Issue #2384
- WEALTHY: How a small business owner can break into info-marketing (Michael Masterson)
- HEALTHY: Burn more calories with this exotic oil (Kelley Herring)
- WISE: Samuel Johnson on optimism
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- Turn poor sales figures into a selling point (Bob Bly)
- It can’t get any better for a billionaire… (Jason Holland)
- It’s Fun to Know… about the frog without lungs
- Add "lubricious" to your vocabulary
Complimentary Business-Building Teleconference for ETR Readers
To help celebrate Issue #200 of our weekly, industry-leading Profit Center Dispatch (PCD) newsletter, we’re going to GIVE you a very special teleconference this Thursday evening, June 19.
PCD readers have gotten some two hundred profit-producing business opportunities… but now on this call, Marc Charles promises to reveal the single most POWERFUL and PROFITABLE success secret he’s learned during his 25-year career launching businesses.
It’s a secret YOU can use to cherry pick the ripest opportunities out there today.
I’ll grill Marc about this exclusive “windfall profit formula.” This teleconference is totally free to you. All you have to do is register and we’ll email you all the details.
See you on the call this Thursday evening!
- Charlie Byrne
Dear ETR: "I would like to expand my business and create a website."
"Michael, I am one of many who have read your e-letter from the beginning. I listened to your advice and started a very small business that brings in a small amount of money. Now I would like to expand and create a website.
"I don’t recommend stocks, but I provide people with information about any companies they request. I even tell them that they can get the same information from Yahoo and Edger online. But for some reason, people want to either make their own investment decisions or just use advisory letters.
"What I would like to do next is keep a record of my personal portfolio online for anyone to read. There will be a disclaimer on the bottom of the page that will say that no stocks are recommended.
"Do you have any ideas on how I can get started or what software I should use?"
Jeanne in Virginia
Dear Jeanne,
It seems to me that what you want to do is publish investment advice. That is okay so long as you follow certain rules. You can find out what those rules are later on, after your business is structured. The most important thing now is to create a business model that will work.
To do that, you must first have some special expertise in investing. If you don’t, why will people pay to see your portfolio? You have to have an investment philosophy that lots of people can relate to. And you have to have a good, proven track record of success.
Developing your investment expertise is half of the initial challenge. The other half is learning how to sell your expertise online. Don’t worry about software right now. Instead, become an expert in direct-response marketing and the Internet.
You can start by reading the following books:
- Ready, Fire, Aim (my recent New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Business Week best-seller)
- Method Marketing by Denny Hatch
- Breakthrough Advertising by Gene Schwartz
- Moonlighting on the Internet by Yanik Silver
- Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy
- The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
- All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin
Then, when you are done with them, you should enroll in one of ETR’s recommended marketing or Internet business programs. These include the Direct Marketing Masters program, Instant Internet Income, and The Magic Button. You should also consider attending one of ETR’s info-marketing bootcamps, which are held in Florida every fall.
If you work hard, it will take you about six months to learn everything you need to know. That’s a significant investment of time, but you want to invest your time before you invest your money… or your money will disappear very quickly
- Michael Masterson
[Ed. Note: Send your questions to AskETR@ETRFeedback.com. Include your full name, your hometown and state, and the ETR team may answer you in an upcoming issue.]
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"The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year."
Samuel Johnson
How to Sell With Statistics
By Bob Bly
Whenever I am writing copy, I like to gather lots of statistics on my topic.
The great thing about statistics is that you can use them to support almost any sales point you want to make in your promotion.
For example, marketers often cite the number of units that’ve been sold to prove that their product is popular and, therefore, must be good.
In the good old days, McDonald’s restaurant signs would proclaim "Over 1 Billion Sold." Of course, that really wasn’t proof that McDonald’s burgers are good. Many restaurants make hamburgers that are better. But it gave customers the impression that McDonald’s burgers were exceptional.
Ironically, a statistic that says the exact opposite – a number showing the product does not sell well – can also be used to make a case for superior quality.
Perhaps you have received a catalog for Harry & David, the mail-order company that sells, among other things, Royal Riviera Pears. The copy for the pears says, "Not one person in a thousand has ever tasted them." It makes the product sound exclusive, special, rare, and desirable. But what it really means is that very few people buy them!
Here’s another example of how statistics can be skewed in your favor…
I was asked to write a brochure for a company that did research for manufacturers. I asked the client about his competition and where his firm stood among them.
"That’s a negative," he said. "There are hundreds of small mom-and-pop operators doing this kind of research out of their homes. But there are only five real companies – and of those five, we are, unfortunately, the smallest."
