1. A love of the craft. Successful freelance copywriters simply love writing. They love doing it. And they love reading the work of others who love doing it. Make no mistake; we are making ads, but we are also making art.
2. Discipline. Get rid of the preconception that copywriters are irresponsible, disheveled, professorial types. The successful copywriter is a creature of sometimes frightening single-minded focus. That’s why clients who find such a creature become loyal for life.
3. Discontent. While this might not be a great personal quality (or maybe it is… but that debate is not the topic of this post), successful freelance copywriters are never satisfied with their work. Yes, they deliver on time, and they deliver excellent output. But they are forever obsessing over how to make the copy better, how to improve the conversion rate, and how to beat the control. In my book, that kind of self-motivation and positive discontent is a good quality when it comes to business.

If you are a person or a company who hires copywriters, look for these qualities.

If you are a copywriter who wants to be hired, look in the mirror. Possession of the three qualities outlined in this post will make you a happy, healthy, and wealthy writer.

And by the way, any copywriter who wants more clients, bigger fees, and so many prospects bangin’ on your door you have to start screening them… should definitely know about this soon-to-be-released resource.

Training your customers on how to do business with you, so that you can maximize your productivity and profits, is vital.

But I don’t like to be the guy who always says “no”.

I like to find ways to say yes.

Example…

I don’t haggle over my rates as a freelance copywriter and marketing consultant.

Does that mean that when I am in conversation with a new client, I’m quick to quote an astronomical rate, and turn them away if they suggest a lower payment? Not at all.

I simply look for ways to change the nature of the offer, so that I’m able to accommodate their rate request.

It’s as simple as asking a few targeted questions:

1. “If we were able to lower the price to what you ask, would you be ready to do business today?” If the answer to this question is no, the discussion is really over isn’t it?
2. “What part of the project seems most important to you, if we were able to deliver it for the price you suggest?” This helps identify pieces of the project you may be able to eliminate, thus also eliminating the expense created by that particular activity, giving you more flexibility in your rate.
3. “What makes you think our service is only worth the amount you mentioned?” You have to be careful of your tone of voice when asking this question; you don’t want to sound confrontational. But the issue may simply be one of the perception of value. If the client doesn’t feel that having me consult on a product launch is worth $50,000 upfront, no amount of sales technique will get them to write me that check. I need to determine where they feel the value is.

While these suggestions may not turn every price negotiation into a business deal, they will help you find ways to say yes to proposals you might’ve said no to in the past.

And that can dramatically increase your bottom line.

If you’d like more tips on how to market your copywriting services, you’ll want to get on the notification list for my upcoming newsletter. It’s called “Marketing Your Copywriting Services” and it’s just for copywriters. Copywriters who want more clients… juicier assignments… and bigger fees… fast.

Sign up for the FREE Early-Bird Notification List here.

1. Work from an outline. If you’re a copywriter who’s earned your stripes, you already have an intuitive sense of the structure of good sales copy (different structure for different media or format, of course… But always a basic structure for each). It’s a good idea to have that outline available to use as a template (in Microsoft Word, for instance). Save yourself the mental effort of having to create the structure from scratch each time; organize your notes, clippings, and bits of copy within the outline. That way, when you’re ready to start writing, all your preliminary scribblings are at least in the right order.
2. Speak, don’t type. As long as you aren’t experiencing physiological or neurological problems, you speak much faster than you type. If you’re working from an outline (as suggested above) you should be able to dictate your copy at an incredibly rapid pace. You can either use software, such as DragonDictate, or you can pay to have a human being transcribe your copy. Either way, it’ll be much faster and more efficient. Unless you’re my friend Michel Fortin, who has supernatural typing ability.
3. Build up a bank of “copy chunks”. Chances are, if you do much writing for clients, you end up writing very similar opens, guarantees, closing segments, and so forth. Why not start collecting those “chunks” of copy, so you can simply cut and paste them into your first draft? This technique alone can save you many hours of laborious and needlessly repetitive work.

Here’s to speedier copy for you!

By the way, if you make your living writing copy (or you want to), you might be interested in my new project.

I’ll be launching a brand-new print newsletter very soon, and it’s just for copywriters who want more clients… juicier assignments… and bigger fees… fast. Sign up for the Early-Bird Notification List by clicking here.

Writers write.

That is it. I cannot guarantee that writing will make you into a great writer, but I can guarantee that you will not be a great writer if you don’t write.

Writing is simply another form of communication, a very specific form. I believe that each of us is born with a certain amount of talent for writing. But make no mistake, it takes work to write well. In fact, my friend, Dave Lakhani says that “writing is the doing part of thinking”. That sounds true to me.

No matter what your level of innate talent, writing will make you a better writer. If you write every day, you will be a better writer than you would have been had you not written every day.

Now, as to being a professional (paid) writer… that’s a different story. You still have to be able to write well, yes. But…

The truth is that being a professional writer has less to do with how great a writer you are, and more to do with how good you are at marketing your professional writing services. That is an art unto itself – which is exactly what we’ll be dealing with in my upcoming print newsletter.

It hasn’t launched yet (I’m hammering out the first few issues and bonus reports first). If you want to be notified when “Marketing Your Copywriting Services” becomes available, you can get notified here.

Which means you’re included, if you want to be.

Here at my company we’re in the midst of doing a lot of stuff designed to serve our readers and customers better.

One of those things is a project to simplify this site. We’ve now stripped the design down to the bare bones and will only add things back as they are needed.

Who decides what is “needed”? Hopefully, you.

Would you take just a moment to share your thoughts on the new design? Do you like the new “minimalist” approach? The LiveFyre comments?

Or is there something you don’t like or wish we would add or change? Please comment below and share your feedback. Thanks!

Seth’s point was: knowing which one you offer.

My point is: decide to offer products that are bought, thereby bypassing the need for selling altogether.

This doesn’t mean, by the way that no storytelling (copywriting) is required. Apple products are bought, but stories are told just the same. The “little hinge that swings big doors”: it’s often the storytelling that fuels the buying.

After all, most everyone who had any interest in making such prognostications has already posted theirs.

But I’m not late.

To paraphrase Gandalf, the wise wizard from the Lord of the Rings stories, “A prophet is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.”

Here are 7 predictions for 2012 from your ol’ Uncle Ray.

1. Faith will play a more pronounced role in the Presidential election. Sure, it’s always an issue. But in the past it has, more or less, been tangential. This time, with the mix including President Obama, Ron Paul, and Mitt Romney, I see this becoming a forefront discussion. Is America ready for a Mormon president? And if you think a President’s faith doesn’t inform his politics, you’re a wee bit daft.




2. The economy will not collapse nor resurrect – it will change, though. Chicken Little, settle down. Pollyanna, you might be disappointed. It is a new world order, just not the one many were expecting. It’s a new game, with new rules, and some new players at the international table (hint: can you speak Chinese?)




3. More people will see their answer to money woes lies in starting a business. We need entrepreneurs – not merely technicians with independent shops. Technicians merely siphon off pre-existant streams of wealth. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, actually create wealth. Many of these entrepreneurs will come from the ranks of the church – as more believers realize it is time for the church to stop simply having a message, and to start being a message. Spirit-filled entrepreneurs will demonstrate what it looks like to have God’s favor on our lives — including our businesses.




4. The Google game will be harder to play on all fronts. I wrote this before Google changed their search fundamentally with the “Your World” update. Would that I had published it a day or two earlier!




5. China. See prediction #2.




6. Being debt-free will become the new American status symbol. Turns out the Book of Proverbs is right: the borrower is the slave of the lender.




7. “Internet Marketing” (ie, marketers who sell marketing advice to marketers who sell marketing advice) will be harder… but “information marketing” (selling your knowledge and expertise) will still be insanely profitable.

So – what to do with these predictions? They are of little value if not joined with action. Within each is a kernel of encouragement. A seed of hope, possibility, and potential opportunity.

The diligent will find and seize upon these possibilities – and the many others not mentioned here.

I do acknowledge reality, by the way.

Is it tough these days? Yes, in some ways.

Is fear running rampant on the Earth? Yep.

Many wish these times had not come upon us. Perhaps you, too, wish our present times were different.

To quote Gandalf …

“So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world… besides the will of evil. And that is an encouraging thought.”

Indeed.

To finally achieve your dreams?

What will it take to get you off your… um… couch… and into action?

Look. It’s December. January 1 is rolling directly at you like a locomotive. New Year’s Day is unstoppable.

Many will set ambitious goals for the New Year. Inspiring plans. Rockin’ resolutions. And almost 100% of them will be broken and abandoned by January 15th.

Most of those “resolutions” will be HISTORY in less than two weeks. It happens every year. So ask yourself…

“WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE TO CHANGE THAT?”

What will it take to make 2012 the year you SET goals and actually ACHIEVE them? What will it take for 2012 to be the year you:

• Get your online business going and making money.
• Grow your list (or start one!).
• Get out of debt.
• Overcome the technical challenges that hold you back.
• Get your website built and working right.
• Break free from overwhelm and confusion to JUST GET STARTED.
• Find the time to work on your Internet business.
• Figure out WHO to listen to or follow, so you can QUIT chasing after the “latest and loudest”.

I actually have an answer for you. TWELVE ANSWERS. And I’m sharing them in a special LIVE Webinar training  NEXT WEEK, on December 13th. It’s called…

[font family="impact,chicago" size="24" color="DE0202" textshadow="2" alignment="center" weight="normal" style="normal" lineheight="110"]“12 Transformational Truths For 2012
That Will Make This The Year You FINALLY
Achieve Your Online Business Goals”[/font]

I believe this will be the single most important webinar I’ve EVER done… and it is 100% free.

We’re holding it twice that day, once in the morning and once later in the day.

Register for one or both – but do commit to attend. I absolutely can NOT promise a replay.

[contentbox width="300" borderwidth="1" borderstyle="dotted" bordercolor="000000" dropshadow="1" backgroundcolor="F5F5F5" radius="0"]

WEBINAR #1 (EARLY WEBINAR)

Tuesday, December 13th at Noon Eastern

(9am Pacific)

REGISTER NOW – CLICK HERE

[/contentbox]

[contentbox width="300" borderwidth="1" borderstyle="dotted" bordercolor="000000" dropshadow="1" backgroundcolor="F5F5F5" radius="0"]

WEBINAR #2: (LATER WEBINAR)

Tuesday, December 13th at 9pm Eastern

(6pm Pacific)

REGISTER NOW – CLICK HERE

[/contentbox]

See you on the webinar(s)!

I’ve had the privilege of getting to know John over these last few weeks, and he really lives the stuff he teaches and writes about – one of the most important qualities for any teacher! What is this movement about? As John expresses it: “the passion that starts when God connects your job, business, ministry, and life purpose into one package. Entrepreneurs (like you) in your workplace or your home business bring a creative health to cash flow, co-workers and customers.”

Have a listen and let us know what you think (in the comments section below, on your own blog, or via Social Media!)…

So what’s the book all about?

Well, Carrie says her book if for anyone who longs to run their business from home. She says it’s possible (and she doesn’t just say it though, she shows you how). Her book helps anyone understand the ingredients needed to start and run a lucrative home-based business.

In this interview you’ll find Carrie to be an engaging, likeable, down-to-earth teacher with deep integrity — and you’ll also hear a powerful woman who knows what she’s talking about!

Click The Player Below To Listen

On a free day, I take no business calls, read no business e-mails, no e-zines, no magazines, no business books, no business voicemails — nothing to do with business at all. That also means no Twitter, no Facebook, and even no Google+.

This, for me, is harder than it might seem, but it is also invaluable. Unplugging from the stream of constant demands for my attention allows my brain to do something valuable… it allows my brain to relax. To renew. To re-create.

I have found that when I engage in my practice of having a “free day” once a week, I end up being more creative, more resourceful, and more filled with energy the rest of the week.

While I do credit Dan Sullivan with coining the term “free day”, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that God instituted “free days” a long time ago. He called them “SabbathS”.

Give yourself the gift of a “free day” this week. You will be changed as a result.

P.S. – You may wonder how I am posting this article on a “free day”. Don’t I practice what I preach? Yes, I do! The answer is, I wrote this post on a non-free day, and set it to automatically post while I was away. See you tomorrow… when I get back.

In fact, I don’t think it’s possible to keep the two separate. Everyone is in possession of some form of spirituality-some form of experience or set of beliefs about the things we refer to as “spiritual” things. Even if you are an atheist, your experience of spirituality is clear, if only by its absence.

Whatever your spirituality, it cannot help but inform the way you do business. In fact, it cannot help but inform the way you do life.

So the question is not: does spirituality have a place in business, the question is… are we going to talk about it? Are we going to admit it? Are we going to “own” our beliefs and our spirituality, and do so openly and honestly?

Or, as some suggest, should we make this a case of “don’t ask, don’t tell?”

I welcome your comments.

So often, as business people and entrepreneurs, and especially as freelancers, we seem to be chasing customers. This gives us an air of desperation. If you look at a customer, and all you see is a bag of groceries or a paycheck, guess what? The customer knows. They can smell desperation on you just like a dog can smell your fear. What do you do?

Sit down with a pad and pen and write up a description of your ideal customer. You know, the kind that doesn’t get on your nerves, the kind that pays on time, the kind that doesn’t balk at your fees, the dream customer. Once you’ve written out a good description of what this customer looks like, set that as your target. Pretend that for the next week or so that’s the only kind of customer that you’re willing to accept.

State your criteria publicly.

You don’t have to be obnoxious, you don’t have to state your criteria in the negative (“I don’t want a whining complaining customer”, etc.). You can state your criteria in the positive:

“Looking for customers who is smart, with it, understand the value of what we do, and who is willing to pay a premium price for a job well done.” Change up the specifics to fit whatever your situation is.

But be very clear on the customers that you won’t accept and work to discourage them from doing business with you. This will serve to attract the kind of customers that you want.

My friend, Michael Port, in his book, Book Yourself Solid, calls this the “velvet rope strategy.” We all understand the analogy of the velvet rope. It’s a barrier that implies, “you must meet certain qualifications before you cross this rope”… and the presence of a velvet rope invariably makes us want to cross to the other side.

Is it time for you to put up your own “velvet rope”?

I receive many questions about how I work, how I manage my time, and what my “systems” are for working as a writer and consultant.

First, this caveat: There are some significant changes now that we are operating in the “new economy”.

What’s different about the “new economy”? A few key points for freelancers and entrepreneurs – these must be understood and internalized:

The bubble has burst. Easy credit is gone. Houses of cards in the banking industry have come tumbling down. People have lost their jobs, their houses, their credit cards. The spending habits and market behaviors of almost all people have irrevocably changed, altered forever by the economic shift that took place recently. And if you’re waiting for things to get “back to normal”, this is your wake-up call… it’s never going back. This is the new normal. Get used to it. Adapt.

Competition is at an all time high. And thanks to Google it is easier than ever before to find all your competitors in a few seconds.

Nobody needs anything. In the Western World, even though we have experienced an economic shake up, we still have everything we need already. Yes, I know some people are in need and I am not ignoring them nor minimizing their needs – but I am also acknowledging that for most people, their needs are over-supplied. Do you have a roof over your head, clean water, and at least one meal per day? Then you are better off than most of the people in the world. To see how good you have it, check out how wealthy you rank in the world by clicking here.

What does all this mean? It’s time to review and evaluate how you do everything you do within your business or practice. Does it measure up? Is it effective? Does it produce profit? Is it the best possible use of your time?

That’s what I’m doing here – reviewing my current systems an findings. Hopefully it’s helpful.

I offer the following with this caveat: I’m still workin’ on it, and I don’t always follow the system perfectly. But each time I fall “off the wagon”, I get up, dust off my britches, and climb back on. So far it’s worked pretty well.

A “day in the life of Ray” is a busy one. Here are current projects I’m working on:

1. Private Client Copy Project. This was a big project, comprising 3 full video salesletters, email campaigns, affiliate email copy, and text versions of the sales videos. This project was a beast in terms of time invested, but it was fun. And it paid well.

