Second-guessers — bosses who delegate authority and then take some of it back — are a very odious sort. Most management books advise you to confront them.
In some cases, that may be necessary. But in most cases I’ve witnessed, second-guessing is a response to a real problem. So before you accost your bossy boss and set him straight, make sure his worries are groundless.
When delegating tasks to your team, it’s important to be clear about the goal you want to achieve.
Many managers are specific about the steps to take but vague on intent. This is a mistake.
Just because you’ve achieved good results by following a certain procedure, don’t assume that everybody who works for you must approach projects your way.
Important phone calls are stressful. And when you’re under stress, you’re not as clearheaded as you should be. The result is often an incomplete conversation. (”Damn! I should have said this.” Or, “Why didn’t I remember to ask that?”)
As a development manager for a real-estate project I consult with, SB takes direction from three people: a profit-center manager, a project manager, and me. Most of the time, our advice and recommendations work together. Sometimes, however, we disagree. And when we do, it throws SB into a frenzy.
SB complains about getting mixed messages… being confused… being overworked. At the same time, he does a very good job on the work he understands. The people who work directly for him are happy with his leadership. And the results are almost always excellent.
SB’s mistake is in not understanding who he really works for: his customers. Every dollar the business earns comes from them. Their money funds his paychecks, the paychecks of his bosses, and the paychecks of the people who work under him.
By focusing on what is best for his customers, he can reduce the amount of confusion and conflict he experiences by having three supervisors.
Are you in a similar situation? Are you getting conflicting advice from the people you work for? You can usually determine the right thing to do by understanding what would be best for your customers. (Which decision will improve the service they get? Which one will make their buying experience easier, faster, and more rewarding?)
It’s tempting to give a promising employee more freedom than he can realistically handle. It may seem like a good way to boost his self-esteem. But if you do and he screws up, whose fault is it? Yours.
So, yes, praise your employees for good work and goals met. But also praise mistakes that were “smart” tries.
Not always easy to do.
The trick is to define the employee’s limits beforehand. That way, you are much less likely to face disappointment. And if and when you do, you will feel as if the failure was your responsibility as much as anyone else’s. If you feel that way, it will be easy to say, “Nice try.”
(more…)
When a customer says “no” to your sales pitch, ask him why. (more…)
When you are going to be interviewed for a job, try to be the last one they see.
Studies show, and my experience confirms, that the people who do best in multiple interviews are those who are first or last. And that’s regardless of how good they actually are. (more…)
When writing or reviewing long marketing copy, you’ve got to get to the point where you find yourself thinking, “Yes! This is good! This is really, really good!”
I call it the Eureka Moment. (more…)
If you want to increase profits, trim low-profit-margin items from your product line.
They are probably eating up limited and valuable resources that could be better used elsewhere. (more…)
ETR reader Kendra Pearsall is eager to find a mentor and/or business partner. But she works at home, alone. “How do I find someone to work with?” she asks.
Kendra, there are plenty of ways to do it. The most important thing to know is this: Don’t look for a “forever” business partner like you would look for a spouse. Look, instead, for people you can partner with for specific projects — people who have expertise in areas where you are weak. (more…)
The starting point of great success has always been the same. It is to dream big dreams. There is nothing more important than to begin by fantasizing about what you can become, have, and do.
But there are obstacles along the way to achieving those dreams. (more…)
Take any financial planning book in a bookstore and you’ll see the same advice. If you want to accumulate enough money to retire someday, begin by budgeting.
By listing expenses and limiting spending, they argue, you can have enough left over every month to save and grow rich. (more…)
If you’re old enough, you may recall a song that contains the lyric, “So it’s the meantime, meantime / All they gave me is that in-between time.” (more…)
Consumers aren’t looking for brand-new products. They are looking for clever new adaptations of products they already know and love.
What does this mean to you as an entrepreneur? (more…)
If you want people to do as you wish, don’t tell them, sell them.
This is a simple rule that applies to almost any situation. I not only use it in my advertising copy, I use it to persuade my: (more…)
A man looks at his youth and says, “I wish I knew then what I know now.”
That’s what “Eric,” a pot dealer who spent four years in jail, said to me after he had become a multimillionaire.
Eric was talking about what he had learned about direct marketing. I gave him a job after he got out of jail. He was bright and hardworking and honest. (Honesty is an essential quality for a pot dealer.) And so I taught him what I knew.
