Issue #2151
- WEALTHY: How a Tom Cruise flick can help make you a better trader (Rick Pendergraft)
- HEALTHY: Excitement and purpose – more powerful fitness tools than you’d expect (Jon Benson)
- WISE: Baudelaire on misunderstandings
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- 4 reasons your customer may not understand you (Bob Bly)
- Why I’m suspicious about virtue in business (Michael Masterson)
- It’s Good to Know… about the best-selling books of all time
- Add "caesura" to your vocabulary
Revealed: Probably the Biggest Red Herring in History!
While the world’s been stock watching (and losing!), the elite quietly play a different game with different rules…
Feeling cheated and disillusioned by the stock market? Sure, you may have made a good trade here… but then lost on another. The people dutifully pour their hard-earned cash into investment banks to put into the stock market for them… and those investment banks gladly oblige, for a fat fee… which they invest somewhere else! I’m no conspiracy theorist, but in my opinion the stock market is really a diversion for the masses… a distraction from where the BIG and consistent money is made… in the world’s money mountain. And when I say “Money Mountain,” I speak quite literally… the BIGGEST mountain of money on the planet. Click here to read more…
Take A.C.T.I.O.N.
While sorting through some old documents in my files, I came across an interesting article by Dr. Richard McCall, author of The Way of the Warrior Trader. Given the recent turbulence in the markets, his advice is as appropriate today as it was when he wrote it.
The article, a review of the Tom Cruise movie The Last Samurai and aptly titled "Trading Insights From The Last Samurai," summed up Dr. MCall’s "Warrior-Trader A.C.T.I.O.N. Plan" with the following six statements:
Accept all possible losses before entering the battle!
Center yourself in mind, body, and spirit!
Trust your fighting system and intuition!
Imagine victory clearly in your minds-eye!
Only exist in the present moment to control fear!
Never second-guess yourself during or after the battle!
I urge you to think about each of these statements and take action in your battle to achieve trading gains.
[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. ]
"It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree. For if, by ill luck, people understood each other, they would never agree."
Charles Baudelaire
Don’t Fall Into This Marketing Trap
By Bob Bly
A few weeks ago, my wife called me at work when my back was up against the wall on a tight copy deadline. She complained that she saw a bunch of big fat flies buzzing around our living room and kitchen.
"So go out and buy some fly traps," I said testily – annoyed that she would bother me about such a trivial matter.
When I got home, I saw half a dozen small potted plants placed strategically around the living room and kitchen.
"What are these?" I asked her.
"You asked me to buy fly traps," she said, as if speaking to an idiot. "These are Venus Flytraps."
Of course, I had meant for her to go to the supermarket or hardware store and buy fly paper… or fly motels… or any other kind of chemical fly traps – not carnivorous plants.
So… what does all this have to do with your marketing? Simply this: The way in which you communicate to people permeates your entire business – marketing, sales, support, credit and collection, and customer service.
Now, you may think you are communicating in a clear and unambiguous fashion – just as I did when I told my wife to buy "fly traps." But no matter how clear or direct you are, your customer may not understand you… for one of four reasons.
First, you may not be as articulate as you think you are. Many of us are not.
Second, you may be using jargon your customers are unfamiliar with – or talking about ideas or technology they lack the background to understand.
Third, your customers may in fact be slow or impatient learners – in certain areas, anyway.
LR, a loyal subscriber to my e-newsletter, has bought and asked for a refund on a number of my e-books. Why? Because he refuses to learn how to download and use Adobe Acrobat Reader. Each time, he grumbles: "Why can’t you sell regular books and not e-books?" (We now offer to print and mail a hard copy for a small extra fee.)
Fourth, no matter how precise and clear you are, some customers are still going to misunderstand you.
Example: One of my customers sent me a nasty e-mail complaining that the quality of the audio CDs I sent him was crappy, because they did not work. "I put the CDs in every player in my house and car," he wrote. "They didn’t play in any of them."
I called him up and politely said: "Could you remove one of the disks and look at the label?"
"Okay," he said, as testily as his e-mail. "So what?"
I then asked him to read the first line of the label, which is printed in big, bold type.
"Dee Vee Dee," he annunciated slowly.
"Yes. And that’s why it won’t play in your CD player," I replied politely. "It’s a DVD, not a CD. You play it on a DVD player."
"Oops," he said sheepishly. "Sorry." And immediately hung up.
My point?
As the marketer, seller, and service provider, it is incumbent upon you to make all your customer communications as clear as crystal. But no matter how clearly you communicate with people, some are bound to misunderstand you.
When it happens, they may become unjustly irate or rude with you. Even so, treat them with nothing but kindness and patience as you help them solve their problem.
Communication is an integral part of marketing… selling… customer service… credit and collections – and virtually every other area of your business.
Follow the advice of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said (and I am paraphrasing) that it is not enough to communicate so clearly that your customers can understand you. You must communicate so clearly that your customers cannot possibly misunderstand you (even though some still will anyway).
By the way, the post script to my story about our fly problem is that the Venus Flytraps my wife bought actually worked! Flies are attracted to the bright red surface inside the thing. (Perhaps they think it’s food.) When a fly lands, a sensor alerts the plant. The trap closes around the fly, imprisoning it. The plant then secretes some sort of juice that slowly digests it.
I came home the next night to find my wife trying to pry open one of the traps in which a fly had been caught.
"What are you doing?" I asked in amazement.
Turns out she felt sorry for the fly… and didn’t want it to suffer.
