According to LL, a young colleague of mine who’s recently become a real-estate broker, you should hit the prospect with “is its?”

“You want to sell the house, don’t you?”

“Well, yes.”

“And you plan to list it with a broker, right?”

“Well, I suppose so.”

“You appear to be hesitant. Is it because I’m a woman?”

“Oh, no. Of course not.”

“Is it because I’m too young?”

“No.”

And so on, until there are no more “is its?”

“It really works,” LL says.

LL didn’t say so, but I’d guess you would not want to offer an “is it?” that really could be “it.” For example, you wouldn’t want to say, “Is it because I’ve never sold a house this big before and I couldn’t possibly know anybody rich enough to buy it?” Ask a question like that, and you might be stumped by a “Yes, that’s exactly it.”

That qualification stated, the “is it?” technique makes a good deal of sense when you are dealing with irrational objections.

“A good swipe file is better than a college education,” says my old direct-marketing “professor,” master copywriter Milt Pierce.

The swipe file provides inspiration and ideas that you may be able to use in your own promotions. With a swipe file, you can overcome writer’s block and write copy better and faster.

Lots of copywriters keep swipe files of promotions in their industry. Milt, however, always preferred using promotions for products other than the ones he was writing about. If, for example, a client who was selling insurance asked him to create a direct-mail package, he would look in his swipe file for ideas — but not in the section where he filed insurance packages.

Why?

The reason is simple. “If you create an insurance package that looks like every other insurance package, you’re just being a copycat,” says Milt. “However, if you check through other types of packages, you’re likely to come up with an original approach.”

A good example is a recent ad I saw for a Stauer watch.

The ad shows a photo of the watch. The headline above it reads:

“We Apologize That It Loses 1 Second Every 20 Million Years.”

The style and approach seem to be inspired by David Ogilvy’s famous Rolls-Royce ad. The headline for that ad was:

“At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.”

If the Stauer ad were for a car, it would seem derivative. But by adapting Ogilvy’s fact-based approach to a watch, the copywriter created something new.

It’s an approach not typically used for watches… so it supports Milt’s claim that applying ideas used in one industry to another can have interesting and effective results.

One interesting footnote to the story…

David Ogilvy has been accused of stealing his Rolls-Royce headline from another copywriter. I have also heard that he found the fact about the Rolls-Royce clock in an automotive trade journal. Others now say he took it from an ad for another car: the Pierce-Arrow. And the Pierce-Arrow headline, published years before Ogilvy’s Rolls ad, is remarkably similar:

“The only sound one can hear in the new Pierce-Arrows is the ticking of the electric clock.”

Today that ad is forgotten — but Ogilvy’s is one of the classics.

The best results I’ve seen from using swipe files have come from the cross-pollination of ideas between industries.

For instance, I was looking for ideas to sell trading software.

I started with my file of options trading promotions. Nothing. So I flipped through my other swipe files. In my health swipe file, I came across a promotion for a vision supplement.

The headline: “Why bilberry and lutein don’t work.”

I knocked off the headline — and tripled my client’s previous response rate.

My headline: “Why most trading software doesn’t work… and never will.”

A non-profit organization sent a free paperback book to potential donors. The “book” was actually a promotion written to solicit donations, and it did gangbusters.

A major financial publisher copied the format (now known as a “bookalog”) to sell an investment newsletter. Their book, titled “The Plague of the Black Debt,” was one of the most successful promotions of all time.

When you swipe from another industry instead of your own, you steer clear of copycatting charges — and you are credited as brilliantly original when your ad works.

P.S. Using a swipe file is just one of the “tricks of the trade” I teach in the Internet Cash Generator program. It’s a top-to-bottom guide to starting and growing your own part-time-work / full-time-income Internet business. Find out more about here.

[Ed. Note: Bob Bly is a freelance copywriter and the author of more than 70 books. To subscribe to his free e-zine, The Direct Response Letter, and claim your free gift worth $116, click here now: www.bly.com/reports.]

