Recent posts related to

Productivity

Recent posts related to

Productivity

The 7 Steps of a Failed Product Launch

By Mark Morgan Ford | 06/18/2009

These are the seven steps of a failed product launch:

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ADHD: The Cure Is in Plain Sight

By Melanie Segala | 06/17/2009

Well-meaning parents and teachers rely on psycho-stimulant drugs to deal with children who might otherwise be unmanageable. But perhaps the cause and the cure of ADHD can be found at the dinner table and in the school cafeteria.

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What’s In a Name?

By John Forde | 06/17/2009

Personalized mailings were all the rage in direct marketing… back in 1975. They continue to be a staple today, online as well as off, based on the idea that no sound is sweeter than that of your own name. Given my one or two experiences with hand-shaking, name-abusing car salesman over the years, I beg to differ. (”John, what can we do to get you behind the wheel of this beauty today… John?”)

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How to Eliminate the Word FAIL From Your Vocabulary

By Paul Smithson | 06/17/2009

Do you ever wonder why some people succeed at almost every challenge they take on, while others never seem to be able to get out of the starting blocks? There are four major reasons why people FAIL – and they very neatly spell out the word itself.

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The Fatal Flaw in “Winning” Deals

By Julie Broad | 06/17/2009

Years ago, I spent several months backpacking around Guatemala. As my Spanish improved, I enjoyed going to markets to bargain for Mayan souvenirs or fresh fruit. My goal was to pay the same price as a local. I was having fun playing this little game until my new Australian friend witnessed me in action, bargaining for a beautiful hammock. As I was walking away because the vendor wouldn’t lower her price a little more, my friend said, “You realize that you are getting all worked up over what is about 10 cents. At home, you would pay 50 times that much for a hammock like that, so this is a great deal.”

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It All Starts With Traffic

By Howie Jacobson | 06/16/2009

If you’re getting 20 leads a week now from AdWords, it’s hard to imagine what 200 leads a week would look like. From your current perspective, it would probably look just like 20, except 10 times more. But when volume and velocity and quality of traffic increase, lots of things change. Big time.

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The Simplicity Imperative

By Mark Morgan Ford | 06/16/2009

Much of what you read in ETR is directed at helping you earn more money and achieve financial independence. But what many people mistake for wealth is pure junk: the oversized plasma TV, the 2010 Ferrari, the custom-built estate home.

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Wonder Cure or Marketing Noose?

By Ellison, M.Sc. | 06/15/2009

It’s finally here – the wonder cure that Americans have been waiting for. It’s called acai. Whether you are a member of The Fat Cow Hall of Fame, being ravaged by high blood sugar, or being overcome with cancer, you’re being told that acai is your key to optimal health and longevity. If you believe this, the Oprah and Dr. Oz marketing noose is already around your neck.

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Is Your Copy a Welcome Interruption?

By Clayton Makepeace | 06/15/2009

When we marketers and copywriters approach a prospect with a direct-mail piece, an e-mail blast, a print ad – or any other kind of sales promotion, for that matter – we are interrupting his life. The simple act of putting sales copy before a prospect brings him to a fork in his road – forcing him to make a decision to either (1) read or (2) not read our message. And every time his eye moves from one sentence to the next… from one paragraph to the next… or from one page to the next… he reaches yet another fork in the road – and gets to decide whether he’s going to keep reading our message or abandon it.

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The Power of Negative Visualization

By Alexander Green | 06/15/2009

When Norman Vincent Peale wrote The Power of Positive Thinking 60 years ago, he received a stack of rejection slips from publishers. Dejected, he threw the manuscript into the trash, forbidding his wife to remove it. She didn’t. The next day, however, she took the manuscript, still inside the wastebasket, to a publisher who accepted it. The book became a foundation of the human potential movement, selling more than 20 million copies in 47 languages.

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Why China Can’t Save Us

By Andrew Gordon | 06/15/2009

De-coupling lives again, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. Remember when it made the rounds over a year ago? The idea was that even if the U.S. economy caught pneumonia, the rest of the world would at worst get a bad cough. It was argued that Europe and China were much less reliant on the U.S. economy than ever before. And China, with its massive import needs, would also keep economies from Brazil to Australia humming.

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MSG and Weight Gain

By James B. LaValle | 06/12/2009

Many people avoid monosodium glutamate (MSG) – the so-called “safe” flavor enhancer – because they get a headache or upset stomach after eating it. But here’s another reason to avoid MSG: It might be causing you to gain weight. MSG has been used for some time to “fatten up” lab…

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