7 Commandments for Creating Explosive Growth

Issue #2319

• WEALTHY: What the Bear Stearns buyout means for you (Rick Pendergraft)
• HEALTHY: Energy, stamina, and a quicker recovery (Kelley Herring)
• WISE: Jay Conrad Levinson on marketing

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

• 7 ways to transform yourself into a world-class business builder (Clayton Makepeace)
• Want to know a secret to success? Just ask… (Suzanne Richardson)
• It’s Good to Know… about polysyndetonic syntax (Charlie Byrne)
• Add "incipient" to your vocabulary

== Highly Recommended ==

Let the Demise of the Dollar Lead You to 1,000% Gains

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Are You Kidding Me?

By Rick Pendergraft

It was Sunday night, and I was sitting down to my usual routine of going through charts and e-mails to prepare for the next day. I had barely been logged on for two minutes when I got an e-mail alert - a news blurb that J.P. Morgan (JPM) was buying Bear Stearns (BSC) for $2 per share. BSC’s stock had closed at $30 on Friday. What a deal!

Then a second news alert hit my inbox. The Fed had just lowered the discount rate from 3.5 percent to 3.25 percent. Was the Fed trying to calm the market? You bet they were. When news of BSC being sold at such a discount hit the street, futures dropped as much as 38 points. After the Fed announcement, they were down only 22 points.

You never know when the market will make an unexpected major move, up or down. That’s why I recommend being somewhat balanced between bullish and bearish positions. It is also the reason why you should take profits off the table on portions of your trades. If you take, say, a 50 percent profit on a third of your position, you will have limited your potential loss without limiting your gain if the stock continues to rise.

Though it was Sunday night and the equity markets were closed, the news was coming fast and furious and money was being made and lost. Bear Stearns dropped from $30 to $3.18 in one move. There was nothing traders could do unless they were trading futures, because S&P futures markets open at 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Sundays. Equity traders and options traders had to wait until Monday’s opening bell to know their fate. But those who had balance in their portfolios and had been managing their trades with partial closeouts didn’t have much to worry about.

Remember the phone call that Gordon Gekko makes to Bud Fox in the movie Wall Street that starts out with "Money never sleeps, Buddy Boy." No kidding.

[Ed. Note: Rick Pendergraft is a professional trader and market analyst. In Rick’s new investment service, he reveals how you can make hundreds - even thousands - of dollars just by playing a simple game of "guess the pattern." Learn more here.]

"Marketing is not an event, but a process…. It has a beginning, a middle, but never an end, for it is a process. You improve it, perfect it, change it, even pause it. But you never stop it completely."

Jay Conrad Levinson 

7 Commandments for Creating Explosive Growth

By Clayton Makepeace

I don’t have to tell you that the U.S. economy is slowing precipitously… unemployment is rising… and consumers are spending less on the discretionary products and services most of us sell. But you can create explosive growth in your business - even in the face of these economic realities.

I learned the following principles the hard way: through nearly four decades in the trenches. They have served me very, very well - and if you abide by them, they’ll do the same for you…

I. Everything can be improved.

The three most idiotic things any marketer can say to a new idea are:

• "But this is how we’ve always done it. Why change now?"
• "That’s how our competitors do it, and it works great for them."
• "We tested that once. It didn’t work."

Ignore the idiots: Test everything. Let your prospects and customers give you the right answers.

II. A dollar delayed is a dollar forfeited FOREVER.

Every week, day, or hour a sales promotion is delayed during the year pushes more money OUT of the year. Those dollars will never be recovered. They’re gone forever.

Look at it this way: Let’s say your mission is to send 12 promotions to your customer file in 2008 - one at the end of every month. But your January promotion is a week late. It doesn’t go out until the first week of February. February’s promotion is a week late, too. It goes out March 15. And every other promotion takes just one week longer than you planned.

By the end of the year, those delays add up to 12 weeks. Which means three of the promotions you planned to send to customers in 2008 won’t happen. That’s 25 percent of your revenues and profits gone with the wind.

Creating procedures that move promotions through conception to creation to execution as quickly and as efficiently as possible is absolutely critical.

III. "Optimal" response and "maximum" response are two different things.

Marketing strategies, sales copy, and offers that compel prospects to buy - but leave them annoyed with or distrustful of your company or your spokesperson - only produce new customers who will avoid your future promotions like the plague.

And using overly aggressive or coercive or deceptive tactics with existing customers is the best way to destroy the bond you’re trying to build between them and your company.

A great rule of thumb: Think about every promotion - whether to prospects or to customers - first and foremost as a bonding tool.

Then, do whatever you can short of weakening the good will you’re creating to get the sale and maximize the size of the purchase.

IV. Every customer contact is an opportunity to make a sale and increase customer lifetime value.

Take a long hard look at every scrap of virtual or actual paper your customers get from you. Every order form… every thank-you page or letter… every package insert… every renewal or customer retention letter… and every telephone conversation they have with your customer service people.

At the very least, every one of these events gives you a great opportunity to strengthen the bond with your customers. At the most, it may offer you the opportunity to introduce a complementary product in a way that makes customers feel special.

