Anatomy of a Master Idea Monger
Issue #2111
- WEALTHY: 7 ways to recover from bankruptcy (Suzanne Richardson)
- HEALTHY: A potential medical breakthrough in the news
- WISE: Leo Burnett on advertising
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- How a weight-loss cure could help you sell more products (Michael Masterson)
- 3 steps to fitting marketing into a busy life (Ilise Benun)
- It’s Good to Know… about passport application refunds
- Add "mercurial" to your vocabulary
Imagine Knowing of a Casino Where the Dealer Tipped His Hand Before You Made Your Move and Didn’t Care How Many Times You Beat Him.
When would you stop going there?
This is nothing to do with games of chance, but I hope your answer to that question would be a resounding, “NEVER!!” Assuming you’re sane that is… Well, that is a virtually PERFECT analogy of the power of the insider signal!
It’s often said, “The Stock Market is just a big casino”. And it’s true. But the important omission in that statement (to keep the masses out!) is the dealer in this casino tips his hand to the select few… the insiders.
Such powerful knowledge could make YOU very rich indeed… Click here to learn more…
Bouncing Back From Bankruptcy
You might be surprised to learn that a serious illness could plummet you into bankruptcy. According to one Harvard study, nearly two million Americans struggle with medical bankruptcies each year.
If you find yourself filing for bankruptcy due to an extended illness, losing a job, or a streak of incredibly bad luck, it isn’t the end of the world. In fact, it is a chance to start fresh.
Lundquist Consulting, a California-based research company, reports that over 2 million Americans filed for bankruptcy in 2005 - so you’re not alone. Here are three suggestions from Bankrate.com to get yourself on the right track post-bankruptcy.
- Recharge your credit. Re-establish your credit as soon as possible. While many banks and credit card companies won’t approve you, you can get a secured credit card (which is attached to a savings account in which you deposit money). Another way to build up your credit is with a passport loan, where you put money in a savings account, borrow money from that account, and pay back the interest.
- Check your credit report. Make sure all three major credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion) show your debts as "discharged in bankruptcy."
- Keep your credit balances clear. Making sure you pay off your entire credit balance in full each month will leave you with a cushion of available credit in case of emergency - illness, loss of employment, or divorce, for example.
To beat bankruptcy, it’s also crucial to increase your cash flow. Michael Masterson suggests you take these four important steps to boost your income:
- If you’re an employee, make yourself indispensable to your boss so you can ask for better compensation.
- Create a second, side income - by, for example, selling your handmade jewelry via CraigsList and eBay, working as a freelance writer, becoming a part-time consultant, or even getting a night job.
- Learn to live more frugally by not buying things you don’t actually need.
- Refrain from making any new, big investments.
Bankruptcy is not the end of the world. By maintaining a positive attitude and making smart financial decisions, you can rebuild your credit and be financially secure once again.
[Ed. Note: Untangle yourself from all of life’s most perplexing situations, in business, your personal life, or on the road, every time. Just pick up your free copy of ETR’s Unscrew Yourself e-book and get 223 pages of our most practical insider information.]
"A good basic selling idea, involvement and relevancy, of course, are as important as ever, but in the advertising din of today, unless you make yourself noticed and believed, you ain’t got nothin’."
Leo Burnett
Anatomy of a Master Idea Monger
Have you seen the most recent infomercial by Kevin Trudeau? It’s the one in which he’s selling The Weight Loss Cure.
If you can catch it on TV, check it out. It can teach you a lot about selling ideas.
This guy has been very successful on TV. He turned his last book on natural health into a best-seller through infomercials. I’ve been watching him for a while, trying to figure out what he’s doing, and I have some ideas about how he’s been so successful.
One of the most interesting things is that he has - as far as I know - no qualifications whatsoever in the health field. He’s not a doctor. Not a nutritionist. He doesn’t even have a degree in health sciences. But he knows how to sell his message. He does some of the things we have always said are key to being successful in the health business, and he does them very well.
Let’s start with the basics. In promoting his books, Trudeau observes the following principles that we have advocated in past ETR issues, in AWAI’s Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting , and in ETR’s Direct Marketing Masters Edition program.
