When Helping People Hurts
- WEALTHY: Place money and friendship directly in garbage (Michael Masterson)
- HEALTHY: A life and death question
- WISE: Shakespeare on borrowing and lending
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- 2 reasons to get yourself "on stage" (Peter Fogel)
- The only author who made Amazon’s 2006 top 10 list twice!
- Add "detritus" to your vocabulary
How to Write a Winning Sales Letter
Is it possible to go from a blank sheet of paper to a completed sales letter in 48 hours? There’s a good chance … if you use what’s called the Filet of Soul technique.
You start with the most successful promotion that your company (or your competitor) is running for a similar product. No, you don’t steal the copy - you "filet" it, cutting down to it’s backbone … the "architecture" that makes it work.
Analyze the copy, section by section. What emotions does it evoke? How does each paragraph make you feel? Write it all down … and that’s it. You now have a rough outline for your own successful sales letter!
I discovered this technique in the "75 Secrets for Writing Winning Copy" report included with ETR’s Direct Marketing University program. I keep it on my desk, right next to my computer, so it’s always handy whenever I need a fresh shot of inspiration.
- Charlie Byrne
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be; / For loan oft loses both itself and friend, / And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry."
Polonius, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet
When Helping People Hurts
By Michael Masterson
I have a weakness for helping people. Helping someone in need makes me feel stronger and better somehow. But helping is a dangerous thing. It can damage the helper, the helpee, and even the relationship.
An example. About a month ago, I wrote a letter to the partners of a small company I’ve been consulting for, suggesting that they allow me to bill the business a percentage of my office expenses. Since my work with the company has been consuming more and more of the time I spend at my office, I thought the request was reasonable.
The partners - a brother/sister team - had opposite reactions. He was fine with it, but she objected. She was worried about the way her brother was running the business, and complained that the company was overstaffed and undisciplined. On top of that, she was suspicious of his accounting practices and wanted to audit the books and review his policies and procedures to "help" him get things in shape.
I sent back a letter thanking her for her ideas, but reminding her that her brother is the CEO (she is an investing partner only) and that she shouldn’t try to manage it for him. I recommended that we make our suggestions and examine the numbers at our twice yearly meetings.
Her written response was furious. She accused me of getting more money than I deserved for my help with the business. She refused to budge on any of her positions, and told me that her brother (out of frustration, I’m sure) is going to allow her to look at the company’s books. She won’t find anything out of the ordinary, but the whole process is going to be a huge waste of his time.
When I first met her, she was a single mom who was living paycheck to paycheck. I helped her get a good-paying job with flexible hours and a lot of room to grow. A bright woman, she climbed her way to the top of the company. At that point, I encouraged her to open her own business. She did, and I "donated" a lot of money and advice to her along the way. As her business has grown, I’ve invested in various projects she’s put in front of me - some successful and some failures. And when she introduced her brother to me several years ago, I invested in his fledgling business, too.
She now makes a steady six-figure income, and I am certain she would still be struggling had I not stepped in and helped her out.
It’s disappointing to see someone whose career I’ve helped so much turn against me. It’s as if she has to find fault with me so she won’t feel guilty.
This has not been my only bad experience with someone I invested time and money in. After lending Glen $30,000 several years ago, I stopped hearing from him. When I called, he explained that he was working 18 hours a day trying to keep his business afloat. He apologized for not staying in touch, and invited me to come visit his store.
I did, and liked what he was doing. Glen is a hardworking guy with good ideas. So when he asked for another loan - a bridge loan - I gave it to him.
Two years passed before I heard from Glen again. We met, and he was, as always, charming and endearing. He told me all about how he’d finally gotten his business profitable, and how he was in the process of starting two promising projects.
I congratulated him, looking forward to taking the repayment check I was sure he was going to give me. But instead, he asked for another loan. "Just to tide me over until I get these projects going." He never even mentioned repaying my previous two loans.
I was flabbergasted.
Despite my bad experiences with people like these, I continue to help others. And I’m sure that if my bad experiences haven’t prevented me from lending a hand, they certainly won’t prevent you from doing so. So I’ve come up with some guidelines I hope you’ll turn to the next time you think of giving your money or advice to someone who wants or needs it.