———————————————Highly Recommended ——————————————–

A Few Hundred Bucks a Week – Everybody wants to make millions online. But would you settle for $200 to $400 a week? You set up your business once. Then it’s fully automated. You look in your bank account, and the money is there. That’s a car payment… your rent or mortgage… whatever you want, taken care of. Read on to find out more…

Hand a sales letter to a dozen people, and you’ll see what I mean. Some of them — the inveterate readers — will read the headline and every page of the copy.

The rest — the scanners — will quickly flip through, reading only the heads and subheads.

Before the invention of sidebars, we rarely gave scanners much that would draw their eyes into our sales letters. But sidebars turned scanners into readers. And because only readers respond to an offer, they dramatically increased our chances of making the sale.

My point — and I do have one — is…

Great sidebars turn scanners into readers — AND responders.

Notice I said “great sidebars.” Unfortunately, a lot of the sidebars I see are not great. They look like what they are: afterthoughts. Or, worse, “leftovers” from an earlier draft.

Instead of sleepwalking through your sidebars, try writing your running copy first. Then read each paragraph, thinking, “What kind of sidebar could I use to drive this point home in the most powerful manner possible?”

Do that and, suddenly, every sidebar becomes more focused. So does your entire sales message.

Then, after you’ve written a sidebar, ask yourself, “How can I make sure this is not a dead end? What can I do to help this sidebar drive the reader back into the copy? Or, better yet, to my order device?”

Most of the promotions I see would probably pull 10 percent to 30 percent better if the writer had followed this advice.

20 Kinds of Sidebars and How to Use Them

That said, let’s take a look at the kinds of sidebars that give you the best chances of turning scanners into readers…

Readership Sidebars are designed to sell the prospect on reading your text. They generally fall into one of three categories…

• Tables of contents: A listing of the valuable information revealed inside the promotion enlists the prospect’s self-interest.

• Pull-quotes: These boxes put an intriguing proposition… or a compelling benefit… up in lights. I often include a photo of the ersatz author of the piece for added attention-getting power.

• Teasers and page-turners: Inserted at the bottom of a right-hand page, these little gems “sell” the reader on turning the page by hinting at the valuable information on the next spread.

Biography Sidebars are really a kind of a “credibility device.” They’re used to eliminate any doubt that the titular author of the piece knows what he’s talking about. They attempt to lift your expert — and, therefore, your sales message — head and shoulders above the competition. They often take the form of a…

• Curriculum vitae: A true biography of the expert — his education, accomplishments, awards, books, and so on.

• Case history: A narrative of an experience the expert has had that demonstrates his wisdom, experience, and/or prestige in his industry.

Proof Element Sidebars are used to present facts, figures, and other evidence that prove the truth of statements made in your text. I use them in three ways…

• To document the enormity of the problem or opportunity: When I’m trying to evoke concern over heart disease, for example, I might include a chart showing how many Americans will suffer a heart attack this year.

In a financial package, I might use this kind of sidebar to document a claim that 80 percent of all mutual funds don’t keep up with the S&P 500. Or I might use a table listing the advisor’s most profitable trades. Or maybe a line chart showing soaring global demand for oil and plummeting supplies.

• To demonstrate the wisdom of the expert’s approach: This kind of sidebar might be a chart or graph comparing the profits the expert has earned to another indicator — the S&P 500, for example. Or, it might compare the blood pressure of people who take a particular supplement with those who don’t.

Benefit Sidebars are really just like ads within your ad. Each one draws out one of the compelling benefits the product offers. More important, each one is presented in a way that connects with the prospect’s feelings about:

• Avoiding or resolving a problem: With this approach, I typically put my prospect’s negative feelings about the subject at hand into words… validate how he feels… and empathize with him. Then I show him how my product will resolve those feelings.

• Easing a fear: “Fear relief” sidebars appear around the middle of my sales message — after I’ve done everything I can to bring every concern or frustration my prospect has about the subject at hand bubbling to the surface. Once I’ve done that, I use these sidebars to show him how my product will free him from those negative emotions.

