Cut to the Chase… Dammit!
By Rich Schefren
Do you ever end your day wondering, “Did I really get the important stuff done today?”
Most entrepreneurs, both online and off, often do. But today, I’ve got a quick strategy for you that’ll eradicate any lingering doubts you might possess about your productivity.
In my work coaching many of today’s top Internet marketers, these questions surface frequently:
- How can I stop wasting time?
- How can I get other people to stop wasting my time?
- How can I get more done in less time?
At the end of the day, how can I feel good about what I accomplished?
Do any of these questions sound familiar? If so, you know that increasing productivity means more than just working faster. In fact, it’s about discipline and purpose. Two traits entrepreneurs often struggle with.
Let’s talk about discipline first.
If you find yourself struggling to accomplish what’s on your to-do list, or sticking to your schedule, these tactics often do the trick:
- Take Advantage of a Powerful Part of Your Brain.
Identify your most important outcomes for the next day before you go to bed. You don’t necessarily need to know exactly how you will spend the day when you hit the sack. But, while you’re sleeping, being sure of the results you want gives your subconscious mind a chance to figure out the best ways to get it all done. The next morning, when you plan your schedule for the day, you’ll be surprised by what you come up with. - Include Anchor Activities in Your Schedule.
When planning your schedule for the day, make sure you include anchor activities to keep yourself on track. An anchor activity is a task that will force you to be disciplined.
For example, left to my own devices when I am talking to a friend/peer, the conversation might go on for hours. But if I have an important call to make 30 minutes later, I know I won’t spend longer than 30 minutes on the first call. So the second call is an anchor activity.
Anchor activities ensure that though you might lack discipline right now, it won’t interfere with what you must get done. - Do the Uncomfortable First.
Attack your most important, most intense, and highest leverage activities first. Doing so generates momentum and confidence you can ride the rest of the day. - Look at Yourself and Learn.
At the end of the day, evaluate your performance. If you did a good job, what, specifically, helped you get it done? If you got off track, what happened? And how can you prevent that from happening in the future? This step is frequently neglected… and that’s a shame. Because it’s the fastest path to ever-increasing productivity.
Now, let’s talk about being purposeful…
Far too many entrepreneurs don’t keep their eye on the prize. They go into meetings, make phone calls, talk to staff and contractors… without being clear about the specific outcome they want from each of these activities.
The solution? It’s simple. Get into the habit of asking yourself “What’s my outcome?” every time you transition into a new activity. To make asking this question a habit, put visual reminders where you can’t miss seeing them… until it becomes your default way of operating.
Write it in your daily schedule, on a Post-it on your desk, on an index card that you carry in your briefcase, and on a label on the bottom of your computer monitor. Having so many reminders makes it easy to be consistent when you’re trying to develop a new way of thinking. And anything you do consistently develops into a habit quickly.
So there you have it. You now have a four-part strategy to become more disciplined, more purposeful, and, ultimately, much more productive.
[Ed. Note: Rich Schefren’s businesses have done over $35 million in sales. A renowned business strategist, Rich coaches many of today’s top Internet gurus and service providers on streamlining their businesses while exploding their profits. Learn more at www.StrategicProfits.com.
Becoming more disciplined and more purposeful are two ways to make sure you accomplish your most important goals. You can learn dozens more strategies for achieving your dreams with ETR’s Total Success
Achievement program. Get the details here.]
10 Dumb Ways to Start a Business (and Waste a Ton of Money at the Same Time)
By Michael Masterson
Entrepreneurship is based on selling. You test the market with a product you think will sell well. If it does, you keep selling. If it doesn’t, you try something else.
This approach lent its name to my most recent best-seller: Ready, Fire, Aim. The main idea is that to start and grow a small business you must develop a pragmatic, action-oriented mentality. Rather than spend too much time and money refining theoretical ideas, you develop a prototype quickly and then see if the market will buy it.
As I said in the book, for every business that fails because of poor planning there are a dozen that never get off the ground because of too much planning.
The Ready, Fire, Aim approach obviously doesn’t apply to surgical procedures and rocket science. But it will be very useful for 90 percent of the new-business ideas you are likely to come up with.
Want to start a business selling diamond-studded collars for kitty cats? Fine. There are two ways to go about that:
1. You can spend most of your time and money manufacturing a line of such collars - and only after that is done, start to think about how you can sell it.
2. You can make a single collar and go down to the local flea market or your neighborhood pet shop and see if you can find a customer for it.
Most people start businesses the first way. That’s why most businesses fail.
But with the Ready, Fire, Aim approach, you devote 80 percent of your initial resources to discovering an efficient way to sell the product. Once you have done that, you have found the key to successfully market it. With that key in your pocket, you don’t have to worry about all the other problems that will arise in the natural course of business. You won’t have to worry, because you will be able to create the one thing that can solve almost every business problem: cash flow.
Here, in a nutshell, is what I mean by Ready, Fire, Aim:
Ready: Get your product idea ready. Make it good enough to sell. Don’t worry about making it perfect. There will be time enough for that later.
Fire: Start selling it. Sell it every way you can. Test different offers. Test different ad copy. Test different media. Keep testing until you discover something that works. This is your Optimum Selling Strategy (OSS).
Aim: Expand your customer base by focusing on your OSS. As your customer base grows, develop business procedures to accommodate that growth. Hire the best people you can to manage your business. Discover, through “back-end” marketing tests, other products and services that your customers will buy. Use those discoveries to refine and perfect a fast-selling line. As this back-end business flushes cash into your company, invest a good deal of that cash into front-end marketing.
That is the cycle of a successful start-up venture.
Ready, Fire, Aim doesn’t mean you are willing to be sloppy. Nor does it mean you are willing to sell second-rate products to your customers. On the contrary, Ready, Fire, Aim is the only truly practical way to find out what your market really wants from you.
And for a small business, Ready, Fire, Aim is the best way to get from good to great.
Think of it this way: When we say we have “a great new product idea,” what do we really mean? When I say that, I mean I have a strong feeling that the product will sell well - that it will be a big, commercial success.
But the truth is, I have only a hunch about how well my idea will do. Experience has taught me that my hunches are often right… but not always. If I spend too much time and energy preparing a business based on a hunch, what happens if the hunch doesn’t pan out?
What happens is that I’m left with nothing - no money or materials or energy - to start over again. The essence of entrepreneurship is the ability to try and fail and then try again. You can’t do that if you blow your wad the first time you try.
So nowadays when I get the feeling that I have a great idea, I figure out how I can test that idea as quickly and as cheaply as possible.
Once I know the idea has “legs,” then I can roll out a sales program. And once a successful sales program is underway, I can refine and improve the product. The truth is, I can never perfect a product in isolation. I used to think I could, but, once again, experience has taught me the arrogance of that kind of thinking.