It took Eric 10 years to accumulate a fortune dealing drugs. And all that money disappeared to lawyers and the government when he got busted. It took him only two years to become an expert at marketing. Two years later, he had his own multimillion-dollar business. He would have been much, much richer if he had learned what he learned from me earlier on.
This is not an essay about legal vs. illegal businesses. My purpose is to point out how valuable it is to have someone help you, like I helped Eric.
It can take a decade or more to become the successful person you want to be. But (more…)
Here’s one company that knows the best person to sell shoes to is… someone who just bought shoes.
About two months ago, I bought a pair of Doc Martens on sale at Zappos.com. They’ve got an extremely shopper-friendly website – and good prices too.
Last week, I received this e-mail:
“Just wanted to let you know, we’ve got just one pair of your shoes remaining in stock. After that, we’ll never have these again.”
I ordered them that minute.
It goes back to Michael Masterson’s concept of the “Buying Frenzy,” which he explained in his book Ready, Fire, Aim:
“If you want to maximize the lifetime value of your new customer, you shouldn’t let him cool off after that first sale. Instead, you should send him an immediate thank-you note, along with a bounce-back promotion that replicates the psychological trappings of the prior purchase and stimulates in him, once again, the desire to buy something from you.”
“This is not about high-pressure selling… but about putting the customer in an environment where he can do what he wants to do: Buy once and then keep buying!”
[Ed. Note: Learn more about Michael Masterson's concept of the "Buying Frenzy" in his bestselling book Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat - plus, get dozens of powerful techniques for taking your business to the next level. Get your copy right here.]
In some ways, I’m a very reliable person. I’m very loyal. And I’m very committed to my work. But in most other things, such as returning phone calls and e-mails in a timely manner, showing up for appointments on time, and meeting deadlines, I’m not so good. I make up for my deficiency by apologizing profusely and then giving more than I promised in the first place.
That said, I’m the first to admit that having a reputation for reliability is an extremely valuable asset. So here’s what I’m doing about it…
If you, too, have reliability “issues,” I suggest you do the same.
[Ed. Note: Reliability is just one of the traits that make a successful businessperson. For more tips on communicating with colleagues effectively, projecting power in the workplace, and persuading others to follow your lead, check out Michael Masterson's book Power and Persuasion.]
Whenever you do an Internet search, you’re dropping clues about yourself that you might prefer to keep private. After all, it’s nobody’s business if you want to find out what it would cost to buy a particular make/model of car… check treatment options for a health condition… or get information on just about anything that concerns you.
But as you probably know (or suspect), all the major search engines have the ability to compile, store, and cross-link that kind of data. And though they don’t make the data public, there’s no assurance it will never be accessed.
Case in point: In 2006, the U.S. Justice Department subpoenaed the search data of Google, AOL, MSN, and Yahoo to help defend a pornography law. Google managed to resist, but the others buckled under pressure and turned over their records.
When the story hit the news, it raised public awareness of what Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, has called “a ticking privacy time bomb.” And it triggered a surge of interest in ways to protect anonymity online.
One of the most popular solutions has been TrackMeNot, a privacy shield that’s been downloaded more than half a million times since that infamous Justice Department case. It works by generating a stream of random queries, making it impossible to “profile” searchers based on their search history. Your “actual Web searches, lost in a cloud of false leads, are essentially hidden in plain view.”
Interesting, right?
And guess what? As a subscriber to ETR, you’ve got your own built-in TrackMeNot.
Let me explain…
As ETR’s senior editor, I do a lot of fact checking – which means I do lots of Internet searches as part of my job. But beyond that, in every issue of ETR, I find references to all kinds of things that that I want to know more about. And I bet you do too.
I’m not talking about the main ideas covered by the articles. You get everything you need to know about them right there in the issue. I’m talking about intriguing little mentions of people… places… books… historic events. That kind of thing.
Just in the last few weeks, for instance, something you read in ETR might have inspired you to look up such offbeat subjects as Sammy Davis Jr.’s book Why Me?… the difference between right brain and left brain thinking… “dark matter”… old bodybuilding ads… discount ad networks… what people with head injuries have in common with Alzheimer’s patients… the history of toothbrushes… and Nicaraguan cigars.