2. Private Consulting Client. This relationship translates to regular phone meetings, a small in-house launch every quarter or so, and reams of copy generated for upsells, ridealongs, retention, phone scripts, etc. This is a retainer + revenue deal, just like all my deals these days.

3. Private Retainer Client. This client retains me strictly for two sales letters per month, for different products each month; again, I have a piece of revenue.

4. Private Client in the business opportunity market; this is only the third time I have been ripped off by a client. I collected the fee and wrote the initial copy. My client has, so far, stiffed me for 6 months worth of royalties. I did have some misgivings about this project in the beginning but suppressed them and took the job anyway. Lesson learned: trust my inner promptings. Just a note to my client, V. If you’re reading this, just know that if you want to make it right, send me the check for what you owe me and all will be forgiven. And if you simply can’t pay for some reason… at least answer my messages and let me know what’s going on. Maybe I can help.

5. Writing Riches Member Site. This is a “coaching club” I run for those who cannot necessarily afford to hire me but who want to learn from my work, get me input, and receive training from me each month.

6. Book Promotion. My new book on copywriting, Writing Riches, is a #1 Best-Seller on Amazon.com. It’s the best deal I offer on training and is available as a softcover or on the Kindle.

7. Three books in progress. One is a business book (first draft completed), one is a book for Christ-followers on the importance and power of forgiveness (first draft about 75% complete) (this book is being folded into the next one), and one is a book about achieving true, lasting success, called Taking Back Tomorrow.

8. Two monthly newsletters. I write one for my clients, and one for paying subscribers.

9. Workshops. I am planning a small, exclusive workshop in my offices this Fall. It will be me and four guests… and you’ll get my hands-on help with your project. Plus, my team will even build your site for you! This won’t be cheap – the price is $5,000. If you’re interested, please call my assistant Kathy at 509-624-2220 and let her know. Acceptance is not guaranteed, as this is not for everyone.

10. Copywriting Protege Program. My students write for clients who either (a) can’t get on my schedule soon enough or (b) can’t afford my fees. My team writes your copy, I critique the drafts for re-writes, and then I approve the final work that is delivered to you. This means we can deliver affordable copy that still receives my “touch”. (To inquire about a project, please submit your request here: http://RayEdwards.com/contact )

The Big Question

How is it I’m able to juggle so many priorities and projects? Through careful conscious choice, and good systems.

And quite frankly: it’s a work in progress.

In order to deliver the very best work to my clients and partners, and to still leave room in my schedule for rejuvenation (sleep, family time, time with God, and time to just plain relax)… I have to guard my time vigorously. And I have to be on guard against what Dan Kennedy calls “Time Vampires”. Some tactics that work for me in my current system:

MSR
My Morning Success Ritual is vital to my most productive days. While I don’t manage to get this in every day, I’m getting better at it. My goal between now and the New Year is to achieve 95%+ compliance with this ritual every day.

The MSR is summed up by the acronym WWW B PREP, which stands for:

• Wake
• Water (16 oz. filtered)
• Walk (at least 20 minutes)
• Bible
• Prayer
• Eat
• Plan (the day)

The days when I follow this MSR, starting the minute my feet hit the floor out of bed, are invariably my best days (most productive, most joyous, most satisfying). Probably because the most important things were done first – and when I’m still in the “NDZ”: No Distraction Zone (meaning no email, no voicemail, no phone calls, etc.)

Writing
The first thing I *must* do each day, after my MSR is complete (and after I have showered, driven to the office, etc.) is WRITING. I am primarily a writer. So this is my #1 Revenue Producing Activity (RPA). At this point my phone is off, I have still not checked email, not checked voicemail, etc. Still in the NDZ. I write for a large block of time at the beginning of the day — often 4 hours. NOTHING gets to interrupt the writing — including (and even especially) the clients for whom I may be writing.

Email
My auto-check feature in Apple Mail is turned OFF. I only get email when I press the “Check Mail” button. I check it twice once per day, Monday thru Thursday Tuesday thru Friday. Usually around 11am Pacific and 4pm Pacific. This is one of my policies that tends to be unpopular with those who are “urgency addicts”, and who want me to have a constant email discussion about minutia with them. I refuse to sacrifice my highest valued commodity (time) for the sake of what usually amounts to trivia. I suggest you adopt the same policy.

Meetings
Any meeting that lasts longer than 15 minutes is probably too long. Not always, but most of the time. Any project that requires multiple meetings each week is probably in trouble. Long meetings = inefficiency at best, and postponement of the inevitable at worst. (As a sidebar: frequent short meetings are just a disguised way of having long meetings. HEAR ME: if you have “meeting-itis”, either you just want an excuse to talk about work instead of doing it, or something is wrong with the project … something another meeting won’t solve).

Phone Meetings / Conversations
Same as meetings, only worse. Conversations and phone meetings should be 15 minutes or less. Anything longer and you’re probably wasting time for at least some people in the group.

Instant Messenger
Just say no. The only time I use it is when I have SCHEDULED events on Skype (usually interviews). Also, I occasionally chat with family or friends — but again, this is SCHEDULED. I am NEVER “just available” to be interrupted. (If I was, that would mean that I was either doing something unimportant, or that I was doing NOTHING. If I’m doing something unimportant… WHY? And if I’m doing NOTHING, it’s a PLANNED nothing and it’s important that this not be interrupted!).

Office Hours
Yes, I have an office outside my home. I lease currently. I’m considering buying an office building. I keep regular business hours most of the time: Mon – Thurs, Tuesday – Friday, 8am – 5pm Pacific.

By the way, my office phone is answered by a LIVE HUMAN (not some stupid voicemail torture device) Monday – Saturday, 8am – 6pm Pacific time. Why do I have the phone covered even when I am out of the office? Because other members of my team keep different hours… and because emergencies DO happen, and I like to be available if a TRUE emergency arises. My phone team knows how to reach me in those cases.

Why The Emphasis On Not Being Interrupted?

Interruptions cost you dearly.

As a writer, I know that allowing myself to be interrupted by a client or vendor (“Hey Ray – got a minute to talk about the new logo?”) can seem harmless… but it isn’t. That interruption costs me (a) the state of “flow” I was in while working, maybe impossible to recover, (b) the time of the interruption itself, and (c) the time it takes me to get back into the “zone” with what I was working on… minimum 20 minutes, maybe longer.

I can’t afford to let that happen. Especially not in the “New Economy”.

My clients and customers can’t afford for me to let that happen.

I once had a client who loved to call me at 11pm at night and talk for two hours. I tried to tell him I worked set hours and was available at those times, but he didn’t seem to understand. When our first project was finished, I fired him. His dysfunction did not automatically become my problem. Be warned – people will WASTE your time if you let them. Will you let them? be polite, be loving… but don’t be a victim.

In the end, if you guard your time, you are being most respectful of other people. Think about it: if you allow yourself to be interrupted, or your time wasted when you should have been doing something else… who suffers? Your clients. Your customers. Your family (“Sorry honey, I have to stay late because I wasted 2 hours today listening to the web team make excuses…”).

You’re not serving anyone by being a poor steward of your time.

New Experiments In Time Management

I’m currently going through a re-vamping, refining, and re-evaluating phase and I thought it might be useful to you if I shared some ideas I’m trying out. While I’m sold on the stuff I mentioned previously, I’m telling you right now these next items are EXPERIMENTAL. If they prove successful, I’ll have more to say here in the future about them.

1.Three-Sentence Emails. If you receive a lot of email, you know what it’s like to feel overloaded by it. This is a personal policy that all email responses regardless of recipient or subject will be three sentences or less. Read more at http://three.sentenc.es/
This practice, I have abandoned. I also am not using the ubquitous “I’m so busy I can’t answer your email for at least 2 days” autoresponders. I have come to view these as slightly (at best) obnoxious. I still only check email once per day, and even though I have abandoned the “email policy” signature and autoresponder, I don’t get any complaints.

2. Fifteen Minute Meetings. Just like the above, only not quite so regimented. *Most* meetings will be 15 minutes or less. That’s my default meeting length. If it needs to be longer, we can negotiate in 15 minute blocks. If it needs to be longer than 45 minutes, we better be working on something like the Middle East Peace Talks.

3. Free Days. I used to cheat on this. I’m sorry to admit it. But no more. I “fell of the wagon” on this one again. Embarrassing. But, as it says in the Book of Proverbs, “though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again”. So here’s the practice I’m aiming for… a “free day” is one in which there is NO business activity of any kind: no emails, no blogs, no IMs, no phone calls, no reading articles, no business books… NOTHING. Right now, I have at least one scheduled FREE DAY per week (Sundays). The purpose is to allow for real refreshing, rejuvenation, and creativity to arise. My goal is to eventually reach 3 FREE DAYS per week. This does not mean that I’ll be spending 3 days a week doing NOTHING… these days will be filled with family time, spiritual and charitable pursuits, and yes, even recreation. For more on this, see Dan Sullivan’s “The Time Breakthrough”.

This was a long post – I hope it was useful to you. If you have questions or want to add some ideas of your own, please do it below!

It’s the principle discovered by the Italian mathematician (whose last name was, surprisingly enough, Pareto) that states something like the following: 80% of the results in any system arise from 20% of the inputs in that system.

In the world of business, the Pareto principle is commonly invoked when noting such mathematical oddities as the fact that 80% of the sales are generated by less than 20% of the sales people; 80% of the revenue is generated by less than 20% of the customers; 80% of the leads are generated by less than 20% of the phone calls… and so forth.

As an entrepreneur, it is profitable to think about the Pareto principle in the following way: 80% of your results will flow from only 20% of your activities. They should become a liberating truth for you. It constitutes mathematical permission for you to focus only on the 20% of things you like to do anyway. The truth is most entrepreneurs are people who enjoy “visioning”-or, as my private client Frank Kern likes to put it, “scheming”. This doesn’t imply anything evil; it simply recognizes the fact that entrepreneurial types tends to enjoy coming up with the big ideas, seeing the big picture, laying down the strategy, and leaving the cleanup and details to others on their team. In the world of the Internet, there is an ethos that if you can do it yourself you should do it yourself. This has had the result of locking up entrepreneurs in a prison of detail work.

No entrepreneur should be installing WordPress blogs, debugging scripts, or figuring out how to make the latest plug-in work… unless this is out of financial necessity. And assuming that you’re any kind of entrepreneur at all, the period of financial necessity may exist from time to time, but should be short-lived.

The prosperous practice of the Pareto principle simply means: only do the stuff you’re best at, the stuff that gets results, that puts sales on the books, new clients on the roster, and “moves the needle”. Anything else is a waste of time.

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By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised.
- Hebrews 11:11

Receiving God’s blessings for your life by having faith sometimes feels like a tricky business.

Sometimes we feel that if we doubt-even for a second-that we will have cheated ourselves out of our blessings.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

When we accept God’s gift of abundant grace, and of righteousness through Jesus Christ, He no longer sees our sins and shortcomings (even our lack of faith).

In fact, God promises that He will “remember our sins no more”.

This isn’t even restricted to the New Covenant-take Sarah for example. The writer of Hebrews says that Sarah received strength to conceive a child, even in her old age, because of her faith. But if you go back and read the story in the Old Testament, you’ll notice something very interesting. Sarah did not instantly have great faith that God would deliver on His promise-she actually laughed when God said she would have a child. Then, when asked why she had laughed, she lied and said she had not!

Yet the Bible clearly says that it was by faith that Sarah conceived. How can this be? It’s because when God forgives, He forgives completely, and He sees the good that He has placed within us.

Don’t worry that you have somehow disqualified yourself from God’s blessings. It’s impossible for you to do that; God is the one who qualified you, and He promised it was done with complete and everlasting perfection.

Have faith, pray that the Lord will grace you with more, and put yourself in a position to receive the blessings God is already sending your way!

If you haven’t read it, move it to the top of your list.

If you have read it and haven’t yet implemented every single strategy inside its covers, read it now. Again.

Probably my favorite passage from Chet’s masterful business work is one that most people read without understanding its import. In the early pages of the book, Chet points out that most people will read his book, agree with its precepts, and still not do them. He says this is the “reverse psychology” section of the book, in which he attempts to prod the reader into doing what needs to be done. In Chet’s words, “I’m goading you into applying a powerful force for creating success from what you’re going to learn… and that force, my friends, is pigheaded discipline and determination.”

Pigheaded discipline is the subject of this post for very good, and simple, reason. That reason being the fact that this is the most-lacked skill in over 90% of entrepreneurs. In my experience, what stands in our way, what holds us back from our potential, is usually not some external force (such as competition or marketplace conditions)-it is, rather, our own inability to say no to the things that distract us from our most profitable activities, and our continued inability to say yes only to those activities that produce the results we seek.

It is as if the world conspires against us to lead us down this path to destruction. Most of our peers, and certainly most of our employees, are happy to tell us what we should be spending our time on-and almost without fail their advice is dead wrong. It usually doesn’t come packaged as advice, by the way – it usually comes packaged as a meeting… a phone call… a personal plea… or some kind of interpersonal conflict. None of which are, perhaps, designed to take us off target- but all of which inevitably do.

Guard your heart carefully, eternal entrepreneur, and focus only on the things that expand the kingdom. Employ pigheaded discipline.

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“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
William Shakespeare

I will leave the discussion aside as to whether William Shakespeare is indulging in moral relativism.

I think he is not, if one reads the above quotation in context, but I do think the quotation illustrates a basic principle we, as entrepreneurs, would be profited to recognize and employ with more frequency.

It is popular, in our culture, to be well versed in bad news.

It is popular to be able to quote the bad news, and to elaborate upon its badness, and one is presumed to be more erudite and wise for doing so.

But as entrepreneurs-those who create something from virtually nothing-I believe it is the kiss of death. It is a way of limiting ourselves, of violating the principle of the best use of resources.

The best and highest resource we possess is ourselves, and that never brought so into focus as in what we think about most of the time.

I don’t believe it’s possible to talk about the bad news all the time, without also thinking about it all the time. And it should stand to reason that thinking about something all the time tends to put one’s focus on that something, and that focusing on something inevitably draws us closer to the something.

I’m not talking about mysticism here.

I’m simply talking about the fact that the more we tend to think about a thing, the more likely it is that our behavior, actions, attitudes, and lifestyle will come into alignment with that thing we’re thinking about.

So the “bad news” is this: thinking and talking about bad news all the time might make you seem smart, but it inevitably makes you dumb, and what’s more it likely will make you broke. In the rare cases that it does not make you broke, because you have in some perverted way discovered how to profit from bad news, it will make you soul-sick.

Yes, I’m sticking my neck out on this one. But my poster child for the premise of being rich but soul-sick is Howard Hughes. And I don’t think any of us wants to end up like him, hoarding our fingernail clippings, living on orange juice, and slowly going insane.

The good news is, there is obvious profit in thinking and talking about good news. In looking for the good news in every situation. It is after all, as entrepreneurs, what we are paid to do.

Let’s go do it.

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While I do my best to be generous, is becoming increasingly obvious to me that I simply don’t have enough money to give some of it to everyone who asks. I have to make choices.

On a similar note, I seem to get more and more requests these days for free consultations or pro bono work. Again, I do a certain amount of pro bono work, but I cannot do it for everyone who asks. It’s simply impossible.

Which has me thinking about boundaries. Being intentional about who I can give money to, or who I can contribute free work to, means that I must establish boundaries that govern how I will respond to such requests.

You have a similar dilemma in your own life, whether you realize it or not. When a friend asks a favor of you after work, for instance, you have to decide whether you’re willing to grant the favor (and potentially sacrifice time with family, etc.) or whether you will say “no”. In either event you have to make a decision about whether you will allow a certain boundary to be crossed.

In my mind, “boundaries” establish the conditions under which you will say “yes”. Boundaries are gateways.

Boundaries are different than “barriers”.

Barriers, it seems to me, are more like walls. Their purpose is to say “no”.

Knowing, and acknowledging, the difference between boundaries and barriers will give a great degree of clarity to your decisions.

