Frustrating, no?

It’s even more frustrating if you’re an Internet marketer and your revenue relies on people opening your e-mails, reading your articles or sales letters, and taking the actions you recommend.

In most (if not all) cases, you’ll never have a 100 percent open rate – where every last one of your subscribers opens your e-mail. In fact, according to e-mail marketing company Campaign Monitor, “If you are getting an open rate between 20 percent and 40 percent, you are probably somewhere around average.”

The thing is, the more people who open your e-mails, the more chances you have to make sales.

Let’s say 5 percent of your subscribers open your e-mails. Of that 5 percent, 10 percent buy the product you’re offering. If you have 1,000 subscribers, that means you’ll make $500 for every $100 product you sell via e-mail.

Even if your conversion rate (the number of people who buy what you’re selling) remains the same, you can DOUBLE the number of sales you make if you can double the number of people who open your e-mails. Today, I’m going to give you two simple ways to make that happen.

Here’s the heart of the matter: Whenever you send an e-mail message to your subscriber list or to your friends or colleagues, they ask themselves these two critical questions before taking action:

1. WHO is this e-mail from?

2. WHAT is this e-mail about?

Test this yourself the next time you’re about to open the e-mail messages in your inbox. If you’re like most people I’ve surveyed, you ask yourself WHO? and WHAT? before grabbing your mouse, clicking, and reading each one.

The WHO? Question

Answering the WHO? question is easy, because it’s right there in the “from line.” I recommend that your from line never changes. Here’s what mine looks like:

~ Alex Mandossian ~

Specifically, I put a tilde symbol (”~”), then a space, then my first name, then another space, then my last name, then another space, then a second tilde.

That’s it.

Key Point: The reason I use the tilde in my from line is because it often puts my message at the top of my recipients’ list of new e-mails. Many e-mail programs sort alphabetically, and they give the tilde symbol an even higher alphabetical ranking than words starting with the letter “A” (like my name).

The WHAT? Question

Answering the WHAT? question is not so easy, because it depends on the way the “subject line” is written. Unlike your from line, it makes sense to constantly test your subject line copy until you find the winners.

I don’t make any claims with my subject line, because I feel the one and only job of that copy is to pique my recipients’ interest – so they open, read, and click the link in the body of the e-mail message.

The purpose of the from line is to motivate your recipients to read your subject line. The purpose of your subject line is to persuade your recipients to read the body copy of the e-mail.

It’s that simple.

What to Do Now

First, I want you to decide on what your from line will look like for all your e-mail communications. Once you make this decision, always keep your from line the same. Never change it.

I recommend using tildes or asterisks or dashes in your from line so you’ll get top alpha-numerical priority in your recipients’ inboxes. Here are a few examples:

* Jane Doe *

~ Jane Doe ~

- Jane Doe -

Second, I want you to become a student of effective subject line copy. So keep a file of subject lines that elicit your own curiosity. (Remember, that’s what you want your subject lines to do for your recipients.)

The subject lines that work best for me are brief (seven words or less). Here are some that have had good pulling power for me:

• This ONE is for you…
• Your presence is requested…
• Have you seen this?
• Will you say “YES” to this?
• This is about our appointment…
• It’s not your fault…
• Who’s to blame for this?

What about you? Have you ever written a winning subject line? If so, please share it here.

[Ed. Note: Alex Mandossian knows a thing or two about success. He has generated over $233 million in sales for his clients. And in the past three years, he increased his own revenues from $1.5 million to $5 million. You can get Alex's advice and practical marketing tips for info-publishers, small-business owners, and entrepreneurs for free at www.AlexMandossianToday.com.

Increasing your e-mail open rates is just one way to boost your revenues. Now you can get in-depth, cutting-edge marketing techniques and tips from ETR Publisher and CEO MaryEllen Tribby, the rainmaker who guided the Early to Rise team from $8 million to $26+ million in revenues in 15 months. Learn how to get your hands on all that multimillion-dollar advice, including play-by-plays of case studies... copywriting "cheat sheets"... media buying guides... and much more right here.]

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The term was originally applied to computers – to describe the way a CPU solves problems by scheduling tasks and switching back and forth from task to task until each one gets done. Well, that may be an efficient way for a computer to work, but it’s anything but efficient when it comes to your productivity.