Can’t get more diverse than that.
Anyone looking to profile us based on our search history hasn’t got a chance.
By the way, I’m curious. What kinds of things has ETR inspired you to learn more about? Let me – and your fellow ETR readers – know right here.
He had been strongly recommended for the job. And so, when I got on the phone with him, I was expecting a sharp, take-charge guy. Instead, I got this:
“I’ve been involved in strategically important roles with communications companies for 25 years. Throughout, I’ve focused on my core competencies, building brand recognition and interfaces with key personnel.”
To which I responded: “Huh?”
He went on…
“It’s been a personal paradigm of mine that quality control and dynamic leadership are essentials in today’s globalized business environment, and that’s what I feel I can bring to any company I work for.”
I had already made an initial assessment: This guy was a fraud. But to give him a chance to redeem himself, I tried to keep the conversation going.
“So,” I said, “what, exactly, have you been doing all these years?”
I could almost hear him thinking, “What kind of dummy am I dealing with?” But this is what he said:
“Bringing in a bottom line and achieving optimal results have always been goals that resonated with me.”
“That’s enough,” I thought. “I can’t take any more.”
“I’m sorry to do this,” I said. “But I have to jump off the phone now to handle an emergency. I enjoyed talking to you. I’ll be sure to look at your resume and get back to you if something comes up that meets your qualifications.”
And with that, I bid farewell to this young man and any chance he had of ever working for me.
In their book Why Business People Speak Like Idiots, authors Fugere, Hardaway, and Warshawsky say there are three reasons executives – and people applying for management positions – sometimes speak like this.
1. Their focus is on themselves, rather than on the person they’re speaking to. “When obscurity pollutes someone’s communications it’s often because the… goal is to impress and not to inform.”
2. They fear using concrete language, because saying exactly what they mean can make it hard to wiggle out of commitments. “Liability scares [some people], so they add endless phrases to qualify [their] views, acknowledging everything from prevailing weather conditions to the 12 reasons we can’t make a decision now.”
3. They want to elevate and even romanticize their thoughts and deeds, because they are afraid they aren’t impressive. They do so by using lofty language that disguises the mundane truth.
They are afraid to appear ordinary. Their solution is to attempt to bamboozle everyone they speak with – and particularly those with power.
This is a very bad strategy.
In a job interview, it makes the interviewee look pompous and vacuous – two traits any sensible employer wants to avoid.
When applying for a job, only two things really matter: what you know (your skill set) and who you are (your integrity). Pretending to know things you don’t is a waste of your time, because you will soon be found out. Getting tossed into the street after only a few weeks on the job is both embarrassing and an ugly blemish on your work history.
You can demonstrate your good character by being honest from the outset. Be candid about what you know and what you have done. But make it clear that you are confident you can quickly learn to do anything that is required of you.
In granting you an interview, your future employer is trying to find out if you can help him solve his problems and grow his business.
He isn’t looking to be impressed. He’s looking for someone who can make his life easier by doing a great job. Your job during the interview is to sell yourself as being that person.
And the first rule of successfully selling yourself is to make sure you’ve got the basics down pat:
[Ed. Note: One of the most valuable skills you can learn is how to persuade others to take action. Power and money decisively travel toward those who are persuasive. Master the art of advertising and promotion, and the world will beat a path to your door. You will not only have success convincing people to buy your products, but also your ideas, concepts, and beliefs. Early to Rise can help you become a bona fide expert at this skill. Simply read on here.
Get more of Michael's surefire strategies for getting ahead in business and in life in True Path to Profits: A Master Entrepreneur's Guide to Business Success. Find out more - including how you can get a bonus subscription to Michael's VIP newsletter, Ready Fire Aim - right here.]
Here is more proof, if any is needed, that proofreaders and copy editors don’t always catch every error. I found all the following examples recently in major national publications.
The word shackles refers to handcuffs or other sorts of fetters. Hackles are the feathers of a bird. Hence, the expression “to get one’s hackles up” means to be insulted or irritated.
The word presumptuous means taking liberties by assuming too much. It implies an attitude that’s bold or arrogant. The right word here is pretentious.
A rice patty is a culinary creation, but an irrigated or flooded field where rice is grown is a paddy.
This choice of words creates an image that the writer probably didn’t intend. Better: “… as one waits for the next meeting with one’s lover.”