Good boundaries are a plan about how you want to deal with certain situations in your life — a plan formed BEFORE you need one.

I think this is worth giving some thought to. What are the boundaries in your life? Under what circumstances will you say “yes” to certain requests?

And what are the barriers in your life? I do believe that certain barriers should exist; there are behaviors, people, and situations to which your answer should always be “no”.

If you don’t decide in advance what your barriers are… and what your boundaries are… and how you will enforce each… how do you expect to be able to make good decisions at the critical moment?

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“Can I please have a tall LOTTY?” she asked.

The barista did not quite sneer, but managed to convey that emotion when she said, “Oh, you mean a LAH-TAY?”

The customer meekly answered in the affirmative, and moved to the end of the counter. She paid her tab. But I wonder if she will ever go back to that coffee shop again?

I also wonder what was the purpose of correcting the customer?

As near as I can see the only reason for doing it was to send the message: “you pronounced it wrong.”

That much is clear, and, I think, accurate.

Anything I say about the motivation that the barista had in correcting the customer would be mere speculation. Was the barista jaded, angry, disdainful, malicious? I don’t really know.

I do know that she cost her store a potential bundle of money from that one customer, who was made to feel stupid.

The most alarming thing about this story is, I’m pretty sure the owner of the coffee shop would have been appalled to learn about this. I’m sure it’s not his intent that his customers be treated with scorn. I’m sure he simply doesn’t know.

Which leads me to ask you this potentially uncomfortable question: do such things happen at your business?

I’m certain you don’t intend for them to happen… But do they happen anyway?

How do you know?

Something to think about.

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“Pig Pen, this here is Rubber Duck. We ain’t gonna pay no toll…”
CW McCall, “Convoy”

Who would have dreamed, in the 1970s, that anything would ever replace the CB radio? Some readers will, like me, be old enough to remember the CB craze. We will all remember, for instance, that the “main channel” on our CB radio was channel 19.

“Breaker 19, this here is the CopyGuy, with a newsflash: before that Hollywood actor named Reagan becomes president, CB radio will be a fad from the past…”

Fast-forward to just around the time CB radio had completely faded from the American consciousness, and you’ll discover a curious new technology called the compact disc just making its debut on the market. There were scoffers. There were purists who said nothing sounded as good as vinyl (there still are, but that’s another post). And there were plenty of people to point out that nobody in their right mind would replace an entire record collection just to go buy the same music on CD. Those people were wrong.

Fast forward again. Apple introduces a service called iTunes. There are scoffers. There are purists who say there’s nothing like having the liner notes you get inside the case of a CD. And they’re plenty of people pointing out that nobody in their right mind will replace an entire CD collection is to go buy the same music for the iPod. Those people were also wrong.

Just to be clear: those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Change is constant. Industries appear and vanish in the space of a decade. Those who win are those who anticipate the trends, and get in front of them. Distinction worthy of note: it is much easier to predict trends and get in front of them that it is to be the creator of said trends. Much, much, much easier.

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What He was saying was that whatever is inside of us seems to find its way to our lips. Usually we are unaware of this.

Someone once said, “When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem tends to look like a nail.”

The things we habitually say tend to indicate what sort of tools we have available inside us for dealing with our life problems and challenges.

Start paying attention to things you repeatedly say.

They may give you a good indicator of the secrets of your heart that even you were unaware of.

And perhaps point you to the work you need to be doing — work that will grow your character and prepare you for new, higher-level challenges.

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Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.
- Hebrews 10:23

God makes many promises to us in the Bible.

He promises health, prosperity, and blessings to those who accept his Son, Jesus Christ.

As we will see in the coming days, these promises are too unequivocal to ignore; too straightforward to dance around with “verbal gymnastics”.

When you deny that God means to keep His promises, you willfully engage in unbelief. This is because you are thinking like a human being. That’s understandable, but no longer acceptable to you and me, as followers of Christ.

Beloved, you are a new creation. God wants you to stop following the pattern of the world (for instance, entertaining unbelief) and He wants you to allow Him to “renew” your mind. He promised that He would.

The next time you seize upon one of the Lord’s promises for your life, and the voice of unbelief begins speaking in the back of your mind, remember what the writer of Hebrews said: “He who promised is faithful.”

You and I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He has given us the “abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness”. And He has promised us that He knows how to take good care of His children.

Hold fast to that confession. Do not waver. And if you do, pray something like this: “Lord I believe in You. I thank You for Your gift of grace and of righteousness. I accept the blessings that You have for me, and I thank You for washing me in Your Spirit, even when I falter. Keep on reminding me, Lord, that You have made promises to me, and that You are faithful. Thank You for what You’re doing in my life. Give me eyes to see and recognize it as it unfolds. Thank You for being the kind of Daddy that knows how to give good gifts to His children.”

“Big picture” people.

“Idea” people.

And that’s good. BUT… in times like these it can also be problematic.

Because…

What we want is a simple solution to our complex business problems.

What we need, however, is not an “easy button”.

What we need are often complex, multi-faceted tactical plans guided by a carefully conceived strategic course.

The tricky thing is, from the outside this often looks like simplicity.

But it is simplicity on the other side of complexity.

Getting to the other side of complexity requires the hardest of all work: thinking.

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Whatever it is, whatever you can manage, whatever you have the energy for, whatever you have the resources for… do it now.

There’s something about simply getting anything done that adds momentum to your day.

Sometimes you have to start with the smallest, most insignificant item on your “to do list”. But it’s often the doing of that seemingly insignificant task that “breaks loose” the productivity logjam.

It’s the simple act of getting something done… anything… even the smallest thing… that gives you the energy you need to get the larger things done next.

So if you’re feeling stuck, don’t just sit there… do something! Anything.

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Henry Ford famously said that if he had listened to the public, what he would’ve delivered was faster horses. Instead, he sought to do something different, and brought us the mass-produced automobile.

Before Steve Jobs introduced the iPad, very few people were asking for one. In fact, Saturday Night Live joked the week after the iPad’s release that it was the first time in history a company marketed a product by forcing people to buy it in order to learn what it was.

Millions of iPads later, Apple has the last laugh.

Don’t be afraid to think different.

Yes, you will fail more often than the average person. But a function of failing more often than the average person is that you also succeed more often than they do.

Something to think about.

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Customers are seldom impressed with how well you are able to remove human contact from every transaction.

People are always amazed at a personal touch-even as brief as a two-minute phone call, a handwritten note, or an e-mail that was clearly personal.

Automation may save you money in the short term, but did you ever stop to think how much it costs you in the long run?

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Here are three simple but compelling qualities that will make your business stand out from the competition:

1. A great first impression. It’s true, you never get a second chance to make a good first impression. Too many people (and businesses) miss this opportunity, or worse, they botch it. Pay attention to details, especially on your website. Prospective customers will examine it closely for inconsistencies, errors, misspellings, outdated information, and false claims. Take great pains to make a good first impression.

2. Quick response. As simple as it may sound, answering the phone after no more than three rings… returning phone calls the same day… following up with e-mail correspondence quickly… all these “little things” can build trust in a remarkably short period of time. The reason: people are so accustomed to being disappointed in this area, that even if you simply meet your obligations, you will impress them. Exceed your agreements, and they will be astounded.

3. Go the extra mile. Perform unexpected service for your clients-such as early delivery, coming in under budget, delivering more than was promised, even losing money to make a complaint right. These kinds of “extra mile” gestures can win you a customer for life-certainly worth sacrificing short-term profits for the long-term gain.

It’s not always easy to stand out – but it is usually simple.

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“For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”
Romans 5:17

What does it mean exactly to “reign in life”?

I would like to propose to you that it means exactly what it sounds like: that Jesus intends for us to enjoy the benefits of every blessing He has given us.

He intends for us to be without anxiety, to be satisfied, to experience joy, and to be saved, healed, delivered.

How are we to receive these benefits? What do we do in order to get them?

That is the best news of all; we don’t have to do a single thing. Jesus paid it all! All we have to do is receive. Read it for yourself in the passage above from Romans. Who is it that reigns in life?

It is, quite simply, “those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness”.

Grace is the unmerited favor that Christ offers to everyone who will simply say “yes”. The fact that it is unmerited should be a source of great joy to us; it means not only did we not earn it, but also that we can’t lose it! If we did nothing to gain it to begin with, how could we possibly do anything to lose it?

Even more exciting is the gift of righteousness. Righteousness means “right standing with God”. It means that when God looks at us, and we have accepted the gift of eternal life through Jesus, God sees us as righteous. It means that even when we stumble, we are still “right with God”.

Remember that when Jesus died to pay for your sins, all your sins were future sins! So you’re not just “okay for now” – you are “perfected forever”.

What the law could never do, and what we could never do through trying to adhere to the law, Jesus did for us.

And now, we are told that once we have received this abundance and this gift that we will “reign in life”; not in the mystical hereafter, but in life! In the here and now.

So what does it mean if we are not experiencing this thing called “reigning in life”? What does it mean when we are faced with sickness, or lack, or adversity? Should we be discouraged?

By no means! We should know that these circumstances are the work of the enemy. They are not God’s way of “teaching us a lesson” and they are not His will for us. Believing otherwise is the opposite of “receiving the abundance of grace”.

Now be cautious, because this is the point at which it’s easy to fall into feelings of guilt or self-condemnation. If you are experiencing sickness, pain, or adversity, don’t blame God-and also don’t blame yourself.

Simply step up, and receive that which has been freely given to you by the Son of God: the “abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness”. If you are facing any kind of suffering in your life, you might want to pray something like this:

“Father, thank you for the abundance of grace, and the gift of righteousness that you granted me through your mighty work on the cross. Thank you for taking all authority over death and hell. Thank you for the gift of eternal life, and for the privilege of reigning in life through the one, Jesus Christ.”

Watch what God will do for you when you accept his gifts!

Instead, the most valuable tip I can offer you is: make sure your mindset is correct. You need to choose:

Service over sales.

Excellence over expedience.

Ethics over ease.

Long-term gains over short-term profits.

And especially… possibility over problems.

Often, these difficult choices leave us trying to decide between one option or the other.

Buy an office building, or lease office space?

Hire a new employee, or outsource to the Philippines?

Develop a new product, or focus on better marketing for the existing product line?

In almost every case, there is more to be gained by refusing the “either/or” decision paradigm… and instead embracing a “both/and” paradigm. For instance…

Instead of either buying an office building, or leasing office space… what if you became the landlord, owning the building, leasing from yourself, and collecting rent from other tenants? That might let you enjoy the best of both the options.

Instead the choice between hiring a new employee in-house or outsourcing to Manilla… what if you did both, and extended the speed, flexibility and working hours of your team… without spending extra money?

Instead of choosing between product development, or marketing existing products in a better way, why not do both? Is there really a reason you’re forced to choose between the two options?

Usually, the answer is… there is no reason for such an artificial choice.

Free yourself from the box!

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
- Isaiah 53:4–5

According to the words God spoke through the prophet Isaiah, Jesus – when He was crucified – not only bore the penalty of our sins on His body, He paid for our sickness as well.

The prophet says that “by His stripes we are healed”.

Jesus showed that this was true when He walked the earth as a human being. He healed every person who came to Him; He turned nobody away.

It is important to remember that when Jesus walked the earth He did so as a man; He was filled with the Holy Spirit, and He was led by Holy Spirit, because He was modeling for you and me how we are to live our lives.

In other words, He was teaching us to do what He did.

So ask yourself this question: if we are supposed to do what Jesus did, how are we to respond to those around us who are sick?

If you have been trained by the modern American church, you have probably already made an excuse in your mind about why you are not qualified to heal the sick. You’ve probably heard it explained away, usually with some comment to the effect that we are not Jesus. We are not able to do the same works that He did – that’s what some will say.

While the evidence seems to confirm that idea, and I certainly am still working on raising the dead and walking on water, I also know that the Bible clearly teaches that we are to believe God’s truth, and not the evidence of the world.

Jesus clearly taught that we, His followers, would do “greater works” than He. Not even works that are “equal to” ones He did, but “greater works”!

My proposal is that we have an assignment. And that is to keep on receiving the abundance of grace, and the gift of God’s righteousness, until we begin seeing those “greater works”. It is after all, the mission which He gave to us.

A good place to start might be… to heal the sick.

Occasionally, when I was struggling with some decision of dilemma, I would take my problem to him.

He would scratch his chin and say, “Well, what do you think is the right thing to do?”

I would answer quietly, already knowing where this was headed.

And he would grin.

“I would just do that.”

Not the easiest thing. The right thing.

Good advice for many businesses and entrepreneurs.

When in doubt, do the right thing.

Farmers understand the “Law of the Harvest”.

This Law is simple: to reap a harvest, you must sow the seed and tend the crop.

In other words, first you do the work and then  you get the result.

And you understand the nature of seeds: they take time and tending in order to make them grow.

No “instant crop” – no “easy harvest”.

In business…

No “instant income”.

Not even easy.

But simple. And reliable.

Communicate what it will cost your prospects if they don’t buy from you?

What will it cost them in time, money, and effort if they don’t solve their problem using your solution?

Just communicate clearly the cost of not buying from you today, and no “selling tricks” will be required.

What’s that you say? You’re not sure what it will cost them… or even if it will cost them anything at all?

If that’s the case, your problem is not a selling problem. It’s either a value problem or a value clarification problem.

Either way, you now know what to do next.

Call it Chaos.

Call it the Un-maker.

Call it Satan.

Your enemy is opposed to every act of creation on your part.

Every act of kindness, generosity, beauty, and grace.

Your enemy wants you to think small, play it safe, keep your head down.

Your enemy tries to tell you that an act of kindness makes you weak.

That forgiveness makes you a doormat.

Your enemy whispers in your ear when you have that idea for a new product that would make people’s lives better, and he says, “That will never work… nobody will buy that… what a stupid idea… it’s too hard.”

You know the enemy’s voice well.

If you’re like 7 billion other people on this planet, you have heeded it too often.

What if you just stopped listening?

What if you told your enemy to sit down and shut up?

What if, today, you did something bold, beautiful, crazy-cool?

Resist the enemy, and he will flee. He only ever had the power you gave him by listening. Stop listening, and he is undone.

And the world will look different to you.

Possibility unfurls.

Miracle follows miracle.

Try it. You’ll like it.

Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.
- Mark 11:24

I’m always amused when Bible teachers try to make excuses for God. As if He needs excuses.

Case in point: the above verse from the Gospel of Mark very clearly says that whatever you ask for when you pray, believe that you receive it… and you will have it.

There doesn’t seem to be any “wiggle room” in that promise, does there?

Either the Bible says what it means, and means what it says, or not. There are plenty of other straightforward promises of answered prayer, too, just like this one, in the Scripture.

So how do we explain it when we ask for something in prayer, and do not receive it? Especially if we feel that we really believed for the answer?

While it’s not always possible to know why this happens, it is possible to know this: the shortcoming is not on God’s part.

He does not lie about His promises.

It’s also possible to know that it is His will that we be healed, saved, and delivered. We know because He tells us so in His word.

When we are disappointed in the results of our prayer, it is important to remember that we don’t know all the truth.

Now let me be clear: I never condone the position of saying that it’s the fault of the sick person, or the lack of their faith, or some sort of judgment from God that resulted in the sickness. I don’t believe any of that garbage for a minute.

I also want to be clear that I do not believe God makes us sick, or causes us to suffer, so that we can learn some sort of lesson, or so that we can “build character”.

I do know that God’s delays do not equal God’s denials.

I know that He who has promised is faithful.

I know in Whom I have believed, and I know that He is able.

You know these things too: and they are enough.

If you are ever discouraged because you feel that God has not heard your prayer, know that you are not alone. King David often felt the same way, and he shared those feelings in the Psalms that we have as part of our Bible today. King David also came to the conclusion that God is faithful, and in the end we will understand the perfectness of how God does answer our prayers.

The foundation upon which we build our faith is this: God is good, all the time.