Dave Crenshaw wrote my favorite book on the topic, and I recommend it to anyone who still thinks and feels that multitasking is cool. On page 29 in The Myth of Multitasking, he writes:

“Around the end of the twentieth century, some wordsmith saw the connection between our increasingly hectic world and the world of the computer. A catchword was born.

Newspapers began peppering their articles with the word. Talk show hosts began using it with frequency. Magazines began publishing articles about how to multitask more effectively.

Multitasking quickly became as popular and accepted as the automobile and the hamburger.”

Dave Crenshaw has a more accurate word to describe flipping back and forth between two (or more) activities. He calls it “switchtasking.”

Multitasking or switchtasking reduces your efficiency (your ability to do the right things) and your effectiveness (your ability to do things right) because it forces you to keep changing your mental focus. During the switchover time (less than a second, in most cases), your concentration diminishes and the number of mistakes you make dramatically increases.

In fact, many states (including California) have outlawed multitasking on the highway by making it illegal to speak on a handheld mobile phone while driving a car.

“A mere half second of time lost to task switching can mean the difference between life and death for a driver using a cellphone, because during the time that the car is not totally under control, it can travel far enough to crash into obstacles the driver might have otherwise avoided,” reported Dr. David Meyer from the University of Michigan.

Okay, so let me ask you a candid question. How many of the following common multitasking activities do you engage in?

• Writing e-mails while speaking on the telephone
• Checking voice mail while speaking to your spouse
• Reading the newspaper while listening to the news
• Watching TV while having a family conversation
• Tweeting while instant messaging while…

I’m guessing you’ve done “all of the above” at some point in your adult life. But my point isn’t to nag you about multitasking. It is to make you conscious of how destructive it can be.

It’s not only mentally stressful to splinter your attention (and make mistakes along the way), multitasking sets you up for failure… and the guilt of not completing everything you set out to do.

Stacking vs.Multitasking

Now if you do two things at once but can keep the majority of your attention on only ONE of those things, that’s a whole different animal. I call this stacking. Dave Crenshaw calls it background tasking. (You can call it whatever you wish.)

Stacking helps you get more done, faster and better. It is a productive use of your time because only ONE of the tasks you are doing requires mental effort.

Here are a few examples of what I’m talking about:

• Eating dinner while watching a video
• Jogging while listening to your iPod
• Driving while listening to the radio
• Writing an e-mail while printing out a document
• Munching on a snack while riding a bicycle
• Listening to the news while showering
• Reading a book while getting a haircut

Stacking doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you’ll become more effective (by doing the right things), but it can practically guarantee more efficiency (doing things right to get maximum results in minimum time).

Stacking & America’s Middle Class

Henry Ford didn’t invent the car, but he did figure out how to produce automobiles that were within the reach of the average American. And I believe he did this by preventing his workers from multitasking.

Prior to his introduction of the assembly line to the manufacturing process, cars were individually crafted by teams of skilled workmen. But instead of having one team work on one car, from start to finish, he created a stacking environment where the cars came to the workers – and each worker performed the same assembly task again and again.

The stacking power of the assembly line reduced the time it took to manufacture a car from 13 hours to less than six. That made it possible for Ford to offer the Model T for $825 when it made its debut in 1908. Four years later, the price dropped to $575. By 1914, Ford claimed a 48 percent share of the world’s automobile market.

What to Do Now

You can stop the insanity of multitasking right now by listing (right here) two or three multitasking activities you commonly engage in at work or at home.

Then, the next time you catch yourself multitasking, stop. Take a moment to think about what you’re doing, and quickly choose one of those tasks to focus on first. Complete that task before you switch to the other one.

I think you’ll find that this automatically makes you more efficient, more effective – and feeling a lot better about yourself for getting multiple jobs done right.

[Ed. Note: Alex Mandossian knows a thing or two about success. He has generated over $233 million in sales for his clients. And in the past three years, he increased his own revenues from $1.5 million to $5 million. You can get Alex's advice and practical marketing tips for info-publishers, small-business owners, and entrepreneurs for free at www.AlexMandossianToday.com.

Interested in making between $50,000 and $5 million - starting this year? Find out how to do so right here.]

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One of the most profitable teleseminars I’ve ever conducted took place on the evening of December 4, 2008. It was a “Preview Call” to help find buyers for my Teleseminar Secrets training series.