To get from good to great, you need the help of superstar employees and, most of all, feedback from your customers. The best customer feedback comes not from surveys or focus groups but from marketing results. Find out what your customers want by selling things to them. This gets you back into the Ready, Fire, Aim loop.
If I had to pick one thing - one characteristic or quality of my work that is most responsible for the success I’ve had launching businesses - I’d have to say it was this Ready, Fire, Aim approach. It’s something I believe in strongly. That’s why I wince when I read the start-up advice of so many “experts” who advocate feel-good busywork over selling.
I was hoping that when Ready, Fire, Aim was published we’d see no more foolishness of this type in the business press. But here’s just a short list of the misguided (and even ridiculous) advice I’ve read since my book came out in January of this year:
Create an instant-impact message that describes the chief benefit of your business. Put it on business cards and brochures, which you should hand out at business functions and meetings.
Find a great office space and fill it with furniture.
Take a field trip to discover how your product or service will satisfy people’s desires.
Protect your “great ideas” by registering your business name, logo, and slogan.
Create a paper trail - tracking all meeting dates, attendees, and discussions.
Consult a lawyer and obtain his or her advice on how to best protect your business and make sure you set up the right legal structure.
Check with your municipal authority to make sure “they permit a venture like yours” to work out of the home.
Buy business insurance and “talk to an accountant or attorney” to make sure you’re not missing anything.
Get a toll-free phone number (to give the impression that your business is much bigger than it is).
Do these things before you find out whether your product can sell, and your business is practically guaranteed to fail.
Again, here’s my advice for starting a business:
1. As soon as possible, get the product ready to test.
2. Test it as aggressively and creatively as you can. Spend 80 percent of your initial resources discovering the most cost-effective way to make the first sale (your “Optimum Selling Strategy”).
3. Refine and adjust your sales process as market conditions change. At the same time, gradually develop business procedures to service your customers and improve your products according to your customers’ buying preferences.
[Ed. Note: There’s a TON of foolish business advice floating around the Internet and in bookstores. You can get proven, time-tested recommendations for starting and growing a business (from someone who’s built dozens of businesses himself) in Michael’s New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Business Week best-seller Ready, Fire, Aim. Buy it here.
This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.]
Why Positive Thinking Doesn’t Work
By Michael Masterson
One of the great fallacies in the self-help industry is the notion that you can change your life with “positive thinking.”
The purveyors of positivism, starting with Napoleon Hill
Some self-help gurus sell positive thinking because they know it is one of the most lucrative products to put in the marketplace. Change one thought and you can change your life! What better promise can you make to an underachieving, wanna-be-rich-and-successful couch potato?
And purely from a profit point of view, they are right. Positive thinking products making quick-and-easy promises account for more than a billion dollars a year in direct-mail and Internet sales. And that’s just for the companies I personally know. The total number is probably multiples of that.
I am not saying all proponents of positive thinking are hucksters. Many are honest men and women who believe in the concept because they use it successfully in their own lives. They are usually people who have always been accomplished, excelling in sports or academics or business almost from the start. Their repeated successes gave them confidence that they can do just about anything. And they readily tap into that underlying feeling of confidence whenever they face a new challenge. In their hearts, they know they can succeed. So when they take on anything new, they can’t help but believe they will be successful.
But what about the rest of the world? The 80 percent of the population that got C’s in school and sat on the bench during ball games and had little or no success in business? What messages are buried in their hearts?
Well, the positive thinkers will tell you that is exactly the point. The people who struggle on without success are failing because they don’t really think they can succeed. If only they could change their thinking, they would do better.
And so the therapy for these self-doubters is positive thinking. Stand in front of the mirror in the morning and repeat 20 times: “I am a good person. I can do anything. I will be successful.”
It’s very appealing. Two or three minutes of talking to your mirrored image, and a mental switch will be turned. Everything after that will come to you effortlessly.
The reality is different.
A study mentioned by Julie Norem in her book The Positive Power of Negative Thinking
Researchers divided their subjects (all identified as pessimists) into two groups. They told one group that, based on their past performance, they were going to do well on a standardized test they were about to be given. And these subjects indicated on a pre-test survey that they did, indeed, feel optimistic about their results. The second group was not given any encouragement. The results? The first group, the temporarily optimistic pessimists, actually performed worse on the test.
I’ve been critical of the idea of positive thinking for years, because I think it is useless to the people who most need help in changing their lives: people who have deeply held negative feelings about what they can accomplish.
Positive thinking works only for those who are emotionally positive. Usually, these are people who have a history of being successful. People who have been good wrestlers, for example, find it easy to believe they will win their next wrestling match. Entrepreneurs like yours truly find it easy to believe their next business venture will be successful.
When you are emotionally positive, you can’t help but think positively about everything.
So thinking positively helps. But it only helps the 20 percent of the population that is already emotionally positive. The rest of the population, the 80 percent of the world that is emotionally negative, cannot be helped by positive thinking.
I knew this was true, though I didn’t know exactly why. When I wrote about it in the past, many ETR readers objected. When I spoke about it at conferences, attendees complained to me afterward. They seemed angry. As if I was trying to take something precious away from them.
They believed I was trying to deny their best chance of succeeding. Meanwhile, what I was really trying to do was get them to stop conning themselves and take the specific actions that would help them achieve their goals.
As the years passed, I would meet some of these same people at other conferences. They were still attending self-improvement seminars, still carrying positive-thinking books, and still upset with me for telling them that positive thinking wouldn’t change their fortunes. It had, after all, worked for the people promoting all those seminars and books.
Year after year. Decade after decade. They stayed poor. They stayed stuck. But they wouldn’t give up their dream of changing their lives quickly and easily by changing their thinking.
I was never able to articulate why it was that I knew positive thinking would never work for these people. But then I read a book that helped me understand: General Theory of Love
Essentially, our emotions are deeply rooted in the way our minds are wired. There is a scientific basis for many of our emotional responses and how we relate to others. At the same time, our interactions with the world and people around us have a profound impact on our attitude. This interaction, which can actually alter neural pathways in the brain, begins in infancy and influences our development.
So if you grew up with negative feelings about your ability to achieve success, that’s the way your brain is wired. And no amount of positive thinking will change it.
Here is what the authors of General Theory of Love
“A vigorous self-help movement has championed the hoax that a strong-willed person, outfitted with the proper directions, can select good relationships. Those seduced into the promise of a quick fix gobble it up. But the physiology of emotional life cannot be dispelled with a few words…
“… Self-help books are like car repair manuals: You can read them all day, but doing so doesn’t fix a thing.”
To change yourself from being emotionally negative to emotionally positive, you have to get some solid successes under your belt. And that’s where another success technique - visualization - comes in. But this one works. Visualization is a proven and useful technique for achieving peak performance.
