter, even postcard) in a place where your potential buyers will encounter it, and if it is written powerfully, you stand a good chance of influencing their buying decisions about machine screws without ever overtly writing about that particular subject.

Of course, before you can authentically write to persuade people to adopt a position of advocacy, you first have to possess such a position yourself.

A worthwhile question to ponder: what do you stand for, and how does that relate to the world of the people you wish to influence?

Changing behaviors of your audience can be merely temporary; changing mindsets is more permanent, and changes behaviors automatically.

No, I’m not talking about ancient Greece. When I say “mythology”, I’m referring to “story”.

I believe great marketing-and thus, great influence-starts with great stories. I’m not alone in this thought.

Seth Godin writes in his book All Marketers Are Storytellers, “Either you’re going to tell stories that spread, or you will become irrelevant.”

All the ground-shaking movements in history started with great stories. Our ancestors sat around the hearth and told stories that transmitted their values, their ideas, their wisdom and faith.

Jesus taught primarily through the telling of stories.

John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Martin Luther King all told stories that moved people to take action. You don’t have to agree with the ideologies of any of these people, by the way, to get the benefit of what I’m saying. All I’m attempting to do is point out the power of the story as a form of persuasion.

It’s important to understand that the story must be true. Telling lies simply won’t work, not to mention the fact that it’s wrong.

Before you begin your next writing project, whether it’s the book you’re working on, the sales material for your website, or the next speech you’re giving, become aware of the stories you’re telling (or the ones you’re not telling that you should be). Here are some qualities your stories (or mythology) should possess:

1. The stories you tell must, first of all, be true.
2. They must be told in the service of others. The goal of your story should be to impart something to hearer, not to manipulate them.
3. Your stories should appeal to emotion. No matter what people tell you, they buy your ideas, your products, and your services based on emotion-not based on logic.
4. Your stories should be told quickly, and in an entertaining fashion. In today’s world, people have limited patience for long-winded stories.
5. Don’t hit them over the head. The more subtle your story, the less overtly self-serving, the more you allow your reader to come to their own conclusions… the better.

So, what stories are you telling? Are they the right ones? How do you know?

Something to think about.

This will be of interest if you want to use the power of persuasive writing to change, improve, expand, and empower your business.

But first, I’ll need you to bear with me; it’s necessary to explain the ideas behind this new series of articles.

The time has come to move beyond our old models of writing to persuade.

In the world of old media (radio, newspaper, and television) there was a clear distinction between writing that was intended as content, and writing that was intended to be persuasive.

The “content writing” took the form of entertainment, commentary, and news; the “persuasive” forms of writing were self-promotional, advertising, and marketing.

Today, the Internet has fundamentally shifted the way we receive, process, and act upon information. The walls that separated content from marketing have not just been taken down, they have been obliterated.

Michel Fortin has written convincingly about “The Death Of The Sales Letter”. With seemingly prophetic insight, Michel accurately predicted the coming trend that would spell the end of the stunning effectiveness of traditional online “sales letter websites”. They still work-only not nearly as well as they once did. Things have changed. I recommend you read his work on this subject.

Seth Godin writes with equal prescience about the end of what he calls the “TV industrial complex”, and the advent of the “Linchpin” (the essential individual who makes a powerful difference).

These are striking insights into the new world of persuasion and marketing; and I propose to you that they are only partial glimpses of the reality that has already begun to manifest around us.

I propose that far from simply being a different way of delivering persuasive copy, the new “content marketing model” is actually a reflection of something far more significant.

No longer do our customers accept our neatly packaged, carefully honed, isolated messages about our own products and services.

In today’s world, our customers (and our prospective customers) are able to see the entire persona of an individual or company with startling accuracy. They can read praise from clients and customers, read articles written by and about the company, and see reviews from actual buyers.

They can also easily identify complaints against a person or company by doing a simple search on the Internet. They can assess how the person or company deals with such complaints. They can read the market’s response to mistakes the person or company may make in the pursuit of their business. In other words, everything is marketing, and marketing is accurate because it’s no longer possible to control it.

Thus it becomes more important than ever to think about the written words we generate, both content and marketing. In fact, my proposal is that we stop thinking about them as two different forms of writing.

I find it more useful to adopt a new paradigm: that of writing for strategic influence. Let me explain…

Let’s begin with this tacit assumption: if everything our company (or an individual, if the person is a solopreneur) engages in is in fact visible, transparent, and available for public inspection… gone are the days we could “have a marketing message”.

A new day has arrived. Instead of “having” a marketing message, we must “be” a message.

Every communication we engage in with our customers and our prospective customers should be thought of as simply writing another page in our “book of communication”.

What this means is: we have arrived at a time when accountability is no longer optional, it is simply reality.

We have to think more carefully about everything we say, and everything we do. This is a good thing. It raises the bar for all of us who work in the service of other people (and what is work, or business, if it is not being in the service of other people?).

So if every communication (answering the telephone, handing off a business card, putting out a flyer, a Google ad, a blog post, e-mail, or public talk) is in fact marketing… it becomes necessary to be conscious of what sort of influence we wish to have in the marketplace.

The marketplace is, ultimately, a marketplace of ideas. Spread your idea far and wide, and see it have an impact on the world. Good or ill, time will tell.

Ideas have always been influenced by the written word. Literature has been the medium that molds mindsets. Literature has now expanded and moved off the printed page. Literature now includes blogs, e-mails, and YouTube. Writing happens in all sorts of formats-from essays like this one, to 140 character blurbs on twitter.

It’s time to start thinking about what sort of strategic influence we wish to have on the world around us-and how we are going to craft our messages to achieve that influence.

This is “the new copywriting”.

Your life (and your business) is literally an open book. The pages, starting today, are blank, and yours to write. What story will you write?

I can’t tell you what your message should be; first, as I have already alluded to, I think you must become your message. Whatever you’re selling, you first have to live. That part, I cannot do for you.

The upcoming articles in this series will focus, instead, on the actual techniques you might wish to consider in the process of spreading your ideas through persuasive writing.

To be clear, these techniques will apply whether what you are selling are concepts, products, or services. The techniques we will discuss should be applicable whether the group you wish to influence is your family, your city government, your church, your Board of Directors, or customers and prospects.

I look forward to your feedback.

You might laugh when you see the list. But it’s my belief that many of the businesses we see closing their doors these days might have been saved by the diligent application of $10 marketing tactics.

1. Call every one of your past customers on the phone and ask them if they need help with anything. Listen to their answer.

2. Write a letter to every one of your past customers and ask them if they need help with anything. Watch for their response, or be ready for their phone call.

3. If you send out any kind of billing each month, include an offer inside each envelope. It can be a simple one sheet description of a product-but it must contain a call to action. Ask for the order.

Now, you might say that some of these will cost more than $10. It’s true, if you’re going to mail all your past customers and you have 100,000 of them, it will cost more than 10 bucks. But my guess is, if the title of this post caught your attention, your problem is not having 100,000 previous customers and not knowing what to do with them.

Finish at least one good marketing book every week.

If you’re not currently an avid reader, this might seem like a big deal. It’s really not very difficult. Many marketing books are short, to begin with. And nobody said you have to read words printed on the page-audio books count. Most audio players have an option to speed up the audio-meaning you can often finish a book in half the time it might normally take.

If you read one good marketing book per week, you will have read 52 of them at the end of the year. How many of your peers do you think do that? How many of your competitors? Exactly. A+.

So please don’t disregard what I’m about to recommend simply because it’s “basic information”. For some, it will be new information. For others, it will be something they’ve heard but never done. And for some, it will indeed be something they’re already doing… but even for those I submit it may be possible to do it in a better way.

Here’s the lesson: there is a fortune in the follow-up.

Let’s say you’re one of the enlightened few who has a website that collects e-mail leads. Good job.

Let’s say you’re even more enlightened and you have an automated follow-up system, that sends those leads three, five, maybe even seven follow-up messages. Even better job.

But why stop with seven messages? Why stop with 10?

Here’s my recommendation: block out 3 to 4 hours one day, and write up at least 52 follow-up messages. Logos into your autoresponder follow-up sequence, after your initial weeks worth of follow-up (if you indeed already have a weeks worth). Make sure every e-mail in your follow-up sequence has a call to action, even if it’s simply redirecting prospects back to your blog, or giving them your phone number (obviously this depends on what business you are in).

My point is simple: once someone raises their hand and volunteers to be marketed to, why on earth would you ever stop marketing until they ask you to stop?

Lies, on the other hand, are simply falsehoods perpetrated upon us for the purpose of robbing us of something.

Marketing, in its pure and noble form, uses mythology; it never uses lies.

I know, I know. Nothing new. That’s the point. Stop looking for something new, and get to work.

Here’s one way to improve all of your marketing efforts: before you make your next marketing move, take five minutes, close the door, turn off your phone, and imagine yourself in the life of your average customer. Think about what their problems are, what their challenges are, what their fears are. Really put yourself through the process of imagining their life from the inside out.

This presumes you actually have data about those facts, of course.

If you do have that data, and you do know your customer’s greatest fears, frustrations, and aspirations… taking five minutes to look at their life from the inside out can definitely improve every marketing move you make.

It’s a smart use of five minutes.

1. People buy what they need.
2. Quality products will always win.
3. Cheaper price always wins.
4. More features mean more sales.
5. People don’t judge a book by its cover.
6. Logic guides buying decisions.
7. Products must make sense to succeed.

Presented, as Serling might say, for your pondering.

I’d like to propose that the answer is pretty simple: to make money in tough times… solve tough problems.

If you can solve tough problems for people, they’ll be willing to pay you for it. Especially in tough times.

Hey, I said the answer was simple-I didn’t say it was easy.

You’ve heard the saying that “little hinges swing the doors”. Perhaps you’ve heard it so often that the profundity of that saying has been lost on you. The fact is, small actions can lead to big results-and consciously chosen small actions can lead to enormous results.

Here are three little “marketing moves” that can enrich your profits almost immediately, when performed correctly. Please do not dismiss them based on their simplicity; their power springs from their simplicity.

1. Call your customers on the phone. It’s great if you have a script developed for this, but even if you don’t… call them anyway. Simply calling a large number of your customers and asking, “How are things going? Is there anything we can do to help?” Will often lead to new business and sales-even though that wasn’t the overt intention of your call. If you don’t get results with this technique… you haven’t called enough people.

2. Send your customers mail. Some people don’t answer the phone, or don’t respond well to phone calls. No problem. Send a piece of mail to your customers. It doesn’t even have to be a piece of mail with an offer (although that’s probably the best piece of mail to send). The problem with sending mail that makes an offer is most people will do it wrong. Most people will make it look so much like an ad, that it will end up in the trash can. So here’s an alternative: send a one-page letter, hand-addressed and hand-signed, that says something like, “How are things going? Is there anything we can do to help? Here’s our phone number-please call…”. Don’t laugh. Some people will call. And the ones who do are your best prospects.

3. Ask for referrals. Call up your current customers, and ask them if they feel you’re doing a good job for them. Most of them, presumably, will say yes. If that’s the case, ask them, “Who else can you think of who might benefit from our help?” Maybe even give them suggestions to help jog their memory. If done correctly, simply asking for referrals will get you new business; the fact is, almost nobody does this. Prove it to yourself: when was the last time you asked for a referral?

There you go. Three little marketing moves that can put money in your bank account-almost immediately.