Declare that truth in your life, and be looking for the manifestation of His goodness.

But what if we don’t really know the limits of any of that?

At one time the average life expectancy of a human being was around 40 years. Now it’s approaching double that amount.

More people are living to be 100 than ever before.

More millionaires walk the earth than any time in history before.

We have eliminated many diseases entirely.

We have the capability (yet to be realized, but definitely available) to eliminate poverty and hunger from the face of the earth.

What if there is more available to us?

More life, more health, more prosperity, more adventure?

I know, I know… seems crazy.

But what if?

What would that look like?

And what would you do if you knew it was true?

The idea was that if you were in an accident, or had to be rushed to the hospital, you didn’t want to be embarrassed by your undergarments.

Mom’s advice was good, and applies in business as well.

Not that you should live in fear of accidents, but that you should anticipate unexpected things will happen.

Unexpected meetings will pop up.

Unexpected phone conversations will occur.

Unexpected opportunities to make your sales presentation will crop up.

Being prepared-“wearing clean underwear”-means always being dressed and ready to meet important people.

It means always being ready to give your presentation at a moments notice, with or without the PowerPoint slides.

It means never being in a situation, engaged in an activity, or being in a place that would embarrass you in front of that important client or colleague.

So.

Always wear clean underwear.

I walk up to you holding out two sets of keys, one to the new Mercedes-Benz automobile on the left; the other, a brand spanking new, Honda accord on the right. Which car is the superior car? If I offer to give you one of them, which one will you choose?

Almost without exception, everyone answers, “The Mercedes!”

Forgetting the question of German engineering versus Japanese engineering, for just a moment, stop to ponder why we all respond the same way.

The confident, secure, intellectually steadfast among us will launch into an explanation of why we chose the superior German automobile.

The facts, however, are simple. Most of us are not engineers. Most of us are not expert judges of the mechanical suitability of automobiles. We use shortcuts to make such decisions. One such shortcut is price.

Let me present a different scenario to you. Let’s suppose that I pull up in your driveway in a brand-new Mercedes-Benz. I park, hop out, walk up to you and hand you the keys. I say, “This car is yours for only $5,000 cash, right now.”

What is your response?

If you’re like most of us, your response is, “What’s wrong with it? Is it stolen?”

You instinctively know the price is too low. Either there’s something mechanically wrong with the car, or it is stolen.

The tipoff is the price.

It’s no different in business; if you respond to marketplace pressures by lowering your prices, customers make a series of assumptions. They assume that you have somehow also lowered the value of your offering. Or, worse, they assume that the offering was never worth the original price you quoted to begin with.

Many studies have indicated it’s possible to increase sales, simply by increasing price. The explanation is simple: people assume that a higher price means higher quality.

In order to put this principle into practice, you must of course supply value for the dollar. In other words, after the transaction is complete and the customer has had the opportunity to experience or use your product, they must feel as though the benefits of the product outweighed the expense of the purchase.

This is actually easier to achieve than most of us believe.

Once you have accomplished building a product offering that is worth what you’re asking for it, and once you have set a price that indicates that your offer is a valuable one, you can be confident that your business is built on a solid foundation.

So the response that is appropriate in economic times like these – times when there is more pressure on businesses to provide value – is simple: provide more value, at a higher price.

In any economic circumstance, cutting your prices can be equal to cutting your throat.

Sometimes the customer is wrong only about a particular situation or issue; sometimes the customer simply wrong for your business.

An essential business skill is learning how to determine which of these is true with each customer.

But it is also true that the customer does have the power in the relationship. Let’s be real here for a moment. Without customers spending money with your business, you have no business.

Having the power, however, does not mean that a person has unilateral control over the relationship. Power is merely the potential to do work-or in this case, to spend money.

In the martial art of aikido, the general practice is not to overpower opponents in a physical combat. It is, rather, to pay attention to how your opponent is directing the force of their attack. Then to gently, but effectively, redirect that force so that you are actually in control of the power your opponent is wielding.

This has more of the appearance of a dance than it does the appearance of combat.

The very visual is instructive.

While the customer does indeed have the power, you have the opportunity to observe the customer’s movements, to anticipate where they are going, and to encounter them in a way that redirects their attention, their focus, and ultimately their dollars.

This is the ultimate form of respect, and is the total opposite of manipulative marketing.

It requires paying attention to the customer in a way almost all businesses fail to do. When you are involved in doing business with a company that is anticipating your needs, moving to help you before you even realize you need help yourself, and making every transaction effortless, you feel a sense of affinity for them. You feel respected. You feel heard. You feel valued.

Isn’t that what you want your customers to feel about you and your company?

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
- Romans 8:11

Sometimes we forget exactly what it means to be a Christian.

Being a Christian is not about becoming a nicer person.

It is not about going to church a certain number of times per week, or having a special “quiet time” every morning, or even about being able to quote certain Bible verses.

No, being a Christian is not any of those things.

It is having a relationship with Christ; and when we do have that relationship with Him, it means that Holy Spirit is living inside of us.

The Bible tells us that this is the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. It is no different!

Now pause for a moment and carefully think about this next question: if Holy Spirit can raise Jesus from the dead, what can He do in your life?

If that thought opens up new possibilities for you, congratulations! You probably just experienced a little bit of hope, perhaps even a little bit of joy.

Cultivate that hope, and that joy, and guard it carefully from the skeptics and naysayers in your life. That hope within us is a sign of the Presence of the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.

He is still in the business of doing miracles today.

He is ready, willing, and able to do them for you!

Freebie Friday: The Writer’s Edition

The Customer Is NOT Always Right

Deciding Who You WON’T Sell To

The idea that “the customer is always right” is good and useful, within its proper context. When you’re dealing with a good customer, one who brings profit to your business, who doesn’t cost you time, money, and energy, it’s good to take an accommodating attitude. If you have a profitable customer, and you want to have them remain a customer, it’s often prudent to give them concessions on requests or complaints.

But as you know, not every customer is profitable.

Some customers have unreasonable expectations of you and your company. Some customers will never be happy or satisfied, until they win some sort of “superiority position” in your relationship that allows them to take advantage of you.

Now you may feel that this idea-the idea that some customers are not worth keeping-is not very kind. You may feel that it is a violation of the Golden rule, for instance. But think of it this way…

If you permit a customer to actually cost you money in order to do business with them-in other words, if for every hundred dollars the customer spends with you, you must spend $200 to keep them happy-how long will you be in business?

What if all your customers were like that?

The answer is, you wouldn’t be in business very long. You would quickly be bankrupt, once your capital had run out.

So clearly some customers are not right.

I’m not suggesting you take a hard-nosed, unsympathetic, unkind approach to business. If you are providing valuable goods and services to the marketplace, the kindest thing you can do is to remain in business. The only way you can do that is to continue to generate profits. And to continue generating the most amount of profits possible, so that you may render the most service to the marketplace possible, you must be able to identify customers that do not belong in a business relationship with you.

Perhaps they do belong in a business relationship with someone else, or they need to learn how to do business properly.

It may or may not be your task to teach some of your customers how to do business properly. I leave that to you to decide.

My goal here is to simply raise your awareness that the customer is not always right. However, the right customer is always good for your business.

Something to think about: how can you attract, do business with, and stay in  relationship with more of the “right customers”?

While this may sound crazy, especially if you are revenue-starved, give it a bit more thought and you’ll see that I’m right.

Some customers are simply not worth the revenue they produce; because some customers are complainers, whiners, high maintenance, and end up costing you more in time, energy, and employee morale than they ever produce in revenue.

The truth is, most of us can identify these “problem children” customers a mile away. There’s just something about them that sets off the red flags early in the relationship, usually before any purchases have been made.

Learn to watch for these signals. Identify the kinds of questions, comments, and attitudes that you know are warning you that the person you’re talking to is a “problem child” customer.

Have a predetermined, polite, but firm routine in place for turning such customers away. You want to do it gracefully, because you don’t want to insult anyone or imply that they’re simply a “troublemaker” before you’ve even had a chance to get to know them.

But you and I both know that your biggest problem customers did not come as a surprise to you. Chances are, you knew in the first conversation you had with them, this person was going to be trouble.

Promise yourself that from now on you’re going to listen to your intuition, or your subconscious insight, or whatever you choose to call it… and you’re going to refuse to let those “problem children” inside your business.

You’ll be much better off without them messing up your employee morale, lowering your ROI, and costing you time and energy.

Spend the time you save on something much better – such as identifying, pursuing, and wooing your “perfect customers” instead.

The ones who are easy to work with, a joy to be around, most helped by your products and services, and produce the most profit for you in your business.

You’ll never be sorry you avoided a problem customer.

And every problem customer avoided makes room for a customer who is a delight.

Worth note: some of my best customers are members of the Writing Riches community. Just sayin’.

This is fortunate for you because it means that even becoming adequate at follow-up places you leagues ahead of your so-called competition. If you actually become good follow-up, you can easily own the marketplace.

There is a momentum that builds with follow-up that is difficult to describe, but easy to identify once it begins to yield fruit.

It’s like the snowball effect; what begins as a tiny snowball rolling downhill, picks up more and more mass as it proceeds, and it also picks up speed, so that by the time the snow ball reaches the bottom of the mountain it is a massive, irresistible avalanche.

Promise yourself that you will begin to follow-up with every prospect and every customer.

While having an elaborate and sophisticated follow-up system is indeed the mark of a mature and highly profitable business, it isn’t necessary to build a complex follow-up monstrosity in the beginning. You simply have to identify what the next logical step is in any follow-up sequence.

Begin by speaking out loud, or writing on paper, a simple series of “if-then” statements about your interactions with prospects and customers.

“If a customer comes into the store but doesn’t buy, then follow-up with a phone call three days later.”

“If the initial follow-up call does not result in a visit to the store within three days, then follow up with a postcard making a special offer to the customer.”

“If the customer response to the offer on the postcard, then send a thank you gift to the customer’s office and make another offer.”

It never has to be more complex than figuring out the next logical step based on the action the prospect or customer just took. The key is to document these follow-up steps with each customer, and begin building a predetermined sequence that applies to all customers who meet those specific “if-then” conditions.

Before you know it, your follow-up sequence will become a massive, irresistible avalanche of profits.

“What gets measured, gets improved.”

In quantum physics, the phenomenon is well known. In that field, the key observation is that it is impossible to observe and experiment without affecting its outcome.

This has applications in marketing.

The first step is to view every activity in your business, as far as possible, as a marketing activity, having as its goal the generation of revenue.

The next step is to simply measure the effectiveness of each individual activity at producing revenue.

Certainly this is easy to apply to your advertising. You know the medium, you know the message, and you know the market. And you can know with a high degree of certainty, depending on how you structure the offer being made in the advertising, the results produced.

Once you have achieved one result, your goal in the next marketing campaign, or ad, or cold call, is to produce a result greater than the previous one. Simply continue producing results, measuring them, and doing more of the things that produce the better result.

While this sounds like simplistic advice, the truth is most businesses do very little measuring of any kind. If you begin measuring even some of your marketing activities, you will instantly join the ranks of the top 5% of all businesses in America.

The sooner you begin measuring your marketing activities and its results, the sooner you can identify the 20% of your marketing that produces 80% of your revenue. Your task at that point is to begin systematically and consistently improving the yield of that crucial 20%.

This is the way to massive business growth in record time.

In Dr. Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence, he cites a research study showing that simply adding the word “because” to a request multiplies the likelihood of compliance.

Interestingly, the study seems to indicate that the legitimacy of the reasons supplied did not seem as important to the outcome as you might suppose. In fact, it seems hardly necessary to have a real reason at all.

For example, you might ask to cut line at the post office, and be more likely to get a “yes” response from the person in front of you if you simply frame your question by saying something like, “Would it be possible for me to please cut a front of you in line, because I’m really in a hurry.”

That’s hardly persuasive salesmanship, yet having some reason seems to be better than having none.

I’m not suggesting that you engage in meaningless marketing. I am suggesting that you take the extra step that most people do not … and supply good reasons for your promotions and campaigns. Practically said, this means simply telling the truth about a situation.

If you own a retail store, for instance, and you need to sell your overstock of a certain line of kitchenware, it’s much better just come right out and say, “We thought these would sell better, they didn’t, and now we need to get rid of them. So we put them on sale to motivate you to buy them.”

While that may not seem like brilliant copy, and admittedly it isn’t, it is a legitimate reason why you’re lowering the price of your merchandise. People respond to such reasoning, and the result is usually more profits.

This is not a new concept. John E Kennedy wrote an entire book on the subject, called Reason Why Advertising. I highly recommend that you read this work, and apply its principles to your own marketing.

Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear.

But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.”

And Peter answered Him and said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.”

So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous,he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”

And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

If we keep our eyes on Jesus, our faith will be focused on the source of our safety – the Son of God.

When our eyes are focused on the right person, his power is released into our life.

The Bible says Peter actually succeeded in walking on the water! It was only when he looked away from Jesus that Peter “saw that the wind was boisterous” – and as soon as he was looking at his circumstance instead of at his Lord, “he was afraid”, and began to sink!

When the “winds” in your life are “boisterous” (loud and scary), keep your eyes (and your thoughts, and the words that come out of your mouth) centered on Jesus. He will empower you to walk on the stormy sea of life!

Relentless Rules That Make Cash Registers Ring

Ray Edwards Tuesday Tips

Always Make an Offer

Always Have a Ticking Clock

Ray Edwards Freebie Friday

Prepare breakfast for the week in 5 minutes.

Consolidate all your email accounts.

Tech types: check out Dave Winer (the “proto blogger”) and his new “minimal blogging tool”.

Build websites in 60 seconds using your iPhone or iPad.

Schedule meetings without back-and-forth emails or “phone tag” – automatically.

It doesn’t matter if we know about the deadline far in advance-activity always increases as the last few minutes tick off the clock.

“Tax day” in the USA doesn’t sneak up on any of us-we all know it happens April 15th (or in the case of this year, the 18th). Yet year after year, tax preparers are deluged during the week before “tax day” — swamped by people who were only motivated to act when it looked as though the clock was about to run out.

There’s a reason why so much direct response advertising is filled with the words “for a limited time only”.

“Limited time marketing” gets results.

The trick, of course, is that it doesn’t work as well as it once did. People understand what’s happening, and are not as easily moved by those same old, tired words, “limited time only”. Now,  we must be more creative in communicating the scarcity of time to act.

Notice that I’m not commenting on whether there actually is a limited time or not. I’m assuming that if you say time is limited, that the offer is about to run out, that quantities are low, that this is the absolute truth. That these are real limits that you’re simply letting people know about.

No matter what you are marketing, there is always a limit. There are only so many units you can ship… there is only a certain amount of time you can maintain the sale price… there are only a certain number of days you can legitimately continue to offer an “end-of-the-year sale”.

I’m suggesting that you look carefully for the “ticking clocks” that are already present in every one of your offers, and make those time constraints explicit for your customers. In other words, talk about the limits.

The way to do this effectively is to talk about it in very specific terms.

Don’t take the lazy way out and simply say “for a limited time only”.

Talk about he exact time the sale ends, on what day.

Explain exactly how many units you have left, and why there won’t be any more.

Even if the reason is simply, “we’re tired of making it in this color”, tell that story. Truthful stories about real ticking clocks are powerful customer motivators.

Try it and see.

Now let me warn you.

You will be tempted to disregard the advice I’m about to give you as overly simplistic at best.

At worst, you will rationalize and begin to enumerate the reasons why doing what I’m about to suggest is not possible in your business.

You will have all sorts of excuses about why your business “is different”.

You will tell me that your customers are too sophisticated, too sensitive, too demanding.

You will be wrong.

No offense intended, but those are the facts.

All right, enough with the preamble already.

You’re probably thinking, what is this magical advice you’re about to dispense?

It is…

Always make an offer.

Put another way: always sell something. Always.

In every single ad.

In every billing statement.

In the Yellow Pages.

On your website, in your emails, during your presentations.

Always.