It’s no secret that many of the most successful people in the world - including entertainers, athletes, and CEOs - used visualization to help them achieve their goals.
Take Tiger Woods…
“Visualization has become a major part of my shot-making, especially as it pertains to shaping shots. … It makes a huge difference in your performance.”
And Jack Nicklaus, one of the greatest golfers to ever grace the game, said, “I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp in-focus picture of it in my head. It’s like a color movie.”
Famed sports psychologist Bob Rotella charges thousands of dollars per session to help pro athletes and business executives achieve success through visualization. In addition to coaching pro PGA golfers and top athletes in the NBA and NFL, he coaches high-ranking executives at Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, General Electric, Coca-Cola, and many other companies.
Matt Furey - world-class martial artist and top Internet marketer - credits visualization for his success. Matt’s wrestling coach told the scrawny, uncoordinated high school teen he never had a chance. But by using the power of visualization, Matt gained the confidence to win match after match - and became a champion wrestler in high school and college.
Later, Matt became World Kung Fu Champion - thanks, again, to visualization and the very positive attitude that was now buried deep in his limbic brain (the part of the brain involved in emotional behavior).
As I said, people who are emotionally positive about their chances for success have a history of succeeding. They’re doers, not dreamers. So forget about positive thinking. Instead, start rewiring your brain by working toward the goal you want to achieve or practicing the skill you want to master.
At first, you won’t feel very good about what you’re doing, because you won’t be very good at it. But stick with it. Remember that it takes about a thousand hours to achieve competency in anything that’s worthwhile.
Start by setting very modest objectives. Use visualization to help you excel at specific tasks and overcome specific challenges. But don’t waste your time repeating useless mantras. Actions - only actions - will reprogram your limbic brain and turn you into a real “success machine.”
[Ed. Note: “Thinking positive” is a success technique that so-called experts have touted for years. We offer dozens of simple - and more effective - strategies that you can use to accomplish all your goals in our Total Success Achievement program. Learn the details here.]
How to Use Video to Cash In On the Rapidly Changing World Wide Web
By Jim Daniels
Fact: The Web is changing. In case you haven’t noticed, over the last couple years it has gotten much faster. As a result, the Internet experience is changing for millions of users. Today, I’d like to show you how to cash in on this important development…
Broadband high-speed access is finally reaching critical mass. More people now have high-speed access than those who are still stuck on slow dial-up. This means new technology and information delivery methods are finally becoming mainstream.
The rapid growth of high-speed Internet connections has given birth to one technology in particular that you need to be focused on: Video.
The businesses adopting video in this still-early stage are cashing in big-time. Even small mom and pop Web shops and affiliate marketers are seeing amazing results.
So exactly how do you cash in on this rapidly advancing technology?
As entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk has shown, all it takes is having a niche and a little creativity. You may have seen one of his wine videos. In just a few short years, they have helped him gain widespread recognition as the world’s “informal” wine expert. Gary’s videos are simple, yet effective. He sits on his couch, turns on his camera, and tastes wine. He then answers questions submitted via his Facebook application.
Perhaps you could become the next Gary Vaynerchuk in your niche. You have to admit, it sure would be a fun way to make a living. If you’d like to explore the possibilities, the following crash course on how to leverage video for profit will help you get started…
1. Use Video to Inform.
Video makes great content. More and more people are watching video online to learn new things.
For example, when visitors arrive at my new website for aspiring affiliate marketers, a video near the top of the page introduces them to the profit potential of affiliate marketing.
At another site, I invite visitors to watch a video featuring one of my clients. It shows them what it is really like to earn a living from the Internet, and provides some genuine insider advice on how to achieve this goal.
You no longer need expensive equipment to create videos and upload them to the Web. Any video camera from any electronics retailer will work just fine. If you have a video camera that you purchased within two or three years, its resolution will be good enough. Though, of course, any new camera will be far superior.
You can also use your computer to make “screen capture recordings.” That’s how I created the training videos for my ezWebBusinessBuilderprogram. I started by putting my lessons in PowerPoint format. I used a program called VoxProxy to create an animated narrator for them. Then I simply ran the PowerPoint presentation and recorded it using Camtasia (the best software for this). The result was a CD with a series of video lessons on how to build a Web business from scratch.
By the way, if the idea of creating your own videos doesn’t appeal to you, not a problem. There are lots of video-sharing sites where you can find informative videos that you can post at your site. Then all you have to do is paste the video’s “embed code” into your Web page. (I’ll give you a list of some video-sharing sites later in this article.)
2. Use Video to Grow Your Opt-In E-Mail List.
Developing an opt-in e-mail list is still one of the most powerful ways to expand a business online. It’s a process that you can set up once and then watch it grow.
The best way to use video to grow your subscriber list is with a “squeeze page”- a single Web page that has an informative video on it. After watching the video, your visitor can request more information about the subject - maybe in the form of a digital book or special report - through your autoresponder opt-in form.
Then, once the new subscriber has opted in to receive that information - as well as additional information they might be interested in - your autoresponder can (and should) follow up with relevant offers on a regular, pre-determined schedule. This makes sales for you literally while you sleep.
3. Use Video to “Pre-Sell.”
Whether you are selling your own products/services or you’re selling as an affiliate, there are several ways to use video to pre-sell.
For example, when I sell my software, I show my visitors a video review from one of my customers. I also show them a sample training video from the software itself. From the day I added those videos to my site, I saw an increase in sales.
A good way to get traffic to your “pre-selling videos” is to e-mail subscribers who’ve opted in at one of your squeeze page videos. Remember, these people have asked you to contact them when you have information they might be interested in.
One client of mine recently sold thousands of dollars’ worth of guitar lessons with a video about his emergency plumbing nightmare. It was hilarious… and it got people to buy. (You can find it at RockGuitarTechniques.com.)
No matter what you are selling, you can use video to increase sales. Make a video of your product or service being used. Ask one of your best customers to do a video testimonial. Search YouTube.com for existing customer reviews or demonstrations of the products or services you sell. You may be surprised to find something you can use right away.
4. Use Video to Generate Website Traffic.
There are many ways to get traffic using video. A simple way is to post videos about your product or service at the Web’s popular video-sharing sites. You simply create a free account… then upload the video. Make sure you put your website address in your video description, as well as in the video itself. That will help route traffic from the video to your site.
Here’s a list of the top video-sharing sites…
YouTube.com
Video.Google.com
Blip.tv
Revver.com
Jumpcut.com
After posting a video at one of these sites, don’t stop there. Continue sharing it at several social-networking (Web 2.0) sites. When done tactfully, this can create a nice flow of viral traffic that can actually be hard to slow down… even if you wanted to!
Top social-networking sites include…
Digg.com
Del.icio.us
Furl.com
Twango.com
Vsocial.com
The goal is to have your video create a buzz and be spread virally via these networks. Only the most entertaining (and even quirky) videos go viral, so try to think outside the box when creating yours for these sites.
