There are few businesses that would not benefit from a steady, predictable flow of new customers. Yet very few businesses have any kind of system in place to do this. Here’s a simple plan for generating 90 new customers for your business in 90 days. And the best part is, you don’t have to stop at 90 days!

This Week’s Tip(s)

• Use Google Calendar on your iPhone with the Agenda calendar app.
• Create your own free newspaper with Google Currents app for iPhone

Spiritual Foundations

You don’t have to “clean up your act” for God to hear your cry for help.

“For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

Hebrews 8:12

Feature Story: How To Get 90 New Customers In 90 Days

1. Create a Magnetic Free Offer
2. Define an Ascension Process
3. Create a Lead Generation Website
4. Build an Automated Follow-Up System
5. Bring Traffic to Your Magnetic Free Offer

Fast & Free Traffic Tactics

1. Leveraging Other Lists
2. Search Engine Marketing
3. Social Media – Facebook & Twitter

Announcements

• If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe (and leave a review) in iTunes.
• Plugs for audio shout-outs, either MP3 or call in at (509) 713-2679
• Plugs for hosting accounts using this link.
• Follow Ray on Twitter and friend Ray on Facebook
  

SUBSCRIPTION LINKS

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe (and leave a review) in iTunes.

Call in your questions or comments to our new, fancy “request line” at (509) 713-2679

Question for you: What tactics or systems do you use to generate new customers? Comment below, or call in at (509) 713-2679

How to start a business for $100? Is it possible to start a business for a hundred dollars (or even less)? Chris Guillebeau, author of the new book, The $100 Startup, say yes. I agree – and in this episode, I’ll explain the simple steps to do so. Maybe you’ll be inspired to create your own “$100 startup”.

This Week’s Bluehost Hosting Plug

• CozyWorkplace.com
• AcupunctureMiamiDade.com

This Week’s Tip(s)

• Get the new book by Chris Guillebeau, entitled The $100 Startup.

Spiritual Foundations

God sees you as perfect… so stop seeing yourself otherwise!

“But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God…  For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”

Hebrews 10:12, 14

Feature Story: How To Start A Business For $100 Or Less

The $100 startup is a reality! Starting a business for $100 is simple. Here are the “baby steps” (mine, not Chris’s):

1. Decide on a topic for your site/product.
2. Start a blog.
3. Start an email list.
4. Set up social media accounts.
5. Publish & promote on a regular schedule.
6. Listen for what your audience wants.
7. Create an information product.
8. Launch the product with an event.
9. Build autoresponder sequences.

Get Chris’s book for inspiration for your own $100 startup!

Announcements

• If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe (and leave a review) in iTunes.
• Plugs for audio shout-outs, either MP3 or call in at (509) 713-2679
• Plugs for hosting accounts using this link.
• Follow Ray on Twitter and friend Ray on Facebook
  

SUBSCRIPTION LINKS

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe (and leave a review) in iTunes.

Call in your questions or comments to our new, fancy “request line” at (509) 713-2679

Question for you: Did you start your business for $100 or less?  Want to share your story? Have a question? Comment below, or call in at (509) 713-2679

Have you ever suffered a setback in your business, your health, your life? We all have. Why are some people crushed by setbacks – while others seem to use them as fuel for future success? And most importantly, how can you use your own setbacks to propel you to greater success?

Announcements

• If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe (and leave a review) in iTunes.
• Plugs for audio shout-outs, either MP3 or call in at (509) 713-2679
• Plugs for hosting accounts using this link.
• Free book promo for April; top 10 commentators
• Congrats on latest students – over 200 new students in WITS and PLATFORM!
• Follow Ray on Twitter and friend Ray on Facebook
  

This Week’s Bluehost Hosting Plug

• RightStages.com
• AnywhereBusinessCoaching.com

This Week’s Tip(s)

• Check your username on all social media sites: CheckUsernames.com (thanks Adam Underhill!)

Spiritual Foundations

God has good plans for you…

“He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

Romans 8:32

Feature Story: How To Turn Setbacks Into Comebacks

We cannot control what happens to us, but we can control how we respond – and what we believe about the setback.