When I was about 14 years old I wanted a job at a radio station. The problem is, the radio station wasn’t hiring. I hit upon the strategy of showing up with annoying regularity day after day, asking for some kind of job. Apparently the annoying part of my strategy worked: the manager of the radio station finally stopped in the lobby where I was waiting when they, looked at me and said, “if I give you a job, would you stop bugging me?”

I got what I wanted; he got what he wanted. Just not for the same reasons.

In the end, did the reasons matter? My point (and, with apology to Ellen Degeneres, I do have one) is that we should never confuse our own motivation for the other person’s motivation. Thinking about what motivates the other person in any negotiation is almost always a more effective basis for that negotiation.

Even though we may feel our reasons to be superior to those of the other party, our reasons are not the same as theirs.

People paid big bucks to be here, it’s a small group…and you’d be surprised at how many “gurus” are in the room.

Joel Comm is here.

So is Rick Raddatz.

Rick Buttz. Frank Sousa.

Tip of the iceburg.

Why am I telling you this? Two reasons:

1. If you want to be successful, you must never stop learning. No matter how successful you already are.
2. Attending seminars and conferences “works”. You learn things that can help you make money. But it’s up to you to do something with what you learn.

Information alone does not create profit – profit is only created when you take action.

A common theme that often gets discussed at these events is how all of us have tons of information and software — but we’re not using it.

Yet when the “new thing” comes out, we all rush to buy it.

Problem is, we still haven’t used the last “new thing” we bought! Think about it…

How many conferences have you attended in the last year? How many pages of notes did you take? How many information products did you buy? How’s all that working out for you?

Did you take action on all the stuff you made notes about?

Did you implement the strategies and tactics you learned in the information products you bought?

Did you even open the information products you bought?

It’s okay – we’re all “guilty”, to some extent.

But here’s my “bonus tip” and “mini-action plan” for the weekend:

Take stock of all your notes, information products, and memberships.

Set aside a small amount of time each day for the next couple of weeks.

Each day, pick one set of notes… one information product… or one membership site…

And go to work.

Implement just one step, strategy, or tactic.

Just one.

Just get started.

I predict that if you do this, you’ll experience quick, profitable growth in your business.

I hope you’ll share your results with me here on the blog (just comment below).

Have a great weekend!

According to Wikipedia, “As a teenager, Fischer became famous as a chess prodigy. In 1972, he became the first, and so far the only, American to win the official World Chess Championship“.

When I was a teenager, I became infatuated with the game of chess largely because of Bobby Fischer.

One of the first things I learned was that it’s necessary to think many moves ahead if you stand a chance of winning the game. You must anticipate the consequences of your moves, and the consequences of your opponent’s potential moves.

This requires a lot of thinking. And so it is with your business.

What I’m going to encourage you to do is not too tough, though… I’m going to ask you to think only one move ahead.

By thinking one move ahead, I believe you can win the game of business. Here’s what I mean…

Think about your most successful competitor. I mean really think about them; go look at their website, examine the e-mails they’ve been sending out to their opt-in list, and analyze their promotions over the course of the past year.

I actually want you to be very specific about this. You’ll see why.

What is the next significant holiday coming up on the calendar? As I write this, the next big Holiday in the US will be Halloween. Of course, Halloween-themed marketing has already begun in most industries, so for this exercise we need to jump to the next significant holiday (the reason will become apparent in just a moment).

The next significant holiday (after Halloween) is Thanksgiving. So while everyone else is thinking about how they’re going to market during the Thanksgiving holiday, thinking one move ahead leads us to consider Christmas.

Now look at those marketing materials from your competitor (in fact look at the marketing materials from all your significant competitors). What did they do to use Christmas as a touchpoint in their marketing last year?

Put on your thinking cap. Is there a way you can use, but modify and improve upon that idea this year?

The trick is that you have now done is thinking well in advance of Christmas -while your competitors are still thinking about Thanksgiving. This gives you the opportunity to get your promotional marketing materials into the hands of your prospects and customers long before your competitors do.

Now the fact is, the Thanksgiving holiday is actually bundled up (at least in the United States) in the triumvirate of holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day come as a three pack for us here. Marketing departments often plan their activities for these three holidays well in advance, as a kind of “three pack”.

So most companies already know what they’re going to be doing promotionally for the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day holidays. But our little thought experiment has at least shown you how this process of “thinking one move ahead” works.

Now Think One More Move Ahead

It should be simple for you to see that the next significant holiday after New Year’s is in fact Valentine’s Day.

My suggestion for you is: start thinking about your Valentine’s Day promotion now.

Craft it carefully and strategically.

Put together superior marketing materials, copy, audio, video and what ever else you plan to use in your campaign. And launch that sucker on January 2. Your competitors won’t know what hit them.

And while they’re scrambling to figure out how to counteract your Valentine’s Day promotion, you’ll be busy assembling your promotion for St. Patrick’s Day… and Easter… and Mother’s Day.

Not Just For Holidays

You can apply the same principle to trends within your particular market segment.

Are most of your competitors only just now beginning to use audio on their web pages?

Or, are the people you compete with only just now discovering the power of blogs?

Time for you to think one move ahead: move onto video, video blogging, and social media. Establish a footprint long before your competitors do, and you will be nearly unassailable… all because you simply thought one move ahead.

And you don’t even have to be Bobby Fischer.

Our year is marked by signposts.

Dates on the calendar around which we plan our annual journey.

In the USA, some of the major calendar signposts include:

•    New Year’s Day
•    SuperBowl Sunday
•    Valentine’s Day
•    St. Patrick’s Day
•    Easter
•    Memorial Day
•    Mother’s Day
•    Father’s Day
•    Independence Day
•    Back to School
•    Labor Day
•    Halloween
•    Veteran’s Day
•    Thanksgiving
•    Christmas

There are many others, of course, and your list will vary depending on your cultural and religious background.

The point is, the major signposts are easy to identify. And easy to construct a marketing calendar around. What’s the point of that?

We copywriters talk a lot about “joining the conversation already taking place in the prospect’s mind” (a phrase borrowed from Robert Collier).

When you tie your marketing efforts to major mindset changing calendar dates, you go a long way toward “joining” that conversation.

John E. Kennedy identified the power of “reason why” copy: prospects are more likely to respond if you give them a reason why they should. They’re more likely to pay attention to your promotion if you give them a “reason why” you’re doing the promotion to begin with.

Retailers have done this so long (and with so little imagination) we’ve grown accustomed to it. (“The January White Sale”… “The Sweetheart Sale” for Valentine’s Day… “Saving the Green” sales for St. Patrick’s Day… etc.).

The good news for your online business is that all of these “old school” ideas work very well online. And if you can get a little more creative with them (for instance, having a “Click Your Treat” promotion around Halloween) they work even better.

The point is: give your prospects and customers a new reason to visit your website at least once per month.
Planning your promotional calendar becomes very easy when you adopt this model. The list above is not a bad start.

If you’re more ambitious, you can select from hundreds of “reasons why” at 2010 Holidays & Observances Calendar … and have a reason to do a promotion 52 times per year.

Need ideas about what sort of promotions to do? Borrow ideas from the businesses that have made an art form of this method: brick & mortar retailers. Car dealers, big box stores, and grocery stores in particular will supply you with a rich “swipe file” of ideas.

Just visit your local library (yes, they still exist) and get the back issues of your local newspaper’s Sunday issues (it’ll have the most ads) for the last year. You’ll have 52 “mini-swipe files” to build your library of promotions from.

What do you suppose might happen to your sales and profits then?

The Holy Grail of online marketing is getting the prospect’s email address (so you can start building a permission-based marketing relationship with them).

In the not-too-distant past, you could generate leads online simply by offering a free newsletter or special report. This doesn’t work so well anymore. Why?

The reason is simple: there’s too much ‘junk’ being offered, and prospects are wise to this. People just won’t give up their email address for a junky ‘special report’ like they used to.

So what’s a marketer to do? Here are three ways to break through skepticism and get your prospects to give you their email address:

1. Offer Superior Premiums

Offering a superior premium will help you “cut through the clutter”, but to be effective your premium must be clearly superior.

Commonplace and boring: “Special Reports” and “Free Tele-Seminars”.

Better: software that performs a specific task, a free telephone consultation (make it clear this is not a sales pitch), or a free membership website.

2. Use Video Testimonials

There’s a reason infomercial producers make their 30-minute ads over 70% testimonials: testimonials overcome skepticism.

These days, it’s cheap and easy to make video testimonials for your website. Get your best customers singing your praises on video, and put these snippets on your website. Lots of them.

3. Use The “Reciprocity Sequence Method”

You’ve no doubt heard of the ‘Reciprocity’ principal: If I give you a gift, you feel compelled to reciprocate.

The trouble is, your prospects often have heard of it too, rendering it somewhat less effective.

I use a technique I call the “Reciprocity Sequence Method”… which is simply giving your prospects a series of gifts so that the “Reciprocity Impulse” becomes almost overwhelming.

It sounds elementary, but few people do it. And it’s very powerful.

Think about how you can ‘stack’ a sequence of 3-5 gifts in a short period of time, and THEN make an offer to your prospect.

Key points to remember: keep the sequence confined to a short time period, make the gifts relevant to (and an enhancement of) your core offer, and make the offer immediately after giving the final gift.

While it’s true that skepticism is at a higher level than ever, it’s also true that breaking through is easy when you know how.

What do you think? Have you run into increased skepticism in your marketing – and if so, how have you successfully over come it? Post your comments below!

Look, I’m a marketer. I believe in entrepreneurship. But I think it’s far beneath any of us to fan the flames of fear for personal gain.

No matter how bad the events that happen around us may be, and no matter how out of control we may feel, we have been endowed with an ability no mere animal has: the ability to control our response to those external circumstances.

We can choose whether we will dwell in anger, in love… or in fear.

If we purposely live in fear or anger – or if we encourage others to do so – don’t we empower the very evil we say we oppose?

Fear is a prison that locks us into patterns of smallness.

As an American, I too feel the sadness of the loss we all suffered on this day nine years ago. But I will not be defined by another’s act of evil.

And I will not be driven to hate other men because of it — especially not in the name of God. The God I follow, when beaten and bloodied and killed by the very ones he came to save, said the following: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

I want to follow that example.

What if we turned this day into a day to show love to our brothers and sisters, instead of sowing seeds of fear and anger? What if we decided to reap a harvest of forgiveness and reconciliation, instead of a harvest of bitterness?

I’m not saying it would be easy. Maybe, for mere men, it’s even impossible.

But what if we tried?

You’ve tried and tried but haven’t yet succeeded… haven’t yet found that missing element.

And maybe you think, “Sure. This stuff works for Ray Edwards because you have already made your money… and you already know all the gurus… and you have a big list.. and blah blah blah…”

Here’s what I can tell you.

I meet every couple of weeks with a high-profile marketing buddy for lunch, to brainstorm and share ideas.

I also meet with a small group of Internet Marketers here in Spokane once a month. There’s about a dozen of us who get together.

And what I’ve discovered is that no matter what fancy tactic you may try…

No matter what new “system” you use…

No matter what new whiz-bang software comes out…

And no matter how good that new “Marketing Course” is…

IT’S ALWAYS THE BASICS THAT SELL.

Market.

Product.

Persuasion.

The basics.

Simple. Not always easy – but always simple.

How do you keep yourself focused on the basics in your business (or in your life)? Share below, please…

As always, if you have feedback or suggestions I’d really like to hear from you.