I hope these ideas get you thinking about how you can use video to make money online - even if you’re brand-new to the Web.
In fact, I spoke with someone today who’s been using the video marketing strategy outlined above for just a couple months… and he’s already made $6,000. And he started from scratch by promoting affiliate products. So, yes, you can do it too!
[Ed. Note: Jim Daniels has been helping people earn their living online since 1996.
Learn how to profit from the video revolution here. Use coupon code “april2008″ and save $20 per month. Be sure to check out Jim’s site for examples of how you can use video in your Internet business. And learn how to set up an autoresponder here.
This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.]
Learning How to Fall
By Paul Lawrence
When I found that I could earn college credits by taking judo, I jumped at the chance. I’d been taking karate for a couple of years and I was pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. I was used to getting punched and kicked, so I figured judo wouldn’t be any big deal.
As I entered the first class, I felt pretty confident. The instructor gave me a hearty welcome and explained that judo was basically like wrestling. I paired up with a guy about my size and the instructor said to “give it a go.” My opponent quickly grabbed me and flipped me over his back and onto the mat. The pain was excruciating. All I could do was lie there in shock. This sure wasn’t karate!
If I hadn’t needed the credits to graduate, I may never have gone back. But I did need the credits, so back I went. And in the next class, my instructor taught me something that changed the way I have since thought about all challenges - physical or mental, personal or business. He taught me how to land.
Landing in judo involves twisting and absorbing the impact of the fall in your leg and hip while slapping the mat with your hand. Do that, and it doesn’t hurt at all.
Once I knew how to protect myself by landing right, I lost my fear of being flipped. A few weeks later - despite being such a novice - I agreed to participate in a judo tournament. And because I was no longer afraid of getting flipped, I actually won a few matches.
It’s amazing how much self-assurance you can suddenly have when you know how to negate the risk of something that had seemed frightening. Of course, learning how to “land” is different depending on the challenge you’re facing. But as long as you know how to minimize the potential “pain,” you can take on almost anything.
Here’s another example. When I first began doing stand-up comedy, I was terrified that people wouldn’t laugh at my jokes. My fears, it turns out, were well founded. I bombed the first time I performed my act in front of an audience. I was so bad, the crowd booed me off the stage. And the agony of that experience dwarfed any physical pain I’d ever felt.
Shortly thereafter, I began training with professional comics in a weekly workshop. There I learned that when you tell a joke that bombs, you’ve got to acknowledge it to the audience. They will usually laugh and be happy to give you another chance. So if I told a joke that got zero response, all I had to say to keep the audience on my side was, “Wow, I guess that joke sucked! It sure seemed funnier when I wrote it.”
The technique worked. No longer afraid of trying out jokes that might tank, I became fearless onstage. (And I still am.)
Learning how to fall in both judo and comedy gave me massive courage where I had once been apprehensive. And this confidence-building technique applies in almost any challenging situation. I call it “The Antidote Strategy.”
Being self-confident can help you get a job, win a new client, or get other people on your side. It can help you try a new hobby, lose weight, or even get a date. By developing an “Antidote Strategy,” you can guarantee that you’ll be at your best when attempting to succeed at just about anything.
Here is how to put The Antidote Strategy to work:
- Identify the possible negative outcome of the challenge.
Let’s face it. A lot of things you could do that might help you become more successful are risky. Let’s say you’ve been working on a new project idea. And to show your boss how creative and innovative you are, you want to present the idea at the company’s next staff meeting. But you’re afraid.So Step One of The Antidote Strategy is to determine exactly what it is that you are afraid of. Will you feel stupid if your idea is rejected? Will you be disappointed? Will you be embarrassed? - Create or find a way to prevent that negative result.
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Do some research. Chances are many other people have struggled with the same type of challenge and have come up with a good way to deal with it.Let’s go back to our example. The experts I polled suggest a method similar to the one I use as a comic: self-deprecation. If your new project idea is ridiculed by your boss and co-workers, brush it off. You really can win people over by being humble - maybe even getting a laugh. So just smile and say something like, “You’re right. I guess that wasn’t one of my brighter ideas. But I’ve got more. You’ll be hearing from me again.” - No matter how scary the challenge you are faced with, remind yourself that you have nothing to fear. You are prepared. If the worst happens, you have an antidote.
A lack of confidence prevents many people from achieving their full potential and reaching their goals. But with your safety net in place, you’ll have a winning edge - the inner strength to take a chance and boldly “jump off buildings”… because you know you won’t get hurt.
[Ed. Note: Paul Lawrence is the creator of the Quick and Easy Microbusiness System, ETR’s program for starting a business for under $100. He is also the publisher of the Confidence: The Key to Riches program. Check out the details here.
You can achieve all your personal, social, financial, and business dreams with the help of ETR’s Total Success Achievement program. Learn more here.
This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.]
The Worst Self-Marketing Strategy Ever Devised… and Why It Fails So Spectacularly
By Bob Bly
Many years ago, I taught a class at the Learning Annex in New York City on how to make a six-figure income as a freelancer. One student, JR, wanted to break into writing TV commercials for Madison Avenue, and he had devised what was (according to him) a brilliant self-marketing strategy for getting hired.
In actuality, it was the second-worst self-marketing idea I’d ever heard in my life.
JR told the class that he had written some “brilliant” TV commercials.
The Super Bowl was only a few weeks away at the time. JR’s strategy was to show up at the offices of Madison Avenue’s biggest ad agency and show the copy for his commercials to the creative director.
The creative director, he reasoned, was under tremendous pressure to produce great Super Bowl commercials for the agency’s clients. By bringing those great commercials with him, JR would save the day - and be hired at an enormous salary.
This was a terrible idea for all the obvious reasons:
All the commercials for the Super Bowl had been written and shot months earlier.
The creative director had never heard of JR. She didn’t know who JR was or whether he had any qualifications or talent. So the chances of her agreeing to see him were miniscule to none.
JR had no idea which of the agency’s clients were going to be running Super Bowl spots. Even if he did know, he hadn’t been briefed on the product positioning or the campaign strategy… so how could he possibly write commercials that achieved the clients’ marketing objectives?
I gently told JR - and the rest of the class - that doing work on spec for a client who hasn’t asked you to do so is an absolute waste of time. However, stupid as it is, there is a self-marketing strategy that’s even worse: giving an unsolicited critique of something a potential client has done - a new product design, an ad campaign, a website - in the hopes of being hired to fix it.
Why is giving an unsolicited critique even worse than doing unsolicited work on spec? Well, think about it.
You send a letter to a business telling them their website stinks… or their customer service people are idiots… or their product is lousy. There’s a good chance that the recipient of your letter is the person responsible for approving that website, training the customer service staff, or designing the product.
