How to Sell the Pants Off Almost Anyone

Issue #2390

• WEALTHY: The selling secret behind the success of Las Vegas (Clayton Makepeace)
• HEALTHY: 4 ways to spice up a healthy snack (Craig Ballantyne)
• WISE: Buddha on truth

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: 

• How to avoid a money-transfer nightmare (David Cross)
• The #1 best way to get quick, targeted website traffic (Alexis Siemon)
• It’s Fun to Know… about eco bombs
• Add "sentient" to your vocabulary

== Highly Recommended ==

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 to learn more…

"In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true."

- Buddha

Do You Believe?

By Clayton Makepeace

Without hope, there would be no second marriages… no cheering crowds behind Obama or John on the six o’clock news… and, of course, no Las Vegas.

No matter how cynical, negative, or worldly-wise we want the world to think we are, all of us want to believe. Desperately. And the simple fact is, hundreds of billions of dollars are earned each year by marketers who do little else but:

• Identify a deep-seated desire that is resident in a particular market niche,
• Create a promo that suspends their prospects’ disbelief, and
• Step back and allow the prospects’ desire to believe do the rest.

Take Vegas, for instance. We all know it’s the world’s greatest fleecing machine. We know that there are no games of chance there - that the odds are heavily weighted in favor of the casinos. And yet, even those of us who never expect to beat the house, happily fork over thousands for travel, lodging, and food - and then blissfully lose thousands more at the tables, knowing from experience that we’re being played for suckers.

Now I ask you: Is this anything a sentient, self-respecting, intelligent creature would do? No. And that’s the point.

We are NOT sentient, self-respecting, intelligent creatures. We only tell ourselves that we are. The truth is, we are driven by emotion. We only use our thinking brain to rationalize those emotional decisions after they’re made.

Think that’s an overstatement? Don’t tell me, tell Deanna Blanchard - one of my crackerjack copywriters. She’s working with me on my bookstore book, The Emotional Sale. The other week, Deanna found a medical study you should consider…

Seems some people who suffer minimal brain damage retain their cognitive ability - their ability to reason - but lose their ability to feel any emotion. And when a major medical institution studied these poor souls, they found something fascinating…

When deprived of their ability to feel emotion, these still-intelligent, rational, thinking people were incapable of making ANY decision. They couldn’t even decide which shirt to wear… what to order in a restaurant… or how to manage their money!

I’m thrilled Deanna found that study. Because it proves beyond the shadow of a doubt something I’ve been talking and writing about for years:

If we made our spending decisions on the basis of logic, nobody would buy a new car and suffer the massive depreciation that slams us when we drive it off the lot. Heck, we wouldn’t buy any kind of car - new OR used - for that matter. We’d all be riding the Metro. Or the bus. Or a bicycle.

The same is true about designer clothing… makeup… expensive watches… high-calorie food with low nutritional value. And who in his right mind would spend more than a few hundred bucks a month on a place to live - especially in these days of plunging home values?

Frankly, I’d be hard-pressed to think of much that we spend money on that makes any logical sense at all. We buy things simply because we want to believe. We want to believe - so desperately - that these things will make us feel more confident… more successful… more secure… more fulfilled… happier… that we spend our entire lives mindlessly pursuing them.

Get up early tomorrow morning and turn on just about any cable channel that runs infomercials in the wee hours, and you’ll see what I mean.

Put on your thinking cap now…

If I told you there is a non-prescription pill - made entirely of vitamins and minerals - that will grow hair on a cue ball… would you believe me? Preposterous, right?

How about "the size of a certain part of a man’s body"? Would you believe that a few vitamins and minerals can magically transform a water spout into a fire hose?

What? You don’t believe this stuff? You know what? Nobody does!

But you know what else? There’s an infomercial on TV that’s generating millions and millions in sales for an all-natural hair-regrowth product and another that’s making some scam artist rich selling vitamins that make your thingy bigger.

Why would anyone with an IQ larger than his shoe size buy such obviously stupid products? Because we desperately want to believe. We want to believe so much that a few simple testimonials and/or a floozy batting her false eyelashes at us causes us to suspend all disbelief and crack open our wallets.