Call in your questions or comments to our new, fancy “request line” at (509) 713-2679

Click for the Podcast Audio:

Click Here

How To Get Famous And Make More Money The single easiest way to increase your own legend, get more work, and make more money. The best news is, all it costs is some work on your part!

The More Bigger Thinking Podcast In this audio podcast (we publish a show the first and third Tuesday of each month) I deal with the Enemies of Bigger Thinking, and give you some tools you can use.

The Inception Guide To Marketing Sure, Dom Cobb can steal people’s ideas right out of their dreams in the new movie Inception – but he also has a lesson to teach us marketing types. And this is the article where I lay it out for you.

Something to Believe In There’s value – and longevity – in your convictions. And you can do well by doing good. Who knew?

Do You Really Want a Four Hour Workweek? What if you actually achieved the “four hour workweek” ideal – would you actually be happy? Or would you be miserable?

There you go. That ought to give your brain cells a right good workout. See ya Monday!

There are no spoilers here.

But there’s an important lesson in the movie for marketers and evangelists alike.

In the film, Cobb (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) is talking about the act of “inception” – planting an idea in another person’s mind.

Here’s what Cobb says:

“What’s the most resilient parasite? An idea. A single idea from the human mind can build cities. An idea can transform the world and rewrite all the rules.”

What this means to marketers (or to anyone who wants to spread their ideas) should be obvious: once you have planted an idea in the minds of your audience, it’s very, very difficult for that idea to be dislodged.

This is why, for example, in a courtroom there is an advantage to telling your side of the story first: the weight of the idea you planted in the jury’s mind is hard for your opponent to overcome.

The more powerfully and indelibly you can imprint your idea on a large number of minds, the more influence you have. This is the “secret” behind clichés, stereotypes, and proverbs.

For instance, the advice “look before you leap” is a powerful way of simply and briefly summing up a powerful idea, and that maxim influences many of us when we are about to make a crucial decision.

The only way to counteract a powerful idea like “look before you leap” is with another idea just as powerful: “he who hesitates is lost”.

Your goal as a marketer should be to plant your ideas early and often.

Here’s the takeaway:

1. Formulate your idea simply and memorably (“Delivering Happiness”, “Getting Things Done”, “Unleashing the IdeaVirus”).
2. Put your idea into distributable form.
3. Encourage the free and massive distribution of your idea.

I know… the question burning in your mind is, “But how do I make money doing that?”

Good question – with many answers. Three short ones:

1. You make money explaining the idea. (No matter how simple it is, people will always want you to explain it, and they will pay you to do so.)
2. You’ve told people what to do (your idea) – now tell them how to do it (and charge them).
3. Leverage the Authority gained from spreading the idea into other, profitable jobs, gigs, and businesses.

That’s true for probably 80% of the students and clients I deal with, and for 90% or more of businesses I encounter along life’s way.

“But Ray, my business is different.”

Aargh!

If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times from clients and students in some variant form: “I can’t charge a high price for my product, and I can’t use direct marketing or info-marketing techniques, because my product is different. It’s a commodity. It’s physical, it’s not an info-product. I have a lot of competition. Blah, blah, blah…”

Balderdash.

I learned a long time ago (from Dan Kennedy) — your business is not different.

If you feel you can’t charge a premium for whatever it is you sell, you have failed to differentiate your offering… you have failed to show the value of your widget/idea/service over your competitor(s)… and you have perhaps simply failed to have the backbone to say, “This is how much it costs.”

Case in point: The Big Green Egg grill.

The company that makes this thing is not a client of mine, but they exhibit the qualities I look for and do my best to instill in my clients: a committment to good marketing, to having a premium product, to charging a premium price, to selling to a base of fantatical customers, and to using good info-marketing and direct marketing techniques to support said practices.

They sell barbecue grills for $1,000.

That’s not a typo.

In a world where you can buy a grill for $9 at the drug store, or $30 at Target, these guys sell grills for anywhere from $350 at the “cheap” end to more than $1,000 at the high end. And they have plenty of add-ons and upsells too.

You could learn a lot from the Big Green Egg guys.

Worth studying and thinking about how to use the same ideas, techniques and approaches in your business – no matter what you sell.

Because, despite what you may think… your business is not different.

Movie fans will recognize the name; if you’re curious, just Google it.

That’s not the point of this piece, though.

You may not know (or even care) that since May 18, my family and I have been traveling the USA in our motorhome. Our family includes me, She Who Must Be Adored (my wife), our son… and two dogs.

Rollo discovered early on in this long journey (over 5,000 miles so far) that his preferred riding spot is in my wife’s lap. It’s pretty cute, if not always comfortable for my wife.

Because having a 25 pound dog on your lap for hours on end is not comfortable, my wife frequently banishes Rollo to the rear sofa. He usually obediently lumbers back to the sofa, waits a few minutes… and the next thing you know, there he is. At my wife’s feet. Looking up with those big brown eyes, silently asking, “Can I please get back on your lap now?”

Once she has noticed him, my wife will say “No, Rollo – go back to the couch.”

And he slowly shuffles off to the sofa, head hung down as if he’d been scolded for some really, really Bad Thing. Sits on the sofa for a few minutes. And then… you guessed it: he’s back at her feet.

I’ve seen him perform this little dance as many as half a dozen times in a row, in the course of 30 minutes.

No whining.

No barking.

No bad behavior, really.

Oh, occasionally my wife gets a little irritated and maybe firms up her tone of voice – but in the end, she always sighs, smiles, and says, “Oh, okay. Come on up.”

And Rollo happily hops into her lap and soon is serenading us with the rip-roaring snores only an overweight Pug can manage.

I think there’s a very simple lesson here for sales people. And we’re all sales people, in one way or another.

Do you “get” the lesson? Post your insights here on the blog. I’ll pick one commenter to receive an advance, signed copy of my forthcoming book on copywriting and online persuasion, Writing Riches.

The plot is simple: humans find themselves on a planet that is a game preserve, and the humans are the prey. They’re being hunted by aliens for sport.

This is how most of us feel about marketers. We feel like we are the prey, and the marketers are the hunters. Merciless, weird hunters who are not really interested in our pain, our fear, or our lives.

That’s why people are drawn to marketers who actually care about the people they sell to. It’s why company’s with high standards of excellence, customer service, and integrity enjoy long-lived success.

From the marketer’s viewpoint, it look like this: it’s the difference between being a predator – or being the shepherd who protects and cares for the flock.

Which one are you? And if you don’t like the answer, here’s a follow-up question: which one will you be today?

I’m about to show you how you can double or triple your conversions without lifting a finger.

Seriously.

So, if you have a money-making site online right now, keep reading.

The rest of you may be excused (sorry, just figured I might as well be up front about who this is for).

Here’s the deal…

Have you ever heard that story about the ocean-going ship engine that failed?

In the version I heard, it was the Queen Elizabeth luxury liner.

The vessel’s owners brought in all their on-staff engineers to fix it, but none of them could get the engine running.

Finally, they brought in an expert who had been fixing ships all his life.

The old expert hauled in his bag of tools and looked around a bit.

He crawled all over that engine room, looking, touching, thinking.

Finally, he went to his bag, pulled out a small hammer, and tapped a few times on a valve.

The engine roared to life.

A week later, the owners of the ship received a bill for ten thousand dollars.

They were outraged. After all, the man had only tapped on a valve with a hammer!

They immediately demanded he send them an itemized bill explaining his charges. He sent them a bill that read:

“Tapping with a hammer…………………$2

Knowing where to tap………………$9,998″

Knowing where to tap is important to your sales copy, too.

The simplest changes can make the most profound difference in your results.

There is an art to writing copy, but there is also a science to getting the maximum result. And that science is called “testing”.

Here’s the “magic formula”: get a sales letter that makes SOME money.

That gets SOME conversions and sales.

Then TEST the heck out of new headlines, deck copy, subheads, offers, guarantees, pictures,etc.

In other words, use the ART of copywriting plus the SCIENCE of testing to find out…

WHERE TO TAP.

As marketers and copywriters – knowing where to tap is what we get paid for.

Today we talk about the “BS Lies That Hold You Back”, “Loser’s Limp”, and my favorite new internet gizmo.

Resources Mentioned In The Show

• Web Copywriting Explained
• Apple iPad

And once again, if you have feedback or suggestions I’d really like to hear from you.

You can call in your questions for next show at (509)624-2220 … just tell my receptionist you need to leave a VOICEMAIL message for Ray.

UPDATE: Call in your questions to our new, fancy “request line” at (509) 713-2679

Click for the Podcast Audio:

Click Here

Good sales people identify the emotion driving their prospect, and then line up the “reasons why” the purchase is a good idea. They use logic to close the sale, but logic is not making the sale.

“Reason why” selling even worked with Captain Kirk on Star Trek.

Kirk was a hot-head, you will remember. He wanted to spring into action. Spock, the non-emotional, scientific Vulcan, deftly supplied his Captain the logic needed to justify the decision.

Get this: Spock was the consummate sales person. A pro. Kirk was not.

Most sales people who turn us off are selling from the Captain Kirk school of sales – all emotion, passion and pushiness.

The sales people we love, the ones we happily buy from, are from the Mr. Spock school of sales; they simply supply us with the logical reasons that support what we wanted to do already.

Be like Spock; supply the reasons why. It’s the logical thing to do.

Ogilvy is famous for saying 50% of his ads work – he just didn’t know which 50%.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

You can make your advertising – and more importantly your marketing – a profit center instead of an expense.

How do you do that?

Simple. Make it a no-way-to-lose proposition.

1.    Make sure each ad has a call to action you can measure (call this number, click this link).

2.    Measure the response to each ad and each call to action.

3.    Do more of the ones that work and less of the ones that don’t.

This way you get something from every ad – even if the something is only knowledge of what not to do. You never lose; you always profit either by knowledge or dollars.

Why?

To put it simply: nothing of great benefit to anyone was ever created as a result of thinking smaller.

“Bigger” may refer to a simple matter of scale in terms of dollars (as in revenue & profits). It may also refer to something even more grand…

Bigger ideas with more leverage. Bigger ways to benefit more people. Bigger opportunities for others (not just for your self or your company). Bigger projects that extend beyond your own lifetime, abilities, talents or resources.

Yes, I’m talking about the life of your business – and also about the business of life.

What do I mean specifically? How am I myself thinking bigger? Here are some of the projects/ideas/intentions on my own drawing board now:

• Growing my own company beyond my “virtual team” and myself.
• Working with larger businesses to leverage my marketing methods for their greater benefit and profit — and my own.
• Creating a way for smaller companies and individuals, who in the past could not afford to work with me, access to my advice and thinking. Making it affordable without draining my time, energy and resources.
• Offering “done for you” services on a wide, duplicable scale.
• Ramping up my bi-weekly podcast to a weekly; perhaps even expansion back to my old roots by placing the show on radio stations.
• Developing training systems for small businesses and entrepreneurs that can be facilitated by certified, territory-specific representatives.

That’s just a smattering of what I’m cooking in the back kitchen at Ray Edwards International, Inc.

The most important thing about all this is not what bigger plans I’m making, it’s about the reasons why.

That’s the real “big thinking”. Some of my reasons why:

• Making the highest and best use of the talents, skills and opportunities God has given me.
• Breaking the spirit of poverty, lack and insufficiency that plagues America (and especially the American church).
• Enabling people to enjoy the freedom that comes from a pursuit of personal wealth based on passion and purpose.
• Creating a business that makes as many other people wealthy as I possibly can.
• Creating a legacy that will last across generations.
• Writing books that my great-grandchildren can read and thus know something about the heart of their great-grandfather (and for the record, I don’t even have grandchildren yet.. let alone great-grandchildren – I’m thinking 100 years into the future!).