• Fulfilling a strong, long-held personal desire: If my main theme is a positive one — focused on one or more benefits that will bring tremendous value to my prospect’s life — I use these “fulfillment” sidebars to prove that my product will, indeed, deliver.

Credibility Sidebars are invaluable tools for convincing your prospect that your expert’s view (no matter how radical) is valued by other experts, and that your product will produce the promised benefit.

• Customer testimonials: These can take the form of straight testimonials or narrative testimonials. They can appear singly to add impact to a spread or be clumped together. I like to do both.

• Expert testimonials: Praise from peers and other experts whose names are known — or whose titles are impressive and/or connect them with respected institutions — establish the authority and credibility of your expert.

• Media mentions and appearances: These demonstrate that your expert is important enough to have been noticed, quoted, or invited to appear on major media outlets. At best, they’ll say something about him that reads like an endorsement. But the simple fact that he regularly appears on CNBC or “Nightline” or is quoted in The Wall Street Journal makes him worth listening to.

Sales-Closing Sidebars generally appear in the final third of the sales message. They are designed to remove the final roadblocks between the prospect and your response device. I use seven of these kinds of sidebars in just about every promotion I write…

• Pull-quotes: To allow the author to look the prospect in the eye and deliver a compelling benefit or horrifying alternative and ask for the sale.

• Premium ads: To ramp up the perceived value of the free gifts the prospect will receive. Usually, these ads are a series of bullets on the most valuable information in each premium.

• Product ads: To fully lay out the value the product will bring to the prospect’s life. These are typically written in much the same way as a premium ad.

• Value sidebars: To demonstrate how mind-blowingly cheap the product is relative to other things the prospect buys. These sidebars are designed to make not ordering feel like the dumbest thing he could possibly do.

• Risk relief sidebars: “Risk relief” is just a fancy-schmancy way of saying “guarantee.” But I make my guarantees go beyond simply saying, “If you hate it, I’ll refund your money.” I use my guarantees to reiterate the benefits I’m promising… to have my expert sign a contract with the prospect, promising that he’ll deliver… and to demonstrate his “money-where-his-mouth-is” confidence that the product will perform as advertised.

• Contact devices: Actually, these should appear on every spread and contain a toll-free number the prospect can call to order. I also like to break them out in sidebars to drive my prospect to my response device or to his telephone.

• Action devices: Often imbedded in other sidebars, they urge the prospect to order now — either by calling a toll-free number or turning to the order form.

Lots to think about!

Now, here’s your assignment: Grab a pile of promotions and plop down on the sofa. Look at each sidebar and ask yourself, “Why did the writer include this? What kind of sidebar is it? What does it accomplish? Does it focus his main theme or serve to diffuse it?”

More important, read the running copy and ask yourself, “What other kinds of proof element, credibility, and other sidebars could have done a better job of making the sale?”

By the time you’re done, you’ll be twice the copywriter or marketer you are now.

[Ed. Note: Ready for more tips from the master? At ETR's Info-Marketing Bootcamp, Clayton Makepeace joined a dozen other experts in Internet marketing, social media, and business building. If you couldn't make it to see their presentations in person, you can still benefit from the secrets they revealed from the stage. We recorded every single minute of Bootcamp on video. And those recordings are available for order now.]

——————————————–Highly Recommended ——————————————–

The Greatest Dirty Little Secret of the Internet

To make money as an entrepreneur, you’ve got to constantly scour the earth for high-quality, in-demand products.

You could create new ones. But that can be expensive. Time-consuming. And after all the work… you might wind up with nothing.

But a few of the Internet’s top marketers have found a way around this problem. They don’t spend time (or money) on products that may or may not sell. Instead, they pluck moneymakers from a reserve of pre-made products and sales promotions.

A martial arts expert from Florida has turned this strategy into a small fortune. He estimates that one “pre-made product” made over $20,000 in one month… Another has gone on to pull in over $332,250.

Discover how he found these moneymakers… And learn how you could use this secret to make anywhere from a few hundred bucks a month to a few hundred thousand bucks a year right here.