So in the brochure copy, I wrote: "XYZ Research Associates is one of the 5 largest industrial research companies in North America" – turning a potential negative into a bragging point.
A few additional guidelines for using numbers in your marketing copy to make a case for your product or service:
- Write your numbers using the largest unit of measurement. "A quarter of a century" sounds longer than "25 years."\
- Round off to make a number sound bigger. If the client tells me his newsletter has 2,015 subscribers, I talk about "thousands of satisfied subscribers."
- Use "negative statistics," saying what the product doesn’t do or have, rather than what it does do or have. For instance, club soda has "no sodium, no artificial flavors, no calories."
- Prove statistical points with pictures. Compare two quantities with a bar chart, or show a price chart illustrating how shares of the stock you recommended went up.
- Use a persuasive statistic at least three times: in the body copy, in the chart or graph, and in a caption for the chart or graph.
- Make unexpected comparisons to dramatize numbers. You might, for example, say "More people have died from malaria over the past century than are now living in the United States" – much more memorable than just stating the number of malaria victims.
[Ed. Note: Using statistics to your advantage is a simple way to capture your prospect's attention and get him to buy. Many direct-marketing techniques are just as easy to learn - and just as effective at helping you get new customers. Master direct marketing, and you'll never want for money again.
Learn more about direct marketing from Bob Bly's free e-letter. Sign up today and get more than $100 in free bonuses.]
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What’s Wrong With this Picture?
By now, you could be forgiven for thinking making money online is akin to some kind of black magic! You’ve probably heard the talk about SEO, XML, PPC and ended up more confused than when you started.
But you know, it’s really very simple. Make no mistake, what I’m about to share with you (for FREE) is THE secret. It only fills a couple of lines but this is the truth you’ve been denied by so many of the so-called “gurus.”
Ready? Here it is (drum roll please)…
Living Rich: 5 Classic Jazz Albums
It doesn’t matter if you’re a millionaire, a billionaire, or barely scraping by – everyone can listen to the exact same music. Audiophiles might disagree and swear that thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment is necessary for true enjoyment. Still, anyone can buy a CD (or MP3 online) and be affected by a piece of music in the same way.
Jazz has a powerful transformative quality. It may not get the headlines or have the Top 40 success of pop, rock, hip hop, and R & B, but that’s the point. This is not throwaway music that will be forgotten in a month. Jazz songs and albums are created with passion by musicians who have dedicated their lives to their craft. It’s for the ages.
There is a lot of good jazz coming out these days. But right now, I want to introduce you to five classics of the genre.
- The Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Time Out
You’ve no doubt heard the most popular track from this album, "Take Five." It’s a mainstay of movie, TV, and commercial scores. This album is also known for its use of time signatures (in simple terms, the beat) not usually used in jazz.
- Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue
This classic disc has been cited as the best jazz album ever by many critics. Davis assembled a group of session musicians for the project. And with almost no rehearsal, they started recording with just brief instructions on what scales and melodies to use as the basis for improvisation.
- Charles Mingus’s Mingus Ah Um
Many critics consider this album to be heavily influenced by Mingus’s love of early jazz innovators like Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, and Lester Young. It has been included in the Library of Congress’s recorded music collection.
- Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to Come
Coleman was a pioneer of "free jazz," an avant-garde style that split the jazz community in the late 1950s. This album introduced Coleman’s unusual style to a wide audience. Some critics found his work to be almost unlistenable, while others considered it to be groundbreaking.
- Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto’s Getz/Gilberto (featuring Antonio Carlos Jobim)
Yes, this album features the track "The Girl from Ipanema." But, blending jazz and Brazilian bossa nova, it is full of less-well-known gems too.
Listening to the above classics will give you a basis to appreciate all the jazz you’ll ever hear. And you’ll get a feel for how they have influenced musicians in every genre.
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Boost Your Metabolism With Coconut
Wouldn’t it be nice to crank up the dial on your metabolism a notch?
Well, you can! Certain foods ratchet your metabolism into high gear, helping to burn more calories and give you more energy.
The best known of these thermogenic (fat-burning) foods is protein. That’s the reason high-protein diets promote weight loss. But there’s another food that has even more calorie-torching power than protein: coconut oil.
Medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs), the unique fats found in coconut, are easily absorbed and rapidly burned as energy, stoking your metabolism. What’s more, coconut fats blaze through slower-burning long-chain triglyerides.