Those are reasons that fuel my fire, inspire me, and give me reasons for doing things that mere material gain could never do.

I believe this kind of thinking is the right – the responsibility – of every breathing person.

So how about it? Are you willing to join me in thinking bigger? If so, I’d love to hear how you plan to do it – so lay some wisdom on me in the comments here.

We celebrate our decision to become an independent nation.

Our Founding Fathers were willing to fight for that independence. In fact, they were willing to die in order to gain it.

Question to ponder: what are you willing for fight (and possibly die) in order to gain?

And if you can’t think of anything… why not?

Might it be worthwhile coming up with an answer to that question?

And at the risk of repeating myself from earlier this week: if you can’t figure out what this has to do with business and marketing, you’re just not thinkin’ hard enough.

Have a great weekend.

Does Disney have trouble marketing umbrellas at their theme park during Florida’s legendary afternoon thundershowers?

How about fireworks dealers right before the Fourth of July?

None of these situations present a marketing problem, because people already want the product.

The product, in other words, sells itself.

This can happen by design, in any business. You simply have to use your “thinker” to find the hidden opportunities in your business.

For instance, Disney had a problem with their Florida theme parks. They hadn’t counted on the fact that it rains in Florida. A LOT.

But this problem was an opportunity in disguise, because someone realized the most valued commodity in a rainstorm is… an umbrella.

And so when it starts to rain in the Magic Kingdom, there’s a parade, all the “cast members” talk about the “liquid sunshine”… and the umbrellas come out from the back of the store to the front. And they sell themselves.

What opportunities exist in your business that would allow  you to sell products that prospects don’t have to be persuaded to buy?

Think about that. Answer it, do something about it — and prosper.

I don’t have any predictions about who will win… but I do have a World Cup prediction: it will be hot news until it’s over.

That may sound obvious, but there are a couple of lessons marketers could learn if they pay attention.

1. Events (like the World Cup) can capture attention – even of those who are not normally interested. If you can’t create your own “World Cup” – and I submit that you might not want to discard the possibility out of hand – you could certainly capitalize on the events that already have the attention of your audience, yes?
2. The World Cup did not sneak up on anyone. It was on the calendar over a year ago. How many “events” could you tie your marketing to that are coming  up in the next 12 months? How many of them are already firm dates on the calendar of all your prospects (think Holidays and big sporting events, possibly movies/books and seasonal events like “back to school”, etc.).

Just sayin.

And writing copy and marketing materials for these events becomes drop-dead simple. I even have a product that can help – http://LaunchCopyExplained.com – but that’s not even the point.

The point is: it’s almost too late to capitalize on the World Cup.

But it’s not too late to drag out your calendar and cook up a promo for, say, the Fourth of July.

And so on.

Will you? We’ll see.

Our culture is replete with stories of people who had every disadvantage yet succeeded wildly – and that not through luck but through focused effort.

Submitted as proof: Ray Charles, Stephen Hawking, and Helen Keller.

So what is it about our thinking that so often holds us back – especially when we have no great physical disadvantage? (Note: the aforementioned cases preclude any healthy person from excuse-making… and they also demonstrate that what I’m about to say applies even to those who are blind, deaf, or crippled.)

Here are three lies that hold you back. Escape these lies, and escape the limitations you’ve imposed on your self.

1.    The past equals the future. The perfect lie for convincing you to not even try anything, since it’s “never worked in the past”. Good thing Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, and Abraham Lincoln didn’t buy this lie.

2.    Ready, Aim, Fire. Sounds like good wisdom, until you realize most get stuck on “Aim”. So that it ends up being “Ready, Aim… Aim… Aim… Aim…”

3.    Proven methods are safest. Maybe they are, but if we relied only on “proven methods”, we’d have no space shuttle, no antibiotics, no Apple computer, and no polio vaccine.

There are of course many other lies that hold people back.

For instance, one of the lies of online marketing is that it’s hard to get traffic to your site.

The truth is just the opposite.

In fact, it’s pretty easy to get hundreds of other people promoting your site for you – free – when you know how (see http://MySalesArmy.com for details on how to do it).

What lies are you believing that bar you from greatness?

Believing a lie means you are, in a sense, partnering with a liar. Think about it.

And then do something about it!

Somehow, though, lots of us allow ourselves to be bullied all through our adult life.

What about in your case? Who bullies you?

Your spouse? Your boss? Your mother/father/siblings?

For some of us, the answer is obvious (like the examples I just gave you)… and for others it is more subtle – and dangerous.

A lot of us are bullied by the voices in our own head.

I’m not talking crazy-town voices, here. I’m talking about the voices of fear, criticism, and self-doubt. The voices that stop you from reaching your dreams.

“You’ve never succeeded before,” those voices say, “What makes you think this time will be any different?”

Or they might say, “Nobody has ever done that before. Who are you to try it?”

Or even, “Everything in your life has gone wrong. That is never going to change.”

Where do those voices come from, anyway? Who IS that in your head?

Right.

It’s you.

Re-playing old lines that have virtually no meaning in your current situation.

Or, even worse, functioning as “negative affirmations”.

Bullying yourself. That’s what you’re doing.

Would you like to punch that bully in the nose, so they never bother you again? It’s simple to do. Just do the thing you’re afraid of – even while you’re still afraid of it.

That’s what Steve Jobs did when he launched the iPhone.

Not only was it NOT a “sure thing” when Apple launched “a new cell phone”… lots of experts were calling it a big mistake. Saying the market was too competitive, Apple’s phone was too expensive, and that people would never be willing to pay for such an overpriced toy that only operated on a second-rate carrier like AT&T.

But Steve didn’t listen to all those voices. And he decided to prove them wrong.

Oh, sure, NOW it seems obvious that iPhone would be a winner. But it was far from obvious before Steve had the courage to punch the bullies in the nose.

Apple just launched the newest version of its phone – iPhone 4 – and even in pre-order it was a resounding success. (By the way, there’s a great analysis of Apple’s latest launch here:

http://www.tier23.com/track/go.php?c=pla

It’s a great little video breakdown of why it worked so well. Watch it for valuable lessons.)

Time to punch your own bully in the nose.

Whether it’s your own voice, or someone else’s – it’s time to strike back.

What is it you would be doing if you stopped listening to the voices that tell you it can’t be done?

Seriously think about that question until you have an answer.

Then go do that thing. Take one action – the next physical action in the process – that gets you started on that new path.

And celebrate.

Because you just bloodied the bully’s nose.

For those who don’t know, it’s a remake of the old TV show, and it’s about an elite group of Army Rangers who “specialize in the impossible”.

The unit – called an “Alpha Unit” or “A-Team” – is led by Colonel Hannibal Smith. And Hannibal has some trademark wisdom that allows his team to accomplish the impossible; it’s wisdom that works for marketers, too. Here are three gems:

1. “No matter how random things appear, there’s always a plan.” Seems like just when things get darkest for the A-Team, that’s when Hannibal’s plan unfolds like clockwork. And it’s a thing of beauty to behold. Marketers are well-advised to have a plan of attack, especially in this sometimes perilous New Economy. Do YOU have a plan? Or are you just “faking it”, making it up as you go along?

2. “Give me a minute, I’m good. Give me an hour, we’re great. Give me six months and I’m unbeatable.” Hannibal knows the value of time well spent in planning in research – and given enough time, knows he can’t be beaten. When the chips are down, do you have the confidence mindset that there is always a solution to any marketing problem, given enough time?

3. “I love it when a plan comes together.” Hannibal’s greatest joy seems to be his crazy plans coming to fruition – something every marketer should be able to relate to!

If you need a shot of inspiration for your business, you could do worse than going to the movies and watching the A-Team in action!

And if you’d like your own A-Team out there on the Internet, promoting your products and websites for you..

…if you’d like them to do it for free, until they make you money…

…and if you’d like to get your hands on a plan for doing it that’s every bit as good as one of Hannibal’s plans…

…check out http://MySalesArmy.com!

You too will love it when a plan comes together.

Hey it just goes to show you: imperfect action beats perfect contemplation, every time.

For those who are interested, here’s the microphone I’m using – I wrongly said in the show it was a Logitech, but it’s actually a Plantronics headset.

Resources Mentioned In The Show

• Product Launch Formula
• Market Samurai

And once again, if you have feedback or suggestions I’d really like to hear from you.

What would make the show something you would NOT miss? What would make it a MUST-LISTEN?

Click for the Podcast Audio:

Click Here

My friend Jason Van Orden and his business partner, Jeremy Frandsen recently coined a term I really love: “cubicle escape artist”.

It’s a term that invokes curiosity.

And yet I believe people instinctively know what it means, and their curiosity is really disguised hope.

People know that a “cubicle escape artist” is someone who has somehow escaped the old J-O-B and found a way to be free. And people want to know what that way is, and how they can do it themselves.

This just demonstrates that people are willing and ready to move from the Old Economy to the New Economy – and people instinctively know there’s some way to use the Internet to do this. I’ll get to that in a moment…

When someone (like Jason and Jeremy) coins a nice little phrase that sums up that idea, people are attracted to that like bears to honey.

I know I was, when I decided to break out of a great radio broadcasting business.

This quick post is being written from the back of the Copywriting Motorhome, which was paid for by my own “cubicle escape” a few years ago. I’m on a three-month spiritual journey around the USA (a 7,500 mile odyssey), and yet I’m still preparing to launch my own new Internet venture and managing three client launches while on the road.

So I know cubicle escape is possible.

In fact, while I love Jason and Jeremy’s term (and I highly recommend you check out their free podcast entitled Internet Business Mastery), I think of myself as  something a little more radical…

So from now on, please think of me as an Economic Freedom Fighter™.

I hereby lay claim to that handle.

My mission: to free those captive to the poverty mindset, to help people build wealth, and bring more prosperity to the world… using the power of the Internet and the alchemy of marketing.

And make no mistake – it is a fight.

The common mentality, the mindset of the average person, is the employee-factory-wageslave mentality.

People with the average mindset will scoff at your efforts to escape the 9-5. If you’re a business owner, “average” business owners will try and tell you why your efforts to improve your business or thrive in “tough” times are doomed to fail.

Average people do not want you to succeed wildly, because quite frankly it makes them look bad.

My advice to you: refuse to be average.

Rise above ordinary.

Step into your best identity, and join me (and others) in the fight for economic freedom. Resist mediocrity.

So…‘till the next time, this is your friendly Economic Freedom Fighter™ urging you to fight the good fight.

“If you’re hearing this message – you are the resistance.”

The Story:

The Point: Know what drives me bananas? People who spout off about how  you should stop “trading time for dollars”. I think it’s virtually impossible to avoid “trading time for dollars”. And I think I do a pretty darn good job proving it in this podcast.

And once again, if you have feedback or suggestions I’d really like to hear from you.

What would make the show something you would NOT miss? What would make it a MUST-LISTEN?

The Resource From “Tips, Tools and Tactics”: Linx Boss Backlinking Service

Click for the Podcast Audio:

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Many of these otherwise bold, creative, talented individuals feel somehow inept or ill-equipped to convince people to pay them for their valuable services. Fear not, Faithful Freelancer, for the answer is easier than you may think.