More than 255 prospective customers ended up making a $2,500 purchase. 

If you’re counting, that’s over $637,500.

How can you achieve results like these with your own teleseminars? (Or with practically any other form of promotional communication?)

One of the best sales-making techniques I’ve found is called the AIDA Formula. It’s been proven to work for over 100 years, and involves only four simple steps.

The four steps are simple to remember: First, you grab your prospect’s Attention (A) about your offer. Second, you elicit their Interest (I) about your offer. Third, you amplify their Desire (D) to purchase your offer. And fourth, you influence them to take Action(A) with their wallet.

Easy, right?

Unfortunately, many marketers don’t understand exactly how to implement this powerful technique.

I’ve observed dozens of veteran marketers make the mistake of moving too fast to the second half of the AIDA Formula – the Desire and Action part. And that often results in losing the sale (and the prospect) for life!

This mistake is easy to avoid. Here’s how…

Picture the AIDA process as an inverted triangle, like the one you see here:

As you can see, the inverted triangle has four sections. Each section (from the top down) becomes smaller, representing the percentage of prospects you’re likely to influence at that point in the AIDA process.

The section at the top (Attention) is the largest, because getting a prospect’s Attention is easier than eliciting his Interest to continue watching, listening, or reading more about your offer.

The second section (Interest) is larger than the third section (Desire), because it is easier to elicit a prospect’s Interest in your offer than to amplify his Desire to buy.

And the third section (Desire) is larger than the fourth and final section (Action), because it’s easier to amplify a Desire to buy than to influence Action.

A problem arises when the marketer makes the mistake of expecting one promotional communication - such as one e-mail message, one teleseminar, or one direct-mail letter – to do all the heavy lifting and capture the sale.

It IS possible to do that. A powerful sales letter, for instance, can grab a prospective customer’s attention and move him through the entire four parts of the triangle to take action. However, it can be easier to convert even your most skeptical prospects into buyers just by splitting the AIDA inverted triangle in two parts instead of four: Attention-Interest and Desire-Action.

Let’s use a teleseminar as our example. (But this technique works with practically any marketing medium.)

Teleseminars work wonders in grabbing Attention and eliciting Interest from prospects to learn more about your offer. But it takes a website to amplify their Desire and influence Action.

Remember the teleseminar I told you about earlier? I was able to get more than 255 people to make a $2,500 purchase. Yet, if you listen to the call, you’ll notice that its purpose was to simply grab Attention and elicit Interest from my listeners.

Where Desire and Action came in is when I referred the 1,600+ listeners to my website TeleseminarSecrets.com. It was at the website that most of the promotional heavy lifting was done. We included video testimonials, frequently asked questions, success stories, irresistible bonus gifts, and a solid money-back guarantee.

The people who visited my site after the teleseminar were already Interested in what I was offering. My site just amplified their Desire and got them to take Action – and become customers.

[Ed. Note: Alex Mandossian knows a thing or two about marketing. He has generated over $233 million in sales for his clients. And in the past three years, he increased his own revenues from $1.5 million to $5 million. You can get Alex's advice and practical marketing tips for info-publishers, small-business owners, and entrepreneurs for free at http://www.AlexMandossianToday.com

Interested in making between $50,000 and $5 million - starting this year? Find out how to do so right here.]

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What does the joy of devouring day-old pizza have to do with your success as an info-marketing entrepreneur?

Two things, actually…

1. Principle centered content never gets stale, it only gets better with age.

You can return to it again and again to see it with new eyes on YouTube, hear it with new ears on a teleseminar, or visualize it with a new mind when reading a blog post or an e-mail message like this one.

2. Deep diving into familiar content doesn’t breed contempt, it breeds more success!

Your one and only path to mastering anything is through the path of familiarity. 

If you are an info marketer, the only way your prospects can acknowledge you as a trusted advisor on a topic they are unfamiliar with… is to first acknowledge you as a trusted advisor on a topic they are familiar with.

That makes a lot of sense, right?

As the French novelist Marcel Proust once said: “The true voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.” (That quote will remain framed and hung up on my home-office wall as long as I’m breathing.)