If your business is anything like most of the businesses I encounter,, your biggest marketing challenge is most likely the fact that you are not making enough offers.

Why is it that people who are called to be entrepreneurs, a high calling in life indeed, seem to have some sort of complex about asking people for money?

Perhaps it’s because as children most of us were taught some core values by our mothers. For almost everyone of us, those core values included these two:

1. Don’t talk to strangers.

2.   Don’t ask for money.

Can you see the potential conflict inherent in such values for the entrepreneurial business owner?

Our business life depends on talking to strangers, and then asking them for money.

Something to think about.

Something to change.

Start this way…

Always make an offer.

Action Machine. Hands-down the most powerful tool I use that helps me get more done.

Simple way to replace your income online. Yeah, I know it’s cheesy-sounding, but it works and it’s 100% honest, ethical, and do-able.

Fotolia allows you to easily use royalty-free photos for as little as a few cents each.

How to get over 90,000 readers with one headline.

An online event management tool so cool you’ll want to have an event just so you can use it.

Here’s the sad news: “brand building” is a door that is pretty much closed to the small to medium-size company.

In today’s over-communicated, oversaturated marketplace, the sheer mass required to achieve brand awareness is quite simply out of financial reach for all but the biggest companies.

And one could argue that such strategies don’t always make sense for big companies either.

Here’s what does not fail: holding your advertising and marketing accountable for its own results. It doesn’t take a “rocket surgeon” to understand direct response marketing. In fact, the steps are simple:

1. Launch a marketing or advertising campaign that you can measure (phone calls completed, postcards returned, e-mails collected, sales made, etc.)

2. Observe whether this campaign results in actual dollars coming in the door.

3. If the answer to number two is “yes”, repeat the process as needed. If the answer is “no”, if dollars do not flow in the door, try something else!

Is this a bit oversimplified?

Yes, but not much.

In fact, if you were to just follow this “oversimplified” formula to the letter, you would still be a lot better off than most businesses in America.

Make this promise to yourself: I will not engage in any marketing or advertising activity unless the results of said marketing or advertising activity can be objectively measured.

Then follow through on that promise. This alone will bring you more profits.

It’s unconscionable, in this day and age, to spend money on advertising and marketing that doesn’t work. It was much easier to excuse in the old days. In the old days, the media was a monolithic, inscrutable, impenetrable mysterium.

As a small business owner, you were at the mercy of your media sales rep. The salesperson from the newspaper, radio station, or TV station, called on your business and made a persuasive pitch for the latest advertising “package of the month”. You bought, often out of desperation or obligation.

If your business was of a slightly more affluent nature, your media sales rep was more intent on getting a longer-term commitment from you. In that case, you were pursued for an annual contract, usually persuaded to sign up for the long-term commitment by some sort of rate concession or extras “thrown in” to the package.

What is curiously missing from these approaches of the past is attention to the primary goal of all advertising and marketing: to actually make your cash register ring.

In fact, discussions of such crass activities as ringing cash registers were often discouraged by media sales reps. They were quick to start mumbling some sort of arcane mantras about “building your brand” or simply “getting your name out there”. As if you could pay your lease by “getting your name out there”. Last time I checked, the bank wasn’t accepting “name recognition” as lease payments. They still prefer dollars.

Even so, even though most of us knew that the advertising sales game was rigged and the small business owner was its unwitting victim, we also knew there was little we could do about it. No more.

Now, thanks largely to the power of the Internet, and the nearly limitless transparency and instant access to information it provides, the world has changed. Google proved the efficacy of one of the oldest forms of selling known to mankind: direct response marketing.

As sophisticated as Google Adwords may appear at first, it is really the digitalization of simple direct response advertising. It is mail-order gone high-tech.

This ought to get you really excited.

Because it tells of possibility.

While it is not necessary to do all your direct marketing on the Internet, what is salient is how irrevocably the Internet has proven the worth of direct response marketing itself. It works, and works with ruthless efficiency.

Advertising and marketing can (and must) be measured. No more fuzzy talk about “getting your name out there”. Now, the game is very simple, just as you always suspected it should be.

The most important question in marketing is simply, “Did it make my cash register ring?”

If the answer is yes,  if a given campaign brought profits in your door, then it was a success.

If the answer was no, if you threw money down a hole and no money came back out, then it’s a failure. Or at least seriously in need of some alteration.

The point is: you can know.

The message is clear: stop paying for marketing you cannot measure. And for goodness’s sake, stop paying for marketing that doesn’t work. Today it is possible to know, without a doubt, whether it works or not.

For many, this is a new way of thinking. It will require a bit of a stretch of your mental muscles. But that shouldn’t be too difficult, especially because one of Earth’s most wonderful delights is about to become yours: the ability to say “no” to advertising salespeople who want to push packages on you!

“Packages” that are unmeasurable, unwarranted, and unintelligent.

And now you will be able to say “no” with confidence, knowing that you, and you alone, know what’s best when it comes to marketing your business.

Imagine living in a world where your marketing and advertising is a source of profit you can rely on, instead of being a cost you resent.

Simply by reading these words, you’ve already taken a step into such a world. Rejoice. The keys of the kingdom are yours.

Say it with me: “No more lousy, stinking marketing that can’t be measured.”

Google Web Apps. Google helps you be more productive with cool web applications.

Open Office. It’s like Microsoft Office, but it’s not made by Microsoft and it’s, well, free.

Evernote. My absolute favorite app that defies description – but I’ll try: your new omnipresent, universal, non-corporeal notebook. Yep, can’t describe it. Try it. You’ll understand.

LastPass. The last password you will ever need. Better than 1Password or Roboform.

2. Do It Now. Anything that will take 5 minutes or less – just do it now. Period. If it will take longer than 5 minutes, either delegate it or schedule it (either of which will take… less than 5 minutes.)

3. Say No More Often. Practice this: “Thank you, but no.” Say it with a smile, but don’t relent.

4. Go On Vacation Next Week. Ever notice how you get more done the week before vacation than in most months? Just pretend you’re going on vacation next week. Hustle.

5. Have a Top 5. Before you check email at the end of the day (see #1), make a list of the 5 things you MUST get done tomorrow. Tomorrow morning, make those 5 things the first things you do – before any meetings, phone calls, or anything else.

Try it. Let me know how you do.

Maybe you know such a person all too well. Here’s a question to consider…

What if there was no such thing as “bad luck”? What if the way you viewed events in your life actually altered the meaning of those events?

I won’t try and convince you.

But I urge you to try the following approach the next time some so-called “bad luck” shows up in your life. Consider the so-called “problem”, and ask the following questions about it:

1. What is good about this?
2. What can I learn from this?
3. How can I use this?

The only unacceptable answer is “Nothing!” You can’t answer any of the questions with that response.

Watch and see if you begin to notice that each bit of “bad luck” carries the seed of something good and even great for your life.

It is about attitude. And it is about more than attitude, too.

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience” James 1:2-3

I’m pretty good at finding cool stuff.

Let me know what you think. If you like it, I’ll keep it up each week.

Increase Your Twitter Following by Improving Your Timing.

Keith Ferrazzi Offers Free Guides for Better Relationships.

The Simplest Way to Spread Knowledge.

How to Record a Video Interview in Eight Steps.

A Better Filing System for Public Speakers (and Writers.)

A private group I am part of has been hashing over something I posted late last year – a little piece called “Is Marketing Evil?”

In this discussion, the inevitable debate erupted over what the difference is between persuasion and manipulation. Says one of my companions: “the difference is the intent.”

Well and good, and I have often said the same thing. But… here’s my question:

What if your intent is good but your premise is wrong?

For instance, what if you believed smoking was good for unborn babies, and you passionately cared about those babies, so you tried to persuade pregnant woment to take up smoking?

Your intent would be good, but your facts are wrong.

So, in that case, does it matter whether we classify “talking someone into something” as “persuasion” or manipulation?

Does that mean that all persuasion is in fact manipulation, and vice-versa?

What do you think?

In this excellent book, Brendon proposes that almost anyone can package their life experience and advice into formats that can be sold to the public at large. He further proposes that by doing so, we can benefit the world and make a really good living at the same time. He proposes, in fact, that one can become a millionaire by doing so.

I found the book to be very well written and to present the ideas (which are not going to be new to many people reading this) in a fresh way that would be very accessible to a person who is unfamiliar with the information marketing business. This is a big point in the book’s favor.

Of particular interest to me was the chapter entitled, The Messenger Manifesto, in which Brendon proposes that the entire industry (which he calls the “expert industry”) is in desperate need of a “reset”. What he means by a “reset” is the setting of higher standards by which we conduct our business. I think this is a point well made. Five of his points in the Messenger Manifesto are:

1. Moving from silos to sharing. In other words, getting rid of the scarcity mentality that causes us to want to keep ourselves and our customers separate from one another and instead sharing our ideas, our resources, our tactics, and yes – even our customers.
2. A renewed focus on innovation and distinction. Brendon makes the very good point that this business is full of copycats and rip-off artists, and he proposes setting a new standard of creating original material.
3. Better branding. He points out that in so many cases, when we attend a seminar or a workshop, we get materials that look like “photocopies of photocopies”, and cheap looking self-published books and manuals. Brendon simply proposes that we spend the money and make the investment in creating materials that reflect the quality of the information we’re teaching.
4. Moving from sales communication to value communication. In other words, Brendon proposes that instead of coming across as carnival barkers and pitchmen, we actually start communicating messages of value to our audiences. He bases this largely on the premise that if we communicate value in the sales process that gives customers a taste of the value they’ll get from buying from us. We’ll actually be more successful in the end. Sounds like common sense – but uncommon practice.
5. Achieving customer service excellence. We need to move from being merely good at customer service to being excellent at this. To which many will say, “Duh!” and also, “It’s about time!”

I highly recommend this book and I think you’ll get a lot out of it, even if you’re an experienced marketer or expert. Millionaire Messenger gives us a fresh look at the “info-marketing” or “expert industry”.

It’s an important question that deserves your attention. Dr. Bill Bright said, “The Christian life, according to the claims and promises of God’s Holy, inspired word, is meant to be an exciting adventure, an abundant, fruitful life, characterized by the supernatural.”

Does that make you a little uneasy? Do you see this proven out in your own life and in your own business?

One of the most disturbing things about the life of the modern Christian is the way it seems to differ so little from the lives of people who are not believing Christians. Divorce rates are the same, family problem rates are the same, financial failure are the same for the majority of Christians as it is for unbelievers.

It’s not true in all cases.

For those who really believe God’s Word, and receive the gifts of grace that are available to all of us through Jesus Christ, we can experience changed lives and success in every way.

This includes — perhaps especially — our business lives. A believing Christian who is truly receiving the grace of Jesus Christ, and following Him, will experience good success. The choice deals will come your way, the right contacts will come into your life, you’ll be preferred over other vendors for the prime project.

Are you trusting God’s wisdom for your business decisions? Are you regularly going to Him with questions about strategy and tactics in your business? Are you asking Him for His favor so that you can be a blessing to others when you are blessed?

The world is watching. They want to see Christians with changed lives. They want to see believers who have been transformed by the power of God. The reason they want to see these things is because… they hope to be able to get that kind of life for themselves.

This is how we “make disciples of all nations.”

My admonition to you: start believing, start receiving, and start fulfilling God’s commission on your life.

The world is counting on us!

Click here to register for the webinars now.

This series will take us out of the realm of theory and get into the practical “how to” tactics for experiencing more and better success in your life (in health, finances, relationships – every area of life).

The theme of the series is reclaiming your future and freeing yourself from bondage to your past. Among other things, we will explore:

• How to learn (and own) the true nature of your identity.
• The secrets of discovering your destiny (and yes, you do have one!)
• Proven tactics for getting free of the things that hold you back from true, good success
• The secrets of living the abundant life and having a “prosperous soul”

As I said, this series is totally free of charge – but you MUST register to get access, and you MUST be on the sessions live to hear the free teachings.

Click here to register for the webinars now.

Have you ever been frustrated and felt unproductive, overwhelmed by the tasks that lay before you?

Perhaps the problem is not that there isn’t enough time, but the challenge may be the fact that you’re focusing on things that are not part of God’s plan for your life. Perhaps it’s time to reevaluate how you’re actually spending that precious commodity called time.

Let’s start with this… Psalm 90, verse 12 says, “Teach us to make the most of our time, so that we may grow in wisdom.”

Making the most of your time — being productive, being efficient, making wise choices — is not merely a measure of how you can “get things done”. It’s also a measure of how good a steward you’re being of the most precious commodity God has given you.

When you start thinking of your “time management” skills in this light, doesn’t it make you feel differently about the whole subject? Feels a bit more important, right?

Even when you’re very productive, have you ever stopped to think about this question: What is it, exactly, that you’re producing?

Something to think about.

Think of God’s relationship to us human beings as the relationship of a father to his children. That’s what the Bible teaches us.

We’re told in God’s word that we can call upon the Father using the name “Abba”. That word, in the ancient language is the equivalent of us in today’s age saying, “daddy”.

To put this in a framework we can understand, consider the words of Matthew 7:11. If we, as parents “know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him”. I don’t think it could be any more clear than that.

You are indeed deeply loved. How does that affect the way you look at your life? Something worth considering.

What it means to be favored by God is quite simple. Things will go your way. You’ll get the new client. You’ll receive the promotion. If you’re a parent your children will respect you and be well-behaved. If you are a taxi driver you will get the choice fares and the big tips. If you are a physician you will get patients who take your advice and follow your instructions.

Some will accuse me of preaching a “prosperity gospel”. Nothing could be further from the truth. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a “prosperity gospel’, there is only the gospel as given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ. And that gospel tells me that he paid the ultimate price so that we would not have to. And that we became heirs to his kingdom. To me that sounds like being highly favored.

It makes sense, too. Think about it, how can we be a blessing to others (which God promises that we will be) if we are constantly in poverty, constantly sick, and always depressed? We can’t. That’s one reason God has set up a plan for you to be highly favored. Will you receive it?

For some, it will be shocking, even scandalous, to hear that God wants to richly bless you in business, but this is exactly what he promised Abraham. Remember that he said to Abraham, “I will bless you”. The question worth asking though is why did God want to bless Abraham? The answer is supplied in that same verse of scripture. God said clearly, “You shall be a blessing”.

God wants to bless us so that we can be a blessing.

And yes, this even applies to modern-day Christians. The Apostle Paul tells us we are the “seed of Abraham” and “heirs according to the promise”.

This can be a dangerous position if we don’t have a proper relationship to money and success. As long as we know in our heart that money is not our God, and that the purpose of our success is not to create our own self worth, we will be safe. We will be safe for success in a way that is pleasing to Jesus.

When we are truly safe for success, God will bless us richly. He promises it in His word, and His word says, “he who promised is faithful”.

Where Christian entrepreneurs sometimes get lost is forgetting that the primary aim of their life is not to simply pile up as much money as possible. Your purpose is not to be a participant in some kind of contest to see who can get the biggest stack of gold. No, the primary aim of the Christian entrepreneur’s life is to render service to God – and the way God has called and gifted you to render that service is through entrepreneurship. For those who are truly called to the entrepreneurial life, this means having a successful business.

In order to fulfill God’s purpose for our life as entrepreneurs and small business people, it is necessary that we have a proper relationship between our heart and money. God clearly says in His word that we cannot serve both God and money (or, more accurately, “Mammon”… but that is a topic for another post). What is not so obvious to many people is we can serve God with our money, and that doing so represents a proper heart-relationship to money.

We must be “safe for success” – not giving in to greed and pride. We must succeed in a way that honors Jesus. That means not making an idol out of our money. It is important to remember that God is not against us having money – but he is against money having us.

Make sure you are safe for success and that money does not take a place in your life higher than that occupied by God, who much always be our first priority. If you do this, you will keep money moving, you will pay fair wages, you will make square business deals, and you will enrich the lives of your employees, your customers, your vendors and the world at large. That is truly a formula to profit more.

Yes.

There are two kinds of success: good success and bad success.