The first thing we have to deal with is the internal attitude that most freelancers live with; that attitude, summed up, is one of very low self-worth. Why is this? It’s probably more of a cultural question, bound up in the American ideal of perfectionism and performance. Obviously, this is beyond the scope of a simple blog post. So let me deal at least with the surface symptom of this condition. To put it quite simply: if people are willing to pay you anything at all, then your work has value. How much people are willing to pay you is based in part on the quality of your work, and in part on the quality of your marketing.

Now just in case some may object, let me be clear: I am not suggesting that it is good, honest, or ethical to knowingly sell a product that is somehow defective. That is the furthest from my intention. I’m a champion of excellence, and a believer that every project you work on should be a project at the end of which you can say honestly, “That was the best work of which I was capable.”

However… it is possible to get so bound up in the ideal of perfection that you never actually attempt or finish a project because you are never able to reach a point where you say it is “good enough”.

The first step to overcoming the self-worth problem faced by most freelancers is to trust your instinct about what is good enough, and what is not good enough. Your instinct-or perhaps better said, that “still, small voice” that you hear in your heart-will tell you when your work is, in fact, “good enough”.

Now, back to the subject of marketing (the second half of our equation that determines how much people are willing to pay for your services). While you may or may not be comfortable with the idea that the quality of your marketing contributes massively to the value people place on your work, it is true. Colleague and copywriter Ben Settle, in a recent edition of his Crypto Marketing newsletter (I am a paying subscriber and highly recommend it), makes the point beautifully:

Who do you think will get more clients faster: (1) The straight “A” student lawyer fresh out of Harvard, who nobody knows and just set up his practice with a sign outside his door or… (2) The “C” level lawyer who barely graduated from a cheaper, little-known law school… but who is interviewed about legal questions on the radio for an hour on a big station that reaches the entire community? Like it or not… the mediocre radio lawyer will probably win every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Why? Because he’s on the radio… and the highfalutin’ guy with all the degrees isn’t!

With this in mind, I’m going to make two assumptions.

1. The skill or talent you plan to sell as a freelancer (or service business provider) is one in which you are at least competent, and hopefully better-than-average.
2. You are ready, willing, and able to put some effort into your marketing program. And here is a hint: most everyone is “able”-but very few seem to be “ready and willing”. If you can muster the moral fiber to be ready and willing to do some work, you’ve automatically outclassed 95% of your competition. That should plaster a big goofy grin all over your mug.

If you meet those two qualifications above, let’s get started on a simple but effective marketing program that should put clients in your stable and coins in your coffers. Here are three simple steps to putting profits in your pipeline:

1. Start a blog. It’s easy to do, and there is plenty of material available online that will teach you how to do it. And let me give you a very important tip: you don’t need super secret blog software (in fact I recommend you use the ubiquitous WordPress), you don’t need to hire a high-priced designer, and if your content is good, you can use an off the rack theme (a templated “skin” or “look and feel” for your WordPress blog that can be installed at the touch of a button). The most important aspect of your blog is that you post content on a regular schedule, and what you post is not material that markets your services but rather helpful information that your potential prime prospects are looking for.
2. Build an e-mail list. From the very beginning, give your readers a reason to subscribe to your regular e-mails. I highly recommend you consider e-mailing them every single day. This is a practice that I have tested and am convinced will yield better results than mailings on any other schedule. Just remember, if you make every single mailing a sales pitch you will do yourself more harm than good. So strive to send something of value to your readers every single day. There are plenty of people who will disagree with my advice, and many of them are “super brains”. But I stand by my test results, and the test results of my colleagues and clients; I have personally renewed my commitment to sending daily e-mails to my list. Emails that are chock-full of quality material. I recommend you do the same.
3. Develop an information product. The moment you publish your own information product (audio or video courses preferred) about your area of expertise, you are instantly elevated above most of your competition. Anyone who publishes-even if only electronically-is automatically granted a psychological edge over those who do not publish. Example from my own career: several years ago, when I finally gave in to the advice and urgings of my good friends and mentors Armand Morin and Alex Mandossian and developed my own copywriting course (called Web Copywriting Explained), I was surprised by two unexpected outcomes: the first being the fact that I made more money than I anticipated through the sale of the course (very near $100,000 right out of the gate, even though at that time I was a relative unknown), and the second unexpected outcome being the acquisition of two major clients, who rose up from the ranks of those who bought the course. One of those clients admitted that she bought the course mainly to see if I knew what I was talking about. Both of those clients paid me over $25,000 to write copy for them. Publishing your own information products is one of the most effective ways to develop a “farm team” of potential clients who will pay for your services. In fact, it’s like getting paid to do your marketing.

Those are three of the most powerful strategies I know of to develop new clients for your service business. They are culled from my own experience, and from a course I taught last year about how to become a recognized authority in your chosen field in 90 days or less. That course, The Authority Accelerator, is currently off the market pending revision.

If you’re interested in this topic, or related topics, please add your comments or questions in the section below: the level of response will determine whether I continue to elaborate on this particular subject, or move on to other topics that I wish to talk about.

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Instead of scrambling madly for any customer who will hand you money, be selective.

Determine what kind of customer you don’t want to deal with, and work hard to exclude those customers from your business.

If you are brave and decide to take this step you will find:

• You get more customers you like doing business with.
• Your customers will spend more on each transaction
• Your customers will come back more often.
• You will make more money.
• You will work less, not more.

That sounds good, yes? It’s made a world of difference for me. Go thou and do likewise.

Back when I was in the radio business, we cooked up a new “hoax” for each April Fool’s Day.

One year we announced that the US Government was immediately changing the color of all paper currency to blue, and that all citizens should take their green money to the bank to be exchanged.

Another year we hit the airwaves with the urgent warning not to use landline telephones all day long, because the phone company was “blowing out the lines” in order to clean them. Using the phone, we said, could result in “serious ear injuries”.

And then there was the year we warned of dangerously high levels of “bi-hydrous monoxide” in the air (I’ll leave you to puzzle it out).

One year we announced the time all morning long as being one hour later than it actually was. We had a few irate calls from people who were angry… because we made them early for work! Sometimes people are a puzzle.

But blogging is not radio.

So here’s my take on the “April Fools” game… I’m not playing.

No foolin’.

This is not an either-or proposition.

It’s a “both-and” reality.

The amount of money you have directly affects how you deal with certain requirements of life.

The amount of money you have also directly affects how much time you are required to invest in certain activities – and how much time you have free for others.

Having a lot of money – or having very little – is not “good” or “bad”.

Consciously choosing the balance of these two resources – time and money – is a major key that unlocks the door to fulfillment… or leaves you facing a closed and immovable door.

The choice — for almost everyone — is yours.

I’ve always found that an instructive thought experiment – and also a little vague.

Here’s a refinement: what if you only had 1 project left to work on?

• Which project would you choose?
• How would you go about it?
• What would be your criteria for success?

My guess is: the answers to these questions will be different than the way you’ve been approaching your projects up until now.

My question is: will that continue to be the case?

What if you approached every project (business, personal, or any other category) as if it were your last?

For better than 80% of companies (or freelancers, or salespeople, etc.) the answers is simple.

So simple you’re embarrassed to admit it.

Here is the “secret” to getting more sales:

Ask.

For another 10-15% “bump” in sales: when the prospect says “no”, ask them “why not?” Then answer their objection. And then ask for the sale again.

I know many will think this is oversimplified.

Before you make that assumption, honestly ask yourself if you ask for the sale as often as you should.

I rest my case.

And I saw the handwriting on the wall that told me radio was in big trouble.

I began running around telling all my radio comrades that we needed to change the way we did business, or we were in big trouble.

Of course, they didn’t want to hear that – so they didn’t.

In fact, I was told my fears were silly – iPods and Satellite radio and the Internet were no threat to radio at all. That’s what my corporate bosses told me, anyway.

And when I tried to explain that it wasn’t fear that was motivating me, but rather the recognition of a trend that was inevitable… well, some of them laughed.

They’re not laughing any more.

I’ve been out of the radio business for almost 4 years now, but hardly a week goes by that one of my old comrades doesn’t call me and tell me how the margins are continuing  to shrink, listenership continues to drop like a lead balloon, and corporate failures and layoffs are coming at an ever-increasing rate of speed.

There is good news in all this.

Radio’s answer is a simple one… but not easy.

It’s the same answer I was touting 5 years ago when I decided to get out that game altogether.

Here it is: make a better product.

So what does that look like?

• Pay the expense to hire good talent – and let them make radio shows that are compelling and entertaining.
• Stop playing so many commercials (in fact, I suggest you stop playing any commercials and invent a new revenue model… but that’s an entire post of its own and, I’m sure, too scary for radio folks to even contemplate)
• Decide you’re in it for the long haul, and stop managing to next week’s “revenue number”
• Forget the ratings game and focus on the results you get for your clients instead
• Serve the community you operate in – with real community service, not the usual “lip service”

That ought to get you started, radio folks.

And it applies to almost every other suffering business or industry; you probably already know what you need to do.

The problem is, it’s simple… but it’s not easy.

Because you’d know their world.

You’d understand their pain.

You’d know their deepest fears, and you’d understand their highest aspirations.

So how do you do that? Here are 7 practical tips. They sound simple, but when you actually use them their impact can be profound.

1. Learn everything you can about your prospect. If you’re in direct marketing, it’s easy: just look at their data cards. When you have demographics, you can infer a lot about the “average” person who represents the group. If you don’t have that kind of data… guess. It’s a lot more accurate  than what most marketers do (which is: they don’t bother with any of this stuff).
2. Imagine yourself living your prospect’s typical day. Go through it step by step – from rising out of bed in the morning to getting back into the sack at night. Use all five of your senses: what do you see, hear, feel, taste, touch and smell? Make notes.
3. Think about their biggest fear – the one that wakes them up at 3 in the morning in a cold sweat.
4. Think about  their highest aspiration – what do they dream of? Not the little dreams (the ones we all tell our buddies), but the big dream in their “secret heart” (the dream that they don’t dare tell anyone).
5. Go where they live. Find a neighborhood that is like your prospect’s and walk through it (driving doesn’t work – looking at it through a window is just more TV… nice to look at but not REAL). Talk to people.
6. Read what they read. Read their magazines, newspapers, blogs and Twitter.
7. Watch what they watch. Watch the TV shows your prospects watch. Especially the ones  that don’t interest you.

If you do this, you’ll develop the apparent ability to read your prospect’s mind.

And you’ll sell more.

But something funny about this is: you’ll also most likely care more. And that’s far more important than any selling technique.

The world’s a funny place, ain’t it?

This is a resource you’ll have fun playing with – and it may spark some profitable ideas, too.

The site is a marvel of simplicity – simple copy, simple navigation, simple user interface.

What’s amazing  is: the conceptual “sale” they have to make to get you to share your financial information with them (necessary for their site to be of any real use to you) is a complex sale. They have to overcome a very rational fear on the part of their prospect (“why should I give these guys all my passwords? What will they do with that information?”).

Add to that the following complexity: after they’ve convinced you to give up all your usernames and passwords for all your financial accounts, then they have to interact with all those other websites to aggregate the data into a very user-friendly online “dashboard” of your finances.

It all appears very simple to the end user.

But it’s all very hard to do.

And they appear to be making a fortune.

So how does one do such a thing?

1. First, lots of thinking and planning.
2. Then lots of hard work.
3. Make a big investment in infrastructure and programming.
4. Take a huge risk that it will all work.
5. Spend time and thought on marketing that is smart, effective… and simple.