I know you won’t yet find a definition for “content diving” in Wikipedia or any online dictionary. Yet I also know that when your readers, listeners,orviewers decide to dive deep into your info-marketing content, you have already arrived in their minds as their trusted advisor.

How can you use content diving to make yourself more successful? Visit www.EarlytoRise.com right now. See the box on the upper-right of the home page? It says “Search” next to an empty white field.

That’s the content diving tool I want you to utilize more often when you visit Early to Rise (and any other site or blog that can help you achieve success more quickly).

Put your fingers on your keyboard and type a few keyword phrases into that Search box (just like you do at Google) to discover the hidden treasure you’ve been missing.

I can practically guarantee that you’ll accelerate your learning on the topics you’re interested in a lot faster and better, and with less effort.

[Ed. Note: Make sure you apply your new content diving skills to marketing master Alex Mandossian's blog here. And let us know which websites offer you the best and most useful content right here.]

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Suddenly, that all-important topic of distractions came up. So I seized the opportunity to ask all five thought leaders the single most important entrepreneurial productivity question that I routinely ask my students, friends, colleagues, and even my mentors:

“What’s the number one distraction you inevitably face each day in your personal and professional life?”

All five gave the same answer – the same answer I hear from my students, my friends, my colleagues, and my mentors. 

E-mail!

Imagine that. The number one distraction faced by just about everyone today didn’t even exist for them a decade ago.

Most successful businesspeople have come up with ways to reduce the negative impact e-mail has on productivity. For example, Michael Masterson recommends checking e-mail once, maybe twice, a day. But no matter how efficiently they manage their inboxes, it’s surprising to me how many ultra-successful entrepreneurs experience feelings of guilt, shame, and even contempt for the number of e-mails that go unopened and unresponded to. 

Guilt? Shame? Contempt? Wow! How can an innocent form of communication originally designed for convenience create so much tension, stress, and worry for so many people? 

I have no idea how to answer that question, but I do have a simple three-step process to do something about it. 

Your 3-Step E-Mail Elimination Plan

If you have the courage to give this proven method a fair try, you can eliminate those unopened and undeleted e-mails (and the negative feelings attached to them) in less than 60 seconds.

I do this every month, and I encourage you to do it too. It will liberate you and free your mind so you can get it back where it belongs – on revenue generation.

Step 1:Categorize your e-mail messages in reverse chronological order (most recent at the top to the least recent at the bottom).

Step 2: Quickly scan all of your messages and make certain there aren’t any critical ones that you’ve opened but haven’t yet responded to. (You’ll take care of those as soon as you finish this 60-second elimination procedure.) Then highlight all e-mail messages – opened and unopened – that are over 72 hours (three days) old.

It’s as simple as breathing so far, right? Well, Step #3 isn’t as easy for most people

Step 3: After all those old e-mail messages are highlighted, take a 10-second deep breath… and then take five seconds to put your index finger on the DELETE key and press it down firmly.

Uh, yeah… that’s it.

MaryEllen Tribby does something similar. When she returns from vacation or a business trip, she deletes the hundreds of e-mails that have accumulated. (Before she leaves, she sets up an autoresponder message to let people know she’s away and ask them to re-send their e-mails if they still require her attention.)

Any e-mail that’s over three days old is a dinosaur by 2009 standards. People who e-mail you want responses and want them fast. If you can’t satisfy their need for urgency, delete their e-mails so you can remove the guilt, shame, or contempt they make you feel.

Look, if their message is really that important to them, they’ll e-mail you again, right?

As MaryEllen has found, most of them won’t. Urgent problems and “issues” somehow get taken care of. And for those few that still need your attention, you’ll get a second chance to do something about them within 72 hours… and you’ll do it stress-free!

I know this sounds a little harsh if you’re used to being responsive to everyone who e-mails you. But keep in mind that the more successful you become, the more e-mails you’re likely to get… and the less likely it will be that you’ll have time to respond to all of them. 

Bottom Line: This simple three-step method puts you in control of your time. And that’s what it is – YOUR TIME.

I even take it a step further. Not only do I do this 60-second cleansing every 30 days or so, I actually change my private e-mail address every year. 

Working from a “zero base” e-mail inbox means no leftover e-mails that cause me stress and worry. I typically read and respond, read and ignore, or read and delete.

Try it.

