* Highly
Recommended *
An
Opportunity To Skyrocket Profits In Your Business
I'm
talking about the opportunity for you to profit massively.
I'm also talking about a once-in a lifetime chance to learn
fortune-building business secrets.
Jay
Abraham knows nearly 100 different ways (that you probably
don't know) to more successfully sell your products or service
- offline or online. He knows over 50 ways to make more money
from the same effort, time and opportunity just by changing
the marketing strategy and approach you follow.
Anthony
Robbins says, "One idea Jay gave me in the first hour
increased our company's marketing effectiveness by more than
100%.
"If
you want to start making a ton more money and have a clear,
direct path to real prosperity and business wealth, you owe
it to yourself to look
into this program.
-
Patrick Coffey
"Call
it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it
a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need
one."
-Jane
Howard
How
to Get Willie Nelson in Your Rolodex
By
Michael Masterson
Question:
What could you accomplish if you had access to some of the
biggest names in your field?
Answer:
Practically anything.
I've
told you before how important it is to build your support network.
You never know when a contact will know of a great writer for
your newsletter ... a job opening at a company you're dying
to work for ... or the perfect person to partner with on a
new business venture.
As
Bo Dietl says in his book Business
Lunchatations, "When you have an
extensive network, you can make things happen in minutes that
would take others months to accomplish, if they happened at
all."
Nettie
Hartsock is one woman who has created a profitable business
out of networking. And she does, in fact, have Willie Nelson
in her Rolodex.
Nettie
has been a freelance business journalist for the past 15 years.
A major aspect of her career has been interviewing and writing
about famous actors, musicians, and businesspeople. Which means
that her Rolodex is full of names like Dr. Peter Sealey, Andrew
Goodman, Frances McDormand, Jon Nordmark, Buzz Alrdin, Zach
Nelson, Jakob Nielsen, Steve Rubel, Christopher Guest, and
Royal P. Farros.
How
has Nettie developed such an impressive list of contacts? She
says the trick is in going for the biggest people you can find.
For
instance, when she worked for an arts and entertainment magazine,
her employers wanted to get a popular musician for a cover
story. They tossed out a few suggestions - the names of people
they thought would be glad for a spot on the cover. But Nettie
had a different idea.
"Who
is the top person we could possibly interview?" she asked.
Willie
Nelson - an American icon - came to mind. Her employers were
doubtful. Willie Nelson is such a huge celebrity - why would
he want to interview for their little magazine?
But
Nettie pressed forward. And a few weeks later, she was backstage
after one of Willie's performances, having what turned out
to be one of the best interviews of her career.
She
took the same approach in the mid 90s when she wanted to interview
someone about Internet technology. Instead of settling for
just any Internet expert, Nettie went after Dr. Jakob Nielsen,
the software and Web-design consultant known as the "King
of Usability."
Once
she interviews a high-profile businessperson like Dr. Nielsen,
Nettie is able to extend her network even further. During an
interview, she'll pay special attention to any names her subject
mentions. Each name is a potential new contact.
For
instance, if Nettie wanted to learn more about Web design,
she'd write down the names of any experts Dr. Nielsen mentioned
during the interview. Later, she'd contact each person and
say something like, "Hi, Ms. Z. I was interviewing Dr.
Nielsen for my magazine, and he mentioned that you are the
best person to talk to about Web design. Would you be able
to give me three quick tips on how to lay out a Web page?"
Nettie
has also been able to use her contacts to further her career.
Since she's a freelance journalist, she is constantly searching
for her next assignment. Here's one story she told me about
how her network led to a writing gig ...
A
couple of years ago, Nettie interviewed the CEO of a photo-archiving
business for a news story. At the end of the interview, the
CEO remarked that Nettie had asked some really astute questions.
He went on to ask her about other types of writing she did.
"I
told him I did company success stories," Nettie said.
Interested, the CEO said he'd keep her in mind.
After
the interview, Nettie kept in contact with the CEO. She occasionally
e-mailed him to congratulate him on his company's growth or
to comment on a news story she'd read about him. She also e-mailed
him a few samples of her work, along with a note that said, "Here
are a couple of samples of case studies I've done recently.
I hope I get the opportunity to work on one with your company
in the future."
All
her attempts to stay in the CEO's mind paid off. Fifteen months
after the original interview, he asked Nettie to write a case
study of his company.
Nettie's
networking also landed her a job doing public relations for
a new business book titled Value
Acceleration.
"I
did an interview with a literary agent," Nettie told me. "And
after the interview, the agent said, 'You know, I have these
guys who contacted me to do PR for their book. The book is
fabulous, but I don't know enough about the business sector
to do PR for them. Could I refer them to you?' And I said,
'Of course!'"
The
best part is that Nettie's PR work for this book - the first
time she promoted a book - has led to two similar jobs from
two separate authors.
As
I said, you never know what a contact will able to do for you.
Today's
Action Plan: Use Nettie's networking approach to
take your career to the next level. Here's how:
1. Identify
one, specific industry or field that you want to develop
a career in.
2. Draw
up a list of the 100 most powerful (not most popular) people
in that area.
3. Break
down your list into 10-person groups and rank them in order
of their importance.
4. Beginning
with the lowest-ranking group (which will be the easiest
to access), make contacts and set up interviews.
5. When
you conduct interviews, do them right. (For guidelines, see Automatic
Wealth for Grads, Chapter 4.)
6. Keep
a record of all names dropped by your interviewee and add
them to your original 100-person target list according to
rank.
7. Get
interviews with as many of the people that you placed in
your next-highest group as you can.
8. Use
those better names to go after people in increasingly higher-ranking
groups.