Probably not what most entprepreneurs want to hear – especially the part about “thinking and planning” and “lots of hard work”.

But that’s how you make a  Mint (.com).

If you’re one of those folks who would like to know that formula, I have some disappointing news: there isn’t one.

“But Ray,” I hear you say, “Haven’t you yourself  taught several different copywriting ‘formulas’?”

Yes.

But.

They are not “magic” and they don’t work universally.

What a formula can do is give you a basic structure on which to hang your “argument” (your logic for why someone should buy your stuff); what the formula cannot do is somehow magically compel people to buy something they don’t really want or need.

What a formula can’t do is teach you the fears and aspirations of your readers, so that your persuasion power comes from the point of intersection between your audience’s needs/desires and your product’s features/benefits.

Only you, as an empathetic writer, can do that.

But as Jonah Lehrer observes in his book “How We Decide”, the evidence suggest our decisions are based on completely irrational factors. We do, it turns out, judge books by their covers.

In the context of marketing, this fact is fairly important to remember.

While none of us like to think we salivate on command like one of Pavlov’s famous dogs, we do act impulsively in response to certain colors, language patterns, and page layouts.

The question to ask yourself is: what response does my current marketing elicit? Buying behavior – or something else?

I suggest that in most cases, the answer is the latter.

If you think you’ve got this all taken care of, watch what “regular people” (aka your customers) do when they visit your site… and be prepared to be shocked.

What people actually do at your website is probably quite different than what you think they do.

The kind of exercise I describe above is called a “usability study” – and they can be quite expensive if you have a professional conduct the study.

The good news is you can conduct a “do it yourself” usability study inexpensively.

Jakob Nielsen is the guru of usability, and has a very simple “discount usability” model you can follow.

It’s worth the effort.

As you’re crafting your next marketing campaign, here are 7 questions to ask yourself.

Answering them will virtually write your sales copy for you.

It’s easy to do.

But very powerful. Try it and see.

1. What problem are you solving?
2. What is your solution?
3. Who is it right for?
4. What will it do for those people?
5. How does it work?
6. What are the reasons someone might NOT buy it?
7. Why should they trust you?

After each answer, ask ‘why is that so important?’

People are in a flutter about the new FTC guidelines.

This affects you if you are a blogger, and affiliate marketer, or an Internet marketer of any stripe.

Now, there are a lot of snake-oil salesmen who are ready, willing and able to take advantage of your FEAR of the FTC.

Usually they have an “FTC Protection Kit” to sell you.

Well, my friend and colleague Jim Edwards just interviewed Richard Cleland, the FTC director in charge of advertising and claims.

I think this interview is top-notch, clear, and brings a voice of sanity to the whole discussion.

There is no pitch for anything, and this is not an affiliate link. It’s just a service.

http://jimedwards.s3.amazonaws.com/ftc-advertising-interview/index.html

Take some advice from your ol’ buddy Ray – watch this interview now.

(Also, it’s not required but I’d recommend signing up for Jim’s email newsletter. It’s one of the very few marketing newsletters that are worth subscribing to.)

I came across a website today for something called “Laughter Yoga”.

My first question was, “What the heck is ‘laughter yoga’?”

Turns out it’s exactly what it sounds like.

People get together in a Yoga-class type setting, and they LAUGH.

There’s even a “Laughter Yoga Home Study” set, which is a bunch of DVDs that will set you back $195.

I kid you not.

Now after a little Google research I found out that doctors and patients say that this weird kind of yoga relieves stress and anxiety and could even strengthen the immune system.

It seems kinda like a stretch to me, but a lot of people swear by it and are willing to pay their hard-earned money for it.

Just Google “laughter yoga” and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

So what can we learn from this?

It’s just this: making money is simple if you remember that all people really want is to FEEL BETTER.

I mean, c’mon.

If people will pay $195 to earn how to do “laughter yoga”, doesn’t that say a lot about what people really want?

How about diet books?

We all know (don’t we?) that most people who buy diet books (or “get out of debt” books, or “get a better relationship” books, etc.) don’t every really lose weight (or get out of debt, or get a better relationship, etc.).

So why do they buy those books?

TO FEEL BETTER.

The book makes them feel better about themselves. It makes them feel like they COULD go on the diet, or the budget, or whatever.

Now, I think your product or service should provide real value. So that if your customer actually USED the product they would get the result.

But you should also think about making certain that your product itself provides a way to feel better.

And for darn sure, you’re marketing and sales material should absolutely make the prospects feel more positive, more focused and more hopeful.

While I don’t think any of us should be selling “false hope”, I definitely feel we should be selling “hope”.

Because hope makes people feel better, and that is ultimately what most human beings want.

Just to feel better.

That’s what I think – but what do you think? Is is good to sell “hope” to prospects… to make  them feel better? Post your comments below…

Failure to live up to this rule could get bloggers fined up to $11,000.

Per violation.

There are lots of questions about what this means for affiliate marketers, if anything.

It really seems to me that the best policy is also the easiest to implement: if you’re being paid to promote something, say so. End of story.

Where it gets murkier is what the FTC’s rule will mean for those who run affiliate programs – are they now going to be held responsible for what their affiliates do? That seems like a responsibility most business owners are going to be unable or at least unwilling to bear.

What do you think about the new FTC rules for bloggers? Has the FTC killed affiliate marketing in one fell stroke? Or are paranoid marketers blowing this all out of proportion? Post your thoughts below.

Intends to rob the place.

Picks a 78-year old bank teller as his target. I guess he figured she would be a pushover.

Boy was he wrong.

Our Spunky Septuagenarian, whose name is Helen Roth, gave the robber a piece of her mind – but didn’t give him ANY money.

She told him to scram.

And that’s what he did.

Here’s The Million-Dollar Question

I wonder… if it was me, would I have done what Helen did?

What about you?

Sometimes all we can do in a scary situation is the brave thing. That’s what Helen did.

And you know what? This danged recession is just like that robber.

Wants to take our money. Unfairly.

Already has taken some people’s jobs and businesses.

But in my heart of hearts, I don’t believe we need to give in. I think the WRONG ANSWER is to start shaking in our boots, handing over the money bags to Mr. Recession as if he were a gun-toting bank robber.

Because there ARE answers, Faithful Reader.

How To Deal With A Robber Named Recession

In today’s world, you have a power never available in previous recessions – you have the Internet.

You can start a new business on the Internet. With less than $100.

There are dozens of ways to make a very good living online. Such as:

• Sell information (how-to guides, etc.)
• Sell services (web design, writing, programming, etc.)
• Open your own store in the world’s biggest mall (eBay)
• Hang out your shingle as a consultant.

And the list could be much longer, but you get the idea.

OR…

You can save your EXISTING business using the power of the Internet. No traditional advertising required. How?

Just use some basic direct response techniques to give your business a “cash infusion”. (This is a bit more complex than the first option I mentioned, but there’s plenty of information out there on the danged ol’ Internet on how to do this, much of it on this very blog, and teaching you that stuff was not the point of this missive anyway).

So what is my point?

Simple.

Stop trembling behind the counter.

Stop making excuses (“I’m too old”… “it’s not fair”… “I don’t know what to do”…) and just, if I may be permitted, have some guts.

If the recession is robbing YOU of sleep, peace of mind, or money…

…look that robber in the eye and say, “Not today, Mister. Get outta here!”

Helen will applaud you.

And so will I.

‘Nuff Said,

Ray

(NOTE: This is an update of a previous post… enhanced with video. Please be sure and let me know what you think of this “multi-media” approach, okay? It’s quite a bit of work, and I’m happy to do it if you think it’s worthwhile.)

As marketers and entrepreneurs, we have a simple job – to get other people to do what we want them to do.

I’ll leave the discussion about the ethical side of this for another time; let’s just assume that you and I will always work for the best interests of our customers and prospects, okay?

So. We want to get people to do what we want. It will help them. It will help us. But exactly how do we do it?

There is a tactic that gives almost magical powers of persuasion.

You can, quite simply, get practically anyone to do practically anything.

It’s so simple you’ll be tempted to shrug it off.

Don’t.

Take just a moment to think about the fact that you already know this works, because you already know people who have this power. Don’t you know at least one person who seems to be able to persuade people on just about any issue?

Don’t you know at least one person who can seemingly “sell ice to the Eskimos”?

So how is it that some people are able to do that – and more importantly, how can you do the same? Wouldn’t that make an enormous impact on your business?

Here is the big secret…

“Enter the conversation already taking place in your prospect’s mind.”

As far as I know, that idea originated with the late, great copywriter Robert Collier.

If you can “join up” with what your prospects are already feeling and thinking, get in synch with them, and get them to identify you as a “friendly” in a hostile world… they will listen to what you have to say.

Think of it this way: the easiest way to influence someone is with whatever is already influencing them.

It’s a simple principle, but not easy to do.

So how do you do it? Here are some tips that will help you harness this seemingly magic power:

1. Listen. Pay attention to what people say. Hang out in online forums. Track trends on twitter. Collect the words, phrases and ideas your market uses. Speak back to them in their own words.
2. Watch. Be conscious of what your store or website visitors actually do. What causes them to opt in? To opt out? To buy? To ask for a refund? Nothing teaches like behavior. People vote with their feet. Watch their feet.
3. Think. How can you solve their problems? How can you solve them quickly… easily… and with simplicity? Be the “aspirin for their headache” – and abundance will be yours.

If you can do these things, your readers/visitors/ listeners will be nodding their heads, slapping the table top, and saying, “Yes! That’s exactly how I feel!”

And when that happens, Constant Reader, they will do anything you ask.

Because anything you ask will be in alignment with what they already desire.

That’s a deep well I just pushed you into. Follow it all the way down, and be rewarded with the cool fresh water of more sales, more often.

[flashvideo file=http://rayedwards.s3.amazonaws.com/x11Video1.flv image=http://rayedwards.com/images/forge.png /]

Every piece of your website is a link in the sales chain.

Each link leads to the next, and at the end of the chain is the sale – and profits for you and your business.

Of course, as we all know, any chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

One way to get quick sales boost is: find the weak or broken links in your sales process and strengthen or repair them. And almost every website has at least a few week or broken links. I’m not just talking about hyperlinks, here… I’m talking about any crucial part of the sales process.

No website is perfect – no website is ever optimized fully. There’s always room for improvement. In most websites I look at for clients, there are some basic fixes that can pay off in a big way.

Here are three examples of things you might want to do on your own website:

• Fix Broken Links. The most obvious example is actual broken links. These are frustrating at best for your visitors, and for many it will kill the sale instantly (“if they can’t get their links fixed, what must their product be like?”).
• Remove Inconsistencies. In the world of direct mail, there’s a proven response boost when the message on the outside of the envelope matches the message on the headline of the letter inside; the reason this is so is, we are wired to respond positively to consistency. We like getting what we expect. Even seemingly small inconsistencies send a subconscious signal to your prospects that all is not right. Some specifics to look for: different typefaces or look & feel on your pages; lack of consistent layout from one section of your site to the next; jarring differences between your major sales pages (opt-in page, salesletter page, order page, thank you page). Get fanatical about consistency.
• Remove “Mind Stoppers”. Some things just cause us to “stop our mind” when reading a website. For example, strange or unnatural wording can cause us to stop in the flow of reading and ask “What? Huh?” Even though these “Mind Stoppers” may only cause a pause of 1 or 2 seconds, they interrupt the flow of your sales message. Avoid “Mind Stoppers” at all costs. The best way to find them: read your copy aloud, to another human being, in a natural tone and at an easy pace. Then have them read it aloud back to you. In each case, mark any section that causes you to pause or stumble. Re-write those sections and remove the “Mind Stoppers”.

