Clean. Focused. Easy to digest.

Starting Monday, we’ll be sending you just ONE powerful, provocative, advice-packed success secret each day that can help you grow your business, boost your income, cut costs, enhance productivity, achieve your dreams, or otherwise improve your life.

We’re confident that you’ll get even more value from this “new” format: a single, useful idea every day that has the power to make you wealthier, healthier, or more successful.

The changes we have planned will help you enormously in the weeks and months to come. I can’t reveal all the exciting details right here, so be sure you read ETR this coming Monday for a special announcement from Michael Masterson.

Turns out ETR was not hiring at the time. Phew! I breathed a big sigh of relief.

Why was I so glad? Because I wouldn’t have to tell my neighbor that I couldn’t recommend her daughter. Although she’s sweet and friendly, Gwen has been known to show up late, call in sick so she could go to the beach, and otherwise act unprofessionally. In other words, she’s NOT the type of person we want on the ETR team. And I would never be an advocate for anyone who could embarrass my company.

I was reminded of this potentially awkward situation when I read Jason Holland’s recent article “When You Shouldn’t Give Friends a Helping Hand.” He noted that you should put your weight behind someone only if you can personally vouch for her.

It’s true. Your recommendation can go a long way toward influencing a hiring decision. And you don’t want to abuse that trust.

But this rule doesn’t end there. When you run a company, you may be approached by other businesses that would like to joint venture with you. Which means running their ads in your newsletter and promoting their products to your subscribers. If you can’t personally vouch for the product or service you’d be recommending, don’t do it.

ETR follows this rule to the letter. Jessica Kurrle, our marketing manager, reviews every product or service before we promote it to make sure it adheres to our standards. Among the primary qualifications? It must be good for our customers, and it must have a money-back guarantee. (If you’d like to read more about ETR’s outside advertiser policy, click here.)

It’s a good idea to have a similar policy in your own business. It will help establish you as a careful and discriminating businessperson. It will help maintain the trust you work so hard to build with your customers. And, heck, it will help you sleep at night.

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Take a look at the beginning of the original article:

How to Defeat a Sneaky Enemy of Good Writing

Strong writing can instruct, persuade, and inspire. Weak writing bores your reader into falling asleep or – worse – looking elsewhere. So you want to make your writing as powerful as possible.

One of the biggest enemies to fine writing? The verb “to be.” In all its tenses, this verb can leach the impact out of almost any sentence. It sometimes seems impossible to avoid, but you need to seek it out and destroy it with a vengeance.

Andrew said, “Drop the first paragraph. It’s strictly a warm-up act.”

The revised article gets to the point much more quickly:

How to Defeat a Sneaky Enemy of Good Writing

One of the biggest enemies to fine writing? The verb “to be.” In all its tenses, this verb can leach the impact out of almost any sentence. It sometimes seems impossible to avoid, but you need to seek it out and destroy it with a vengeance.

There’s nothing wrong with easing into your subject when you sit down to write an article, report, or business memo. In fact, I highly recommend doing the warm-up… in your first drafts. It can help you get started – which is often the hardest part of writing. Plus, it can build momentum so that, once you reach the “main act,” you are in top writing form.

But listen up: The warm-up is solely for you. Your readers shouldn’t see it.

As novelist Robert Heinlein said, “The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat.”

Cut the warm-up. Begin with the meat. Your readers will thank you for it.

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Your best weapon against “to be”? Stronger, more active verbs.

Take a look at this paragraph:

My husband and I were enjoying a warm, breezy stroll. The blue sky was strewn with wisps of white, the air was crisp and tinged with the perfume of magnolia trees in bloom, and the Seine was sparkling as it flowed under the Pont des Arts.

Yikes! “To be” verbs have crept in everywhere.

While not always easy, you can remedy this “to be” overkill by rephrasing a few lines and replacing the offending verbs with more evocative ones.

See how I fixed it here:

My husband and I strolled down the Rive Gauche, enjoying the April breeze on our faces. Above us stretched an endless blue sky strewn with wisps of white. The crisp air carried the perfume of magnolia trees in bloom, and the Seine sparkled as it flowed under the Pont des Arts.