9. Repeat
until you have gotten at least three interviews at the very
top of your list.
10. Stay
in touch with all your new contacts by sending them mostly
prefabricated (slightly customized) personal notes every
month or two. When it comes time to ask for a favor, you
will now be in a position to write or phone at least a dozen
people who can open doors for you.
[Ed. Note: Learn
more about Nettie at NettieHartsock.com, and read her "Must Read Business Books" blog
at AllBusiness.com. Speaking of blogs ... check out Michael Masterson's new blog
at http://michaelmasterson.blogspot.com… ]
* Highly
Recommended *
You’re
Invited!
Listen
In On This One-Time Rebroadcast At No Charge
Last
week we hosted a teleseminar called "Condo Conversion
Investing: How To Ride This Profit Wave." Nobody
else is offering advice on this huge real estate opportunity
-- not the bookstores, not the late night "gurus". That’s
why I want to give you a second chance to listen in -- at No
Charge -- during a special one-time rebroadcast of the call
this Thursday.
The
truth is we’re on the ground-floor of demand for this
type of property, thanks to growing demographics of non-traditional
families and retiring baby boomers. And Dave Lindahl
is the only expert in the market offering guidance.
Dave,
also known as the "Apartment King," has more experience
with Condo Conversions than any other investor I know. During
his one-hour teleseminar, he shared the biggest mistakes most
beginning converts make, as well as his most important tips
for realizing maximum profits, from identifying the perfect
property to marketing that gets results.
It’s
simple to reserve your place, free of charge, but I routinely
get way more callers than my conference company has lines to
give me, so I suggest you
reserve your spot now, … before I'm
booked up:
See
you on the call.
Justin
Ford
Editor, Main Street Millionaire
How
to Use Testing for Breakthrough Marketing Results
By
Yanik Silver
It
costs the same amount of money to run an ad (or mail a sales
letter) that brings in two customers as one that drives in
2,000 customers. Testing that ad before you spend loads of
money running it will help you:
1. Save
money.
2. Improve
results.
3. Stop
guessing about what works.
I'd
say those are some pretty good reasons to do it. Here's what
I recommend:
Test
Small
Joe
Sugarman (who sold millions of Blu-blocker sunglasses) tested
all his ads in the Southwestern edition of The Wall
Street Journal - the smallest and, therefore, cheapest,
edition of the WSJ for advertisers. This was an inexpensive
and quick way for Joe to obtain and read results ... and then
decide whether or not to "roll out" a particular
ad to other editions.
So
how can you apply this idea to your business?.
Let's
say you've been running an ad in your local paper. Well, newspapers
usually have zoned editions based on zip codes. So instead
of paying for your ad to appear in the entire circulation,
you simply put it in one of the cheapest and most representative
zones available. And by tracking the response to that ad (using
a specific phone number, person, extension, etc.), you can
safely predict the results you'll get once you go out to the
entire circulation.
One
more point: It's better to run your test ad in a daily paper
instead of a monthly magazine. Why? Simply because you get
results more quickly.
Don't
Fall For Your Ad Rep's Traps
You
cannot multiply zero. That means if there is no life in your
ad, kill it before it drains more of your money and time.
Don't
listen to your media rep's arguments about repetition and getting
discounts for multiple insertions. Remember, these guys have
no clue about how to create advertising that works. If they
did, they'd be running ads in their own publications and making
tons of money.
Infomercial
marketers have a very good understanding of the concept of
testing. Imagine spending $100,000 to produce one single 30-minute
spot and then buying $400 to $1,000 worth of television time
to test it out. That's what they do. They know if the phones
aren't ringing after a couple of TV spots, they're still not
going to ring if they spend tens of thousands of dollars on
more TV time.
As
I said, testing takes the guesswork out of advertising. Just
keep testing until you come up with a winner ... and then keep
running it.
[Ed.
Note: Yanik Silver is recognized as a leading expert on creating
money-making websites. Yanik reveals one of the most profitable "hidden" Internet
income opportunities around in the Secrets
of Easy Internet Money... program. And
be sure to check out his website.]
Go
Ahead and Take That Extra Helping of Broccoli
By
Jon Herring
You
already know that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables will
benefit your health. And now a new study shows how big of a
difference those good foods can make.
The
study, published in the latest issue of the Journal of
Nutrition, reviewed the results of nine studies covering
a total of nearly 250,000 adults. The researchers found that
for every serving of a fruit or vegetable over a baseline of
three servings, the risk of heart disease mortality was reduced
by four percent. In other words, the more servings of fruits
and vegetables you eat each day, the lower your risk of heart
disease.
So
double up on fruits and veggies. Not only will they fill you
up without adding excess calories ... they could save your
life.
It's
Good to Know: Sala's Big Idea
By
Suzanne Richardson
As
a regular ETR reader, you know that one of the best ways to
get wealthy is to start a home-based, Internet-driven business.
And, as we've been telling you, you can create such a business
out of practically anything. And we mean anything.
Not
convinced? Take a look at this ...
Someone
named Sala, in Zurich, Switzerland, printed every number between
1 and 1,000 on a plain background ... and sells each "painting" for
a price equal to 1,000 minus the number. (Buyers also get a
discount based on how many numbers have been sold.)
Check
it out at OneThousandPaintings.com.
* Highly
Recommended *
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: Simulacrum
A "simulacrum" (sim-yuh-LAY-krum)
- from the same Latin root as "similar" and "simulate" -
is a superficial likeness.
Example
(as used by Louis Auchincloss in Woodrow
Wilson): "The Wilson who at last
recovered some of his health was a pale simulacrum of the man
he had been."