So right away, you have begun the relationship by insulting them - saying, in effect, “You don’t know what you are doing.”
They probably don’t agree that they’ve done a bad job… or else they wouldn’t have produced the site, training, or product in the first place. You come along and give a contrary opinion - highly critical and negative. They think, “Who the heck are YOU, bub? Why should I listen to what YOU say?”
As they see it, your opinion is self-serving: You are a vendor, so your objective in reaching out to them is to get them to hire you. Worse, here you are, spending your time reviewing websites, calling companies that aren’t your clients, and telling them how bad their sites are - without being paid to do so.
This causes them to think that if you were really any good at what you do, you’d be swamped with projects - and not cold calling strangers trying to rustle up work.
I’ve frequently been on the receiving end of this “You’re doing it all wrong and I can help you fix it” strategy - especially from Web designers. And speaking as a prospect, I can tell you it not only doesn’t work with me, it’s also annoying and offensive.
Just last week, I got yet another such call from a Web designer.
“I was looking at your site and it really is poorly designed,” TN, the Web designer, told me. “I would love to help you improve its performance.”
“Do you know my marketing objective for my website?” I asked TN.
“Uh, no,” he admitted.
“Well, TN,” I said. “If you don’t know what I want the site to do for my business… and you don’t know its current performance metrics… how can you possibly know that you can improve it?”
I let him stutter and stammer for a few seconds, before politely ending the call.
My friend RA, who once ran a mail-order business selling information products for gamblers, was also a victim of the “You’re doing it all wrong and I can help you fix it” gambit.
SH, a newbie freelance copywriter, wrote RA an unsolicited two-page critique of his latest direct-marketing package. SH closed his letter by suggesting to RA that his marketing results would be greatly improved by letting a “professional copywriter” (like SA) work his magic on it.
RA and I both had a good laugh over this… because RA is universally acknowledged (except by SH, who didn’t recognize his name) as one of today’s top direct-response copywriters.
Irritated, RA sent SH a testy letter pointing out this fact… and noting that the package SH thought was so terrible was, in fact, a blockbuster control. Which made SH look stupid and silly.
Conclusion: Doing a critique OR work on spec for a potential client who has not asked for it seems, on the surface, a sensible approach to marketing your professional or technical services. But it is not.
My advice:
- Never give unsolicited advice or criticism.
- Don’t offer solutions until you really know what the problem is - and the only way you can really understand the problem is for the potential client to tell you.
- If you want to show the potential client how smart you are, stop pontificating. Instead, ask intelligent questions and listen to the answers.
[Ed Note: Bob Bly is a freelance copywriter, the author of more than 70 books, and co-creator of ETR’s Direct Marketing Masters Edition program. Sign up for Bob’s free monthly e-zine, The Direct Response Letter, and get more than $100 in free bonuses.
This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.]
How to Survive - Even Profit From - the Declining Economy
By Michael Masterson
I was in Baltimore recently for meetings with some of my biggest clients. My job was to review their progress in 2007 and give them ideas about how to grow their already profitable businesses in 2008.
During that time, I taped an interview with J. Christoph Amberger for Taipan Financial News, his multi-media e-letter. In the interview, Christoph and I discussed the coming economic recession, as well as the special opportunities a declining economy provides for entrepreneurs. I thought you’d be interested in reading this rough transcript of our conversation…
JCA: The American economy may or may not enter a recession in 2008. But even if the economy doesn’t fulfill the technical criteria of a recession (two consecutive quarters of negative growth), anyone doing business or working for a business these days is experiencing or expecting a severe downturn.
Michael, we both have been through a couple of recessions and bear markets. What are the secrets to surviving a recession - and maybe even prospering in an adverse environment as an entrepreneur?
Me: That partly depends on the kind of recession. This one is different from recent downturns and stock market declines in three important ways.
- First, there is the fact of inflation. Oil has already hit record highs this year. Gold is on its way to $1,000 an ounce. And a gallon of gas is costing $4 in some states. Agricultural prices are going up too. One figure I saw had inflation pegged at 6.8 percent on an annual basis over the last three months. But it is actually worse than that. Because that figure was based on government-supplied data. Our government has made an art of obfuscation - of hiding certain economic realities. Inflation is already eating away at our buying power. It is bad and it is getting worse.
- Next, there is the falling dollar. The dollar is weaker now than it has ever been in history. That makes foreign goods more expensive. Which increases inflation. On the bright side, it makes U.S. manufactured goods more attractive as exports. But in most areas, we still can’t compete, price-wise, with China, India, and the Third World.
- The third way this downturn is different is the level of debt. For the first time in modern history, American consumers owe more than they have. Credit card debt has skyrocketed. Mortgage debt, which increased enormously during the past 10 years as a result of irresponsible loans, is now at a crisis point because real estate values have fallen, making tens of thousands of loans untenable. It makes more sense to walk away from these loans than to renegotiate them. And behind all this is the federal debt - which has skyrocketed because of runaway spending by an earmark-addicted Congress and Bush’s $3 trillion war.
These are our economic weaknesses - and they are big weaknesses. But there are strengths too. Unemployment numbers are relatively low. Earnings are relatively good. And new business start-ups - which to me is always the most important indicator - are still strong.
Unemployment will certainly increase in some sectors. It is already a fact in the real estate market and will become a factor in banking and the financial industries that support real estate. But other sectors of the economy are okay for the moment. They may absorb some of these people. And new businesses will continue to create jobs, as they always have, because of the amazing growth of the Internet.
What all that amounts to, in my book, is a period stagflation that may be followed by a recession but may simply continue to exist until our debts have been paid by the working man, as they always are.
JCA: Not everyone is familiar with the term “stagflation.”
Me: “Stagflation” was coined ages ago when I was still in college. It describes an economic period of both inflation and flat growth. The best description I’ve heard was provided by Rich Karlgaard, publisher of Forbes. He said:
“Stagflation is present when gas and grocery prices are rising faster than your paycheck is - and in an economy that is strong enough to employ you but not strong enough that you feel emboldened to ask for a raise.”
There are three ways to defeat stagflation: (1) Tighten the money supply. (2) Restrict credit. (3) Lower taxes.
When too much money/too-easy credit is driving up prices - that’s classic monetary inflation. This should tell the Fed to restrict the printing of money and tighten credit. But so far they’ve been doing the opposite because they are afraid that if they tighten credit, the economy, which is already weak, will collapse.
Lowering taxes, particularly taxes on individual and corporate income, capital gains, and dividends would grow the economy by encouraging investment and stimulating production. This is classic supply-side economics. But it’s very unpopular today. The common view is that tax cuts reduce the effectiveness of government and increase government debt. But the evidence contradicts this. Government receipts usually go up after tax cuts because the economy grows and there is more income and profits to tax. When you reduce the cost of doing something, you tend to get more of that thing. Reduce the tax costs of production in America and you will get more production. More production means more goods and services competing for your dollars. “That’s how prices go down, not up,” says Rich Karlgaard.