So… what do your prospects want to believe? And how can you tap into that desire to increase sales?

Specifically, you need to:

1. Identify the fears, frustrations, and desires that are present in the greatest number of your prospects…

2. Identify which of those emotions are most active - most dominant - in the greatest number of folks who’ll read your sales message, and…

3. Craft your theme, headline, and opening accordingly.

[Ed. Note: Selling is one of the most financially valuable skills you can develop. The best way to learn? From two men who know more about marketing than almost anyone on the planet. Get the details here.

And for more money-making marketing strategies, sign up for direct-marketing consultant and copywriter Clayton Makepeace's highly acclaimed e-zine The Total Package (www.makepeacetotalpackage.com).]

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== Highly Recommended ==

Turn A Single $100 Investment Into A $2,000-A-Week Profit Machine

In the next seven days, 4,589 people will leave their jobs, never go back… and have all the money they will ever need.

I would tell you that these people are “very lucky,” but the fact of the matter is that there is no luck involved.

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

Even though all these people are “ordinary” in some ways, one thing is certainly “out of the ordinary” about them:

Many used the same secret to start a business on less than $100. You can do it, too. Here’s how.

-Charlie Byrne

Reader Feedback: "I have seen great improvements in my personal and professional life."

"Please accept my heartiest thanks for popping in my inbox every morning. It is always a great pleasure to read ETR’s daily e-mail. Since last month, my wife and I are both getting up at 5:30 every morning (including weekends), and life has really turned around.

"I have seen great improvements in my personal and professional life. I have become more efficient, disciplined, and proactive."

Sakshi & Pankaj
Toronto, Ontario

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A Dollar Saves the Day

By David Cross

I’d lost $8,000 and neither the sending nor the receiving bank knew where it was. Lost in the banking ether between Florida and Edinburgh. "It’s up to the sending bank, we haven’t received it," said the receiving bank. "We’ve sent it. It’s up to the receiving bank," said the sending bank.

"Where on earth is my money!" I said.

Why the problem? All the numbers I’d been given were correct - SWIFT accounts, addresses, everything. So the lost money was a result of some idiosyncrasy on the part of the banks.

And so, for six whole weeks, my money floated around. I received it… eventually… and even got a "consideration" from one of the banks whose New York transmitting branch had sat with the money until we tracked it down. But finding it took a lot of haranguing on my part. ($8,000 is peanuts in the world of international finance.)

This experience taught me a lesson. Now, whenever I send any money from my bank to anywhere - whether to set up a monthly transfer to pay the gas bill or get funds to my kids in Europe - I send a dollar first as a test. If the dollar arrives, I send the full amount.

For the past eight years (since my $8,000 "incident"), I’ve done my "dollar test." Three times, the dollar either didn’t arrive or arrived after some delay. In each case, a call to customer service of the relevant company resolved the "why" and further transactions with them proved trouble free.

Could a dollar save your day?

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Dear ETR: "How can I get traffic to my site?"

"I have been receiving ETR for some time. I enjoy it and find it to be a great resource. You invite readers who have a question to e-mail it to you, so that is what I am doing.

"I am a life coach, I have a website, but I get no traffic. I just completed my second book, which should be released in August. It is a ‘30-Day Boot Camp to Eliminate Fears & Phobias.’ How can I get traffic to my site and market this? I appreciate any guidance you can give me."

Kristen B.
New Hampshire

Dear Kristen,

With so many unknowns about you and your site, it is difficult to answer your question. You could be doing a lot of things to increase traffic, depending on how much money you have (or want) to spend. But here’s one place to start.

The number one best way to get quick targeted traffic to your website is to launch a Google AdWords campaign. An AdWords campaign can be up and running in about 10 minutes if you do your keyword research and write your ads beforehand.

Google AdWords is budget friendly, too. If your budget is small, you can choose really targeted keywords and attract visitors who are closer to the purchasing stage of their search. For instance, someone searching on the keyword phrase "fears and phobias" may simply be in an information-gathering stage. But someone searching on "books about phobias" is much more likely to pull the trigger on your shopping cart. So you could save money by bidding only on those targeted phrases.