Good success enables us to serve God and our fellow humans. It gives us resources to help the poor, create jobs for workers, and ease the burdens of our families, customers and clients.

Bad success leads to addictions, broken relationships, and broken people. For examples of bad success, we have only to look at the headlines from Hollywood of late. We have several examples of how success and destroy people who are not “safe” for success.

What does it mean to be “safe for success”?

It means you are not vulnerable to the dangers created by the love of money, by the predominance of pride, and by the perils of misplaced priorities.

Make it your aim to be safe for success.

And then be ready for God to bless you with good success!

God instructs us to use wealth, but not to rely on it. He also promises that it will indeed fail.

Interesting video from Mars Hill Church in Seattle…

Hogwash.

You ALWAYS bring your spiritual beliefs with you into whatever you do.

Here’s a question worth considering: did Jesus bring his “spirituality” to work with him? I suspect the answer is yes, don’t you?

Jesus only spent 3 years in “full-time ministry”.

Up until about age 30, he worked for a living as a carpenter. He had to deal with clients, customers, competitors, and co-workers. He had to deal with a boss (his adoptive father).

Do you suppose Jesus went to the shop each day thinking, “I’m not going to bring that spiritual stuff to work with me…”?

No, I don’t think so either.

This does not mean you have to hop up on your desk at the office and start preaching. And it doesn’t mean you need to make the radical shift in your own business that I have made in mine – just because that is what I’m called to do doesn’t mean you are.

Unless it does.

In any event, I think it’s impossible to not bring your spirituality into your business – because real spirituality is not something you do. It’s who you are.

What do you think? Please share below.

Cook them meals.

Build them houses.

Spend time with them.

Another way to help the poor is to create enough wealth that instead of merely helping a few people, you can help many.

The TV show “Secret Millionaire” illustrates the power of this beautifully. While the “undercover millionaires” dress casually and dole out food or do other volunteer work, and we see that this is admirable…

…we also see that the impact of donating their wealth has far-reaching effects to help many people, instead of only a few.

Not everyone is called to be an entrepreneur. Some are called to work with individuals. Both callings are important.

The key for those of us called to, and gifted with, the building of wealth is to remember wealth’s purpose… to serve the Kingdom of God.

If we have settled in our heart the fact that money is not our God, but is in fact to be used to serve Him, we have true wealth.

One way to define it is simply failing to give full value; representing that you’re giving your best, when in fact you’re not.

By this measure…

If you’re not building your business as big as you can, you’re ripping people off (your customers, vendors, suppliers, employees and affiliates).

You’re even ripping off your competitors, by failing to set the bar higher (and this driving them to greater levels of success).

Stop ripping people off.

Don’t let anyone condemn you for wanting to make money and have a successful business. God wants you to be a radically blessed, Kingdom-minded success.

You may ask, “What reason could God for making me a millionaire? Isn’t that just greed talking?”

Well, I believe God is calling more of His children to the sphere of business because he wants to use money to help the poor. Consider this…

Sunday Adelaja, in his book Money Won’t Make You Rich, says, “The reality of poverty is that one-third of deaths, some eighteen million people each year (fifty thousand per day), are due to poverty-related causes. That is three hundred million people since 1990, the majority women and children, roughly equal to the population of the United States. Every year nearly eleven million children die before their fifth birthday.”

Wouldn’t God rejoice if we came together as Kingdom Revolutionaries and poured BILLIONS of dollars into the lives of these people?

That kind of radical stewardship is what it means to prosper in God’s name!

That is completely untrue.

The Bible itself says: “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” (3 John 1:2)

In what things does he say he wants us to prosper?

“In all things.”

Now, there is a danger here.

The danger is forgetting that money is not your treasure – God is.

When you have that straight, money becomes a blessing to you and to everyone you serve.

He wants you to prosper in all things: money and health included.

And don’t miss the fact that the first place he wants you to prosper is in your soul.

The only problem with this is… that’s not what it says.

The actual passage being quoted (1 Timothy 6:10) says, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”

The love of money – not money itself.

The way to stay out of the money-love trap is to make sure you don’t put money before God.

As Joseph Prince puts it, “Don’t love money and use people; use money to love people.”

The reason I wrote this article is simple.

Someone needs to speak the truth. Here’s what I mean…

Everywhere I go in the Internet marketing community (and elsewhere), I see people being robbed. I see you being robbed.

There are lies and half-truths that are stealing from you every day. Robbing you.

You are being robbed of customers, profits, success, fulfillment, and peace of mind.

These lies and half-truths are being taught and promoted both by innocent people who don’t know any better, and also by some who are simply out to take your money. Or your life.

These lies are at the root of the problems many Internet marketers are experiencing right now.

Internet Marketing Meltdown

You may not know this, but many so-called “Internet Marketing” and “self-help” “gurus” are in deep trouble these days.

• Their sales are down.
• Their refunds and chargebacks are up.
• Their ride on the gravy train is apparently over.

I don’t write this in order to gloat. These are not, by and large, bad people. They have been robbed, too.

Something huge is happening, and hardly anyone is talking about it.

So… Is Everyone In Trouble?

No, not everyone is experiencing this downturn in business.

Some are thriving.

A few of my colleagues and clients continue to prosper, despite the discouraging economic climate.

I have been blessed to be among those who are prospering.

Here’s a shocking fact: almost without exception, those of us who continue to succeed share a common “x-factor”.

This “x-factor” is the antidote to the lies I mentioned earlier.

It is also effective protection against the thief who seeks to rob you.

It is the secret of my success.

It can be, and should be, yours.

The Only Success Secret You Need

Don’t worry. I’m not out to sell you anything.

I’m going to tell you what this mysterious thing actually is, and I’m not going to charge you for it.

I received it freely, and I will give it freely to you.

But before I do, let me set the stage…

This is the one thing that will give you access to success in all areas…

• Wealth
• Health
• Relationships
• Business
• School
• Love
• Life

This is the one thing that will free you forever from…

• Poverty
• Debt
• Greed
• Sickness
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Addiction
• Fear

This works without you studying, “trying harder”, or attempting to improve yourself.

In fact, as amazing as it seems, “working hard” or “trying” actually works against the “uncommon key” to success I’m talking about. The key itself is a gift and it is, in fact, already yours. All you have to do is accept it.

I’ve Been Keeping This From You

No, I haven’t wished you ill.

I wasn’t keeping it from you to try and deprive you of the good things in life.

You see, I knew all along that for some, this would be hard to accept.

That it might, in fact, make me a few enemies.

So to be polite, and preserve the peace, I’ve kept the secret of my own success pretty much to myself.

But after taking a long hard look at the condition of the people that I know (and love) in this business, and in life in general, I decided that silence was no longer acceptable.

It’s time I let you in on this life-changing key to real success. We’ll begin with this revelation…

Self-help Doesn’t Help

If you have bought more than one self-help product or book… you already know, deep down inside, self-help doesn’t work.

Oh, some of the ideas, techniques, and programs may provide temporary “Band-Aid” fixes for your problems, but it seems like the problems always come back.

It seems like the “fix” is always temporary.

Well, I’ve got some good news.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

You see, the problem with self-help isn’t that you lack discipline, or that you just need to try harder, or any other such nonsense.

The problem is more fundamental.

You’re looking for success in all the wrong places.

And trust me, I know. I did too, for a very long time.

When I Finally Embraced This — It Changed My Life.

Once I fully realized the power of this “singular success key”, my life did a 180° turnaround.

The first thing that happened was my miraculous recovery from clinical depression.

“Recovery” is not the right term; “healing” is the term that most accurately describes what happened to me.

Most people don’t know that in the early 2000′s I suffered from deep, debilitating depression.

For a short while, I underwent counseling and even took antidepressants. Both of those things are good, and they were helpful to me.

But what is even better is the power of this “x-factor” I’m talking about today-the power that completely healed me of depression.

Freed me from taking pills of any kind. Completely changed my outlook on life.

Gave me my joy back.

The freedom I gained also empowered me to leave a successful radio career  to start my own business, and as a result to quickly become one of the most successful direct response copywriters on the Internet.

It seemed as though doors were open to me that were not open to others; it seemed as though nothing I touched could go wrong; and people were beating down my door to have me work with them.

I believe the same thing that caused my amazing healing, that provided incredible financial abundance, that enriched my marriage in ways I never expected, that gave me an “extreme life makeover”… that thing is also freely available to you.

I believe that it can change your life the same way it changed mine.

And I believe it is time for me to unveil this life-changing success secret, and share with you openly.

Doing so will in fact become my life’s work, starting today.

A Strong Warning

I’m about to tell you exactly what I’m talking about, in just a moment.

But let me warn you ahead of time, there will be strong reactions to what I’m about to say.

• Some simply won’t believe it.
• Some will be offended.
• Some will find it hard to swallow because of past hurts or injustices.
• Some will think they’ve “heard it before” (but I believe you’ve never heard it quite like this).
• Some will think I’m trying to “sell something”, or that I’m working some kind of angle. I assure you that is not so.
• Some will unsubscribe, stop reading my materials, and vilify me in online forums.

So be it. But…

I urge you, before you refuse the meal, taste and see for yourself if it’s good.

I assure you it is absolutely the one meal you cannot afford to miss.

How To Receive Success In Everything You Do

Almost everyone I know is looking for “the key” to success in all areas of their life.

Most people, as I’ve already stated, are looking in the wrong places. They are looking for guidance from the wrong people. They are seeking their fulfillment-their success – from the wrong things.

The real answer to all of your problems in life is simple: if you want success and victory in this life, this is my secret (and can easily be yours, too)…

God’s Wisdom Always Leads To Success

I’m here to tell you that whatever you need in life, Jesus Christ, who is God in human flesh, is right beside you and ready to help.

He wants you to experience success in every way that is good.

Not only in some mysterious “afterlife”, but in this world. Today.

I know this is probably different than anything you may have heard before, but stick with me…

Wisdom From God Will Prosper You In Every Way

When I say that “wisdom from God” will bring you prosperity, I’m not talking about pretty, poetic sayings that sound wise.

I’m talking about experiencing a heightened awareness of the right actions to take in life… I’m talking about supernatural intelligence and wisdom that you can have access to. Right now. Today.

You may not know this, you may have never been taught this, but God says in Scripture that he wants us to succeed. And if you will simply partner with him, he will guide you through every challenge you face.

He will give you the wisdom and the intelligence and the understanding to make the right decisions-in business, in relationships, and in life in general.

God will, in fact, place his “favor” on your life. What that means is, everything you touch will prosper.

And don’t worry, there is nothing you need to do in order to earn this favor from God. In fact, it is impossible for you to earn it. You can only receive it from him as a gift.

Hear me clearly: when you choose to follow Jesus, he will give you wisdom and favor in all areas of your life.

Does this mean that you will never face any problems? No. Of course not.

But read this next section very carefully…

Why Bad Things Happen To Good People

Organized religion has been guilty of misrepresenting the nature and character of God.

Perhaps you have been the victim of some of this teaching.

One thing that is commonly taught is that bad things happen to us “for a reason”. That through trials and tribulations, God is shaping our character and teaching us lessons. That there are things we “need to learn”.

There is no doubt in my mind that there are things that each of us do need to learn; and I certainly know that each of us can experience growth in our character.

But none of that gives us the right to impugn the character of God.

If you latch onto nothing else that I say, please get this and receive it in the core of your being: God is good, all the time.

That is the one basic truth of life.

When anything bad happens to us-whether it be sickness, financial problems, emotional trouble, or broken relationships…

…those bad things do not come from God. They come from the enemy of God…

Commonly known as satan.

Yep, I’m talking about “the devil”.

And while “satan” may sound like an old-fashioned idea to you, it might come as a surprise to learn that he is a real being. And he really has an agenda to do you harm.

You see, the devil of Scripture was never portrayed as a red creature with a pointy tail and a pitchfork.

He is, in fact, a powerful being who is filled with pride and who opposes God.

And because God loves you and wants you to succeed – because God has a great destiny for you – satan opposes that. Satan hates you, and wants you to fail!

Without veering off into some pretty deep theological waters, let’s just boil it down to this: good things come from God. Bad things come from the devil.

God wants us to spare us the evils that our enemy has planned for us. And that’s why he sent his son, Jesus Christ, to the earth. Jesus did all the work necessary to “pay the bill” for each and every human being on the face of the earth. To give each of us a clean slate, pay the price of our own sin, and make us righteous in the eyes of God.

But that’s not all.

The Bible says that Jesus came to “destroy the works of the devil”.

The Scripture teaches that we can have protection from the schemes of the enemy, that we can be victorious over the evil that he has planned for us.

The more you behold Jesus, and the work he has done for you, the more wisdom and favor you will receive from him.

And through Jesus, God provides a way for you to receive the benefits of blessing. As you behold Jesus, and learn to sense his presence, and walk in his wisdom, you will experience success and favor in your life.

Wait! Is This The “Prosperity Gospel”?

Some critics of what I am saying here will be quick to label me as a purveyor of the “prosperity gospel”. Or, as is sometimes derisively known, the “health and wealth” gospel.

Well, would you prefer a “sickness and poverty” gospel?

I’ll be quick to admit that I do believe God wants us to prosper.

It isn’t simply about amassing piles of money and toys to make ourselves feel better or to seem more important than other people (that certainly misses the point). It is about receiving everything that God has in store for us-and it is all good.

Because he is good.

This all comes straight from Scripture, too.

God Favors Those Who Honor Him

All we have to do is look in the Bible itself to see that God showed special favor to those who honored him. For instance…

David. Most of us know the story of David and Goliath; the young Israelite who faced the giant Philistine in battle and defeated him with a slingshot. Now, David knew that he could not defeat Goliath from his own strength. David did not trust his own self-effort to give him success in the battle with Goliath. He relied on the power of God. You too have access to that same power. You can trust God to give you victory over the “giants” that you face in your own lifes; the circumstances, sickness, and challenges that come against you.

Solomon. When God asked Solomon what he desired most, Solomon answered that he wanted wisdom – an understanding heart. The Hebrew word that was used in the original text of this story is “shama” which literally means a “hearing heart”. In other words, Solomon asked for a heart that could hear God’s voice. We can ask for the same thing, and God will give us the gift of his wisdom and truth within ourselves. Doesn’t that sound like an advantage in life that you would want?

Joseph. You may or may not remember the story of Joseph from the Old Testament, but he faced some pretty hard times in his life. Joseph was sold into slavery by his own brothers. He was thrown into prison, falsely accused of a crime he did not commit. He languished in prison for years, apparently forgotten. But even during those dark times, Joseph kept his focus on the presence of God. In the end, he was promoted to a position of high authority in the palace and became a ruler in the land. And just like Joseph, when you learn to be sensitive to God’s presence in everything you do (including business and your day-to-day life), you too will experience success.

Jesus himself. Jesus never faced a situation for which he lacked wisdom. We know from Scripture that even when he was a child he amazed the leaders in the Temple with his knowledge of Scripture and of the power of God. When you simply meditate on the word (the Bible) you are actually meditating on the person of Jesus, because the Bible teaches us that he is the Word become flesh. This is how, through the finished work that Jesus did on the cross, and through the gift of his grace over your life, you are free to walk in wisdom, victory, and success.

It really is that simple.

You don’t have to attend church a certain number of times, or say certain prayers over and over again, or do any “work” to receive these blessings of success and prosperity.

Jesus did the work for you, and he gives you the results of his work as a gift.

The Two Traps

At this point, it’s important that we are aware of two traps that await those who wish to follow Jesus and experience the success that he offers.

Those traps are the twin perils of poverty and greed.

Right now, these two mindsets hold the world in their power – especially so in the realm of business and online marketing; they are the source of the economic woes we see all around us today.

The poverty mindset is a product of fear. The kind of fear that tells you there will never be enough, that in order for me to win someone else has to lose, and that disaster is always around the corner. That doesn’t sound like a very pleasant way to live, now does it?

The poverty mindset will keep you broke, in debt, and fearful for the rest of your life if you don’t stand against it.