Unfortunately and probably not uncommon in Hollywood, he bailed.

Nevertheless, I was sure my idea to find a partner with industry “mojo” was sound. So I advertised on a website for the entertainment business. Sure enough, I got a response from someone who owns a large comedy talent agency. He has many relationships with television networks and folks in the business. Our interests were a good fit. So I have a new partner. He has the connections to make my event bigger and better. And, most important, more profitable.

If you need a partner for a specific industry, a trade publication or website can be a great place to find them.

There are trade publications and websites for almost every industry and niche. Many of them offer some form of classified advertising. In my case, the posting was free. But if there is a charge, it will usually be minimal.

[Ed. Note: Paul Lawrence is the publisher of the “Street Smart Business” program. It’s packed with dozens and dozens of ideas to help the small businessperson succeed. For more info click right here.

———————————————–Highly Recommended ——————————————–

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These powerful computers allow the giant brokerages to process trades in a fraction of a second. It’s called “High Frequency Trading.” And it’s responsible for about 70 percent of the action on Wall Street.

That stinks. It means that those big brokerages see the market before you do. And that allows them to get better gains than the average investor acting alone. (Studies show individual investors do much worse, over the long run, than institutional traders.)

It’s not right.

There is a way to correct this imbalance. IDE’s Steve McDonald, Editor of The Bond Trader, offers the following advice:

1. Avoid the hot stock or trend of the week. With High Frequency Trading, it can turn against you in a nano-second.

2. Avoid day-trading as much as possible. With so many trades now occurring behind your back, it has become dangerous to play the price movement guessing game.

3. Stick with the investing strategy the entire IDE staff has been advocating since day one: a long-term time horizon, high-quality dividend stocks, and quality bonds at a discount. (For specific recommendations, start reading our flagship newsletter, Sound Profits.)

My answer: “Nine pages.”

I admit that this is an unsatisfactory answer. It pretty much kills her attempt at conversation. It’s worse, though, if she asks the question in front of a new acquaintance. Then the answer sounds very close to: “I sat around all day in my recliner, crumpled up pieces of paper into balls and shot them at the wastebasket, took a nap with the dog… Oh, and I managed to type a pitiful, pathetic-sounding nine pages.”

It sounds like that because it was that.

“Good grief,” the new acquaintance thinks, “the poor thing is unemployed.”

I watched the classic Hitchcock movie “North by Northwest” the other night. Halfway through the climactic chase and fight-to-the-death scene played out on Mt. Rushmore, Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint are clinging by their fingers to the rocks, dodging gunfire, when she asks him why his two wives divorced him. He, an ad man by trade and only an accidental spy, drolly replies, “They found me and my life too dull and boring.”

Dull and boring. Sounds like me and my life. Unless you are the one birthing those nine pages, I think it’s impossible to find the doing of it interesting.

Writing is one of those things that’s interesting only to the writer. That’s why there are lots of TV shows about firemen, cops, trial lawyers, even people sitting around in a coffee shop and talking about going on dates with firemen and lawyers. But there are hardly any shows about writers. Yes, “The Dick Van Dyke Show” was sort of about comedy writers. And in “Newhart,” in addition to being an innkeeper, Bob’s character wrote how-to books. But at the end of the day, the fireman, the tree trimmer, the bartender, and the cab driver have stories to tell about what happened during their day. The writer has nine pages.

The other night on CNBC, they had a show on start-up entrepreneurs. They spent a full 15 minutes at a cupcake shop. They showed the making of the batter, the elaborate, artistic icing, the packing and wrapping of the boxes. They showed customers coming in, the little bell above the door dingling, and the ooh-ing and aah-ing over the cupcakes.

Imagine them coming and filming me producing my nine pages. I don’t think so. Even my dog is uninterested. She comes down now and then, confirms that I’m at my desk, steals a crumpled ball of paper to chew on, and leaves. Watching squirrels in the yard is much more interesting than watching me write. I don’t blame her. I prefer watching the squirrels too.