Once the sales start rolling in and your budget grows, then you can experiment with some slightly more general terms. Just make sure you have really strong sales copy on your website to convert those information gatherers!

For more details, check out the article I wrote about how to rev up your sales with Google AdWords. 

- Alexis Siemon, ETR Search Engine Marketing Specialist

[Ed. Note: Google AdWords may be a quick and easy way to get traffic to your site. But there are dozens of other ways to attract customers. To learn how you can master the secrets behind e-mail marketing and how to spread your message all over the Internet, continue reading here.

Have a question for one of ETR's experts? Send it to AskETR@ETRFeedback.com and we may answer it in an upcoming issue of Early to Rise.]

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Adding Extra Oomph to Almonds

By Craig Ballantyne

As you know from reading ETR, almonds have a host of health benefits. They can lower cholesterol, help reduce inflammation, and keep blood sugar in check. Plus, they are a good source of healthy fats, fiber, and protein. And back in 2003, I discovered a study that showed almonds help with weight loss. Since then, I’ve been recommending raw almonds to my clients as well as the millions of people who read my articles on the Internet and in Men’s Health magazine.

But some folks have a hard time eating almonds. Too boring, they say. So here are four suggestions:

• Snack on dry-roasted, unsalted almonds. Roasted nuts are always tastier - but be careful to stick with the dry-roasted variety, not almonds roasted in oil. You can even roast your own at home. Simply put raw almonds on a baking sheet in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes.

• Add raw cocoa nibs. There’s nothing like the combination of chocolate and nuts. Now, I’ll admit, this combo doesn’t beat a peanut butter cup - but it’s a good way to get more antioxidants (from the cocoa) and add an interesting taste to the almonds.

• Mix in some goji berries. This is an acquired taste, but these dried berries from China are full of amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. They’ll add zing to the almonds.

• Try fresh blueberries with the almonds. Perfect for this time of year. And if you’ve got a few calories to spare, pour a little organic whipping cream over the top. Now that’s a great post-workout snack!

[Ed. Note: Staying healthy doesn't have to be boring. That means adding a few tasty twists to your diet. But it also means dumping that long, slow, boring cardio workout. Learn more here.

For a free source of nutrition and fitness tips, check out ETR's natural health e-letter.]

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It’s Fun to Know: Eco Bombs

Researchers are studying alternatives to TNT and other conventional explosives that would be more powerful and safer to use. Explosives currently being used - by the military, as well as by mining and other industries - release toxic gases when detonated. "Unexploded ordnance" (explosive weapons that didn’t detonate) is also a major polluter.

Using new materials that derive explosive energy from nitrogen instead of carbon, German scientists have developed experimental bombs that create fewer toxic byproducts. They are also less likely to explode accidentally if mishandled.

(Source: LiveScience)

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== Highly Recommended ==

Your Own Personal Life Coach

Picture yourself hiring a life coach, someone whose sole job is to help you do exactly what you need to do to take control of your life.

Your life coach would suggest actions you could take to be healthier. She might recommend a technique you could try to be more productive. She could teach you some strategies for breaking yourself of your most self-destructive habits. Or offer advice on how to structure your day more efficiently.

Better yet, your life coach would show up every day - with a smile - and make sure that you are putting her suggestions to use. She’d give you a gentle nudge, some encouraging words, and help you get going.

And if you somehow slipped back into your old patterns - which, let’s face it, happens sometimes - she’d be right there with useful advice for getting back on track.

Learn how you can have 365 days of your own personal life coach – for less than most life coaches charge per hour.

- Charlie Byrne
Associate Publisher, Early to Rise

Word to the Wise: Sentient

"Sentient" (SEN-shunt) - from the Latin for "to feel" - means responsive to or conscious of sensory perceptions.

Example (as used by Clayton Makepeace today): "We are NOT sentient, self-respecting, intelligent creatures. We only tell ourselves that we are."

[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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