When a new word, such as blog, enters the language, it can take a while to work out the right ways to use it. The phrase “keeping a blog,” which is probably modeled on “keeping a diary,” isn’t ideal. It implies doing something that’s private rather than public. Blogging is a form of communication, so the best word here is published, not kept.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
July 4th is the day for all Americans to celebrate their independence. But what does “independence day” – mean for you personally?
My father reminds me that July 3, 1976 was his “independence day,” since that’s the day my family came to the United States from Russia.
My independence day was on July 1, 1999. That’s the day I left my father’s business to work on my own.
It was one of the hardest decisions of my life. You see, I had worked for my dad since I was 12, and he thought I was eventually going to take over the company. I had that same thought – until I got the “entrepreneurial bug.” In fact, my wife Missy and I were talking about this recently. She remembered that when she met me 11 years ago, I had only one thought: “How can I grow my father’s business?” I stayed late, working on new ads and marketing pieces. I was in early, calling my accounts to try to make sales.
I had been studying direct marketing, and that was really paying off for my dad’s business. (Actually, his company still uses a lot of the ads I wrote in 1998 because they still work today.) But with every ad I wrote, I was getting more and more aggravated. Not because the ads weren’t producing sales. They were. But because everyone in the company seemed to be an advertising “expert” – even though they’d never studied or read anything on the subject.
For every ad I wrote, I had to fight to get it out there. I got sick of it, and decided to create my own product so I could write ads for myself.
My first product was designed for dermatologists – to help them get new patients for cosmetic procedures. It was a big kit – a manual, tapes, reports, diskettes, etc. – and I was selling it for $900.
I ran my first ad in April 1998 in Dermatologic Surgery magazine. I got 10 responses, and sent them the 20-page sales letter I’d written. Not one order.
I waited…
Sent out a follow-up letter to the 10 respondents.
Nothing…
Then I sent a third letter, reminding them that the deadline to get all the free bonuses was only 10 days away.
Finally, on the very last day, one order came over my fax machine. (And I still remember that doctor’s name.)
What an incredible feeling! It took me a little over a year to finally quit my “day job” – but with that first sale, I realized I had the power to chart my own course. I think it has to do with the confidence you get when you know you’ve created something that people want and are willing to exchange money for.
The first sale is usually the hardest – but also the most rewarding. And I love it when I can help turn on that light in other people.
So when will your independence day be?
When that day comes, I bet you’ll never forget it. No matter how bleak things looked up to that point, you’ll look back and realize that your “impossible” situation was simply opportunity staring you in the face.
Take my good friend, Jim Edwards. His independence day came about because he got fired. I remember the conversation we had right after it happened. We were throwing around some ideas that he might be able to pursue now that he was “free” – and we came up with “33 Days to Online Profits.” Right then and there, we outlined each of the 33 days, and moved forward from there. “33 Days” has been a tremendous six-figure income earner for both of us since the beginning, and it’s still going strong.
What can you do to achieve your independence?
Let’s start with this: What are you doing with your spare time?
It all comes down to the choices you make.
You shouldn’t let a single day go by without making sure you are taking at least one proactive step toward your own independence.
Being able to do what you want when you want may seem very far away right now. But don’t let that stop you from taking baby steps each and every day.
What else?
Learn to be different. The truth is, you need to become extraordinary if you expect to achieve extraordinary results. That means doing things others don’t (or won’t) do. It also means NOT listening to advice – unless it’s coming from someone who’s already successful at what you want to do.
I think you’ll find that only 5 percent of the people you run into are truly successful. Which means that if you simply do the opposite of what the other 95 percent are doing, you should be okay. In other words, don’t adopt a herd mentality. Think for yourself.
Please don’t get me wrong. I am not telling you to be elitist. But it is tremendously important to go through life with your eyes wide open. The truth is, most of your friends (right now) probably don’t want you to succeed. That would imply that they are losers. That would mean that they are failures.
Nobody is going to propel you to success except yourself. So get on it today… and prepare to proclaim your own independence day.
[Ed. Note: Serial entrepreneur Yanik Silver believes you can make more, have more fun, and give more back! Find out how with his Maverick Business Insider Introductory Package right here.