But…

Last month, eight pages of marketing copy I wrote brought in about $300,000 for a client, making me a nice 3 percent royalty of $9,000 on top of my original fee. How many cupcakes do you have to sell, do you suppose, to put $300,000 in the cash register? Or even $9,000?

Of course, the rewards of my profession are just as private as the work itself. You can take people to see your cupcake shop. You can’t take them on a tour of your royalty checks.

Believe it or not, this really bothers a lot of copywriters — the inability of anybody but themselves and, to some degree, their clients to appreciate what they do.

Professional speaking (something else I’ve done for 30 years) is quite different. You get immediate, direct feedback from your audience — laughter, applause, a standing ovation, requests for your autographs, and a stampede to the back of the room to buy your book or program or whatever else you’re selling.

Speakers get picked up at airports in limousines. Copywriters do not. Basically, copywriting is about nothing but the writing. There’s nothing else to it. So you’d damn well better derive great satisfaction from the doing and the done.

An artist or photographer will have his work framed and hung. No one’s going to frame your neon green postcard with the 700 words of immortal copy you wrote about the revolution in vacuum cleaner technology. Certainly not your spouse. When you write a book, there is, ultimately, a book. And that will find its way to a shelf at Barnes & Noble. Not your sales letter. Writing copy is almost always a personal, private, unheralded, uncelebrated thing.

I actually prefer the solitary confinement and anonymity that is mine as a copywriter. That preference fosters productivity. (Usually, to be serious, I put out more than nine pages in a day.) But a lot of people who move to this from a normal workplace feel separation anxiety. They long for socialization, human contact, busyness around them. For this reason, some can be found trying to write at a little table in Starbucks.

Most copywriters I’ve known, though, are content to withdraw from society for days or weeks on end. For us, the nine pages is enough. We are not “people who need people.” That can be disconcerting to others — but, mostly, we won’t notice.

[Ed. Note: Dan Kennedy shared his million-dollar insights with American Writers & Artists Inc. members at the 2009 FastTrack to Success Copywriting Bootcamp and Job Fair.

If you couldn't make it, you're in luck. They recorded every word of Dan's presentations (and those of all the other expert presenters), and included them in this year's AWAI Bootcamp Home-Study program. And for a limited time, AWAI is offering ETR readers a special 50% savings! You can read about it here.]

———————————————-Highly Recommended ———————————————

“But I’m not a writer” - As an Internet entrepreneur, you have to learn to recognize effective sales copy — if not write it yourself.

Why? Because mediocre copy brings in mediocre response rates. And mediocre response rates can shrink your business to the point of bankruptcy over time.

You can learn how to write or recognize great copy very quickly by having master copywriters John Forde and ETR’s own Charlie Byrne as your teachers? Read more…

But often your customers, although ebullient about your product or service, aren’t able to express their enthusiasm very well in writing. So what do you do?

“Give them a little help,” says Clayton Makepeace, one of our featured speakers at Bootcamp yesterday. When they send in a ho-hum testimonial, give them a call or shoot them an e-mail. Ask them questions that will elicit specific, powerful statements worth quoting:

1. What was life like before you tried our product/service? (How bad was their breath? How bad was their financial situation? How little hair did they have?)

2. What stopped you from buying our product/service before, when you first heard of it? (Was it too expensive? Did your spouse say, “No way”?)

3. What was the ordering process like? (Was it easy to buy? How could it be improved?)

4. What’s your life like now? (You don’t just want to know the direct results of using your product/service. You want to know how it changed their life for the better.)

Ask these simple questions and you’ll get great testimonials. An added bonus: The personal contact will strengthen your bond with your best customers.

“Food for thought.”

“I love ETR and your new format.

“The short articles by Michael Masterson and some of his ‘half-baked’ ideas are wonderful, especially that he is somewhat of a contrarian to a few popular beliefs. He actually thinks about this stuff, investigates what’s going on, and writes about it. I’ll bet there’s quite a few folks out there, besides me, that agree with his comments.