Knowing how to face trials proactively is one of the top skills in internet business… and in life.

Here are 10 steps to transform setbacks into comebacks.

1.  See it for what it is.
2. Remember God’s plan for you (Jer 29:11 and Romans 8:28)
3. Ask good questions – questions that lead to helpful answers.
4. Be careful what you think, see, and say.
5. Notice what works; do more of that.
6. Notice what doesn’t work; stop doing that.
7. Live in the now. Avoid depression and anxiety.
8. Move your body every day.
9. Put good fuel in the machine.
10. Fill your eyes with solutions.

Remember that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. (Matthew 6:34)

SUBSCRIPTION LINKS

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe (and leave a review) in iTunes.

Call in your questions or comments to our new, fancy “request line” at (509) 713-2679

Question for you: What’s your favorite “quick product creation” method? What  has worked for you? Comment below, or call in at (509) 713-2679

EPISODE OUTLINE

Welcome to our “product creation” episode! This time around I’ll share rapid product creation methods you can use to create your own product in a day or less.

Announcements

• If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe (and leave a review) in iTunes.
• Plugs for audio shout-outs, either MP3 or call in at (509) 713-2679
• Plugs for hosting accounts using this link.
• Free book promo for April; top 10 commentators
• Congrats on latest students – over 200 new students in WITS and PLATFORM!
• Follow Ray on Twitter and friend Ray on Facebook
  

This Week’s Bluehost Hosting Plug

• Thanks and congratulations to Wendell Saunders of WendellSaunders.com on his new website!

This Week’s Tip(s)

• Convert your old VHS tapes to digital with iMemories, and your old cassettes to digital with Southtree

Spiritual Foundations

God’s grace looks like SUPPLY…

“And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from His glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 4:19, NLT

Feature Story: 7 Ways To Create Your Own Product In Less Than 24 Hours

Product creation is easy!

1. Writer: Type up a how-to.
2. Interviewer: Interview an expert.
3. Expert: Have someone interview you.
4. Teacher: Teach something on video.
5. Encourager: Make an audio recording.
6. Researcher: Assemble information.
7. Reporter: Document your experience.

LISTENER QUESTIONS

I answered questions from these listeners:

• Steve Hawk had nice things to say about me,
• Shel Horowitz made a pitch for going green.
• Fleetwood Gruvver wants Joomla themes.
• Tom makes a point about mobile websites.
• Christy Sales asks about “the long copy debate”.

EPISODE RESOURCES

Links to resources I mentioned in the show:

• Joomla themes by RocketTheme.
• WP Touch mobile theme.
• Responsive themes from Studiopress and Woothemes.

SUBSCRIPTION LINKS

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe (and leave a review) in iTunes.

Call in your questions or comments to our new, fancy “request line” at (509) 713-2679

Question for you: What’s your favorite “quick product creation” method? What  has worked for you? Comment below, or call in at (509) 713-2679

EPISODE OUTLINE

Announcements

• If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe (and leave a review) in iTunes.
• Plugs for audio shout-outs, either MP3 or call in at (509) 713-2679
• Plugs for hosting accounts using this link.
• Free book promo for April; top 10 commentators
• Coming Web Class in setting up your platform
• Follow Ray on Twitter and friend Ray on Facebook
  

This Week’s Tip(s)

• Make your own apps with AppMakr and Appcelerator

Spiritual Foundations

God wants us blessed in order that we might be able to be a blessing.

“I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.”

Genesis 12:2

Feature Story: 10 Steps To Turn Your Life Around In 30 Days Or Less

Some basic foundations of self improvement and a couple of self improvement book recommendations.

1. Write your own eulogy.
2. Write down your goals (short, mid, and long-term).
3. Do what you say you’ll do
4. Drink a gallon of water every day
5. Exercise every day
6. Eat only clean food
7. Feed your mind
8. Feed your spirit
9. Guard your heart
10. Live on testimony

LISTENER QUESTIONS

I answered questions from these listeners:

• Robert Plank – asked about making “scary topics” (such as selling via Webinars) appealing to regular folks.
• Marie McMichael – asked about legal disclaimers for your websites.
• Dana Beasley - had a comment to offer.
• Connie Ragen Green – asked about whether we still recommend using bullet points in sales copy.
• John Klein - wants to know how to track the source of links and leads from various sources for his music success workshop site.
• Christy Sales – slipped in a plug for her site.