[Ed. Note: Alex Mandossian knows a thing or two about marketing. He has generated over $233 million in sales for his clients. And in the past three years, he increased his own revenues from $1.5 million to $5 million. You can get Alex's advice and practical marketing tips for info-publishers, small-business owners, and entrepreneurs for free at AlexMandossianToday.com.  

Permanently regain control of your time by following our step-by-step goal-setting system. It will help you de-stress your life and accomplish far more than you ever thought possible. Learn more here.]

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Your spouse says, “I heard about a new place the other day. Supposedly, it has handmade tortillas and chiles rellenos that are to die for. The only problem is, it’s about a 30-minute drive from here.”

You’re hungry right now. So your spouse offers another option: “There’s our old standby, Don’s Tex Mex. It’s right down the street. But, as you know, the food’s only average.”

You’re torn between your growling belly… and a desire for those handmade tortillas.

And then your spouse pipes up again, “I just remembered that restaurant we went to last month. Remember how good the salsa was? But… it’s about 45 minutes away.”

Suddenly, the 30-minute drive to the new place with the handmade tortillas doesn’t seem so bad.

It happens all the time – where the introduction of a third option suddenly makes one of your earlier options look better. It sounds irrational. And it is. But it’s such a common phenomenon, it even has a name. It’s called the “decoy effect.”

Marketers often take advantage of the decoy effect. Consider the following scenario…

You’re at the movies, and you’re thirsty. So you go to the concession counter to get a soda. The small size is $3.00. The large size is an outrageous $5.00. But then the person behind the counter points out that it is only 50 cents more than the medium size. Suddenly, the large size seems like a better deal.

That’s the decoy effect.

In his New York Times best-seller, Predictably Irrational - The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, Dan Ariely describes an interesting study he conducted with students at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. The study was based on a clever bit of “decoy-effect” pricing in an ad he found for a subscription to Economist magazine:

Offer A: Internet-only subscription for $59

Offer B: Print-only subscription for $125

Offer C: Print-and-Internet subscription for $125

“I read these offers one at a time,” writes Ariely. “The first offer seemed reasonable. The second option seemed a bit expensive, but still reasonable. But then I read the third option: a print and Internet subscription for $125. I read it twice before my eye ran back to the previous options.”

At this point, Ariely asked himself the same question you may have asked yourself when presented with a similar Good-Better-Best pricing model: “Who would want to choose the ‘Better’ option [print delivery only - Offer B] when both the ‘Good’ [Internet delivery only - Offer A] and ‘Better’ options could be purchased at the same $125 price [Offer C]?”

Good question.

In my own marketing experience, I’ve found that the decoy offer – Offer B in this Good-Better-Best pricing model – influences my prospects to have a strong bias toward Offer C (the “Best” option). 

When Ariely presented a group of 100 MIT students with the three subscription options from the Economist ad, the same thing happened. Though some selected Offer A, most went with Offer C. None of them selected Offer B, the decoy.

So he wondered what would happen if he removed Offer B. After all, since no one had selected it, it shouldn’t make any difference, right?

Not exactly…

When he presented another group of 100 MIT students with just two options – Offer A [Internet-only for $59] and Offer C [the Internet-print combo for $125], 68 of them chose Offer A and only 32 chose Offer C. Which makes the “decoy-removed” version of the ad far less profitable than the one the Economist actually ran.

I’ve split-tested the traditional “Good-Better-Best” model against the decoy model myself.  

In the traditional model, Good = $X, Better = $Y, Best [Good + Better] = $Z.

But over and over again, the winning model looked like this: Good = $X, Better = $Y, Best [Good + Better] = $Y.

How can you use the decoy effect to make your offers stronger, more appealing, and more profitable? Start testing today.

[Ed. Note: Alex Mandossian knows a thing or two about marketing. He has generated over $233 million in sales for his clients. And in the past three years, he increased his own revenues from $1.5 million to $5 million. You can get Alex's advice and practical marketing tips for info-publishers, small-business owners, and entrepreneurs for free at AlexMandossianToday.com.

There's no better time than now to start your own Internet business. And ETR can help. As a member of our elite Internet Money Club, you'll get a proven roadmap for building and growing a profitable business online. Are you ready to create a business that could potentially make $100,000 to $25 million a year? Space is limited, so find out now if you can still enroll in the "Class" of 2009.]