“I don’t agree with everything he says in his articles, but they are still food for thought… alternative ideas, provoking, and worth reading.

Thank you sooo much for the inspiration. I’ve heard many wonderful comments, and not so long and drawn out as mine. But I want to put my two cents worth in, so here it is.

“I am grateful for everything you do. It means a lot to me… and is helping to build my confidence… in myself.”

Patricia del Valle

————————————-Highly Recommended ——————————————

90% of the Billionaires Living in America Weren’t Born Rich – They became rich because they had the “Billionaire Mindset.” This is the observation of Bob Cox. He’s a gifted success mentor. And he had the rare privilege of working with four of the richest men in the world. If you want to learn how billionaires really think just listen to Bob…

Though it’s not a traditional sales process or marketing campaign, direct-response marketing is at its heart. And it leverages the best parts of the Web — what Clayton calls the Internet’s “5 Golden Advantages”:

1. The emotional connection you can forge with your prospects and customers by telling compelling stories and providing valuable advice and information. (Online, you do it through e-mail newsletters, videos, blogs, and more.)

2. The power of your online community. People love to hang out with others like themselves. So you give them a place to hang out (where you can engage them with valuable content and sales messages). It could be a website, social network, blog, or e-newsletter.

3. The ability to contact your prospects and customers via e-mail as much as you want, whenever you want. There are no postage costs — and delivery is instant.

4. The capability to make limited-time-only offers and show your prospects how close the deadline is getting by using a countdown clock. (Visible deadlines trigger massive buying action.)

5. The capacity to react instantly to what’s going on right now, whether it’s in your business or industry or the national news. This “newsiness,” said Clayton in his Bootcamp presentation yesterday, “intensifies prospects’ engagement.”

The Online Profit Multiplier

Many Internet marketers go about building a customer base the wrong way, said Clayton. They send out the same “buy something” message every day. This turns off new prospects, people who just signed up to receive e-mails from them — and they opt out.

That’s where his strategy — the Online Profit Multiplier — comes in.

The Online Profit Multiplier begins with engagement — with an e-mailed customer-centric conversation. (What can we do for you? What do you need? What frustrates you? We’re here to help.)

This goes on for a week to 10 days, said Clayton.

Then there is an invitation to an event. (I know what you need. And I’ve got it. You talked, we listened. We’re going to host an event on such and such a date. Registration is free — but you must sign up by the deadline.) This goes on for five days.

The event itself could be presented in several different formats: a teleseminar (audio only), a PowerPoint-driven webinar, or a video webcast. And the content could be structured as “eavesdropping” on a private conversation, as news, as an expose, as a town meeting, or as a Q&A session.

You can’t skimp on quality with your event, or everything you’ve done up to this point — and everything you do after — will have been for nothing. And it must be live, a one-time-only event, said Clayton. Because that:

• Puts a limit on how many can attend.

• Requires your prospects to act before a certain date.

• Requires your prospects to make a commitment.

By the time the event rolls around, half a month has gone by. And in that time, you haven’t send out any sales messages to your new prospects. You look like somebody trying to help them. And you are — because you’ve been delivering valuable info. Your prospects are thinking, “This guy is great,” said Clayton.

Meanwhile, by keeping them engaged, you’re also priming them to take action.

Now it’s time to make the sale — starting with an e-mail sent immediately after the event. And with follow-up e-mails for the next several weeks.

Clayton calls the Online Profit Multiplier the most powerful strategy he’s used in his 37-year marketing career to generate sales. It can:

1. Attract more qualified prospects.
2. Transform more prospects into paying customers.
3. Help get your customers to buy more often.
4. Convince your customers to make ever-larger purchases.
5. Persuade your customers to stick with you longer.

In fact, said Clayton, the level of response you can expect with the Online Profit Multiplier has been unheard of in the marketing industry.

And although the results he reported from his biggest client were from a file with 500,000 names, the exact same techniques can be used no matter what the size of your e-mail subscriber list is.

If you have no list? Identify other sites and publications in your niche. And offer them a percentage of sales in return for access to their subscriber names.