When you forge stronger links in your “Sales Chain”, you’ll increase your sales results. And that means more profits for you and your small business.

I just need to point you to this one: Seth Godin on taking the high road.

Now, you may protest. You may say you don’t lie, cheat or steal.

I understand. You adhere to the letter of the law, you follow the rules, and you resent the implication of any dishonesty.

But even if you are “clean” as a marketer, guess what? It doesn’t matter.

You see, what matters is if your customers think you lie, cheat and steal, it might as well be true. Because its true for them, and that’s all that matters.

Perception is the reality.

What do you do, then, to change things?

Well. Change things.

Be more than just “clean”. Be honest. But not just to the letter of the law — be honest to the point that it makes you uncomfortable. Be refreshingly honest.

Want examples?

Think of Southwest Airlines. People love this airline, even though it has the most degrading boarding process of all airlines, has the least amount of service offered in-flight, and has the highest percentage of screaming babies and inexperienced travelers.

So why do people love Southwest? Simple: they have been refreshingly honest about what they offer, so our expectations are always met.

Grit your teeth and ask: in what ways can you be refreshingly honest with your customers?

At every seminar I attend, someone asks me this question: “Does anybody really make a living selling information online?”

I also hear this one: “You can’t make any money as a copywriter or marketer now that the economy has gone down the toilet.”

What a load of garbage! Aaarrrgh!

Here’s why…

It’s easier than ever to make money online.

Especially if you’re a copywriter.

Why would I say that? Simple.

If you know how to write great copy, you have three ways to make money online:

1. You can get paid to write copy for others.

2. You can make money writing copy for your own products that you sell online (that may have nothing to do with copywriting or marketing).

3. You can make money as an affiliate for other people’s products (because you have copy skills, your promos will be far more effective than those of mere mortal marketers).

Not one way to make income, but three ways.

You might think I’m exaggerating. Heck, you might even think I’m lying.

Doesn’t matter.

Because I’m proving every day that what I’m saying is true.

And I look around me and I see lots of evidence that the “economy” has not “stopped” the wheels of commerce.

For instance, I’m traveling the country in my new motor home. Over the last 2 months I have visited both Disney parks in the USA (Disney World in Florida, and Disney Land in California)…

…plus I’ve been to Las Vegas, Phoenix, and a few other sunny places.

And looking out my window right now, I see lots of motor homes (which cost anywhere from $80,000 – $700,000 or more).

Nobody told all these people the economy was “in trouble”.

And…

While I was in Vegas, I visited the Coach store, the Apple Store, and many others. Crammed with people spending money.

Now, some people are spending money, right?

OBVIOUSLY.

And just as in the retail business, and in the RV business, and in the exotic car business… in the marketing business, people are still buying.

(Look, I’m not minimizing anyone’s pain here; I understand that there are many people experiencing real problems. Far from criticizing them or minimizing the seriousness of their situation, I’m simply pointing to one possible way out of those problems.)

And the good news, if you’re a copywriter, is that you have three ways to make money.

Trust me, other marketers will pay you LOADS to write killer copy for them. Because they  hate writing their own, in most cases.

And… it gets even better.

Because when you can write your own copy, you can roll out as many of your own products as you like.

One little online money machine after another. See how that works? And because you write YOUR OWN COPY, you bypass the single biggest expense in marketing. Copy.

So my message in today’s post is really quite simple: whatever you have to do…

GET GOOD AT WRITING COPY.

It’s the one skill that pays you back for the rest of your life. I know it has for me.

So do what it takes. Get good at copy.

If you need fast cash, you can write for other people.

Then, if you want to build long-term income, write copy for your own products. And/or promote affiliate products.

It’s the winning skill in today’s “economy”.

(If you’re curious about how you could start a career as a copywriter, or learn the skill for your own business, you might want to take a look at this resource.)

That might be so broad a topic it isn’t helpful.

What might be more helpful: what can you – you – do differently?

You. One person.

You see, there is no such thing as One Economy. There are individuals who each have their own personal economy. When those individuals move in concert on a mass scale (such as selling their stock because they’re afraid, or reigning in their spending for the same reason), we see the effect and call it “The Economy”.

It seems  a useful question might be: what is one thing you can do differently that will have a positive effect on your personal economy?

Just pick one thing. Then do it.

My contention: it’s impossible to take a positive action on an individual level without that action affecting others.

If enough people do one thing differently… and that one thing is positive… and that one thing creates value… what happens to the mass result we call The Economy?

And looking back, ask yourself: what happened when a mass number of individuals did lots of little “one things” that were not positive, and that did not add value (such as borrowing too much money, cutting corners on quality, and failing to add value in every transaction)? Is it possible this is how we got into our current situation to begin with?

So. What one thing can you do differently today?

I’m not talking about your death here – just your business (or service, if you’re a provider of things like copy, graphics, design, etc.).

Oh sure, your clients would notice for a moment. Or a day.

But how about a week later?

What about even after they had found your replacement?

Would your clients look back a year from now, sigh, and lament the loss of your business or service?

This is a question you might contemplate quietly, in your “secret heart”. You know the answer already. And if the answer is, “They wouldn’t miss me much”… it’s time to go to work.

The best way to ensure your prosperity is to matter. To make a difference.

I’m not talking about “making a difference” in some cotton-candy-dreamy-fuzzy-feel-good kind of way. I’m not talking about charity work (though I believe that’s important, it’s a different discussion). I’m talking about adding so much value (in real, measurable ways) to people’s lives that if you went missing, they would notice. And they would be sorry. Over the long term.

Making a difference is the single best strategy for you and your business in today’s economy. Or any economy, for that matter.

But is it?

Not really.

Online retailers do much better.

Check out Futurenow’s posting on “the top 10 converting websites for December 2008“.

Here are the top five:

1. ProFlowers 31.1%
2. LL Bean 25.7%
3. Amazon 23.7%
4. VitaCost 23.0%
5. Coldwater Creek 22.4%

Hmmm.

What do they know that you don’t? Something to think about.

If you’re not already getting at least 10% conversions, I suggest reading this site.

It needs to be relevant – in other words, you need to write about stuff your market cares about.

Most bloggers (and newsletter/ezine publishers, and speakers, and authors, etc.) don’t have a clue what their market cares about.

Oh, they think they know what the market wants. That’s the problem. Don’t be too upset if this has happened to you, because I’m about to give you 5 easy ways to always know exactly what’s on the mind of your market.

It’s almost as if they were wearing signs around their necks proclaiming, “Here’s what has my attention right now…”
This is going to seem brain-dead simple.

Just find out what they’re already talking about, or what they’re already paying attention to, and give them more of that – but with your own unique spin.

And of course, in a way that adds value to their lives (and at the same time leads them to your door).

So here are the “5 Easy Ways”… really they are 5 websites that are like magical marketing x-ray machines. Just look at the screen, and see what’s inside the mind of your market.

http://del.icio.us
http://digg.com
http://answers.yahoo.com
http://stumbleupon.com
http://google.com/news

Of course, it’s up to you (or your copywriter) to figure out how and why today’s hot topics matter to your market. And how they relate to your message about who you are and what you bring to the world.

We’ll be talking more about exactly how to do this at my upcoming workshop in Las Vegas (there are only 5 seats left, so you might want to take a look and see if it’s right for you).

The Point: To get a surge in business, pick one of the 3 ways and do it with intense focus for 7 days.

3 Ways To Grow Your Business:

1. Get new customers.
2. Get your customers to pay more per purchase.
3. Get your customers to buy more frequently.

Click for the Podcast Audio:

Click Here

Fear and paranoia, with a healthy dose of spam, has made it harder to get people to opt-in. At one time, it was so easy. All you had to do was add a form that said, “Sign up here to get e-mails”, and the world would flock to your site.

People would opt-in like crazy! E-mails, e-newsletters — everything was so new and exciting. My, how things have changed. Today, we are deluged with e-mails. People are constantly changing e-mail addresses. People have multiple e-mail addresses – heck, some people even have a fake e-mail address that they never check, just to deal with all the spam.

Cutting through the clutter is a challenge. How can you make sure you are getting real opt-ins from people who will actually read the e-mails you send out?

Well, yes. There are ways to increase your opt-in conversions. These simple tactics don’t take a lot of work, but they are very effective.

Try these three tactics to boost your opt-ins:

Make a stronger offer. We all know you have to give an ethical bribe to get people to opt-in – a special report, an audio, a video, a piece of software. If you just say, “Sign up to get my newsletter”, to the average reader that means, “Sign up so I can spam you.” You need to be more creative. Work harder to create a better premium to offer your subscribers. If you’re offering a special report, it better be a killer special report, and not the same old crap that everybody else is offering. You need to come up with a unique angle, it needs to be well-written. Same is true of audio, video or software – it needs to be well-done, it needs to be unique – something obtainable only through you, and it needs to address a need that is in line with the desires of your readers.

Use a bigger, “responsive” HTML button. Go to my website: www.RayEdwardsCopy.com and look at the button on the subscription form on my squeeze page. Notice that it’s larger than most buttons you see on subscription forms. Notice also, that when you hover your cursor over the button, the background changes color from red to green. That is a subtle, psychological hint that takes people from “Stop” to “Go!” Yeah, that’s a little sillybut, in my experience, it increases conversions. I can verify this through some colleagues of mine: Michel Fortin, Eric Graham – The Conversion Doctor and Armand Morin, as well. My recommendation is that you try this kind of button, too.

Keep distractions off your opt-in pages. Take another look at my opt-in page. Do you see how clean it looks? There are no distractions to take attention away from the opt-in option. Of course, there are legal disclaimers at the bottom (right where I need them), but they are very subtle. And when you click on them, those legal notices open in small pop-up windows – after all, I want them on this page, not heading off in another direction.

While these suggestions seem very simplistic, they really work. Try them for yourself, and watch your opt-in rates soar!

And there is also a very big downside in taking the “maintenance free” approach to building a business online. The downside is: it’s possible to set up a website that is hands-free… and that makes very little money. Hmmm…

The meaning in this seems to be: the income you derive from a website is in direct proportion to the value you put into it.

Said more plainly: if you build crappy websites, expect crappy results.

There’s a great post about how zero maintenance can mean zero money over at Self Made Minds. Worth reading.

Wondering how to get started writing your copy?

I’ve found that I get much better results if I use some “jump starters”.

They keep me focused, and get me started on the right track with a copy project.

Here are 3 “tricks” I use…

Maybe they’ll work for you, too:

1. Write the benefit bullets. Don’t worry about writing body copy just yet. Just start banging out all the benefits of owning the product. This will be more extensive list than the one in the order box (which is our next “jump-starter”).
2. Write the order box copy. This is the part of the copy where you clearly spell out the price of your offer, and the bullet points of all the main benefits of owning the product. Select the MAIN benefits (the one with the most “persuasion power” for the order box.
3. Write 10 possible headlines for your copy. Don’t worry if they’re not “good enough”. You can even use some of the bullets you’ve written as starting points. Use a headline “swipe file” to spark ideas. Just get 10 headlines written.

Once you’ve finished the 3 “jump-starters” above, you will have written quite a bit of copy. It will be focused on the benefits of owning the product. You’ll be off to a good start on your copy project.

“I just don’t think I can make a living online,” said Jack.

