2 Sales Secrets That Can Improve Your Personal Life
Issue #2124
- WEALTHY: Making money with hammers and shooting stars (Rick Pendergraft)
- HEALTHY: A study that’s gonna disappoint millions (Craig Ballantyne)
- WISE: Winston Churchill on persuasion
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- How to get people to do anything you ask (Katie Yeakle)
- The perfect pen (Michael Masterson)
- It’s Fun to Know… about sandwiches
- Add "chimerical" to your vocabulary
Your Computer Sucks
No, I’m not being impolite. I mean your computer sucks your time, your money and your life away from you.
Drip drip drip… out it goes.
But now there’s a way to turn that flow around… to stop GIVING all the time and start GETTING!
Join hundreds of your fellow ETR readers who are making the switch over to the “Other Side” of the Internet.
- Patrick Coffey
2 Candlestick Patterns You Should Recognize
Yesterday, I explained how candlestick chart patterns can help you improve your trading results. Two of these patterns that I find extremely useful are the "Hammer" and the "Shooting Star." [Ed. Note: Click here to see samples of these patterns.]
Both of them are used as trend reversal indicators. The Hammer shows a shift from the sellers being in control to the buyers being in control. The Shooting Star shows the opposite - that momentum has shifted from the bulls to the bears.
Click here to look at a chart of Amgen (AMGN). You can see how the stock formed a Shooting Star pattern in late January, and then proceeded to drop more than 28 percent over the following nine weeks.
Watch for these patterns as a way to time your entry and exit points. They could help you make - and save - a lot of money.
[Ed. Note: Rick Pendergraft is a market expert and two-time winner of the "Top Trader" award at Schaeffer’s Investment Research. In ETR’s free e-zine, Investor’s Daily Edge, Rick and a select group of market specialists will give you to-the-point analyses and tell you how you should act TODAY to make the most money with the least risk.]
"My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me."
Winston Churchill
2 Sales Secrets That Can Improve Your Personal Life
By Katie Yeakle
If you could spend a day in the offices of today’s most successful businesspeople, you’d find that they rely on a few surprisingly simple secrets to make more sales than their competition. And you can use the same techniques yourself - not only, as you would expect, to grow your own business, but also to gain prestige, increased respect from family and friends, and lots more of the things you want out of life.
Today, I’m going to show you how.
When we learn techniques that help us become better marketers, most of us don’t think about using them outside the realm of "work." But consider this…
When you want to talk a friend into eating at your favorite restaurant, your spouse into seeing the movie you want to see, or even a neighbor into pitching in on trimming the trees on your property line, you want that person to see things your way. Right? It’s a lot like the challenge a salesperson faces when trying to convince you to buy whatever it is that he’s selling, don’t you think? Well, just like a salesperson, when you use proven marketing techniques to persuade people to accept your ideas, you’ll hear that wonderful word "yes" far more frequently.
For example, Shawn M.’s neighborhood school marching band was invited to Washington, D.C. to participate in the National Memorial Day parade. As you can imagine, the kids, parents, and teachers were excited. After all, they were the only school in the whole state that got an invitation. But there was one big problem. Sending the band would cost $60,000 - and the school wasn’t about to foot the whole bill. Neither were most of the parents. It looked like the trip might not happen… until Shawn stepped in.
She knew that local corporations often sponsor community events and have a budget just for that purpose. So she decided she was going to get some of those funds for the band. While she could have just asked several companies for the money - and probably would have gotten some donations - she used two powerful marketing secrets and was far more successful.
Secret #1: Talk to the Heart, Not the Head
Every great marketer knows that people buy things for emotional rather than logical reasons. Most of the decisions people make are emotional too - including whether or not they will buy into someone else’s ideas. When you can tug at their heartstrings by figuring out how doing what you want them to do will make them feel good, they’ll follow you just about anywhere… and oftentimes give you exactly what you want.
In the letter Shawn wrote to solicit money for the trip, she didn’t say much about the National Memorial Day parade. Instead, she talked about the kids in the band. She wrote about their hard work. All the long hours they’d spent practicing just to win that coveted invitation. She also reminded the companies of the great publicity they’d get just for helping.
And thousands of dollars in corporate sponsorships came pouring in!
While Shawn won accolades from the band members, their parents, and staffers at the school, the companies that contributed money for the trip were just as thrilled with their decision to help out. They not only felt like heroes, they also enjoyed plenty of free publicity.
That’s another bonus of using this secret when you’re trying to convince someone to do something. Considering their point of view not only helps you get the "yes" you’re looking for - they get something out of giving you that "yes" Which means that everyone involved is happy.
Give this technique a try, and you’ll see how effective it is. Whether you’re talking to the other person or writing a letter, just remember to speak to the heart, not the head. Simply ask yourself three questions to get started:
1. What emotions is this person feeling about this topic?
2. What are this person’s emotional wants and needs?
3. How can I satisfy them?
Secret #2: Create a Picture
You probably already know that one of the most important aspects of selling is to show your customer the benefits of your product. And the best way to do that is to paint a dynamic picture for him with words. That’s what today’s leading marketers do all the time. Well, you can also use this technique to convince another person to "see" the benefit of doing something your way.
Let’s say you want to convince your spouse to head to Europe for the summer. To paint your picture, you might describe what it would be like to spend an afternoon sprawled out on a chaise next to the ocean in Cannes… or dining on freshly baked bread and homemade pasta at a candlelit dinner in a vineyard in Tuscany. Just like an artist, you would add layer after layer of colorful details.