[Ed. Note: As Clayton noted in his Bootcamp presentation, some people could take this information and run with it. But with 17 hours of video instruction from Clayton himself -- plus a ton of details on planning your marketing campaign, writing powerful copy, and more -- the above really is just a brief outline of what the Online Profit Multiplier program can offer. Check it out here.]

——————————————-Highly Recommended —————————————

What MBA Students Have That You Don’t (Until Now…)

An unconventional course has appeared on the curriculum at Columbia University’s prestigious business school… at London Business School… and at the Haas Business School at the University of California at Berkeley. Says student Brandon Peele, “I attribute 80% of my $120K MBA price tag to this one class. It changed my life in profound ways. ” Now you can get all the life-changing benefits of this program… From your home… For less than a thousandth of the tuition.

Right?

Wrong, says Brian Edmondson, Director of the Internet Money Club and featured speaker yesterday morning at ETR’s Info-Marketing Bootcamp.

Yes, bringing traffic to your website is key. But if this “pull” type of marketing is all you do, here’s the problem:

• Most people will never find your site.
• If they do, they’ll leave within seconds.
• If they don’t leave within seconds, they won’t buy.
• Once they leave, they’ll never come back.
• That traffic costs you time, money, energy, and effort.
• You’ll be lucky if 1 to 2 percent convert to sales.

If you want a truly successful online business, generating traffic is key. But what you do with that traffic is just as important.

You must take advantage of your website traffic. And that means building your list of e-mail subscribers. How does it work? You bring visitors to your site and sign them up, says Brian, capturing their names and e-mail addresses. Then you use direct marketing to follow up with them.

Eventually, you build a relationship with these potential customers. And that relationship leads to sales, sometimes multiple sales.

—————————————-Highly Recommended ——————————————

This Miracle Substance Protects against Diabetes… Stops Heart Disease Before it Starts… And Kills Cancer Cells on Contact

So, Why Haven’t You Heard About It?

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 at least part of the year. And believe it or not, but the medical profession and health authorities actually advise people to avoid the single greatest source for this vital substance.

Click here to learn why you probably haven’t heard about this revolutionary discovery.

What’s Old Is New Again

You have a hit info product. But what do you do now? How do you capitalize on the interest you’ve generated?

You know the product works — so sell it to the same customers again says Scott Martineau, founder of ConsciousOne.com and a featured speaker at ETR’s Info-Marketing Bootcamp yesterday afternoon.

It’s a strategy that brought ConsciousOne 52,000 customers, 300,000 e-mail subscribers, a line of 50 products, and $10 million in revenue.

The idea is to repurpose the content. In other words, you take material that was created in one format and convert it to a new format. You could, for example, take a book and turn into an audio course. Transcribe a teleconference and turn it into a special report. Record a live event and sell the DVDs as a home study course.

It works because some customers prefer to hear material, or watch it, instead of read it. Or they might prefer to access it online.

Repurposing is good for your customers — and it’s good for you, too. You don’t have to go to the trouble and expense to create new content. And your audience/market is already there.

It’s a quick way to build on the success of a bestseller product and expand your product line.

“Tell it like it is.”

“I just wanted to comment on Michael Masterson’s assessment of unemployment. While I agree with him — if a person really wanted a job, they could find one, even in today’s economy — there is one thing that I wish to add. If a person believes that he is ‘unworthy’ or ‘incapable’ for some reason, he will never find a job. Once you lose hope, it won’t matter how stunning your resume is or how many you send out.

“That is why I love ETR. It is always filled with positive thinking and great advice that I can put into action right now. It is a resource full of hope and insight that helps keep me from falling into the same pit of despair that my community and family have embraced.

“Thank you ETR for not being afraid to ‘tell it like it is.’”

Kathy Sullivan

——————————————Highly Recommended —————————————–

The Relaxation Technique that Eases Stress in Seconds

You’re stuck in a boring meeting… a long line at the bank… or bumper-to-bumper traffic… Your blood pressure is rising. Your stress is through the roof…

But with one unconventional (and often misunderstood) technique, your frustration, anxiety, and stress simply slip away. You’ll feel peaceful, in control, and happy within seconds. Any time. Anywhere.