Now's your chance to proclaim your independence day and start building a lifetime free of financial worries. It's not too late to get expert guidance for your own moneymaking Internet business. With ETR's hands-on instruction, you could have your business up and running by July 18. But hurry - time is running out to join this exclusive event. Act by 7:00 p.m. Eastern this Friday and get a special hotel discount. Get all the details here.]
Exercising on your own can be fun and cost-effective. But there’s nothing like having a personal trainer to help you design workouts, motivate you to work harder, and help you stay on track. Of course, personal training can be really expensive – anywhere from $40 to $150 an hour or more.
If you can’t afford personal training, join a group class instead. You’ll still get one-on-one attention. Plus, belonging to a group of people with similar fitness goals can help you find that all-important social support to help you work harder. As fitness expert Craig Ballantyne says, “The worst thing you can do when trying to lose weight is ‘go it alone.’ Support can help you eat better and exercise more.”
I recommend that you attend a group training session two to three times a week. Then do maintenance exercises – like short-burst cardio – for at least 10 minutes on the days that you don’t have a class.
[Ed. Note: Regular exercise is one aspect of getting fit. But you also need to eat right. For dozens of nutritional recommendations, plus healthful recipes, sign up for ETR's free natural health newsletter.
Yarixa Ferrao is the certified personal trainer and founder of "Get Fit in 6" who has been whipping some Early to Rise staffers into shape. You can now discover all of Coach Yari's secrets to leading a healthy life at her Retreat in Delray Beach this July 10-12. Get the details here.]
When “Winston” asked me to help him promote one of his products, I agreed to mention it in my e-mail newsletter. I told him that all he needed to do was give me a coded link for his landing page.
If you’re at all involved in marketing on the Internet, you know that this is very basic stuff. By providing me with a link that includes a tracking code, Winston would know when a purchase was the result of the promotion in my newsletter. That’s how my profit share would be calculated.
Among Internet marketers, this is like telling an ice cream truck driver that he needs a freezer to keep the ice cream frozen.
Unfortunately, Winston didn’t know what I meant. He brought in his “IT” guy, who didn’t know what I was talking about either.
Eventually, after I gave them several examples of coded links and explained the process in half a dozen e-mails, they got it.
At that point, I was sorry I’d gotten involved. I kept my word and gave Winston’s product a mention – however, I politely passed on any future collaboration.
When you’re dealing with a larger and more experienced company/businessperson, you must make it easy for them to work with you. And a huge part of that is knowing what you’re doing. You don’t have to be an expert by any means, but educating yourself on the basics is key.
If Winston had been prepared, he would’ve given some thought to my needs as a marketer and e-zine publisher. Naturally, I would want to know how he was going to track sales to calculate my percentage of the profits. Other ways he could have impressed me and made me more inclined to do future business with him would have been to show me statistics on how his product has sold to other competing lists and/or sales copy that he has tested and proved to be successful.
If you’re asking for help to advance your career or business, make sure you’re ready if the answer is “yes.” Because you may not get a second chance.
[Ed. Note: Paul Lawrence is a successful entrepreneur and publisher who has started over a dozen profitable enterprises. To get more practical small-business tips, check out his "Street Smart" program.
Ready to jump-start your marketing knowledge? Check out Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions for Your Business, Michael Masterson and ETR Publisher and CEO MaryEllen Tribby's bestselling book.]
Most entrepreneurs I know are proud of their “multitasking” ability. But maybe they shouldn’t be.
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?
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:
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.]
When you define a goal and ready yourself to commit to the time and energy it will take to achieve it… remember to consider how your efforts are going to be affecting the people in your life. And this isn’t a totally unselfish, “thinking of others” act. You’re going to need their encouragement and support.
So what can you do? How can you get friends, family, and colleagues to endorse and sign off on your goal?
1. Inform them.
Be open and candid with them about what you want to do.
2. Acknowledge them.
Encourage their support by acknowledging that you need them – that their cooperation will be helpful… even vital.
3. Explain what’s in it for them.
Tell them how they’ll be rewarded when you achieve your goal. If, for example, your goal is to get a side business started, explain to your spouse and kids how that second stream of income will give you the ability to update the family car or provide them with more options for the next family vacation.
4. Appreciate them.
Be respectful of what is going on in their lives. Offer assurances that their routines are important to you, and that your intention is to minimize any interference in the achievement of their goals.