In a recent study, the thermogenic effect of a high-calorie diet containing 40 percent fat as MCFA was compared to one containing 40 percent fat as long-chain fatty acids (LCFAs). Researchers found the thermogenic effect of the MCFA was almost twice as high as the LCFA: 120 calories versus 66 calories. The researchers were so astounded, they conducted a follow-up study. This time, they found that MCFA given over a six-day period can increase diet-induced thermogenesis by 50 percent!
You can use coconut oil just like you would any other oil. Try whisking with raspberry vinegar for a luscious summer dressing, or lightly pan-frying wild fish and organic veggies for a metabolism-boosting treat.
[Ed. Note: Eating the right foods is one of the best ways to stay healthy. Get more information about what you should be eating here. And be sure to check out the expert advice and free recipes at Kelley's site, www.HealingGourmet.com.
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It's Fun to Know: The Frog Without Lungs
Researchers from the National University of Singapore working in Indonesia have found a frog species without lungs that breathes through its skin. Only a few species of salamander are known to share this trait.
The scientists believe this adaptation came about because of the frog's environment. It lives in fast-moving streams, and air-filled lungs would make it float and get swept away by the current.
(Source: Associated Press)
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== Highly Recommended ==
The Greatest Medical Discovery of the Century
Scientists have discovered a remarkable substance that has the power to prevent diabetes, stop heart disease before it starts, and kill cancer cells on contact. In fact, this substance has been shown to prevent and treat more than 20 major diseases in all!
However, more than 85% of the population is deficient in this disease-killer at least part of the year. And believe it or not, medical professionals and health authorities actually advise people to avoid the single greatest source of this vital substance.
Click here to learn why you probably haven't heard about this revolutionary discovery.
Word to the Wise: Lubricious
"Lubricious" (loo-BRISH-us) - from the Latin for "smooth" - means (1) lustful or (2) slippery.
Example (as used by Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post): "Here was a place [Ipanema] where a kind of benign… anarchy seemed to rule, a lubricious, frictionless chaos into which one could simply disappear."
[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.]
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2008
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Wonderful to see jazz mentioned in ETR again!! P.S. Solid list of albums but don’t forget the incredible music of the late, great Oscar Peterson!… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Peterson
Bob Bly’s use of statistics to one’s advantage was truly a written treat from the master himself. These simple ways to capture any prospects attention -are effective at getting…and keeping customers. I’d venture to write that ETR is one of the largest if not most popular on-line success oriented web sites on the Internet today and continues to grow daily by leaps and bounds.
Best, Mahalo and Aloha
Regarding the coconut oil article: How many prople were included in the study…10?…100? 1,000? Studies that involve large numbers of participants are more accurate. How do we know if the quoted study might have involved only two people?
Hi Lucy,
Thanks for your (very good!) question.
You’re right. Studies involving more participants are more accurate. A study is considered “statistically significant” if there are 30 or more subjects involved (n >30). Other (more complicated) factors to consider are whether the study was conducted on humans, if there are other variables that are playing a role in the study’s outcome (concomitant variables) and the type of study (cohort, case control, meta analysis, lab studies, etc).
In my coconut oil brief, I refer to a study conducted at Vanderbilt on ten adult men, which also included a follow-up study showing similar results. Larger studies have been conducted and found the same fat-burning effects of coconut oil.
If you’re interested in learning more about the research on coconut oil and thermogenesis, check out the studies I list below on Pub Med (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez).
1. Thermogenesis in humans during overfeeding with Thermogenesis in humans during overfeeding with medium-chain triglycerides.
[Metabolism. 1989] PMID:2739575
2. Dietary medium- and long-chain triacylglycerols accelerate diet-induced
thermogenesis in humans.J Oleo Sci. 2007;56(6):283-7.
3. Effect of dietary medium- and long-chain triacylglycerols (MLCT) on accumulation
of body fat in healthy humans.Asia Pac J Clin Nutr. 2003;12(2):151-60.
4. Dietary medium-chain triacylglycerols suppress accumulation of body fat in a
double-blind, controlled trial in healthy men and women. [J Nutr. 2001]
PMID:11694608
5. Greater rise in fat oxidation with medium-chain triglyceride consumption relative
to long-chain triglyceride is associated with lower initial body weight and
greater loss of subcutaneous adipose tissue. [Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord.
2003] PMID:12975635
1. Statistics is an invaluable tool in presenting arguments, but one need to remember that it is a double edged sword, and ,at times, a great liar too!
2. The article on Coconut oil is interesting. At long last, what the coconut eating populations around the world always knew and practised is now available for the benefit of the discerning. The stigma put on the oil was a deliberate ploy of competing commercial interests and had very little to do with genuine research.
My wife and i have been eating coconut oil for some time. We believe that it has helped her metabolism.