It’s simple. Supply and demand. If you want prices to go down, increase the supply. Incentivize the suppliers.
But that’s probably not going to happen because it’s not politically expedient for politicians to do it. Chances are our problems will be cured by a period of negative or flat growth along with inflation. This is the solution preferred by politicians because it is a way for average consumers to pay for government debt and bad loans without understanding they are paying for it. It’s another form of taxation.
Assuming we are entering a period of stagflation, certain investing principles apply:
- Cash is king.
- Buy value.
- Buy into the recovery.
- Invest in what you know.
- Limit expenses.
- Be ready to seize opportunity when it arises. Because it will arise.
JCA: Unemployment may kick-start some would-be entrepreneurs’ plans to start their own businesses. Are there any particular sectors that you think will do well, especially for new businesses?
Me: As I said, I don’t think unemployment is likely to be a huge problem - at least in the short run. But it will be a factor. More important will be the squeeze people will feel from stagflation. Prices are going up but not their salaries. This will trigger some start-ups. And there will also be lots of job displacements as some sectors of the economy - real estate-related - go down for a while and others - natural resources and even agriculture - go up. At some point in time - probably in the next year or two - real estate prices will bottom out. Then the vulture funds will come in and begin to buy up excess inventory. When that inventory is absorbed, the construction and building sectors will revive.
In the meantime, I favor:
- Certain investments - like gold, oil and gas, natural resources
- Certain services - such as for legal settlements, divorce settlements, business litigation settlements, home remodeling and repair
- Information and advice on investing, retirement, estate planning, entrepreneurship, tax avoidance
- Natural supplements and pharmaceuticals
- Rejuvenation products and services
- Retirement homes and other retirement businesses
- Soft exercises and sports - such as yoga, Pilates, tai chi
- Spiritual wealth information and products
- Self-improvement information and products
- Real estate (longer term)
JCA: Judging by the promises of our presidential candidates, U.S. businesses will almost certainly be hit with higher taxes, compulsory health care contributions, higher labor costs. Is it still worthwhile setting up shop in America? Or should entrepreneurs relocate to a more business-friendly climate… like Eastern Europe… or China… or the Caymans?
Me: There is a big misconception here. One I had until I began doing business overseas. Location of the business matters only in certain industries that depend on cheap, unskilled labor. If you are producing clothing or furniture, it makes sense to have a factory in the Third World. But if you are producing sophisticated products for which labor is a small part of the cost - or selling information or advice - you can do it from the U.S.
Information and advice is especially good because the brute labor cost is almost non-existent. Thanks to the Internet, the cost of storage and shipping is minimal, so you can easily produce your product here and sell it anywhere… anywhere in the world.
In the coming recession, I would want to be in a business that has the following characteristics: (1) positive cash flow, (2) no debt, (3) no accounts receivable, and (4) no merchandise to store. That amounts to a service business or information publishing. Of the two, information publishing is better. In fact, it is the best business to be in for the foreseeable future.
There are some advantages in setting up overseas, but there are also many disadvantages. I would not pick up shop and open up overseas unless I had a proven formula that was working in the U.S.
JCA: The title of your latest best-selling book is Ready, Fire, Aim. What do you think, Michael? Will the coming recession require entrepreneurs and business owners to aim BEFORE they fire?
Me: Entrepreneurs must seize the day. You have to be READY to do that.
When real estate prices bottom out, there will be a rush to buy from the vulture funds. Private investors must be ready with protocols, plans, and money.
The same holds true for any business you plan to launch. Don’t waste valuable time and money trying to perfect it. Figure out a marketing proposition and test it as soon as you can. If it works, then refine it. If it doesn’t work, move on to the next thing. Ready, Fire, Aim!
JCA: What are the biggest mistakes an entrepreneur or business owner can make right now?
Me: There are three:
- Starting a new business without knowing anything about it. I call this the Principle of One Step Removed.
- Wasting time and money on activities that are not directly related to sales.
- Not having a Disaster Recovery/Opportunity Plan.
JCA: That leads to my final question for you: Given today’s economic climate, what does a new business have to have to give it the best chance of success?
Me: It’s no different now than it’s ever been.
- First is a management team with character, experience, and ingenuity.
- Second is a plan that clearly identifies the way they will efficiently bring in customers from day one.
- Third is their use of resources. Will 80 percent of them be devoted to making a profitable sale?
- Fourth is capital. Do they have enough of it?
- Fifth is product. Does their lead product have a raison d’etre in the marketplace?
JCA: Thanks for joining us today, Michael.
[Ed. Note: Michael Masterson’s latest book, Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat, has hit the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and now the BusinessWeek lists of business best-sellers. Inside, Michael shows how veteran and rookie entrepreneurs alike can take their businesses to the next level. You’ll learn how to identify and solve the problems that crop up during each stage of a company’s growth… and how to take advantage of profit opportunities along the way. Order your copy of Ready, Fire, Aim now.
This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.]
7 Commandments for Creating Explosive Growth
By Clayton Makepeace
I don’t have to tell you that the U.S. economy is slowing precipitously… unemployment is rising… and consumers are spending less on the discretionary products and services most of us sell. But you can create explosive growth in your business - even in the face of these economic realities.
I learned the following principles the hard way: through nearly four decades in the trenches. They have served me very, very well - and if you abide by them, they’ll do the same for you…
I. Everything can be improved.
The three most idiotic things any marketer can say to a new idea are:
- “But this is how we’ve always done it. Why change now?”
- “That’s how our competitors do it, and it works great for them.”
- “We tested that once. It didn’t work.”
Ignore the idiots: Test everything. Let your prospects and customers give you the right answers.
II. A dollar delayed is a dollar forfeited FOREVER.
Every week, day, or hour a sales promotion is delayed during the year pushes more money OUT of the year. Those dollars will never be recovered. They’re gone forever.
Look at it this way: Let’s say your mission is to send 12 promotions to your customer file in 2008 - one at the end of every month. But your January promotion is a week late. It doesn’t go out until the first week of February. February’s promotion is a week late, too. It goes out March 15. And every other promotion takes just one week longer than you planned.
By the end of the year, those delays add up to 12 weeks. Which means three of the promotions you planned to send to customers in 2008 won’t happen. That’s 25 percent of your revenues and profits gone with the wind.
Creating procedures that move promotions through conception to creation to execution as quickly and as efficiently as possible is absolutely critical.
III. “Optimal” response and “maximum” response are two different things.
Marketing strategies, sales copy, and offers that compel prospects to buy - but leave them annoyed with or distrustful of your company or your spokesperson - only produce new customers who will avoid your future promotions like the plague.