When it comes to this tricky verb, ruthless editing can transform weak writing into powerful, descriptive prose.

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Sometimes, you’re going to screw up.

But don’t be too hard on yourself. Making mistakes – even downright failing – is a part of the learning process that you should welcome with open arms. Michael Masterson calls this the secret of accelerated failure. “If you tense up and focus on avoiding mistakes, you will learn very slowly,” he says. “If you relax, let the mistakes happen, and learn from them, you will advance quickly.”

Take ETR for example. We recently made changes to the look of our e-newsletter. Our goal: to make ETR easier for you and the rest of our 480,000 subscribers to receive and read.

The ETR team figured out what we thought we needed to do to make the newsletter more readable, more spam-proof, and less high-tech. We tested our ideas using many of the most popular Internet service providers and mail-reading programs… made a few changes… and tested again.

But instead of testing forever, we decided that the test period was over. We knew we were “Ready,” so we “Fired” by sending out an e-mail in the new format. When Murphy’s Law struck and we discovered that some e-mail providers made ETR less readable in the new format – the exact opposite of our intention – we immediately fixed it. And we’ve been continuing to fine-tune (”Aim”) the new format ever since.

If you want to make an improvement to your business, you need to make it happen fast. Every second you wait, you’re wasting precious dollars or losing potential customers. That’s why it’s so important to “Fire” quickly.

Yes, you need to do the appropriate research and testing to make sure you’re “Ready.” But then you need to stop angling for perfection and throw your project out into the real world. And THEN you can take the time to “Aim.”

[Ed. Note: How do you like ETR's new format? Let us know at AskETR@ETRFeedback.com.]

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The fact is, if you’re using multi-syllable words just because you can, your writing is going to suffer. But if you’re doing it for a reason… no one will accuse you of committing vocabulary abuse.

“Good writing,” says Michael Masterson, “should be exact. And powerful. And suggestive. And sometimes the simple one- or two-syllable words can’t do that. Sometimes the right word is ‘taciturn’ or ‘desultory’ or ‘recalcitrant.’”

The bottom line? Expand your vocabulary so you have a wide range of words to choose from. Learn how to choose your words carefully, so you use the ones that most accurately and clearly express what you want to say. And don’t be afraid of using big words when they do a better job than the little ones.

[Ed. Note: Statistics prove that people with bigger vocabularies earn more money. Not to mention that a broad vocabulary can help you read and speak better. With ETR's Words to the Wise vocabulary-building program, you can improve your mind as well as the way others perceive you. Pick up a copy of this powerful program, and you'll be sounding - and feeling - more intelligent in no time!]

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Amy expected Charlie to excuse her from the seminar. Instead, Charlie asked, “Have you heard that old allegory about the two lumberjacks?”

“Lumberjack A never takes time to sharpen his axe because he’s so busy chopping down trees. But Lumberjack B sharpens his axe every week, no matter what. Guess who cuts down more trees? Lumberjack B with his super-sharp axe.”

If you’re like most folks, you are constantly busy. There are a hundred things on your low-priority to-do list that you just never get to. So why would you take time you don’t have to go to seminars on marketing… or workshops about growing your e-mail subscriber list… or industry conferences?

Charlie’s allegory says it all: Taking time to “sharpen your axe” can actually save you time.

A time management seminar can help you learn how to be more efficient and get more done. A marketing seminar can help you reach more customers, faster, and improve your sales. An industry networking event can put you in contact with potential partners or employees who could take some of your work off your shoulders.

[Ed. Note: Think you don't have time to make it to ETR's 5 Days in July conference? Once there, you can put together a fully functioning business in 5 days. Which means more income for you. Which could mean cutting back at your current job and having more time to spend doing the things you enjoy with the people you love. Check out the details here]

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But wait! It does have a doorman. Seems friendly enough when you pull up in a cab. Offers to take your bag.

But if you dare to reject his offer to carry your bag into the lobby… he lets you get the door yourself.