I was on the phone with Jack because he’s one of my subscribers. He sent me an email saying his back was to the wall.

He had been trying and trying to make this “online business thing” work, and had spent thousands of dollars over the last year or so.

He had only made about $200 to show for all his efforts.

Jack was ready to give up.

“Jack,” I said, “if you’re willing to listen, I think I can help.”

“I’m ready to try anything,” he said.

I smiled.

“And that is your first problem,” I answered…

Which leads me to the reason for writing this article.

Maybe you’re not in Jack’s situation. Maybe you’re not desperate.

But I know that a lot of people are asking the same questions as Jack. Among those questions:

• Can I really make a living online and quit my day job?
• If I put in all this effort and work, will I make money?
• Am I being ripped off by people who sell me all this “make money” stuff on the Internet?
• Are there secrets being held back that I don’t know about?

My best answer is the same one I gave to Jack (not his real name, by the way): yes, you can make a living online…and yes, you are probably wasting some money right now.

The good news is, if you’d start taking the right actions, you could turn it all around in just a day or two.

Here’s what I mean:

Most people struggling to build an online business are too busy buying the latest “system” or “course” or “software” or “service”…too busy BUYING stuff to ever MAKE any money.

For these people, their primary online “business” activity consists of evaluating their next purchase!

Think about it.

How much time do you spend reading salesletters, or reviews of products, courses, and seminars?

How much time do you spend reading and posting in online forums, discussing the merits of this or that new program?

And once you buy that new “thing” – whatever it is – how far do you get with it?

Do you have any big courses sitting on a shelf that you haven’t finished yet? Haven’t watched all the DVDs or listened to all the audios?

Have you any courses that you DID watch all the stuff, and got all excited by it…but didn’t follow through with all the STEPS?

Be honest.

It’s just you and me here.

My guess is that this line of thinking leaves you a bit uncomfortable.

Don’t worry – I think we’re all at least a little bit “guilty” of this syndrome.

But there is a solution – and I’m going to offer you three steps that may help you finally get your business “off the ground”.

The same three suggestions I offered to Jack.

Action Step 1: Set an Achievable Short-Term Goal

We spend too much time trying to figure out how to achieve some huge goal, like “make $10,000 a month”.

Set a more achievable, short-range goal.

For instance, why not just shoot for $500?

Once you make $500 online, you can work on increasing it, right?

The power in this is simple: once you MAKE that $500, you have a lot more BELIEF that you can do it again…and again…and again.

And there is REAL power in that belief.

And if $500 seems out of reach for you, then just set a goal you CAN believe in. Even if it’s only $100.

On the other hand, there are those reading this letter who are already making $10,000 or $20,000 per month…you’ll need a bigger goal, but the principle is the same no matter where you are.

Action Step 2: Pick a Tactic For Achieving That Goal

Notice I didn’t say pick a “Strategy”.

That’s because if you’re struggling to get your business off the ground, “Strategy” may be too big for you to tackle right now.

What you need is one effective “tactic”: a specific set of actions you can take to achieve your objective.

For instance, if you want to build a list of subscribers, one tactic to use is: post in forums to drive traffic to your “squeeze page” (a forced opt-in page used to get subscribers). Make your posts helpful and informative, and put the link to your “squeeze page” in the signature block.

If you work at the above tactic diligently, you WILL start seeing subsribers signing up for your list within a few short days.

There are many other tactics you might choose, I only offer this one as an example.

There a lots of tactics that do in fact work.

Your problem is likely not a lack of good ideas for tactics. It’s that you have too many good ideas and can’t focus on any one of them! Which leads us to…

Action Step 3: Stick With It Until You Achieve The Goal

Too often, I see people get started with a tactic they’re excited about – only to watch them give up on it too early.

Stay with your tactic.

Notice what works.

Notice what doesn’t.

Adjust your approach accordingly – but stick it out until you’ve made your $500 (or whatever your goal was).

Until that time, keep blinders on.

Ignore all the other offers, emails, and attractive “tactics of the week” that come along.

Just focus on YOUR chosen tactic until you have that $500!

And Then What Do You Do?

Once you’ve achieved your goal, you’ll be faced with a decision: what do you do next?

Do you keep at it, employ the same tactic for the next $500? Maybe.

That choice will be up to you, and is beyond the scope of this article.

But keep this in mind: what you will have learned from this exercise is vital.

You will have proven to yourself that:

1. You can make money with your online business.
2. You can achieve a goal you set for yourself.
3. And you know at least one tactic for doing it.

Don’t you think the next step will seem just a little bit easier now?

I hope that if you, like Jack, have been wondering whether you can “really” make it in your online business, you will take this message to heart and at least give my suggestions a shot.

And if you do, I hope you’ll let me know about your success story!

It doesn’t have to take long. In fact, it can be done in as little as one weekend.

Have a great weekend.

A “squeeze page” is one that forces your site visitors to give you their name and email address in exchange for some kind of bribe… an audio training, a special report, or piece of software.

Making a free offer to your site visitors in exchange for their name and e-mail address is a great way to grow your e-mail list, but it has to be done carefully so that you don’t also drive away potential customers.

Here are some things to think about…

You know it’s important to grow your e-mail list. The bigger the list, the more people will see your offers, and the more money you will make.

The challenge in today’s internet marketing world is it’s harder than ever to convince people to opt in. A squeeze page is probably the best list building tool available, but you must be careful. Using a squeeze page the wrong way can hurt your business more than it helps.

It’s best to use a squeeze page on a site that is built to sell one product. For example, if you have a site that features a sales letter selling a particular product or service, placing a squeeze page in front of the information about that product or service is a good idea. This keeps readers from being distracted; it sifts and sorts potential buyers by level of seriousness; and it gives you a list of interested parties that you can go back and market to repeatedly.

One of the biggest mistakes I see being made online is putting a squeeze page in front of the wrong kinds of sites.

Don’t put a squeeze page in front of your portal site, your branding site, or your blog. Putting a squeeze page in front of those kinds of sites does not make sense. Those sites have a very different purpose than sites that are intended to sell one targeted product or promotion.

Remember that your squeeze page is a gate.

It keeps people out of your website and it can potentially scare off your customers.

If you have a strong enough offer, a video, an audio, or special report, you may be able to get people to opt in and build a very targeted list using a squeeze page.

The growing problems of spam, viruses and spyware have made people more reluctant than ever to give up their name and e-mail address.

Squeeze pages can definitely build your list fast. These pages are a powerful tool that I recommend to all of my clients; just be sure to use them in the appropriate situation.

What do you think? Are squeeze pages more or less effective than they once were? Post your comments below.

Where is this money – and how do you get it?

Most businesses have many hidden opportunities for discovering “windfall profits” – but I want to focus on just one of those opportunities in this article.

That “opportunity pocket” is: marketing and advertising.

In my experience, almost every business – whether it be retail, service, professional practice, or “business to business” in its nature – is unconsciously letting profits slip away.

Your biggest opportunity most likely lies hidden inside your underperforming sales copy (copy that isn’t selling as many units/contracts/ memberships as it potentially could be).

If you want to make more sales without spending a single dime in additional ad costs, this article might be the most important document you read this year…

Make Piles of Money With “Upside Leverage”

“Upside Leverage” is a concept I learned from marketing genius Jay Abraham.

We all know what leverage is: using other people’s money to build your business, or other people’s efforts (through delegation, for instance) to increase your own productivity.

“Leverage” involves using one asset (the lever) to increase the value or power of another. The only problem with using “leverage” is the potential downside: if you use financial leverage to borrow money for a business project, the project could possibly fail, and you would be forced to pay back the money. If you use the leverage of delegation in order to make yourself more productive, there’s a chance the person you’re relying on might let you down.

“Upside” leverage is leverage that involves little or no potential downside.

It’s my belief that underperforming sales copy is the most potentially profitable of all forms of “upside leverage”.

Please read that sentence again, because it’s too easy to let the profound meaning it contains slip past you:

Underperforming sales copy is the most potentially profitable of all forms of “upside leverage”.

Think of it this way: any ad or promotion costs the same whether it performs well or not, right? If you spend $100 on an ad, and you get $500 in business as a result, you made a 5-1 return on your investment. That’s a good return. You did what you set out to do, you made a profit.

But… what if you could take that same ad, and change it in some way that made it 10 times more effective?

What if now it returned $5,000?

You spent the same $100 for the ad… but you got back $5,000.

Instead of a 5-1 return, now you’re getting 50-1! That, my marketing friend, is “upside leverage”!

Change Your Copy, Change Your Income

There is so much bad copy on the web, it’s almost laughably easy to be better than most of your competitors.

Why is that?

I believe there are a number of reasons, but here are a few of the common ones:

1. Some people just don’t realize their copy is bad. They wrote it themselves, or their brother or their niece wrote it. They think it’s wonderful – but in reality it stinks like a dead skunk.

2. Others don’t realize how important their sales copy is. This is a naive belief, and it astounds me that so many people hold it – but they do. Some people seem to think that as long at the copy has “just the facts”, that’ll be good enough. It never is.

3. Some people are just cheap. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to start a business, buy furniture, hire staff, provide benefits, etc., but when it comes to the one piece of communication that might actually cause someone to buy from them – they don’t want to pay for it. They “delegate” this crucial task. Big mistake.

Are you making any of these mistakes? If you are, this is your wake-up call.

Take advantage of the potential “upside leverage” that exists in every ad or promotion. Make sure you ads are performing – that they are making you sales every day. And that they are making you more sales this week than they did last week, etc.

You do this through constant improvement and testing/tracking.

You also do it by either hiring a copywriter, or investing in educational materials that will teach you how to write your own copy. Either one can work – it’s up to you. If you love to write, and you think you have a knack for it, then by all means get a good home-study course on copywriting and do it yourself.

Don’t put it off – do it right now. Otherwise, you’re throwing money away that rightfully belongs to you.

A list of prospects and buyers that you can use as a foundation for your online business.

It’s harder than ever to build e-mail lists online, as customers are more reluctant to opt in for free e-zines (or other mailing lists) than ever before.

What’s the best way to build an e-mail list? Rest assured, e-mail marketing is just as important now as it ever has been, and perhaps even moreso. So what do you do? My advice is to use offline marketing to build your online e-mail list. This is a tactic that is seldom employed by online marketers, and yet it is the most powerful way to build an e-mail list I know of. Why is this? Because people who move from an offline promotion to an online mailing list make up the most responsive e-mail list you will ever have.

Here are three ways you can use offline media to build your online mailing list.:

Radio

Radio is an overlooked but inexpensive and effective medium for building an online e-mail list. If you’re going to use radio, make sure your radio ad is a direct response style. The key to this kind of ad is that it simply directs people to a landing page (or squeeze page) that offers them something for free in return for their name and e-mail address. Even though the squeeze page technique is harder to implement in today’s online marketing world, with the people who move offline to online response rates are stellar.

Direct Mail

Using postcards, you can build an e-mail list very quickly using inexpensive direct mail promotions. Make sure that you buy quality, targeted lists to mail to. Also make sure that the copy you used in your direct mail is targeted, effective, and powerful.

Outdoor Advertising

If you can squeeze your opt in message into seven words or less, including the domain name, consider using outdoor advertising. Billboard companies frequently make killer, bargain-basement deals to fill up unused billboard space each month. Negotiate your deal toward the end of the month, and let them know that they are competing with other media for your business, and you should be able to get the best available rate.

Use these offline methods to build your online list and watch response rates rise.