Shawn did something similar in her letter. For example, instead of just saying, "Hey, you’ll get some super publicity if you sponsor the school’s band trip to Washington," she showed the companies all the publicity they’d get. She described how, while the band marched on national television, they would be carrying a banner with the company’s name on it… for millions to see. And how, when the local newspaper reported the story, they would mention that it was the company’s generous sponsorship that made the experience possible for the kids.
Getting the - pardon the pun - picture?
Whether you’re writing a letter to a business or talking to a friend, neighbor, or relative, use the secret of creating a picture to show them - literally - what’s in it for them if they do what you want them to do. Start by asking yourself two questions:
1. What’s the benefit (or benefits) to this person of giving me what I’m asking for?
2. How can I best illustrate this in a verbal picture?
When you use both secrets together - talking to the heart and creating a picture - you’ll see how easy it is to motivate people to take the actions you want them to take… to accept your ideas… and, like Shawn, to support causes that are important to you.
[Ed. Note: Katie Yeakle is Executive Director of American Writers & Artists Inc. Shawn M. is one of thousands of AWAI members who have learned these persuasion techniques (and more) through AWAI’s step-by-step program to help entrepreneurs work with their copywriters to improve response rates. To find out how you can start using them today to boost sales in your business - or to become a successful copywriter yourself - click here.]
What If You Could Pile Up Profits Without Busting Your Hump?
Suppose you could live your DREAM life… have plenty of time to indulge yourself, play golf, dine out, hang with the family, have fun… and get steadily richer in about 10 minutes a month?
These investors are living the DREAM. Because I showed them this incredible secret myself. Now it’s your turn. Check it out here.
Living Rich: The Perfect Pen
The right pen - the one that feels good in your grip, leaves no calluses, and makes the writing almost inspirational - is a gift from the Muses. The wrong pen - just any old pen that is hanging around - will harm you in ways you can’t even imagine.
You can muck about with Bics and whatnots, but if you want to have the truly joyous, thoroughly enjoyable, completely hassle-free experience of longhand writing (and you should be writing longhand at least once a day - in your journal, if nowhere else), then you’ve got to find your perfect pen.
I haven’t yet found my perfect pen, but I’m getting close. One candidate is the medium-point Uni-ball Gel Impact. It writes effortlessly and leaves a track of beautiful, rich ink behind. I’ve also been trying out a few finer pieces that I bought through Levenger’s catalog (levenger.com).
What about you? Have you found your pen? If not, get to it. You don’t want to spend the rest of your years writing under the influence of second-rate tools.
Groundbreaking Fat-Loss Study Is a Flop
I wasn’t going to waste my time, or yours, reviewing this study, but it showed up in so many news reports and I received so many e-mails about it, I just have to set the record straight.
A team of Japanese and Danish researchers claim to have found a faster way to burn fat. In their study, published in The Journal of Applied Physiology, subjects performed two different workouts. In the first workout, they pedaled at 60 percent effort for 60 minutes straight. In the second workout, they pedaled at the same intensity, but did so for 30 minutes. They then had a 20-minute break before finishing the workout with another 30 minutes of exercise at the same intensity. Following each complete workout, the subjects rested for an hour.
The results showed that there was no difference between the two workouts in terms of the total number of calories burned. Obviously, that’s not the "big" finding. What was surprising is that the subjects burned proportionately more fat during the one-hour recovery period after the workout where they had the 20-minute break. Seventy-seven percent of calories were burned as fat as compared to 56 percent burned as fat after the straight 60-minute workout.
Astonishingly, the researchers think this matters. But it doesn’t. When you do the math, you are looking at less than 50 extra calories of fat burned by taking a 20-minute break in the middle of your workout. And that’s being generous.
Aside from the fact that taking a 20-minute break in the middle of your workout is impractical, there’s more bad news. As I’ve said before in ETR, this type of slow cardio workout doesn’t do much in the way of fat loss. Twenty minutes of interval training works much better.
So stick to what you’ve learned from Dr. Sears and me about the effectiveness of short, intense exercise sessions, and burn fat faster.
[Ed. Note: Craig Ballantyne is an expert consultant for Men’s Health magazine and a contributing writer for ETR’s brand-new natural health e-letter. Every week, he and our team of medical, fitness, and health experts will give you practical strategies and real-world scientific discoveries that can help you melt off the pounds, pack on muscle, and eliminate the underlying causes of disease.
And if you’re looking to quickly step into the body you have always wanted with just three workouts each week, check out Craig’s fat-loss system, Turbulence Training for Fat Loss.]
It’s Fun to Know: About Sandwiches
Since August is National Sandwich Month, we thought you’d like to know that…
- According to a Texas A&M University study, the average American eats 200 sandwiches each year. (That’s over 45 million for the whole country.)
- The average child will eat 1,500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by age 18.
- America’s most popular sandwich is the Monte Cristo - made with ham, chicken, and Swiss cheese.
(Source: AllHeadlineNews.com)
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…
Word to the Wise: Chimerical
Something that’s "chimerical" (ky-MER-ih-kul) is imaginary, improbable, or unrealistic. The word is derived from the Chimera, a monster in Greek mythology that had the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a dragon.
Example (as used by Cervantes in Don Quixote): "Her name is Dulcinea; her country El Toboso, a village in La Mancha; her degree at least that of Princess, for she is my Queen and mistress; her beauty superhuman, for in her are realized all the impossible and chimerical attributes of beauty which poets give to their ladies."
[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