The other enemy of true prosperity is the greed mindset. This is the mindset of selfishness, of self-aggrandizement, and of making oneself feel better by putting others down. This is the mindset that leads people to collect as many boats, cars, gigantic houses, and material possessions as a way of proving their own value as a person. This mindset is also motivated by fear-the fear of not being valued by others.

It’s Okay To Be Rich – But First Seek God’s Kingdom

Please hear me very clearly: there is nothing wrong with having a big house, or nice cars.

Merely having nice possessions is not an indicator of the condition of someone’s soul.

Neither is having very few possessions; just because someone does not experience financial abundance in one particular moment in time does not mean that they are in thrall to poverty.

Likewise, being focused on material possessions for the wrong reasons can lead to pride, and tempt one to become greedy.

My point is simply this: the external circumstances are never a reliable indicator of the condition of a person’s heart.

But from the standpoint of guarding yourself against great unhappiness, I caution you to avoid both of these deadly mindsets. Stay far away from the poverty mindset, and have faith that even when you are temporarily in lack, there will always be enough. There is always more of everything you need available to you.

Likewise, you should strenuously avoid falling in love with material possessions acquired for the sake of stoking your pride. Piling up “stuff” in order to prove your own value is a quick road to misery.

When you can navigate successfully and stay out of these two mindsets-when you are slave to neither greed nor poverty-you experience what God wants for you with all his heart. You experience true prosperity.

The apostle Paul said that he had learned the secret to being content whether he had much (which he sometimes did) or whether he had nothing (a condition he also experienced frequently). What was his secret? The same secret I’ve been talking to you about all along: he said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

The Cat Is Out Of The Bag

Jesus Christ is the reason and the source of every good thing that I have experienced in my life.

Yes, he has “saved” my soul and made me “right with God”… and…

• He also healed me from clinical depression.
• He restored my love of people.
• He gave me back my joy.
• He blessed my marriage, renewing and increasing the joy I already had in my relationship with my wife.
• He has given me material blessings beyond measure, and the freedom to do work that I love without fear of external economic conditions.
• He is the reason for my business success.

While I have often talked about being a follower of Jesus in the past, and done so openly, I have never before revealed the true depth of my belief about exactly what it is Jesus has done for me. And what he wants to do for you.

But now, the gloves are off.

I want everyone to experience the same joy, the same piece, and the same prosperity that I myself enjoy.

I realize that for some, this may be a bit much to take. Please know that is not my intention or desire to offend you-far from it, it’s my intention and desire to see you succeed wildly on a whole new scale. It’s what I have committed my life to.

And here’s what that looks like…

My Marketplace Mission: 1,000 Millionaires.

I feel that God has prepared me for this very time to help demolish the mindsets of both poverty and greed that have a grip on so many.

I am privileged to be called to be part of the solution.

Our mission going forward, here at Ray Edwards International, Inc, is a very simple one: to mentor, foster, and lead 1,000 people to become millionaires.

Not to become millionaires for the reasons the world normally supposes people want to be rich. Not so that they can buy the biggest house, or the fastest sports car, or acquire the “most toys”.

Our aim (and my personal mission) is to develop “Kingdom millionaires”. People who seek to accumulate wealth in order to do the work of God’s kingdom.

Leading 1,000 people to become millionaires means bringing one billion dollars into God’s Kingdom – money that will be used for His purposes.

Over the last few years, I’ve had the great privilege of working with many well-known marketers and thought-leaders.

Some of my clients are household names.

I’ve been able to contribute to their success, and my work has been responsible, in part, for bringing millions of dollars into those businesses and those personal fortunes.

Now, I am dedicating my work-all of it-to the building of God’s kingdom.

How? By continuing to help people and businesses create more wealth – but now with a renewed and more accurately-focused purpose. By being dedicated…

• To the destruction of the poverty and greed mindset.
• To the creation of new wealth.
• To the alleviation of suffering, sickness, and poverty.

We are in a world at war. It’s Good against evil.

While evil wants to take over, we resist the idea of giving up a single inch of ground.

This is the sound of a revolution.

If You’re Receiving This Message, You Are The Resistance

If this resonates with you, if you want to be part of this revolution, I invite you to stick with me.

As dark as some people think tomorrow looks, we have a different view.

We believe the future is pregnant with promise, and we are committed to taking back tomorrow from the “gloom and doomers”.

So how can you join in?

First, and absolutely of most importance, make sure you are following Jesus. Accept Him as your Lord (your Master) and as your Savior. It’s not complex. All that is required:

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Romans 10:9

Next, if what I’ve said here seems to draw you toward it, then this is your place!

Subscribe to this blog, if you haven’t already.

In the coming days and weeks, you’ll see our new focus reflected in the articles we publish, the podcasts we produce, the information products and books we make available.

My teaching and materials will reflect the principles of helping you build wealth from a foundation of Kingdom principles – for Kingdom purposes.

We will be together on the journey of true prosperity.

And like John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, I want you to prosper, even as your soul prospers.

I look forward to contributing to your success.

We have some exciting things in store for you.

In the meantime…

May you prosper wildly, and may you be radically blessed.

Yours in Christ,

Ray

Click for the Podcast Audio:

Click Here

“Big picture” people.

“Idea” people.

And that’s good. BUT… in times like these it can also be problematic.

Because…

What we want is a simple solution to our complex business problems.

What we need, however, is not an “easy button”.

What we need are often complex, multi-faceted tactical plans guided by a carefully conceived strategic course.

The tricky thing is, from the outside this often looks like simplicity.

But it is simplicity on the other side of complexity.

Getting to the other side of complexity requires the hardest of all work: thinking.

If your copy provokes that reaction in the reader, you lose.

Make sure your copy — and all your marketing — passes the “so what” test.

The Captain Kirk Guide To Romancing Your Customers

Simple Tricks Top Copywriters Use To Sell More

3 Ways To Write Better Copy Faster

Top 5 iPad Apps For Copywriters

What It Takes To Succeed as a Freelance Copywriter

Well, I suppose it should go without saying that the first requirement is the ability to write good copy. But just for safety’s sake, I will say it anyway.

That detail out of the way, here are some qualities less common among copywriters that are of equal importance.

The ability to treat your service like a business. Too many copywriters are woefully ignorant of the realities of running a business (and a copywriting practice is a business, just like a law practice or any other professional service provider). If you are playing the role of the “temperamental artist as copywriter” it probably means you’re a dreadful business person. Your clients (almost all of them skilled entrepreneurs) hold that sort of mentality in great disdain. Want more respect as a copywriter? Start acting like a businessperson.

The commitment to meet deadlines. Clients expect you to do what you say you were going to do, and they expect you to do it on the schedule you agreed to. There are no excuses. I have never missed a deadline. I have, on occasion renegotiated a deadline-but always ahead of time. Repeat after me: “Deadlines are sacred. I shall not break them.”

The skin of a rhinoceros. Look, I understand; writing is hard, and taking criticism is harder. But clients pay you to write, and they have an expectation that their input will be accepted by you. After all, they’re paying for the end product. They are going to be critical of what you write. You’re writing about their baby-their business. You’ve got to be able to smile when your clients are offering “constructive criticism”… even when they’re wrong. You must be able to handle such situations with grace. A crucial skill for you: the ability to subtly persuade clients that your way is the correct way. Even more difficult, you’ve got to be able swallow your pride when your client has a good point… such as a point about some weakness in  your copy (which is accurate more often than most copywriters would like to admit).

These skills are more difficult to develop than the skills of actually writing copy-at least for most copywriters.

Most copywriters tend to be more right-brained and creative instead of left-brained and logical; I was gifted with a weird 50-50 combination of “artist/businessman” genetics.

I understand that not everyone was so fortunate.

But trust me… being conscious of the need for the skills I’ve outlined in this article, and becoming diligent in the development of these skills, will make you a much happier (and much richer) copywriter.

And the thing I love most? Apps, of course!

Here are the 5 iPad apps I use the most for my copywriting business, and a word or two about how I use them.

1. Mindmeister. This is a simple online mind-mapping app, and it synchronizes with the website of the developer. That means I can create a mind-map on my iPad, and access it later on my MacBook Pro. Mindmeister allows me to export the mind map in different formats, including rich text-ideal for outlining sales copy, white papers, or book chapters. Indispensable.
2. OmniFocus. I am an unvarnished fan of David Allen’s GTD methodology for managing one’s time and tasks. This is my app of choice for implementing GTD. It synchronizes with the Omnifocus app on my iPhone and on my MacBook Pro… but the iPad app is my favorite iteration of the software.
3. Instapaper. The perfect way to “clip” articles, blog posts, and websites that I want to look at later. I frequently find bits and pieces I want to use for copy projects, and I simply save them to Instapaper. Beautiful.
4. Evernote. How do I describe Evernote? It’s my universal notepad, perfect for saving images, business cards, websites, notes (including hand-scribbled ones) and so much more. Try it. You will understand.
5. Angry Birds. Hey, what can I say? Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is play.

What about you? What are your most-used iPad apps?

1. Work from an outline. If you’re a copywriter who’s earned your stripes, you already have an intuitive sense of the structure of good sales copy (different structure for different media or format, of course… But always a basic structure for each). It’s a good idea to have that outline available to use as a template (in Microsoft Word, for instance). Save yourself the mental effort of having to create the structure from scratch each time; organize your notes, clippings, and bits of copy within the outline. That way, when you’re ready to start writing, all your preliminart scribblings are at least in the right order.
2. Speak, don’t type. As long as you aren’t experiencing physiological or neurological problems, you speak much faster than you type. If you’re working from an outline (as suggested above) you should be able to dictate your copy at an incredibly rapid pace. You can either use software, such as DragonDictate, or you can pay to have a human being transcribe your copy. Either way, it’ll be much faster and more efficient. Unless you’re my friend Michel Fortin, who has supernatural typing ability.
3. Build up a bank of “copy chunks”. Chances are, if you do much writing for clients, you end up writing very similar opens, guarantees, closing segments, and so forth. Why not start collecting those “chunks” of copy, so you can simply cut and paste them into your first draft? This technique alone can save you many hours of laborious and needlessly repetitive work.

Here’s to speedier copy for you.

The most persuasive techniques usually are the ones that are simplest. Here are three simple tricks the top copywriters know will help them sell more (of whatever they’re selling)…

1. Know your prospects. This means doing your homework, and knowing the audience you’re writing to (and selling to) inside out. You must know, at the very least their FFA’s (fears, frustrations, and aspirations). If you know those three things, you have some powerful mojo at your disposal.
2. Speak the language of your audience. If you are writing to golfers, for instance, you absolutely must not call the instruments of play anything other than clubs. Referring to “ball striking sticks” will earn your copy a quick trip to the trashcan. I know the example is ridiculous, but I see copywriters making mistakes equally as ridiculous all the time. Just sayin’.
3. Know your product. Again, a seemingly obvious point, yet one of the most frequently violated principles of writing persuasive copy. The more you know about your product, the more persuasively you will be able to communicate about it. Newbie copywriters would do well to study the greats, particularly Eugene Schwartz, who often read a book four (or more) times, and had 100 pages of notes written in his own hand, when he finally sat down to write the copy that would sell the book.

As I said, simple. Not necessarily easy.

Here’s what this has to do with you and your business: wooing customers is a lot like wooing a lover. You want them. You want them to want you. Here’s what we can learn from Captain Kirk that will help us woo our customers.

1. Let them know you’re interested. No time to be coy, no time to be subtle. Look him in the eye and tell them, “you are beautiful to me.”
2. Strut. Look, Captain Kirk was not a slump-shouldered mealy-mouth. He stood up straight, looked women in the eye, and was supremely confident in what he had to offer. Somehow, he managed to do all that without seeming arrogant (most of the time). Your business could learn a thing or two from the confidence of the Captain.
3. Have the goods to back it up. Face it, it’s probably easy for Captain Kirk to be confident at least in part because he commands a starship. He has hundreds of people ready to do exactly what he tells them. He’s got the goods. If your business does not have the goods to satisfy your customers… well, you know what you need to work on.

I know, I know. You’re doubtless impressed that I was able to somehow work Star Trek into a Valentine’s Day post about copywriting and marketing. Or you’re revolted. Either way, I think my points remain valid.

Kirk out.

More thought to each product you produce.

More care to each customer interaction.

More value for each dollar you receive.

Jesus said, “It is better to give than to receive.”

He also promises elsewhere that if we give faithfully, and joyfully, we will receive much more in return.

Imagine what the world would be like if everyone (including businesses) operated on that principle.

I know… that’s not how things work with everyone.

But the way to get closer to a world that looks like that, is to be the kind of person who does.

“Pig Pen, this here is Rubber Duck. We ain’t gonna pay no toll…”
CW McCall, “Convoy”

Who would have dreamed, in the 1970s, that anything would ever replace the CB radio? Some readers will, like me, be old enough to remember the CB craze. We will all remember, for instance, that the “main channel” on our CB radio was channel 19.

“Breaker 19, this here is the CopyGuy, with a newsflash: before that Hollywood actor named Reagan becomes president, CB radio will be a fad from the past…”

Fast-forward to just around the time CB radio had completely faded from the American consciousness, and you’ll discover a curious new technology called the compact disc just making its debut on the market. There were scoffers. There were purists who said nothing sounded as good as vinyl (there still are, but that’s another post). And there were plenty of people to point out that nobody in their right mind would replace an entire record collection just to go buy the same music on CD. Those people were wrong.

Fast forward again. Apple introduces a service called iTunes. There are scoffers. There are purists who say there’s nothing like having the liner notes you get inside the case of a CD. And they’re plenty of people pointing out that nobody in their right mind will replace an entire CD collection is to go buy the same music for the iPod. Those people were also wrong.

Just to be clear: those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Change is constant. Industries appear and vanish in the space of a decade. Those who win are those who anticipate the trends, and get in front of them. Distinction worthy of note: it is much easier to predict trends and get in front of them that it is to be the creator of said trends. Much, much, much easier.

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
William Shakespeare

I will leave the discussion aside as to whether William Shakespeare is indulging in moral relativism.

I think he is not, if one reads the above quotation in context, but I do think the quotation illustrates a basic principle we, as entrepreneurs, would be profited to recognize and employ with more frequency.

It is popular, in our culture, to be well versed in bad news.

It is popular to be able to quote the bad news, and to elaborate upon its badness, and one is presumed to be more erudite and wise for doing so.

But as entrepreneurs-those who create something from virtually nothing-I believe it is the kiss of death. It is a way of limiting ourselves, of violating the principle of the best use of resources.

The best and highest resource we possess is ourselves, and that never brought so into focus as in what we think about most of the time.

I don’t believe it’s possible to talk about the bad news all the time, without also thinking about it all the time. And it should stand to reason that thinking about something all the time tends to put one’s focus on that something, and that focusing on something inevitably draws us closer to the something.

I’m not talking about mysticism here.

I’m simply talking about the fact that the more we tend to think about a thing, the more likely it is that our behavior, actions, attitudes, and lifestyle will come into alignment with that thing we’re thinking about.

So the “bad news” is this: thinking and talking about bad news all the time might make you seem smart, but it inevitably makes you dumb, and what’s more it likely will make you broke. In the rare cases that it does not make you broke, because you have in some perverted way discovered how to profit from bad news, it will make you soul-sick.

Yes, I’m sticking my neck out on this one. But my poster child for the premise of being rich but soul-sick is Howard Hughes. And I don’t think any of us wants to end up like him, hoarding our fingernail clippings, living on orange juice, and slowly going insane.

The good news is, there is obvious profit in thinking and talking about good news. In looking for the good news in every situation. It is after all, as entrepreneurs, what we are paid to do.

Let’s go do it.

My book, “Writing Riches”, is now officially an Amazon and Barnes & Noble bestseller. We hit #1 in two different categories on Amazon, and peaked at #9 out of all books on Barnes & Noble.

I want to thank everyone who bought a copy of my book, and also want to thank all the generous souls who helped get the word out over the last few days. I know who you are, and I will not forget your support.

Thank you!