And using overly aggressive or coercive or deceptive tactics with existing customers is the best way to destroy the bond you’re trying to build between them and your company.
A great rule of thumb: Think about every promotion - whether to prospects or to customers - first and foremost as a bonding tool.
Then, do whatever you can short of weakening the good will you’re creating to get the sale and maximize the size of the purchase.
IV. Every customer contact is an opportunity to make a sale and increase customer lifetime value.
Take a long hard look at every scrap of virtual or actual paper your customers get from you. Every order form… every thank-you page or letter… every package insert… every renewal or customer retention letter… and every telephone conversation they have with your customer service people.
At the very least, every one of these events gives you a great opportunity to strengthen the bond with your customers. At the most, it may offer you the opportunity to introduce a complementary product in a way that makes customers feel special.
V. Every sale is an opportunity to make another sale.
The simple fact is, customers are most likely to make another purchase immediately after they’ve made a purchase.
You offered them a product they’re excited about. Ordering was quick, easy, hassle free. The order confirmation/thank-you letter or e-mail answered every question about the delivery of the product and reminded them of your guarantee. The product was delivered in far less time than the customers expected. The product itself surpassed their wildest expectations. And, of course, you threw in an unadvertised freebie or two as icing on the cake.
You now have some very happy customers on your hands. So wouldn’t this be a great time for a follow-up mailing to every customer who ordered this month? Wouldn’t this be the ideal moment to send them a customer satisfaction survey along with a discount coupon for a complementary product?
VI. Every customer complaint is an opportunity to engender lifetime loyalty.
Something went wrong. Your customer is dissatisfied. And his experience tells him that setting things right is going to take forever and be a royal pain in the neck. So before you even hear from him, he’s already ticked off.
And then, you surprise him! You apologize abjectly and issue an immediate refund. You give him a discount coupon for a future purchase. You have the head of your customer service department (better yet, the owner himself) CALL the customer to ask for his help in trying to figure out what went wrong. And you send him a nice letter with a questionnaire to make sure the matter was handled fairly and efficiently.
RULE OF THUMB: Be willing to spend at least as much to keep a customer as you spend to create one. Better yet, be willing to spend double, triple, even quadruple if the customer has a long buying history with you.
It’s what you do at a time like this that proves your company’s character… and proves that he can trust you implicitly. Your customer will never forget how you handled his problem, and will never cease being grateful for making this easy for him.
VII. Never shoot in the dark.
Direct response is all about measuring and reacting to results. But you can’t do that if your IT department is doing a half-fast job of capturing or reporting the response, average sale, and ROI (return on investment) for every promotion.
Other numbers matter, too. Like who’s on your customer list. Where each customer came from. How long each has been with you. How many times each one orders per year. The average and largest purchase each one has made from you - and the cumulative value of those purchases. How long each customer continues buying from you. And, of course, average customer lifetime value.
Study your promotional history. Look for messaging/product/offer/price combinations that typically yield the highest ROIs for each segment of your file. Determine how the timing of the promotion and the delivery mode (e-mail, snail mail, overnight mail, etc.) affected results.
Think about the best ways to handle each file segment in order to progressively increase recency of purchase, frequency of purchase, and average sale - and to retain each customer longer. Then, determine how you can best stratify - carve up - your customer file in order to extract optimum response, average sale, and ROI from each segment.
If you can internalize these seven simple commandments, you’ll have the power to transform yourself into a world-class business builder.
[Ed. Note: As a direct-marketing consultant and copywriter, Clayton Makepeace has helped four major direct-marketing firms at least quadruple sales and profits to well over $100 million per year each. Clayton publishes the highly acclaimed e-zine The Total Package (www.makepeacetotalpackage.com) to help business owners and copywriters accelerate their sales and profits. Check it out. For dozens of proven strategies that can help you achieve your marketing, personal, and health goals, sign up for ETR’s Total Success Achievement program.
This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.]
The 25-50-25 Formula for Business Success
By Bob Bly
“I was quite eager to learn about marketing, and began reading everything associated with it,” one of my subscribers, KM, told me in a recent e-mail. “However, with AWAI’s Golden Thread e-zine, ETR, and, of course your insightful newsletter, I find myself reading more than applying. How do I sift through the worthy (but time-consuming) information that would benefit my business? Sometimes I force myself to read, fearful I may overlook some exceptional nugget. Help! Where do I stop?”
I hear similar stories all the time…
You are interested in some aspect of marketing - whether it is copywriting, Internet marketing, whatever. But you are overwhelmed by all the information being offered on the subject. (After all, we live in the Information Age.)
So you go “information crazy”… buying every course, attending every conference, reading every e-book, listening to every recording, and dialing into every teleseminar you can find.
Before you know it, a month… six months… or a year has gone by - and you are no closer to your business or career goal. That’s because you’ve spent all your time reading, studying, and learning the thing you are interested in… rather than actually DOING it.
Sadly, you are suffering from a syndrome I call “analysis paralysis.”
All the information you are taking in has overloaded your circuits. You can’t process it all, sort through it, and figure out what to do first. So, instead, you do nothing. You take no action - other than to order yet another course or report to read.
You have become a marketing-information junkie - avoiding the harsh realities of the business world by retreating to your favorite comfy chair with yet another neat marketing book.
You spend all your time reading about starting a business. So there is no time left to actually start or run a business. You are an “armchair entrepreneur” - more enamored with the idea of entrepreneurship than the actuality.
Fortunately there is an easy solution: the 25-50-25 rule. It provides a simple guideline to help you get unstuck.
The rule says there are only three ways to learn a process (e.g., how to start an Internet business) or a skill (e.g., copywriting): studying, observing, and doing. The 25-50-25 rule says that to master a skill or process, and put what you learn into practical action, you must divide your time as follows:
* No more than 25 percent of your time studying - i.e., reading books, going to bootcamps, attending workshops, listening to recordings in your car.
* No more than 25 percent of your time observing - watching what successful people in your field are already doing. If, for example, you want to become a direct-mail copywriter, this means reading and analyzing the direct mail you get in your mailbox.
* At least 50 percent of your time actually DOING the thing you are studying and observing. For example, if you want to sell information products on the Internet, you are spending 50 percent of your time creating your first product… designing your website… or building your list.
The idea is similar to Michael Masterson’s Ready, Fire, Aim approach. He says that you should take action right away, and then learn as you go.
Acquiring business knowledge is a worthwhile activity. But without action, that knowledge is worthless to you.
KM’s worry that, by not reading everything, he may miss a “nugget” of information is accurate: You will never know everything there is to know in your field, or even most of it.
But so what?
You don’t have to know everything - or even most of what there is to know - to succeed in most endeavors.