V. Every sale is an opportunity to make another sale.

The simple fact is, customers are most likely to make another purchase immediately after they’ve made a purchase.

You offered them a product they’re excited about. Ordering was quick, easy, hassle free. The order confirmation/thank-you letter or e-mail answered every question about the delivery of the product and reminded them of your guarantee. The product was delivered in far less time than the customers expected. The product itself surpassed their wildest expectations. And, of course, you threw in an unadvertised freebie or two as icing on the cake.

You now have some very happy customers on your hands. So wouldn’t this be a great time for a follow-up mailing to every customer who ordered this month? Wouldn’t this be the ideal moment to send them a customer satisfaction survey along with a discount coupon for a complementary product?

VI. Every customer complaint is an opportunity to engender lifetime loyalty.

Something went wrong. Your customer is dissatisfied. And his experience tells him that setting things right is going to take forever and be a royal pain in the neck. So before you even hear from him, he’s already ticked off.

And then, you surprise him! You apologize abjectly and issue an immediate refund. You give him a discount coupon for a future purchase. You have the head of your customer service department (better yet, the owner himself) CALL the customer to ask for his help in trying to figure out what went wrong. And you send him a nice letter with a questionnaire to make sure the matter was handled fairly and efficiently.

RULE OF THUMB: Be willing to spend at least as much to keep a customer as you spend to create one. Better yet, be willing to spend double, triple, even quadruple if the customer has a long buying history with you.

It’s what you do at a time like this that proves your company’s character… and proves that he can trust you implicitly. Your customer will never forget how you handled his problem, and will never cease being grateful for making this easy for him.

VII. Never shoot in the dark.

Direct response is all about measuring and reacting to results. But you can’t do that if your IT department is doing a half-fast job of capturing or reporting the response, average sale, and ROI (return on investment) for every promotion.

Other numbers matter, too. Like who’s on your customer list. Where each customer came from. How long each has been with you. How many times each one orders per year. The average and largest purchase each one has made from you - and the cumulative value of those purchases. How long each customer continues buying from you. And, of course, average customer lifetime value.

Study your promotional history. Look for messaging/product/offer/price combinations that typically yield the highest ROIs for each segment of your file. Determine how the timing of the promotion and the delivery mode (e-mail, snail mail, overnight mail, etc.) affected results.

Think about the best ways to handle each file segment in order to progressively increase recency of purchase, frequency of purchase, and average sale - and to retain each customer longer. Then, determine how you can best stratify - carve up - your customer file in order to extract optimum response, average sale, and ROI from each segment.

If you can internalize these seven simple commandments, you’ll have the power to transform yourself into a world-class business builder.

[Ed. Note: As a direct-marketing consultant and copywriter, Clayton Makepeace has helped four major direct-marketing firms at least quadruple sales and profits to well over $100 million per year each. Clayton publishes the highly acclaimed e-zine The Total Package (www.makepeacetotalpackage.com) to help business owners and copywriters accelerate their sales and profits. Check it out.

For dozens of proven strategies that can help you achieve your marketing, personal, and health goals, sign up for ETR’s Total Success Achievement program. Learn more here.]

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You Already Know Fortunes Are Made from Trading. The Question Is: WHAT Are "They" Trading Most? (And It’s Not Shares or Commodities!)

… Thirty times more trading going on than the stock market and mostly investment banks doing it. Ummm… Maybe "they" know something you don’t? Click here to learn more…

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- VWB

Lancaster, PA

[Ed. Note: Want to get your name and opinions published in ETR? Let us know how reading ETR has helped you - maybe even changed your life. Send your comments to ReaderFeedback@gmail.com. Include your name and hometown… and we may print your e-mail in a future issue.]

How to Get Donald Trump to Upgrade Your Hotel Room

By Suzanne Richardson

When millionaire entrepreneur Cameron Johnson was eight years old, he wanted nothing more than to stay at New York’s Plaza Hotel, which was featured in the blockbuster movie Home Alone 2. His parents agreed to take him, so Cameron wrote a letter to the hotel’s owner, Donald Trump, asking if he could take a look at the suite where Home Alone ’s hero had stayed. Trump did him one better. He arranged for Cameron and his parents to stay in that suite.

Cameron’s questions didn’t stop. At age nine, he asked himself, "Why couldn’t I become a businessman like Donald Trump?" His first company - an invitation printing service - was born. From then on, Cameron’s career blossomed. At age 12, his eBay Beanie Baby business was pulling in $50,000 a year. Before he graduated from high school, he was worth a million bucks. He’s since started a dozen Internet companies, written the books 15 Year Old CEO and You Call the Shots, consulted for Fortune 500 companies, spoken at colleges nationwide, and appeared in Oprah’s reality series The Big Give.

That’s a lot of success for anyone - let alone a 23-year-old. And much of it is due to the fact that Cameron was never afraid to ask that crucial question: "Why not?"

"Question your limits. Question others’ boundaries. Question whether you can do something different," Cameron told me. "And you won’t believe just how far you can go."