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The Magic Formula was first developed by Dale Carnegie – and in three basic steps, it’s everything you need to know to become an incredibly poised, polished, and masterful communicator.

Here’s the formula in its simplest form:

Step 1. Incident – Tell an engaging story that relates to the main point you want to make (i.e., the action you want your readers/listeners to take).

Step 2. Point/Action – Recommend (briefly and clearly) the one specific action you want them to take.

Step 3. Benefit – Explain exactly what benefits they will gain as a result of taking that action.

The formula is a time-tested tool that is guaranteed to dramatically improve the pulling power of all your marketing efforts as soon as you start to utilize it.

[Ed. Note: Marketing expert Alex Mandossian has generated over $233 million in sales and profits for his clients. You can get his advice and practical marketing tips for info-publishers, small-business owners, and entrepreneurs for free right here.

For 12 profit-acceleration secrets that can help increase your company's sales, check out the Amazon.com best-seller Changing the Channel by Michael Masterson and MaryEllen Tribby.]

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I encourage you to ask yourself (and your team) the same question. Ask it at the beginning of each day, and then sit back, relax, and watch what happens.

Magically, this powerful declaration almost instantly puts you (and your team members) into a market-centered mindset. It puts you in the marketing driver’s seat to capture more profits – faster, better, and easier.

In my own business, this question has helped me achieve accelerated growth month after month, without the stress and worry that accompanies marketing guesswork.

What can split-testing do for you?

Split-testing is the best way to find out which marketing efforts are working best… and which aren’t working at all. You merely choose an element you want to test – a headline, for instance – and test one version against another. Whichever version best helps you achieve your marketing goals – collecting names for your e-mail list, making sales, etc. – is the winner, the one you run with. (Of course, we are always testing new variables against the original winners.)

The more split-tests you do, the more chances you have to increase your profits.

Below are eight single-variable split-tests I’ve conducted during the past few years – and the results of each test. You should consider trying these split-tests for your own business. The results you get could accelerate your sales and profits for the rest of your professional life!

• Split-Test #1: Inbound Phone Order Script

“Call now. Operators are standing by…” (Loser)

“Call now. If the line is busy, keep calling…” (WINNER)

• Split-Test #2: Online Order Button Copy

“Add To Cart >>” (WINNER)

“Buy Now!” or “Order Now>>” (Losers)

• Split-Test #3: Free Shipping & Handling Pitch

“Free shipping and handling…” (Loser)

“We pay for your shipping and handling charges…” (WINNER)

• Split-Test #4: 2nd Product Free

“Get 2 for the price of 1…” (Loser)

“Buy 1 and your 2nd one is free…” (WINNER)

• Split-Test #5: Online Audio & Video Testimonials

Testimonials WITHOUT “Case Study” story (Loser)

Testimonials WITH “Case Study” story (WINNER)

• Split-Test #6: Auto-Responder Follow-Up E-Mails

7 daily e-mail reminders in 7 days (WINNER)

7 weekly e-mail reminders in 7 weeks (Loser)

• Split-Test #7: Special Existing Customer Offer

One-Time Buyer Sublist – sending the offer to subscribers who have made only one purchase from us (Loser)

Multi-Buyer Sublist – sending the offer to subscribers who have made at least two purchases from us (WINNER)

• Split-Test #8: “Good-Better-Best” Price Test

The traditional pricing method:

Good = $X, Better = $Y, Best (Good+Better) = $Z (Loser)

The decoy pricing method:

Good = $X, Better = $Y, Best (Good+Better) = $Y (WINNER)

Try some of the split-tests I revealed above. Or create your own single-variable tests. They will teach you a LOT about your marketing. And the results can ensure that you will maximize your marketing efforts and make the biggest possible profits.

Keep in mind that outside variables can significantly impact your split-test results. When I say “outside variables,” I’m talking about things like business-to-business lists vs. business-to-consumer lists… the time of year (not to mention the state of the economy!)… whether your sales package is conveyed through audio or video… and many others.

You can have the same offer, product, and price and your split-tests may differ when these outside variables come into play.

Remember This: For each split-test you do, your decisions should always be governed by your results.

If you decide not to put split-testing into your daily marketing ritual, here’s the typical downward spiral you can expect just before your business goes on life support…

No split-tests leads to no results. No results leads to no growth. No growth leads to no innovation. No innovation leads to no market relevance. No market relevance leads to no business.