When and How to Give Advice
Rule 1: Give advice only when it’s asked for. I have made the mistake of offering advice … very good advice … to people who weren’t ready or willing to listen to it. As I was giving the advice, I looked into their eyes and realized there was zero chance they were going to pay attention to what I was saying. I thought to myself, "This person has no idea how valuable this could be to him."
Rule 2: Give the same good advice only once. I have friends and colleagues who are perennially in money trouble, and to whom I continually explain how to get out of debt and develop wealth. This is a foolish habit of mine. If you give someone good advice and he doesn’t listen to it the first time, it is better to say nothing from then on. Just nod sympathetically when he tells you, every time he sees you, how life has screwed him.
Rule 3: Make everyone but close friends and relatives pay for your advice. Countless psychological studies have proven that people don’t value things they get for free. If you want people to listen to your advice, charge for it. If you want it to be taken as seriously as it should be, charge a lot for it.
When and How to Give Money
Rule 1: Don’t give anyone but close friends or relatives money for free. You will almost always regret it. I give away hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, and it is almost all wasted. It is wasted because the receiver almost never invests it wisely. Easy come, easy go. That’s the way it is. I continue to give away money because I can’t help myself. It seems worth it to me, because every once in a while - maybe 10 percent of the time - it is invested wisely.
Rule 2: If you do give away money, don’t expect it to be used wisely and don’t expect gratitude. More often than not, you will create resentment in the heart of the receiver.
Rule 3: If a friend or colleague has a good business and needs a loan, extend him one - but only if (a) you think it’s a good investment on an arm’s length basis and (b) you are willing to charge him an arm’s length interest rate on the loan.
Rule 4: An arm’s length loan has a written contract, terms, and collateral. Be satisfied with all three before you lend the money.
Rule 5: Realize that even though you have the power to seize the collateral if your friend or colleague reneges on the loan, you may not want to do that, because it might end the relationship. Figure out beforehand which is more important - the return of your loan or the continuation of your relationship. If the latter, be prepared to lose everything without resentment.
3 Dividend-Paying Stocks You Should Buy in the Next 5 Days!
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Click here to get the actual names of 3 income-producing stocks – their names, histories, stocks symbols, everything – you should rush and BUY in the next 5 days before they shoot higher.
Public Speaking as a Self-Marketing Tool, Part 1
By Peter Fogel
If you’re like most people, public speaking is not your favorite activity. However, it’s an activity that will rapidly become one of your favorites when you let it give your career the huge boost it has given mine.
In fact, speaking in public is one tool that’s given me the biggest (and quickest) bang for my marketing buck. I have, for example, so far gotten over $11,000 worth of work (plus repeat business) … all from just one seminar I spoke at in my hometown.
And it is LOTS of fun.
Here are two reasons to push aside your fears and book a speaking engagement.
1. It Makes You the Expert.
The best way to establish yourself as an expert in your chosen field (short of writing 60 or more books over 20-plus years) is to stand in front of a room full of eager, targeted clients who are there to gain the information and knowledge they need. And you’re the one who’s giving it to them.
People feel, "If he was asked to speak, he MUST know what he’s doing." Remember, expert status can equal higher fees (regardless of your experience).
2. It Gives You One-on-One Contact With Potential Clients.
No more hoping a potential client got your letter. No more playing phone tag. Public speaking gives you the opportunity to talk to them face to face.
You have their undivided attention, so you can deliver strong content, solve their problems, hit their hot buttons, and have them clamoring for your services. You can interact with your audience and apply your selling skills through the spoken word to get the results you want.
If you’re still not convinced it’s worth a try, I’ve got two more reasons for you tomorrow.
[Ed. Note: Peter Fogel is a copywriter, speaker, author, and the creator of "Peter ‘The Humorator’ Fogel’s Guide to Effective Public Speaking." Get more information - and get Peter’s FREE 7 Days to Effective Public Speaking e-course - on his website.]
How Healthy Were Our Ancestors … Really?
By Jon Herring
Here at ETR, we strongly believe that the healthiest diet is one that closely replicates what our Paleolithic ancestors ate: a diet rich in protein and healthy fats, and very low in high-glycemic carbohydrates (like sugar, processed starches, and refined grains).