Michael Masterson agrees. "Think about the chances you might have missed in your own life by failing to ask ‘Can I?’ Or ‘Would you?’ Or ‘Is he?’" he said in his article" The Power of a Simple Question."

Here’s a question for you: What do you have to lose by asking?

[Ed. Note: Look for Cameron in ETR in coming weeks.

Learn 19 of his secrets to becoming a successful entrepreneur in his latest book, You Call the Shots.

And get more strategies for how to overcome all the obstacles in your path and achieve your goals by signing up for ETR’s Total Success Achievement program. Learn more here.]

Ribose: The Supplement You Can Feel

By Kelley Herring

Ahhh. Ski season. Blue skies, powdery white snow… sore muscles and injuries. When my husband and I booked our recent ski trip to Colorado, I knew I needed to find a way to reduce "Skier’s Plight." If you’re a vacation skier, I’m sure you can empathize with this scenario: You have an amazing first day on the slopes, only to awaken on day two and find you can barely move your legs, let alone suit up and actually ski. What a bummer.

This time, I refused to miss out on a single bluebird day on Purgatory’s magnificent slopes. And I didn’t. In fact, I never even got sore, despite eight-hour ski days and 27 inches of powder! And I attribute it to one sweet supplement: ribose.

Ribose is actually a sugar. It’s the base sugar for both DNA and RNA, and the building block for adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the cell’s energy currency. Because ribose is a 5 carbon sugar (not a 6 carbon sugar) it doesn’t add to your glycemic load or raise blood sugar levels. What it does do is help put tissue in better physiological condition during and following stress. Ribose improves recovery time after intense exercise. It also helps keep your muscles "fed" with energy, giving you stamina during a workout. The result is a better workout, with fewer sore muscles.

Dr. Jacob Teitlebaum, MD, author of From Fatigued to Fantastic, recommends taking D-ribose (a powdered form) and starting out with a higher dose to increase the concentration on the cellular level. For the first three weeks I used ribose, I took five grams three times daily, then reduced to twice daily. (I use Jarrow Formulas.)

The benefits of ribose don’t stop on the slopes (or in the gym). This amazing cell fuel has been shown to help increase energy levels in patients with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and heart problems as well.

[Ed. Note: Kelley Herring is the founder and CEO of Healing Gourmet (www.healinggourmet.com), and is editor-in-chief of the Healing Gourmet book series. Learn more about how simple lifestyle choices can improve your health by reading ETR’s free natural health e-letter.]

It’s Good to Know: Polysyndetonic Syntax

By Charlie Byrne

"Are you kidding? Oh, you’ve GOT to check out some of his stuff!"

Michael Masterson and Jon Herring had brought up Cormac McCarthy’s writing at the office last week, and Jon was surprised I wasn’t familiar with his work.

"I guess I should find time to read more than business books," I lamely offered.

After our meeting, I dove into some research to allay my embarrassment. That’s when I found out McCarthy’s written All the Pretty Horses, The Road, No Country for Old Men, and 7 other novels.

But one note on Wikipedia really piqued my curiosity…

"All the books of the Border Trilogy are written in an unconventional format, omitting traditional Western punctuation, such as quotation marks, and making great use of polysyndetonic syntax."

Polysyndetonic syntax? Huh? Of course, now I had to look THAT up. Here’s what I found…

According to A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms by Richard A. Lanham, polysyndeton is the "use of a conjunction between each clause. Milton says that Satan, in his course through Chaos, ‘pursues his way, /And swims or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies’ (Paradise Lost, II, 949-950)."

Here’s another example, straight out of McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses: "Rawlins took one of the lengths of a siderope from around his neck where he’d hung them and made a slipnoose and hitched it around the pastern of the hind leg and drew the leg up and halfhitched it to the horse’s forelegs. He freed the catchrope and pitched it away and took the hackamore and they fitted it over the horse’s muzzle and ears and John Grady ran his thumb in the animal’s mouth and Rawlins fitted the mouthrope and then slipnoosed a second siderope to the other rear leg." (p. 104)

[Ed Note: Charlie Byrne is Creative Director at Early to Rise. Sign up for e-mail delivery of his blog and get edgy and useful ideas on copywriting, marketing, and other category-defying posts.]

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Give Yourself a Nice Pay Raise - And A Three Day Weekend, Every Weekend

By the end of this week, you can give yourself a pay raise. How does an extra $20/hr sound… and schedule a few days vacation while you’re at it!

After a month or two, how about another raise… to $2,000 a week.

It’s happening everywhere. Ordinary people — including folks who never finished school — starting their own businesses… and making side incomes in the neighborhood of $40,000… $60,000… even $100,000 or more a year.

They’re living the American Dream. Now it’s time for you to start living it too. Read on…

- Patrick Coffey

Word to the Wise: Incipient

Something that’s "incipient" (in-SIP-ee-unt) is just beginning to exist or appear. It is derived from the Latin for "in" + "to take."

Example (as used by Shena MacKay in The Artist’s Widow): "She sighed for him; so young, and yet so passe, and with an incipient beer belly."

Copyright ETR, LLC, 2008