Game over. Thanks for playing

“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,” said Desiderius Erasmus. No truer words have ever been spoken in the context of marketing today. Each of your split-tests gives you 20/20 vision with both eyes wide open.

What NOT to Split-Test: Split-testing, like any other important marketing activity, will cost you some time and money. Duh! So it doesn’t make sense to test whispers. In other words, split-test “screaming” variables. It’s not worth split-testing price points of $199.95 vs. $199.98, for example, or font formats of Garamond vs. Times Roman.

To paraphrase marketing legend Ted Nicholas, “The Holy Grail of direct marketing is the single-variable split-test.” By split-testing, you’ll never again have to chase down winning offers… winning offers will chase you down!

[Ed. Note: Alex Mandossian knows a thing or two about building profitable relationships with customers. He has generated over $233 million in sales for his clients. And in the past three years, he increased his own revenues from $1.5 million to $5 million. At ETR's 2008 Info-Marketing Bootcamp, Alex will reveal a strategy that could ensure you marketing success like no other method you have ever seen. Reserve your spot at Bootcamp today.

You can get Alex's advice and practical marketing tips for info-publishers, small-business owners, and entrepreneurs for free at AlexMandossianToday.com.]

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Let me show you what I mean…

The Window has four panes (quadrants) that divide your “personal awareness” characteristics into Open, Hidden, Blind, and Unknown. The lines dividing the four panes are like window shades that can move up and down or left and right as an interaction progresses.

The “Open” Quadrant (upper-left)

In the Open quadrant of the Window go things that both you and your customer/prospect know about you.

In an online marketing context, when a new prospect “opts in” to your list, the window shade in this quadrant is practically closed, since there has been little information exchanged between the two of you. But as you build rapport with that prospect by utilizing autoresponder sequences, blog posts, e-letter articles, teleseminars, and other marketing communications, the window shade starts opening and the Open quadrant gets bigger.

The “Blind” Quadrant (upper-right)

In the Blind quadrant go things that your prospect/customer knows about you (on a personal or professional level) that you are unaware of.

Let’s say you’re conducting a teleseminar and one of your callers hangs up in the middle because she has to pick up her kids from school. This information is in your Blind quadrant because she knows she’s hanging up the phone but you don’t.

If that same person calls you after the teleseminar and tells you she had to hang up before the call was over, the window shade in the Blind quadrant starts closing by moving to the right, which enlarges the Open quadrant.

The “Hidden” Quadrant (lower-left)

In the Hidden quadrant go things that you know about yourself or your marketing campaigns (in a business context) that your prospect/customer doesn’t know.

If, for example, you’ve intentionally withheld information about an upcoming marketing launch, this information is in the Hidden quadrant. But as soon as you inform your list about the details of that launch, you pull the window shade down, narrowing the Hidden quadrant and enlarging the Open quadrant.

Here’s the interesting part: As you get to know your prospects and customers better, it’s only natural for you to feel more comfortable about disclosing more intimate details about yourself, right? Well, in a Johari Window context, this process is called: “self-disclosure.” In a marketing context, I call it “transparency.”

Granted, it’s a little scary to be transparent with your prospects and customers the first time. But when you make a habit of it, you’ll discover that it’s the highest impact rapport “accelerator” of all marketing communication methods.

The “Unknown” Quadrant (lower-right)

In the Unknown quadrant are things that neither you nor your prospects/customers know about you or your business.

If you’ve ever done any public speaking, you know how much new information can be revealed to both you and your audience during the course of a typical Q&A session. An interactive situation like this almost always triggers personal growth.

In a Johari Window context, this process moves even more information into the Open quadrant, shrinking the Unknown quadrant. In a marketing context, interacting with your prospects/customers is a “win-win” situation.

So What’s Your Next Step?

Building rapport with your customers/prospects – expanding the Open quadrant of your relationship – is like the game of chess: It’s easy to learn the basics, but it takes a lifetime to master.

But understand this: Once you start communicating with your prospects/customers – especially when you muster up the courage to be increasingly transparent with them – you’ll find that the majority of those relationships will become long-lasting and profitable.

