Posted by:
Troy White
February 27, 2009
Issue #337
Fellow Business-Builder,
Don’t you just love a good story?
Just last weekend I was at The Calgary Business Oscars, having been nominated for two different categories.
It was an honor to be there, but it was a bigger honor to get my butt whipped by one of my favorite competitors. In Canada, we have an airline, called WestJet, which is modeled after Southwest airlines.
Unfortunately for me, they were nominated in both the same categories as I was.
I was hoping they wouldn’t take the Oscar nomination as serious as I did.
So, I went about my marketing around, getting as many votes as I could for my categories.
And I did my job …
… Just not good enough!
They took both categories away from me, along with 3 other categories (they were the Slumdog Millionaire of this Oscar Ceremony).
What was an honor to me was when the event organizer told me I put up a great fight, and almost beat them.
Almost … but their 7,500 employees (vs. my 3 employees :o) made sure they had HUGE numbers of votes.
(more…)
Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
February 26, 2009
Issue #60
In this issue
- How treating great marketing strategies and sales copy as a mere commodity hamstrings businesses …
- How to position any product as unique and head-and-shoulders above the competition…
- How long sales copy should be …
- And much, much more!
Dear Business-Builder,
The other day, a subscriber e-mailed me to inquire if my direct marketing agency, Response Ink, would build a website for him.
Now, although ResponseInk is definitely NOT looking to add new clients to our line-up at this time, the subscriber’s company has an intriguing, even ingenious business model – and so my curiosity got the better of me.
As we talked, it quickly became clear that, instead of searching for the best marketing strategies and sales copy money could buy, the principals were price-shopping us!
And so I politely quoted our admittedly outrageous price – which includes a commission on each sale we produce … let them off the hook by apologizing that we couldn’t get their site done in the time allotted … and politely wished them good luck.
At this moment – unless I miss my guess – they’re now discovering the joys of working with the lowest bidder: A company that agreed to their deadline and quoted them a dirt-cheap price.
My prediction? These guys are about to endure a painful and costly object lesson in the true value of great marketing.
(more…)
Posted by:
Daniel Levis
February 25, 2009
Issue #619
In this special interview issue:
- The “Council of Elders” secret to sparking your creative intelligence and solving business problems …
- How a wet behind the ears kid pulled off a 3,900% ROI mailing …
- The crux of the research biscuit …
- The real reasons people buy – six core motives that spur people to action …
- How to use reverse psychology to gently lead your prospect to an immediate decision …
- A priceless lesson in information marketing, from one of the world’s best …
- And much more!
Dear Web Business Builder:
One of the most remarkable passages in Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich talks about Hill’s “Council of Elders.” Hill had a very unusual, and unusually effective way of sparking his creative intelligence and solving problems. It went something like this …
Each evening in the quiet of his study, Hill would close his eyes and enter a council chamber in the theatre of his mind. Next, he would take his seat as Chairman at the council table, and welcome nine elder advisors (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Luther Burbank, Thomas Paine, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison) who gradually entered the chamber to take their seats.
Hill would then lay the challenges of the day before them, and seek their advice. Hill’s study of the records of these great men’s lives was so intensive that the characters actually came to life, engaging in vigorous dialogue over the topics he put before them.
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Posted by:
John Forde
February 24, 2009
Issue #618
“A memory is what’s left when something happens and does not completely un-happen.”
– Edward de Bono
How do you craft a sales message your customer just can’t forget?
It sounds like a marketer’s dream.
Take the soda company, Coca Cola.
Maybe you’re old enough to remember the famous commercial. You know the one. Picture a sun-dappled hilltop, hundreds of free-wheelin’ folk coming together, voices rising in a chorus …
“I’d like to teach the world to sing …”
The people join hands. They’re smiling. The happy pills are kicking in.
“In perfect harmony …”
It was such a popular commercial, in fact, when Coke tried to test other campaigns, viewers wrote in begging them to put the “teach the world” commercial back on the air.
Oh, they remembered it alright.
Trouble was it didn’t sell much Coca Cola.
So there’s your first lesson.
(more…)
Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
February 23, 2009
Issue #617
Dear Business-Builder,
Right now, our prospects are experiencing some of the most intense and contradictory emotions they’ve ever had in their entire lives.
By day, they rail against others for creating their financial problems.
The saner ones point the finger at the long line of economic idiots and criminals who have occupied The White House, Congress, the Treasury and the Fed for the last couple of decades.
Others – those with a more tenuous grip on reality – blame “those greedy bankers” for having the unmitigated gall to actually approve every loan and credit card application they ever submitted.
But regardless of who our prospects may blame in broad daylight, it’s not so easy to escape the real villain as they seek the sweet release of sleep.
In the privacy of their own bedrooms each night, they’re confronted with the humiliating truth that they and they alone created their own, personal financial crises …
By spending more than they should have.
By saving less than they should have.
And by accumulating far more debt than they should have.
(more…)