[Ed. Note: Master copywriter and best-selling author Bob Bly is the editor of ETR's Direct Marketing Masters Edition. a program to help you start your own successful direct-mail business. Sign up for Bob's free monthly e-zine, The Direct Response Letter, and get more than $100 in free bonuses.]
Free Report: The Screaming Value Play that Buffett Missed?
Institutional Investors are Pouring Billions into this Beaten-Down Victim of the Tech Crash … It’s a Value Play So Full of Potential, We’re Shocked That Buffett Hasn’t Made His Move … When He Catches On, Just Watch What Happens. But Today, It’s Your Turn to Beat Buffett to the Punch and Buy … A $35 Stock Selling in the Teens!
Click Here to Download the Report – It’s Free.
Honesty, Integrity, and Leadership
Integrity in business is a tough thing to define and a tougher thing to find. Most of the people I know who talk a lot about honesty and integrity do so when it suits their own purposes. When it’s to their advantage to give someone a royal screwing, they do so… but with plenty of good reasons why the so-and-so deserved it.
Honesty, too, is a mercurial attribute. When I’m firing someone because he’s a complete and useless putz, I don’t feel it’s best to be honest with him about my reasons. I want my partners to be honest about their other business relationships – but why? Because I want them to be virtuous? Or because I’m afraid of what they might do to hurt me?
When it comes to morality, I like to judge people by what they do, not what they say. And as far as leadership is concerned, it has nothing to do with virtue. (Nixon and Clinton were not honest, but they certainly were effective leaders.)
Bottom line: Be good because you believe that being good has some absolute value in the universe, not because it will make you better at what you do.
[Ed. Note: Get dozens of proven business-building strategies and sales-boosting techniques from Michael Masterson and a group of the world's leading Internet marketing experts this fall at ETR's Info Marketing Bootcamp: Making a Fast Fortune on the "Other Side" of the Internet. Sign up today.]
Reader Feedback: "You hit the nail on the head."
"Thank you for your article ‘So You Want to Be an Artist?‘
"I have been marketing my art on the Internet since around 1999, and have found it is possible to get your art out there to the Internet art community. And you are right that nobody wants to buy art from an unknown artist. The more your name is seen on the Internet, the more popular your art becomes, the more credible you become.
"You hit the nail on the head when you said to get noticed by writing articles and placing your work on many Internet sites. The free art sites are available if you look for them. It’s a joy when people respond to an article you wrote or ask you to join their art site.
"I have had my art printed on postcards and have sold sets of the postcards. I have also sent them as far away as Russia and Bolivia, and that’s another way to get your work out there to the world.
"Donating copies of your work works also. Soon people begin to notice your style of painting and say, ‘That’s a Pam Drapala painting.’
"Art exhibitions at county fairs work too. On my 50th birthday, I sold seven paintings to a businessman who saw my work displayed at the county fair. Two years later, he bought two more of my paintings.
"Please continue to keep us up to date with your informative articles."
- Pamela Carvajal Drapala
Yuma, AZ
Increase Your Chances of Sticking With Your Exercise Program
By Jon Benson
Why do so many people have trouble sticking with their exercise programs? Two big reasons: boredom and the lack of a larger purpose.
The boredom is easy to solve: Break up your workouts. Lift weights, then walk, then do some bodyweight exercises, go hiking, play tennis, etc.
Having a purpose can increase your chance of succeeding at any goal. To develop a greater purpose when it comes to exercise and fitness:
- Take inventory of the things you value the most in life. Examples might include "love," "faith," "family," and "self-respect."
- "Link" your three main core values to your fitness goals. For example, link "family" to fitness with an "anchoring sentence" like this: "Losing weight will allow me to live longer and spend more time with my family."
- Combine your three "anchoring sentences" into a "Unified Purpose Statement." Start with this: "Beginning today and for the rest of my life, I accept nothing less than the best for myself concerning my health and my fitness." Then list your three anchoring sentences. End with specific short-term and long-term goals.
[Ed. Note: Jon Benson, a lifecoach and nutrition counselor who specializes in helping individuals discover a life-altering mind/body connection, is a contributing writer for ETR's FREE natural health e-letter. His work in the field of post-40 fitness and mental empowerment has helped countless thousands. Learn how you can do the same at www.fitover40.com or www.mpowerfitness.com.]
It’s Good to Know: The Best-Selling Books of All Time
You might expect religious tracts to dominate the all-time best-seller list – and they do. But make room for Harry Potter. He’s in the top 10 and makes five appearances in the top 20 as well. Below is a list of the top-10 best-selling books ever:
1. The Bible
2. Quotations From Chairman Mao
3. The Quran
4. The China Character Dictionary
5. The Book of Common Prayer
6. The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
7. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
8. Book of Mormon
9. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s [Sorcerer's] Stone by J.K. Rowling
10.And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
(Source: SixWise)
Do You Need To Start Out Small?
If you don’t have an Internet business yet, or if your company is smaller than $1 million then you need something different… something that lets you start off small.
One man I know turned $10 into over $500,000. How’s that for starting small!
Let me show you how to get a similar Internet income stream running for almost nothing.
- Patrick Coffey
Word to the Wise: Caesura
A "caesura" (sih-ZHUR-uh) – from the Latin for "to cut" – is a break, pause, or interruption.
Example (as used by Michael Dirda in The Washington Post): "Say her name today in the right circles and you’ll notice a sudden intake of breath, a caesura of pure awe."
[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
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