[Ed. Note: Alex Mandossian knows a thing or two about building profitable relationships with customers. He has generated over $233 million in sales for his clients. And in the past three years, he increased his own revenues from $1.5 million to $5 million. At ETR's 2008 Info-Marketing Bootcamp, Alex will reveal a strategy that could ensure you marketing success like no other method you have ever seen. Reserve your spot at Bootcamp today.

You can get Alex's advice and practical marketing tips for info-publishers, small-business owners, and entrepreneurs for free at alexmandossian.com.]

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This four-word sentence is indelibly etched in my mind. I also have it framed and hanging on the wall of my home office.

The marketing philosophy of choosing improvement over invention has generated millions of dollars for my info-publishing business, as well as those of my students.

Although the idea of becoming an "Improver" is not as sexy as being known as an "Inventor," it is improvement, not invention, that has generated billions for some of the most renowned people in history. Ironically, many of those folks have been inaccurately dubbed as "Inventors."

Here’s one example: Nikola Tesla invented the modern alternating current (AC) electric power system. Thomas Edison improved it. Tesla died broke. Edison died a millionaire.

Here’s another: Charles Haanel invented The Master Key System, the first self-help program for achievement and success. He died in obscurity, acknowledged by only a few loyal followers. Napoleon Hill improved Haanel’s system and commercialized it with his book Think and Grow Rich. And today Hill, not Haanel, is publicly acknowledged as the "father of personal development."

Here’s another example to drill my point deep…

The "assembly line" was invented long before Henry Ford walked through a meat-packing house in Chicago on one fateful afternoon. He observed that each butcher had a single, specialized task. This was nothing new to the meat-packing industry, but it was revolutionary and a brand-new innovation for automaking.

Henry Ford was NOT the Inventor of the assembly line. He was the Improver. Yet, it was this single improvement that gave Ford a definitive competitive advantage over his 2,000+ auto manufacturing rivals at the time. As a result, Henry Ford became one of the wealthiest human beings of his era.

What does improvement have to do with you?

If you’re an author, info-marketer (infopreneur), or the owner of a small business specializing in information products, the single most powerful "improvement" you can make to your bottom line is utilizing the power of "repurposing."

I didn’t coin the term, but I’m doing whatever it takes to make it common among my students and infopreneurs throughout the world.

Because you’ve read this far, my sense is you’re wondering how "improvement" can add a few zeros to your profit margins. If you’re nodding your head "yes" right now, then I encourage you to start repurposing your existing info products, rather than inventing new ones from a standing start.

A Primer on Repurposing

Repurposing means taking information you already have and repackaging it in different forms.

Let’s say you’ve written a book.

• You could offer a teleseminar that covers the main concepts in your favorite chapter. The teleseminar could be free to buyers of your book and cost $19 for everyone else.

• You could have a question and answer session during that teleseminar, and publish the Q&A in an e-book you sell for $29.95.

• You could record the teleseminar on CD, then sell the recording.

• You could transcribe the audio and sell transcripts.

• You could sell MP3 downloads of the teleseminar that people can listen to on their iPods.

• You could break the teleseminar transcript into small "chapters," and offer them as bonuses with your other products.

• You could package the transcripts and the CD in a three-ring binder and sell them together.

There’s almost no end to what you could do with your existing information. You do the hard work of writing the book… then you repurpose the material almost endlessly without a lot of extra effort.

And this is not only easy – it can mean monster profits. One teleseminar I gave ended up generating a whopping $13,081.50 in revenue for me.

With repurposing, you avoid the trouble and struggle of creating or "inventing" new info products from scratch. There’s nothing "sexy" about that.

All I’m encouraging you to do, then, is to simply repurpose what you already have (creating new "product species," as I call them), and automatically fatten your bottom line faster, better, and a lot easier.

End of story.

[Ed. Note: Repurposing your existing information products is only one way to make a killing on the Internet. With a few simple but powerful tools, you can catapult yourself to success almost immediately with an online business. Discover the only valid shortcut to online riches here.

Marketing expert Alex Mandossian has generated over $233 million in sales and profits for his clients. You can get his advice and practical marketing tips for info-publishers, small-business owners, and entrepreneurs for free right here. And to learn - step by step - how affiliate marketing with teleseminars has helped Alex make $25,000 an hour, go to www.TeleseminarSecretsProfile.com.]