But whenever we publish an article on the subject, we get questions from readers. Most of them are similar to this one, in response to a recent article by Dr. Loren Cordain, Ph.D.:
"Isn’t it true that our Paleolithic ancestors were lucky to live into their 40s? And isn’t today’s life expectancy in the 70s? I understand that these numbers might have to do with a lot of things other than diet, but don’t we need a bit more evidence …?"
So I asked Dr. Cordain, author of the The Paleo Diet, to address this question. Following is an excerpt from his response:
"In regard to the life expectancy question … there are two issues. The first is how we determine the average lifespan of people in any society. The second has to do with how people die in westernized and non-westernized societies. Let me address the first issue.
"If you have a man and woman who both die at 80 years of age, and who had two children who died at birth, the average age of death of this group would be 40 years of age. On the surface, this example would suggest that all people live short, unhealthy lives. What is needed to get a better picture of the health of the living are called life tables. … Life tables of [Paleolithic] hunter-gatherers show that a significant percentage of the population lived into their sixth and seventh decades and beyond.
"More important … the elderly in [modern hunter-gatherer] populations rarely or never exhibit diseases or disease symptoms which run rampant in elderly western populations, such as hypertension, high cholesterol, obesity, Type II diabetes, and heart disease. The primary causes of death in the Paleolithic hunter-gatherers resulted from accidents and trauma spent living their entire lives outdoors battling the environment, without the benefit of sanitation, clean water, and the advances of modern medicine.
"Clearly, modern, fully westernized humans have much longer average lifespans than our hunter-gatherer ancestors, but we are not necessarily healthy during the last few decades of life."
[Ed. Note: If you wish to read Dr. Cordain’s full response to this question, or take part in this interesting discussion, please visit this page in the ETR Speak Out forum.]
ETR Insider Report: Amazon’s Best Books of 2006
By Suzanne Richardson
Whether you’re looking for mind-expanding Christmas presents or just want to know what the rest of the country has been reading this past year, you might be interested in Amazon’s list of Best Books for 2006.
The editor’s pick for best work of fiction this year is Suite Francaise, an account of the German occupation of France during World War II. Written by Irene Nemirovsky, a Russian-Jewish immigrant, the manuscript was discovered by the author’s daughter long after her mother died in the infirmary at Auschwitz.
If you’re interested in non-fiction, you might want to check out Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower, the top pick in Amazon’s Current Events category … or the winner in the History category, At Canaan’s Edge, by Taylor Branch.
But as a wealth-building reader of ETR, I’m sure you’re most curious about the top picks in the Finance and Investing category. And let me tell you, here at ETR, we are very excited by the results!
Michael Masterson’s latest best-seller, Seven Years to Seven Figures: The Fast-Track Plan to Becoming a Millionaire, made the list at number five. And nipping at its heels in the number nine position is his blockbuster Automatic Wealth for Grads…and Anyone Else Just Starting Out.
Wow! Two books in Amazon’s top 10! (And, in fact, Michael is the only author represented twice on the top 10 list.)
Of course, if you’ve already read Seven Years to Seven Figures and/or Automatic Wealth for Grads, you probably aren’t surprised. But if you haven’t yet picked up a copy of either of these information- and advice-filled guides to building real wealth, now’s the perfect time.
You Can Import Goods From Overseas For Pennies On the Dollar!
It may have been hard in the past for small entrepreneurs to import cheap products from countries like China, but things have drastically changed.
For example, In 1986, total trade between the United States and China was $7.9 billion. By 2005, this total has reached over $170 billion, making China the United States’ third largest trading partner.
You can’t believe how easy this is. With the right information, you just find products that cost a couple of dollars each and sell them for 1000%+ mark-ups by the thousands with your own Internet sites.
Please click here to read this urgent report.
Patrick Coffey
Word to the Wise: Detritus
"Detritus" (dih-TRY-tus) - from the Latin for "to rub away" - is fragments of loose material worn away from rocks. The word is also used to refer to any debris caused by disintegration.
Example (as used by Gail Collins in The New York Times): "If they [flying cars] were easy to produce, we’d be walking around wearing helmets to protect us from the detritus of flying car crashes."
Michael Masterson
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2006