You can, of course, still purchase a copy if you haven’t done so yet. Just click here, pick your favorite vendor, and order as many as you like.

In the midst of all the hubbub about the book, I realized that there is another opportunity you run the risk of missing.

Here’s the story…

Quietly, last month, I launched an online community for those who want to learn to make money with their writing. It is called, not coincidentally, WritingRiches.com.

This too has been a resounding success.

As a member of this community, you get an unprecedented level of help and access from me personally.

For instance…

We do a website critique webinar once per month

We do a live Q&A call once per month

And we have a discussion forum that is becoming more and more active.

What this all means is you get to receive the benefit of my consulting, and the experience I have with my various clients, all for a fraction of my normal fees.

For example, to hire me to do consulting for your company on a retainer basis, you would invest $10,000 per month (that’s what actual clients really pay).

But to become a member of the Writing Riches community is a mere $97 per month — that comes out to less than three dollars a day.

However…

For the next three days, you can become a Charter Member of the site for only $47 per month.

This is a $50 savings, and absolutely comes to an end at midnight January 31st.

So if you wait to make your decision, and you log onto the website on February 1, you’ll discover that the monthly rate has gone up to $97.

Which, quite frankly, will still be an extraordinary value-but why not get in at the “grandfathered” rate of only $47?

Aside from the live interaction we have each month, there’s a ton of other content already inside the web site, including video tutorials, audio trainings, and lots more.

Get the details here.

Even so, you might want to buy a copy right now:

Order from Amazon: click here.

I have taken all my most valuable copywriting secrets… all my best tips, tricks, and checklists… and put them into a step-by-step handbook.

Think about it.

You’re getting the same systems and copywriting tips I use myself when creating copy for my $50,000 clients… for less than a fine dinner for two — at McDonalds!

Inside “Writing Riches”, you’ll discover:

• The 14 Magic Building Blocks of Sales Copy That Sells Your Products Like Crazy (page 1)
• How To Create Headlines That Grab Your Readers By The Eyeballs and Suck Them Into Your Message (page 19)
• The Secrets Of Quickly Writing Magic Emails That Make You Money (page 35)
• How To Write Bullet Points That Virtually Force Your Prospects to Buy (page 57)
• The Secret, Triangular “Vice Grip” That Always Sells More (page 77)
• The Most Explosive Tactics For Making More Sales, More Often, With Less Human Effort Than You Ever Dreamed Possible (page 95)
• The Effortless Way To Attract A Flood Of Web Site Visitors As Easily As Turning On A Water Spigot (page 109)
• The Secrets Of Getting Your Prospects So Excited About You They’ll FIGHT For The Privilege Of Buying Your Stuff (page 129)
• Secrets Of Writing Blockbuster Sales Copy… By Watching Movies (page 149)

Grab your copy of the book right now by clicking here:

Order from Amazon: click here.

As if this weren’t a great deal already, I have really made this an irresistible offer — like any good copywriter would! Here’s the story…

…when you buy the book this week (and this week only), you get a free, “live” web class taught me personally. The estimated retail value of the online class is $197.

It’s called “7 Simple Ways To Double Your Profits In The Next 12 Months”… and registration is easy! You simply send me your online receipt for your book purchase, and you get a free pass to the class!

Get the book here:

Order from Amazon: click here.
Do this right now, while you’re thinking about it.

Then email your receipt to support [at] rayedwards.com

And thanks in advance for buying the book!

For proof, click here and watch a startling, but enlightening video. Yes, he’s selling something; but what I want you to glean is his absolutely correct grasp of principles regarding levels of knowledge about money. You don’t need to buy anything to get the value from the video.

If you haven’t already, click here and watch the video. I’ll wait.

Now, why is it that the things he teaches in this video are true?

This post from Sam Carpenter explains it perfectly. You should read the entire post, but let me point out the principle I want to highlight:

We must study the mechanical minutia of our tasks if we are to excel. This means observing: looking down and analyzing the sub-systems of our lives…to see our selves as mechanical devices that can be made to be super-efficient. The next step is to spend the majority of our time perfecting each of our sub-systems, one by one.

Here’s a happy thought: Study and then perfect your systems as a main focus and you’ll find yourself in select company and therefore flying faster and higher than a huge percentage of the competition. Make More. Work Less.

Lots of people work hard to become expert at what they do, but what great heights will be achieved by becoming expert at a flawed process?

All very well worth pondering – it all does apply to you & me, Eternal Entrpreneur. Your assignment, should you choose to accept it: figure out how, and how you might use this distinction to your benefit.

SPECIAL NOTE: For a limited time, you can become a member of  my new Writing Riches Community – the place where I share the specific SYSTEMS that sell more of your products & services. And you can claim your spot in our club at our special Charter Member Rate. Right now, membership is a no-obligation $47… but in LESS THAN one week, at the end of January, the price goes up to $97. Click here right now to lock in your Charter Rate and save $50.

If you haven’t read it, move it to the top of your list.

If you have read it and haven’t yet implemented every single strategy inside its covers, read it now. Again.

Probably my favorite passage from Chet’s masterful business work is one that most people read without understanding its import. In the early pages of the book, Chet points out that most people will read his book, agree with its precepts, and still not do them. He says this is the “reverse psychology” section of the book, in which he attempts to prod the reader into doing what needs to be done. In Chet’s words, “I’m goading you into applying a powerful force for creating success from what you’re going to learn… and that force, my friends, is pigheaded discipline and determination.”

Pigheaded discipline is the subject of this post for very good, and simple, reason. That reason being the fact that this is the most-lacked skill in over 90% of entrepreneurs. In my experience, what stands in our way, what holds us back from our potential, is usually not some external force (such as competition or marketplace conditions)-it is, rather, our own inability to say no to the things that distract us from our most profitable activities, and our continued inability to say yes only to those activities that produce the results we seek.

It is as if the world conspires against us to lead us down this path to destruction. Most of our peers, and certainly most of our employees, are happy to tell us what we should be spending our time on-and almost without fail their advice is dead wrong. It usually doesn’t come packaged as advice, by the way – it usually comes packaged as a meeting… a phone call… a personal plea… or some kind of interpersonal conflict. None of which are, perhaps, designed to take us off target- but all of which inevitably do.

Guard your heart carefully, eternal entrepreneur, and focus only on the things that expand the kingdom. Employ pigheaded discipline.

SPECIAL NOTE: For a limited time, you can become a member of  my new Writing Riches Community at our special Charter Member Rate. Right now, membership is a no-obligation $47… but in LESS THAN two weeks, at the end of January, the price goes up to $97. Click here right now to lock in your Charter Rate and save $50.

As an entrepreneur, it is profitable to think about the Pareto principle in the following way: 80% of your results will flow from only 20% of your activities. They should become a liberating truth for you. It constitutes mathematical permission for you to focus only on the 20% of things you like to do anyway. The truth is most entrepreneurs are people who enjoy “visioning”-or, as my private client Frank Kern likes to put it, “scheming”. This doesn’t imply anything evil; it simply recognizes the fact that entrepreneurial types tends to enjoy coming up with the big ideas, seeing the big picture, laying down the strategy, and leaving the cleanup and details to others on their team. In the world of the Internet, there is an ethos that if you can do it yourself you should do it yourself. This has had the result of locking up entrepreneurs in a prison of detail work. No entrepreneur should be installing WordPress blogs, debugging scripts, or figuring out how to make the latest plug-in work… unless this is out of financial necessity. And assuming that you’re any kind of entrepreneur at all, the period of financial necessity may exist from time to time, but should be short-lived.

The prosperous practice of the Pareto principle simply means: only do the stuff you’re best at, the stuff that gets results, that puts sales on the books, new clients on the roster, and “moves the needle”. Anything else is a waste of time.

SPECIAL NOTE: For a limited time, you can become a member of  my new Writing Riches Community at our special Charter Member Rate. Right now, membership is a no-obligation $47… but in LESS THAN two weeks, at the end of January, the price goes up to $97. Click here right now to lock in your Charter Rate and save $50.

The enemy of most entrepreneurs is not perfectionism, as some have suggested. It is the idea of perfectionism. It is the dream of what their beautiful business will finally look like someday. What I mean is this: it is possible to hold such a magnificent dream in one’s mind, that one never gets around to actually doing the work required to bring the dream to fruition-because if one did so, one would be faced with the inevitable reality that the thing itself did not live up to the promise of the dream. This is more important than it may at first appear.

I’m convinced that more businesses are killed because they are never started, than are begun and lost to the ravages of the marketplace. I have a friend who has begun at least a dozen enterprises that completely and utterly failed to make a single dollar-because he started all of them in his mind only. He made elaborate plans. He drew incredibly complex mind maps. He constructed detailed, banker- pleasing spreadsheets. And finally, overcome by the weight of all of the fantasizing he had done, eventually realizing all the potential dangers that lay ahead of him if he proceeded, he quietly laid each enterprise to rest before it had even been born.

There is a much-quoted saying in this business of ours: “Don’t get it perfect, just get it started.” Or something very close to that. I have heard this quote attributed to various different people, but I’m determined to believe that it originated with Zig Ziglar. Regardless of who first said it, it contains a great deal of truth. Please bear in mind that this particular saying is not an endorsement of creating inferior products or services; it is, more accurately, a condemnation of allowing the ideal of perfectionism to prevent the birth of enterprise.

It is the law of the farm writ large: if you don’t plant the seed, no crop will grow.

SPECIAL NOTE: For a limited time, you can become a member of  my new Writing Riches Community at our special Charter Member Rate. Right now, membership is a no-obligation $47… but in LESS THAN two weeks, at the end of January, the price goes up to $97. Click here right now to lock in your Charter Rate and save $50.

This method is, I believe, recession proof. In fact, it may be fueled by the recession. Here’s the scoop…

This strategy is very similar to our former strategy, in that your goal is to buy products for cheap and sell them for a tidy profit. The difference is you’re going to focus on regular products rather than stuff like antiques or collectibles, and you’ll be buying these products from completely different sources.

What you’re going to be looking for are simply liquidated items. Closeouts, overstocks, or even fixture sales when retail stores and other businesses close down because of the “poor economy”. You are ready know how I feel about all that “bad economy” talk. Most businesses don’t fold because of the economic conditions around them-they fold because of a failure to adjust to those convictions when it was possible. But I digress.

Again, this is not a strategy that’s going to appeal to most info marketers, but some of you will be immediately drawn to this idea. I believe it is even scalable-once you get a system perfected, you could conceivably hire other people to help scale up your efforts at finding cheap closeouts and then turning them around at a profit.

The best part of this strategy is, it actually works better in tough economic times, because they’re always stores liquidating their stock and going out of business. Now, you should know by now that I don’t take joy in anybody’s economic failure-but this is a real opportunity that some of my readers will seize upon and profit from. And I certainly have nothing against that.

If you’re interested in knowing more about how to do this, you’re sure to enjoy my new video training and “how to” manual, “10 Proven Ways to Make $10,000 Per Month”. You can only get it if you’re a member of my Writing Riches Community. Click here to learn more.

NOTE: Right now, membership is a no-obligation $47… but in LESS THAN two weeks, at the end of January, the price goes up to $97. Click here right now to lock in your Charter Rate and save $50.

What makes this strategy different from some of the others on the following two points:

The strategy focuses only on physical products.

You have your phone ringing off the hook with people who want to sell their products to you dirt cheap!

So here’s how it works… First, you figure out what product you’re going to sell. Maybe you’re going to sell antique pocket watches, baseball cards, unusual artwork, or other items of that nature. Just make sure that there are loads of people already buying this stuff.

Next, you need to quickly educate yourself about these products. This is pretty easy to do online, especially if there is a “community” of people who are interested in the stuff you’re going to be selling. Do a little research on eBay and Google to find out how much interest there is in the specific items you’ve chosen.

Next, just find cheap sources of the same products. Once you’ve done your initial research (like looking at closed eBay auctions), you’ll have some idea of what the minimum prices your items can be sold for might be. Then all you have to do is find a good source of buying those items below that price. Craigslist is a good place to start.

I realize this idea will not appeal to everyone, but trust me: it has legs. This dog will hunt. If you’re the kind of person whose juices are already flowing over this idea, I recommend you get to work. You have cash in hand by this weekend.

If you’re interested in knowing more about how to do this, you’re sure to enjoy my new video training and “how to” manual, “10 Proven Ways to Make $10,000 Per Month”. You can only get it if you’re a member of my Writing Riches Community. Click here to learn more.

NOTE: Right now, membership is a no-obligation $47… but in two weeks, at the end of January, the price goes up to $97. Click here right now to lock in your Charter Rate and save $50.

This one is surprisingly simple.

Don’t write it off only because it seems easy.

In this method, you simply by, tweak and then resell products that come with private label rights (PLR).

PLR products are information products that are purchased with the understanding that you have the right to modify the product and do with it as you please.

The interesting thing is, that while hundreds of people may buy the same PLR product that you just bought, very few of them will ever do anything with the product.

Out of those who actually take some sort of action, almost all of them will resell the product exactly as they received it.

Which means you only have to make the most basic modifications to the product, such as changing the title and the cover graphics, and you have a completely unique product.

Spend a bit more time on the project, and customize the product, and you can resell it to consumers yourself, or even sell the entire product (site and all) to another marketer at a hefty profit! Simple? Yes. Profitable? For sure.

If you’re interested in knowing more about how to do this, you’re sure to enjoy my new video training and “how to” manual, “10 Proven Ways to Make $10,000 Per Month”. You can only get it if you’re a member of my Writing Riches Community. Click here to learn more.

If you already sell information products-things like e-books, special reports, or other downloadable information, you got the hard part already done. You’ve created a product.

My suggestion is to add value to that product, and sell it for a much higher price than you’re currently getting. How do you do that? Simple…

Turn your digital products into physical products-and pocket a hefty profit!

For some reason, people may be willing to pay only $27 for your e-book… Or maybe you’re getting $37, or even $47… But take that same e-book, put it inside an attractive three ring binder, and add audio CDs of you reading the material out loud, and suddenly customers may be willing to pay $197… $297… Or even more.

Like most of my other “more money methods”, this is not something new. Motivational speakers and self-help gurus have known the secret for a long time. That’s why your favorite motivational speaker may charge $15 for his book at Barnes & Noble, while he charges $197 for the CD training set based on the book… And $5000 for the live seminar training that contains the same information!

So, time to start thinking about what products you have gathering “digital dust” on your hard drive. Could you dust them off, turn them into physical products, and charge more money for them? Chances are, the answer is yes.

If you’re interested in knowing more about how to do this, you’re sure to enjoy my new video training and “how to” manual, “10 Proven Ways to Make $10,000 Per Month”. You can only get it if you’re a member of my Writing Riches Community. Click here to learn more.

You bet you can!

Namely, by blogging as a business model. There are dozens of different ways to make money from a popular blog… but they all start with you sitting down and writing something.

Your best bet is to start a blog that caters to a very specific niche; a group of people who are inordinately passionate about a specific topic. If it’s something that you yourself are passionate about, that’s probably best. Your own interests will help sustain you in the early days when you be putting in lots of effort for seemingly small rewards.

But don’t let those early days discourage you; if you’re blogging about something you care about, and it’s something that lots of other people care about as well, you can indeed make good money doing it. How? Here are just a few thoughts:

1. You can make money by promoting and selling your own products to the people who read your blog. This is something that I myself do. It works.
2. You can promote affiliate products to those who read your blog, and earn a commission.
3. You can sell advertising space on your blog to businesses who want to reach the people who make up your audience.

Those are just three ideas that can help you monetize your blogging efforts. There are many more ways to make money with your blog, and there are lots of resources to help you get started (just use that reliable old research tool, Google, and you’ll see what I mean).

Well, what are you waiting for? Start blogging!

If you’re interested in knowing more about how to do this, you’re sure to enjoy my new video training and “how to” manual, “10 Proven Ways to Make $10,000 Per Month”. You can only get it if you’re a member of my Writing Riches Community. Click here to learn more.