- Sell only one idea at a time.
- Make that idea attractive by associating it with a desired benefit.
- Make that benefit believable.
- Provide additional benefits and prove them.
- Respect the structure of a persuasive argument.
- Emphasize the unique selling proposition (USP).
- Repeat the main benefit.
Sell Only One Idea at a Time
In his Weight Loss Cure infomercial, Trudeau posits the idea that obesity is caused not by overeating or even by eating the wrong kind of food, but by a simple glandular dysfunction. Some people have it, and they stay fat no matter how hard they try to lose weight. Other people don’t, and they are skinny no matter what they eat.
Make That Idea Attractive
Losing weight is simple and easy. All you have to do is take a pill that will put your dysfunctional gland back in working order.
Make That Benefit Believable
Trudeau proves his claim with charts showing how many pounds people have lost following this "weight-loss cure." The effect of seeing chart after chart has the effect of overcoming skepticism, even though none of that data has been documented. And he is good at coming across as honest, earnest, and reasonable. He wasn’t always this way, but his TV charisma has increased with experience. Watch the infomercial and see if you aren’t charmed by him.
Provide Additional Benefits and Prove Them
Not only does Trudeau hold the "secret" to fast and easy weight loss, but once you start using his system, you will keep losing weight and never, ever become fat again. This very desirable additional benefit is proven by Trudeau’s own experience. After he hit his goal of getting to 196, he dropped another 10 pounds even though he wasn’t even trying anymore!
Respect the Structure of a Persuasive Argument
Trudeau creates sympathy first by saying, "If you are fat, you have to know this: It is not your fault." Then he makes a promise his prospects want to hear: "You will be able to lose weight quickly, easily, and automatically without dieting. The pounds will come off the moment you start the program. You won’t be hungry, because you will be able to eat whatever you want."
Only after he’s allowed the prospect customer to imagine how great his new life will be does Trudeau bring in logic and science to back up his claims.
Emphasize a USP
Repeatedly, Trudeau says: "There has never, ever been a diet solution like this before." Nothing else, he says, has ever approached obesity by treating the hypothalamus gland. "You may have tried the Zone or Atkins or low-carb or low-fat," he says, "but none of them worked for you, because none of them attacked the problem."
Repeat the Main Benefit
Over and over, Trudeau reminds the viewer that the solution to losing weight is to take a little pill. No work. No deprivation. You don’t have to worry about eating or exercise or anything else. Just pop the pill.
Other Tricks
He also keeps saying: "I don’t sell this thing…" - and yet he sells a book about it. And if you buy the one book, he throws in all his other books with it. Four books for the cost of one, an overwhelmingly strong close.
What I love about Trudeau’s weight-loss-cure book (and now that I think about it, this is also true of his last book) is that he himself isn’t a tipping-point thinker. None of these ideas were developed by him. He’s just a salesman who can recognize a tipping-point idea when he sees it.
And, boy, can he sell it!
He is a marketer who found a great product and wrote a book about it, and is now turning that book into a best-seller. And if you could find some way to do what he’s doing, you could very likely turn your own product into a best-seller as well. Here’s what you should be thinking about:
- What would it mean to you if you had a license to steal the best tipping-point ideas out there, simply by "discovering" them, getting excited about them, and selling them to your customers?
- If you are already in the infomercial business, how does your presentation compare to Trudeau’s in terms of persuasiveness? And if you admit (as you should) that your presentation is weak by comparison, what are the elements that make his infomercials work so well?
- How much of your creative time is spent generating tipping-point ideas? How much of your money? What is your process for discovering or producing them?
- Do your products have strong USPs? Are they desirable and easy to understand?
- Is there a place in your business for a brilliant salesperson, even if he isn’t a qualified expert?
Kevin Trudeau is an idea monger like I’ve never seen, and you would do yourself a favor to take a page from his book on selling.