Or perhaps you’ve been waited on by an ultra-helpful server at your favorite restaurant… But when she realizes you’re just in the mood for a salad (Read that as: Small bill = small tip), she’s suddenly nowhere to be found.

Some people make it all too clear that they’re only in it for the money.

Those people leave a bad taste in my mouth.

The NYC hotel I mentioned earlier? It was beautiful. And my room was comfortable. But what I remember most is the doorman who wouldn’t hold the door for me. Remembering that, I don’t want to stay there again. Nor would I recommend it to a friend.

On the flip side. My husband and I were apartment hunting a few weeks ago. One of the leasing agents we spoke to asked us where else we were looking. Then she went through our list of places with us, giving her opinions on each neighborhood. She was honest and thorough, and when we left she told us to call her if we had any questions at all – about the city, about anything – whether or not we ended up leasing through her.

We didn’t end up renting from her – the location wasn’t right and the apartment wasn’t exactly what we were looking for. But I won’t forget how friendly and helpful she was, and I will happily refer people to her.

I think it comes down to building relationships. Showing your client – or prospect – that you actually care about solving her problem or making her life better in some way.

If you do so, you won’t have to worry about getting business… or a nice fat tip. The money will come to you.

[Ed. Note: Providing top-notch customer service is just one aspect of running a successful Internet business. ETR's Internet Money Club Independent Learner Edition takes all the guesswork out of getting your business up and running. It doesn't just focus on one aspect of business building - it gives you the whole shebang. Get the details here.]

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You know what I’m talking about. Instead of writing simply and clearly, they would “bulk up” their sentences with complicated words.

Example: “In her book Meadowlands, Louise Gluck shifts seamlessly between the present day and the time of Odysseus, creating the sense that time as we know it doesn’t exist” becomes “In her quixotic volume of verses Meadowlands, Louise Gluck interleaves the contemporary era and the Odyssean epoch, which constitutes a continuum of consciousness unoccupied by ordinary chronologies.”

Whew. What a mouthful.

And it’s not just college students who commit vocabulary abuse.

As Stephen King says in On Writing “One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones.”

You can write well – as well as Hemingway or Steinbeck – without using “fancy” words with obscure meanings and multiple syllables.

Instead, stick to using the words that best convey what you’re trying to say – whether they have three letters or 25.

[Ed. Note: Statistics prove that people with broader vocabularies - people who always know the right word to use - earn more money. With ETR's Words to the Wise vocabulary-building program, you can improve your mind as well as the way others perceive you. Pick up a copy of this powerful program, and you'll be sounding - and feeling - more intelligent in no time!]

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They’ve been calling me at least once a week for the past three months. Every time they do (at least, on the occasions when I pick up), I say the same thing: “Please don’t call me during work hours. I’ll be happy to consider this offer, but I’d rather see it in writing. Can you e-mail me the details?”

I like Verizon. And the offer they want me to accept sounds like a good one. But, aside from the fact that they keep calling me when I’m working, I have a big problem with what they’re doing: They want me to agree to a change in my sales plan over the phone. That doesn’t fly with me. I’d rather get an e-mail or a letter containing all the details, so I know exactly what I’m agreeing to.

Listen, I’m not criticizing Verizon for using the phone to make sales. This is a perfectly good marketing channel that can be an effective way to get people to buy.

But it’s not good for me. And I bet it’s not good for a lot of Verizon’s customers. Instead of relying solely on the phone to make sales, they should be reaching out to me using multiple channels. E-mail. Direct mail. Even text messaging.

This applies to you, too. If you’re trying to attract new customers by using just one marketing channel, you’re probably missing out on a ton of sales. Instead, reach out to them using several different channels. That way, they can respond to you via the method that’s easiest and most convenient for them.

[Ed. Note: Not sure exactly how to reach your prospective customers? Pick up a copy of the Amazon.com bestseller Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions for Your Business by MaryEllen Tribby and Michael Masterson. In it, you'll find comprehensive guidelines for using 12 proven and effective marketing channels to attract new customers. Get all the details here.]

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