For example, there are hundreds of strategies for making money on the Internet. But you can make a six-figure annual income online using only a few of them, even if you never bother to learn the others.
In freelance copywriting, there are many top writers who write only one type of promotion. Or work in one narrow niche. And they make a fortune doing so.
When we were kids, our parents and teachers told us to study, study, study. But I see many people today much more enamored with studying and reading about marketing and entrepreneurship than actually doing.
Well, I understand that. Reading about marketing is fascinating - and fun. But the money is in the doing, not the reading.
Follow the 25-50-25 rule, and you’ll be doing - and making money - at least half the time.
[Ed Note: Freelance copywriter Bob Bly is the creator of The Direct Response Letter, the author of more than 70 books, and co-creator of ETR’s Direct Marketing Masters Edition program.
Learn specific strategies for how to take action on all your business and personal goals with ETR’s Total Success Achievement program. It’s not too late to sign up and learn how to make your longest-held dreams come true.
This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.]
Deal Making for Dummies
by MaryEllen Tribby (11/8/2007)
My son Connor turned seven years old a week ago Sunday. His birthday extravaganza started Friday at his school with a class party. Saturday, the festivities continued with 15 little boys at our local arcade. When he got home Saturday evening, he was surprised with an Xbox 360 from my husband and me. On Sunday, I took Connor down to the beach to experience his first sunrise, which was more of a present (and memory) for me. Later that day, we ended his birthday weekend with a family and friend gathering at our home.
As I tucked Connor in Sunday night, I asked him what his favorite part of his birthday celebration was. Expecting to hear rave reviews about the Xbox, I was astonished when he replied, “Going to the beach with you, Mom.” As I held back my tears, I asked him why. His answer was simple and honest: “Because it was just you and me talking.”
This got me thinking about all the partnerships and deal making I have done over the past 22 years. The best deals were not made sitting in a boardroom around a huge mahogany table with 10 or 12 people. They were done one-on-one over lunch or dinner with simple and honest communication leading to mutually beneficial agreements.
Early in my career, for example, I worked for a well-known publisher in NYC, and we wanted to partner with another well-known publisher in Boston. We had a great idea for a new product that would benefit both sets of customers. We organized a special task force comprised of marketers, editors, and customer service people. The other publisher did the same. We had in-person meetings that required flying eight people 300 miles to the other publisher’s office. This was followed up by endless conference calls with 12 to 16 people on the phone.
The entire time this was going on, my gut was telling me that this was not the way to do it. But everyone else was convinced that we needed the “collective brilliance” of the team. You do need input from smart people when you’re working on the product… but these meetings were just on contract negotiation. This was just to get the deal done!
You probably won’t be surprised to hear that we never agreed upon the terms (someone would always chime in with a last-minute concern), and hundreds of thousands of customers missed out on what would have been a great product. Plus, both my company and the other publisher lost the potential for millions of dollars in revenue.
Since that time, I try to do all my deals on a one-to-one basis.
My deal making success rate is high because I follow three simple guidelines. These apply to everything from making joint venture deals to developing new departments within the company to hiring copywriters. They even apply to vendor and service relationships, such as e-mail deployment, printing and media buying, and hiring freelancers. Here they are:
Rule #1. Know the person behind the business.
To the best of my ability, I try to meet, in person, everyone I do business with. This is the best way to gauge their business ethics and integrity. I will fly cross-country for lunch, or meet them at an industry event and have a drink. I’m not saying you have to like everyone you do business with, but personal contact helps expedite the deal and solidify the end result.
Earlier this year, I wanted to find a partner who could help our customers understand the importance of product launches. I mentioned this to my friend and business colleague Rich Schefren. Well, it just so happened he was flying to Denver in two days to speak at a conference being put on by Jeff Walker, the foremost expert in product launches. I ended up on the plane with Rich, met Jeff, and three weeks later Jeff was speaking at ETR’s sold-out “Five Days in July” Internet marketing conference.
But this is not an anomaly for me.
My friend and colleague David Cross introduced me via e-mail to Tim Ferriss, the author of The 4-Hour Work Week, and I phoned Tim immediately. After discovering that we were both going to be in New York the following week, we made a breakfast date. Two weeks later, Tim’s articles - including one that you may remember about creating a “paperless life” - started appearing in ETR.
These deals happened fast because not only did I get credible references from Rich and David, two people I respect and trust, I also took the time to meet Jeff Walker and Tim Ferriss in person.
Even if you can’t meet everyone in person, make sure you have reliable references. Always do your due diligence. Make it your goal to understand not just the company you want to partner with but the person behind the company.
Rule #2. Only make deals that will benefit your customers.
You may be passing up millions of dollars initially, but if a deal is not in the best interests of your customers, it will cost you more in the long run in dollars, time, and reputation.
Just this past summer, a “friend” in the industry came to us with a product he had developed. He showed us sales reports from his launch. He showed us his brilliantly written marketing copy. Our first impression was: “Our customers need this. They will love it. And it will be a nice contribution to our bottom line.”
Patrick Coffey, Charlie Byrne, and I told him, “Great. Just send us a sample of the product so we can evaluate it. If it is as good as you say it is, we are sure we can promote it to our customers.”
Well, our “friend” was a bit taken aback. He did not understand why we wanted to see the product when he had already shared his sales report.
We tried to explain that this is our policy - that we had to believe in the product.
He said if we would not just take his word for it, he would take it to our competitor. Well, he did. And we heard through the grapevine that it was a tremendous hit. Customers were buying it up, both parties were making tons of money - and I secretly questioned my decision.
But just recently, the word in the industry is that the product did not live up to the marketing hype. Refunds were coming in like gangbusters, and our “friend’s” new partner does not want to work with him anymore.
Had our competitor lived by the same rule that prompted us to say no to this particular deal, he would not have wasted his resources and lost the respect of his customers.
If you follow this rule, you may miss out on a good opportunity every once in a while. But you will also be able to pass up deals that just won’t satisfy your customers.
Rule #3. Only make deals that will benefit your organization.
At first glance, this rule might seem to contradict Rule #2. On the contrary, these two rules need to work in unison.
Let’s say you are asked to hire a vendor because he is the husband of your wife’s best friend. You know him, and you know his product will be good for your customers. But his prices are outrageous and you can get a better price and equal quality from another vendor. What do you do?
To me, this is a no-brainer. You go with the other vendor. That is a better decision for your company - and for your customers. Never forget: You are running (or starting) a business, and good businesspeople have to make tough decisions.
Deal making takes a lot of time. But it’s worth it, because you want to build relationships that last. You can’t make a good deal without a good partnership. You can’t have a good partnership without a personal relationship. And you can’t build a personal relationship through phone calls or e-mails or in a conference room. Know your potential partner well, understand his expectations and needs, and make sure he understands yours. Both companies will benefit.
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This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.]