Your 401(k) ain’t gonna do it. Neither is your day job.

The 200 aspiring Internet entrepreneurs at Bootcamp know. It was the subject of Michael Masterson’s keynote speech: The Special Theory of Automatic Wealth.

It all starts with the true nature of wealth.

“What is wealth?” asked Michael.

First, let’s consider what wealth is not. Wealth is not income. Even having a huge income is not wealth. Wealth is not a lifestyle with fancy cars and a huge house. Or investing in hot stocks. Anything rented, borrowed, or mortgaged – anything that can be taken away from you – is not wealth. Those are the trappings of wealth.

Wealth is stored, unencumbered value. That means retained income, savings, tangible investments, and financially-valuable and timeless skills. Anything with true value.

So how do you get this wealth?

Why is it that some people, no matter how privileged or how much income they have, are unable to really accumulate long-lasting wealth and others can?

It all boils down to the decisions you make.

Every conscious moment is an opportunity to become richer or poorer. Whether you’ll work on a project now… or later. Whether you’ll act on what you learn at a seminar… or get too busy and put it aside. Whether you’ll spend your “off” time gaining new skills… or watching game shows.

A person with a rich mind understands this concept. He is aware of these enriching opportunities. He can assess their value instantly. And he has the internal, emotional capacity to act on this information.

A person with a poor mind think the world is unfair. He believes in luck. He thinks there is a limited amount of wealth in the world – and he wants his cut. He feels powerless over his fate. He uses his energy criticizing, complaining, and condemning. This is someone who will never become wealthy.

Not all the decisions we make have to make us richer, said Michael. But when you make enough of these little decisions you start getting momentum. All these little decisions build and accumulate. Once you start making enriching decisions they will come easier and easier. And you will find more opportunities, accumulate more assets. Eventually, you’ll discover you’re very confident that you can build as much wealth as you want.

Here’s what it boils down to: Every situation is an opportunity. Every person you meet… every conversation… every book you read… every speech you  hear… every meal you eat… every spending decision… every chance you are given… every problem you face… is a chance to become richer or poorer.

And if you have a poor mind… or are just skeptical… or find it hard to “take action” all is not lost. You can change and develop your own rich mind in eight simple steps:

1. Forgive yourself for being imperfect

2. Educate yourself out of ignorance

3. Practice yourself out of incompetence.

4. Develop rich skills:

• Think well (have capacity to ask questions, gain an ability to trust your gut instinct)

• Speak well (speak from the heart and with enthusiasm, have purpose in your conversation, learn the art of persuasion)

• Write well (a combination of being persuasive and being able to identify great ideas)

5. Recognize opportunity in everything

6. Take action (start right away)

7. Take profits and save them (don’t spend more than you have. As your income increases, keep your spending reasonable. When you make money, pay yourself first – always put money in savings.)

8. Continue to learn. Be an avid learner, be interested in everything.

Michael continues to develop his Special Theory of Automatic Wealth. And you’ll see his thoughts in future issues of ETR. But this is the core idea – and what you can take away today:

Every conscious moment we all have the capacity to make these decisions. This gives all of us enormous potential power. You have this capacity if you just allow yourself to be aware of these opportunities, recognize their value, and take action.

As Michael said, “Right here, right now is your opportunity.”

————————————Highly Recommended ————————————-

Earn $10,000 a month in online revenues by May 2010

If you’ve ever tried building your own internet business from scratch… but always wound up quitting in frustration because you didn’t make any REAL progress…

… then today could mark a big turning point in your life.

That’s because I’m going to show you a REAL way to bring in as much as $10,000 a month in online revenues by May 2010…

… even if you’ve never made a single penny online before.

And the best part is, our elite team of internet marketing experts has already done ALL of the hard work for you.

All you need to do is “follow the lead” and you’ll be well on your way to big-time internet wealth.

Here’s how to get started…