[Ed. Note: In the next 11 minutes, you could be well on your way to making an extra $100K, $500K, or even $1 million by this time next year. Get specific advice from Bob "Mentor to Billionaires" Cox about how to change your life and increase your wealth. Find out more here.]
Back when my wife Blanca began her first business – a housecleaning service – she was skeptical about including a photo of herself in her ads. So I told her I’d prove it would make her money.
I took a photo of her holding a broom. Then I created two advertisements. One had the picture and the other didn’t. Both versions worked, but the one with the picture outperformed the other by far. It had a 3 percent response rate compared to 1.5 percent for the one without the picture.
Think of it this way. Let’s say you’re selling a $100 product and you make 50 sales with your regular ad every time you run it. If you add your picture to the ad, you could end up doubling your sales – and putting an extra $5,000 in your pocket!
For small businesses, including a photo of the owner (or someone else connected to the company) almost always increases response. If you’re not doing it, I strongly suggest you run a test. It could greatly increase your profits.
[Ed. Note: Paul Lawrence is a successful entrepreneur and business author who has started over a dozen profitable enterprises for under $100. For more information on his Cheapskate Marketing Program, click right here.]
Top salespeople ask good questions and listen carefully to the answers. One of the most important listening skills they develop is to simply pause before replying. When the prospect finishes talking, rather than jumping in with the first thing they can think of, they take three to five seconds to quietly wait.
Pausing before you speak has three specific benefits.
• You avoid the risk of interrupting the prospect if he has just stopped to gather his thoughts.
• Your silence tells the prospect that you are giving careful consideration to what he has just said. This is a compliment, and makes him feel valuable.
• Pausing before replying means that you will actually hear and understand the prospect better because you’ve given his words a little time to soak into your mind. You will be more alert to how his words can connect with other things you know about him in relation to your product or service.
When you pause, not only do you become a more thoughtful person, you convey this to the customer. By extension, you become a more valuable person to do business with.
[Ed. Note: In his audio program, Communicate With Power , Brian Tracy, master salesman and business coach, will show you how to influence people and get what you want by using only words.
And what better way to hone your communication and sales techniques than by setting up your own Internet business? The Internet Money Club Independent Learner Edition gives you the complete, start-from-scratch guide to finding financial independence online. Get all the details now]
When you buy advertising space in a newspaper/magazine or on TV/radio, the salesperson will almost always encourage you to buy a “package.” His argument will be that it’s going to take time for their readers/viewers/listeners to notice you.
In my experience, that is simply not true. If your ad is going to work, it should work the very first time you try it. It is possible that tweaking the ad copy, offer, etc. will improve your response rate. However, simply repeating the same ad for the purpose of making readers/viewers/listeners aware of you rarely achieves a better result.
Unless you have an advertising budget like Coca-Cola’s and can afford to spend your advertising dollars without seeing a direct ROI (return on investment), you should spend money only on space advertising that returns a profit.
So buy space for one ad. If it does well, then you can consider running additional ads.
[Ed. Note: Paul Lawrence is an entrepreneur and business author who's started over a dozen profitable enterprises with under $100 in capital. For more information on his Cheapskate Marketing Program, click here.
For 12 marketing methods that can help you reach your prospective customers exactly at the moment they want to buy, pick up a copy of the Amazon.com bestseller Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions for Your Business.]
The traditional resume is all about you, not what you can do for the company. That’s why we encourage Early to Risers to send out “sales letters” instead, highlighting how you can increase profits, improve customer service, etc.
But some companies are stuck in the “resume rut” and require job candidates to provide one. In that case, our recommendation is to use your “sales letter” as a cover letter – and make sure your enclosed resume is not cluttered with junk like this:
1. Your photo. It has become trendy to include a photo in a resume – but it’s unprofessional. The HR department isn’t casting you in a movie.
2. Descriptions of your “traits.” Nobody cares if you are “a team player” or a “hard worker.” That’s assumed. Use the limited space you have in a resume for experience and measurable accomplishments.
3. Your ability to use Word and other basic programs. That, too, is assumed. And, unless you are applying for the typing pool, nobody cares how fast you can type.
4. A third – or even second – page. If you’re fairly new to the workforce, one page is enough. (You can leave off your college job at the Burger Hut.) If you have considerable experience, two pages is okay.
(Source: U.S. News and World Report)