Posted by:
Troy White
December 19, 2008
Issue 571
In this issue:
- Crackberries, e-mail, and a nasty ringing phone – gone forever …
- The best addiction any entrepreneur can create …
- How to ‘un-plug’ and get back your life (and sanity) …
- Is technology really helping you build a better business? Or hurting?
- And Much More!
Fellow Business-Builder,
Sometimes you just have to walk away. When things are piling up – the phones are ringing off the hook – 300 e-mails a day (all urgent, of course) – and a million things to do before Monday.
Sounding familiar?
In the ADD world we live in with most people I see wiring their brains into electronic devices, we are headed into a very precarious time.
With all the technology tools you now have at your disposal – are you (honestly) feeling like you are getting more done and more in control of your life and business?
Or do you feel like technology
and clients now control you?
My beliefs are that this current situation is going to get worse – and the average person is going to find themselves sick all the time, and feeling completely out of control and overwhelmed.
You cannot be plugged in 24/7 to your Blackberry, your computer, instant messaging and a cell phone … it is THE recipe for disaster.
There are now support groups for this problem.
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Posted by:
Daniel Levis
November 19, 2008
Issue #549
Dear Web Business-Builder,
Several years into my career in corporate, business-to-business selling, I realized there are a few key things you can find out about someone that will dramatically increase your odds of making a favorable impression and getting them involved with your product or service.
Even before this realization, I was already outselling pretty much all of the other sales people at the companies I worked for. It was because I was a ruthless qualifier …
I simply refused to spend time trying to persuade unqualified buyers … while the other salespeople often wasted their valuable time and energy trying to sell to people who couldn’t buy … or with companies who shouldn’t buy because one of our competitors was better able to serve them.
This meant I was dumbfounded when my prospects often failed to see why we were the absolute best solution to their company’s problem.
To me, their behavior was like denying two and two make four — until I discovered my failing …
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Posted by:
Gary Bencivenga
October 28, 2008
Issue #533
Dear Marketing Top Gun:
If you want the easiest, surest and most rewarding way I’ve found to succeed online, here is the simple 7-step formula:
- Carve out a niche. Be known for something specific. Use the rifle, not the shotgun. When in doubt, go narrower than others in your field. For specific examples, see The Fuzzy Dice Secret for Exploding Your Sales.
- Give something valuable away free. Within your narrow specialty, create an e-zine (or course, collection of tips, series of mistakes to avoid, seasonal recipes, any regular communication) that demonstrates your expertise and is so helpful, interesting and informative, your prospects will want to keep getting it regularly.
- Promote your free e-zine every way you can — in Google ads, articles you write for the media, speeches before trade groups, press releases, radio interviews, communications with your customers, take-ones at related retail outlets, space ads, newspaper classifieds, direct mail, co-ops and swaps with others in your industry, etc. Explore any and all avenues.
- Capture e-mail addresses. Never give away your valuable free tips on your website! Share them only in exchange for an e-mail address when someone signs up for your e-zine. Consider offering one of your best free tips in the form of a free report to induce people to sign up. This automatically gives you permission — and the means — to stay in touch with your market, building your most valuable direct marketing asset, your list.
- Pile on the value. Work hard to make your free e-zine so valuable and interesting, your prospects eagerly open it. As in romance, woo your new prospects with your bouquets of insight and pearls of wisdom. Don’t be shy about opening up and getting personal. Become a friend. Resist the urge to keep lunging at them with sales lust. Your goal: get your prospects into the habit of welcoming your e-mails like love letters because they are so valuable, useful and interesting … not in the habit of deleting them on sight because they are self-serving sales pitches. The rule: establish trust before you sell with lust.
- Never sell hard in your e-zine or free course. Instead, dance the two-step. The biggest mistake even savvy marketers make in their e-zines is selling too much, too soon, too hard, and too often. Let your e-zine be an oasis of value in a desert of hype. Always, and especially in your first several communications, let the value of your free information far outweigh your sales copy.
Eventually, after you’ve proven your value to readers and it’s time to sell something, dance the two-step …
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Posted by:
Daniel Levis
October 1, 2008
Issue #514
Dear Web Business-Builder,
Have you noticed just how jaded and biased you’ve become toward what shows up in your e-mail in-box these days?
Before you even open an e-mail, you’ve already formed an opinion about the sender … the value of the message … and the motive behind it.
And assuming you do open that message and read it, you don’t read it with an open mind, but simply to confirm your suspicions.
I’ve caught myself doing this dozens of times and been completely oblivious to doing so hundreds more.
We generalize, slotting things arbitrarily in what I call “buckets of the mind,” relating them to anchors that have been set by past experience. In essence, we see what we expect to see.
The “from line” sets our expectation. And that expectation colors everything we read from that point forward. We mentally label the sender, and that label actually clouds our critical discrimination and judgment.
And once we imprint that label, it tends to stick. The first impression your prospects form about you as a seller acts as a filter through which everything you do from that point forward must flow. At best it gives you a halo, at worst, horns.
What’s really interesting about all this is that your market’s perception of you is forcefully impacted by what happens just before you make that initial impression. In fact, each experience we have as human beings tends to prime us for the next.
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Posted by:
Derek Gehl
September 23, 2008
Issue #509
Dear Business-Builder,
Today, I’d like to "bust" an affiliate marketing myth that’s been making the rounds since … well, since affiliate marketing started.
It goes something like this …
To be successful as an affiliate, just join any affiliate program, slap their banner ads onto a basic Web page - and presto, you’ve got an instant Web business that will make you money hand over fist!
For the record, yes, you can make a lot of money by marketing other peoples’ products on the Internet … but no, affiliate marketing is not a shortcut to instant wealth.
As with any other online business, building a successful affiliate site still requires research, planning, and - here’s that four-letter word I keep insisting on using - work.
It’s like building a house. The more solid the foundation is, the more stable the entire structure will be. So if you’re thinking of starting your own Internet business promoting affiliate products, here are four strategies you must follow to guarantee you’ll earn the maximum amount of commissions …
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