[Ed. Note: This fall, Michael Masterson and a group of the world’s leading Internet marketing experts will be revealing proven techniques for shooting your online sales through the roof, creating over a dozen sources of new revenue, and tripling or even quadrupling your profits within the next 9 to 12 months. Sign up now for ETR’s fast-approaching 2007 Info-Marketing Bootcamp, Making a Fast Fortune on the "Other Side" of the Internet.]
Make Over 541% from the Silver Supply Crunch!
If you can spot which commodities are undergoing huge supply shortages, you’re on track to make huge gains. Consider:
- Uranium Prices soared over 1,200% in the past five years as new nuclear power plants went online.
- Copper prices have zoomed over 426% as world demand hits unprecedented levels.
But had you owned resource companies that took advantage of these supply crunches, you could’ve made MUCH more.
Click here right now to learn the name of one company poised to make early investors over 541% from the silver supply crunch.
When Is the Best Time to Promote Yourself?
By Ilise Benun
For those of us who are in some sort of service business, there’s no "good" time for self-promotion. So if you’re waiting for a "slow period," you can stop. By the time you’re less busy, it will be too late.
Self-promotion is not something you do only when you have time. Without doing it, you won’t have clients. And no clients means no money.
Here are a few strategies to try:
1. Market yourself in short stints - a half-hour each day, rather than waiting for a big block of time when you have nothing to do. In 30 minutes, you could draft an article for your local paper. Or jot down your next three blog posts. Or do a round of follow-up calls to three clients you haven’t heard from lately.
2. Do it every day. Momentum is crucial when it comes to marketing.
For example, one of my goals is to get more speaking engagements this year. So every day, I reach out to one prospective group or trade association. I’m ready with my customizable introductory message and my three most popular speech topics. That means I’m reaching out to more than 20 groups per month!
3. Do it first thing in the morning. That way, you get it out of the way before the day is in full swing.
If you integrate manageable self-promotion tasks into your day-to-day life, you will be more in control of your business… and your profits.
[Ed. Note: Networking expert Ilise Benun is the author of Stop Pushing Me Around. Get more networking strategies with Ilise’s free e-newsletter, Quick Tips from Marketing Mentor.]
Artificial Skin: A Potential Medical Breakthrough in the News
A British company has seen positive results in early tests of artificial skin created in a lab that could provide an alternative to skin grafts in treating serious wounds and burns. The skin substitute is derived from natural proteins and cells, and the researchers believe it more closely matches the skin’s natural healing process than current medical treatments and that it will lead to less scarring.
Experts caution that tests on real patients are needed to determine the true effectiveness of this skin replacement.
(Source: BBC)
It’s Good to Know: Passport Application Refunds
Did you pay extra to get your passport in a hurry… but still didn’t get it in time? The U.S. State Department is refunding travelers who paid $60 to expedite their passport applications and didn’t receive the passport within 14 days. The rush on passports following the government’s decision to require passports for Americans traveling to Canada and parts of the Caribbean is what caused the delays.
For more information, visit the State Department website at travel.state.gov/.
(Source: U.S. State Department)
Do You Have What It Takes - and I Mean Really Have What It Takes - to Make It? In the Next 30 Days You Could Be Telling Your Boss to Take a Long Walk Off a Short Pier!
The leeches won’t stop till you drop.
Look, I’m sure you’ve felt it before… no matter how much you make it seems someone always has their hand in your pocket.
Your boss, the IRS, even your credit card companies, they’re all taking turns at your wallet.
If you’ve finally reached your boiling point and would love to stop these leeches from sucking you dry then you owe it to yourself to read on… But only if you’re serious about getting out of the daily grind. This isn’t for the faint of heart.
- Patrick Coffey
Word to the Wise: Mercurial
"Mercurial" (mur-KYOOR-ee-ul) - from Mercury, the Roman god of commerce and the messenger of the gods - means temperamental or volatile.
Example (as used by Patrick Alitt in Catholic Converts): "Most of his New England cronies, accustomed to [Orestes] Brownson’s frequent changes of opinion, treated him as a mercurial spirit who had finally stepped off the edge of the world rather than as a role model."
[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker … build your self-confidence and intellect … increase your attractiveness to others … just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR’s new Words to the Wise CD Library.]
Michael Masterson
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2007