EPISODE RESOURCES

Links to resources I mentioned in the show:

• Michael Hyatt’s free life-planning ebook
• Joseph Prince’s books Unmerited Favor and Destined to Reign
• Stephen R. Covey’s book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• Pre-written legal disclaimers from AutoWeblaw
• Eugene Schwarz’s Breakthrough Advertising at Amazon, or from Agora Publishing.
• Link tracking via Google’s free services, or from Linktrackr.

SUBSCRIPTION LINKS

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe (and leave a review) in iTunes.

Call in your questions or comments to our new, fancy “request line” at (509) 713-2679

Question for you: Have you ever made a big life-change? What worked for you? Comment below, or call in at (509) 713-2679

EPISODE OUTLINE

Announcements

• If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe (and leave a review) in iTunes.
• Plugs for audio shout-outs, either MP3 or call in at (509) 713-2679
• Plugs for hosting accounts using this link.
• Free book promo for April; top 10 commentators
• Coming Web Class in setting up your platform
• Follow Ray on Twitter and friend Ray on Facebook
  

This Week’s Tip(s)

• Downcast podcast receiver app.

Spiritual Foundations

The gift of trusting God is received in the practice of thanksgiving.

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord of lords!
For His mercy endures forever:
To Him who alone does great wonders,
For His mercy endures forever;
To Him who by wisdom made the heavens,
For His mercy endures forever;”

Psalm 136

Feature Story: Set Up Your Online Empire In 7 Days

1. Know your Money Keywords
2. Decide your Strategic Positioning
3. Get a domain
4. Get hosting
5. Set up WordPress
6. Social Media: Twitter, Facebook, G+, Pinterest, LinkedIn
7. Content Creation
8. Traffic: social media, content publishing, links, guest posts
9. The “secret” strategy
10. Platform

EPISODE RESOURCES

Links to resources I mentioned in the show:

• Downcast App for podcasts
• Wordtracker keyword research
• Market Samurai keyword research

SUBSCRIPTION LINKS

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe (and leave a review) in iTunes.

Call in your questions or comments to our new, fancy “request line” at (509) 713-2679

Question for you: Have you written a book – and if so, how long did it take you? Comment below, or call in at (509) 713-2679

They often start with phrases like, “We exist in order to…”

Often, these statements and slogans come up empty.

Cliché.

Insincere.

Do you have a mission statement?

Does your business have a slogan?

Why?

I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot lately.

It seems to me that if most businesses were honest, their mission statement would be something like this: “we exist to make a profit anyway we can, for as long as we can, until we get caught.”

Now, I’m not against capitalism. I am 100% in favor of profitable businesses.

But if the philosophy of your business is summed up in “making a profit anyway you can until you get caught”, I think you’re in deep trouble.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are those organizations who struggle financially, but are out to “save the world”. Many non-profits fit this description.

Many of these organizations seem to think the profit motive is inherently evil.

If you think money is evil, chances are you won’t have very much of it.

What if, instead, you adopted a completely outrageous, over-the-top explanation of why your company exists? Of why you exist?

What if your reason for existing was “to save the world, and make a profit in the process.”

What would happen next?

This seems like a good question worth exploring.

I sell hope.

You might call me a dealer. I’m okay with that.

Call it optimism if you will. I like to think of it as encouraging other people to live out their best potential.

There are those who are critical of this mindset; those who are quick to point out everything that is wrong with the world. The economy. Human trafficking. The shifting of global power. Pollution. The health crisis.

They have a point.

Where we differ is how we approach all these problems.

I believe that hope gives birth to answers.

It gives us access to the resources we need (both internal and external) to start solving those problems.

I believe in acknowledging reality; I just don’t believe in stopping there.

Once we’ve identified the problem, it’s time to start focusing on the solution.

A great writer once pointed out three essentials for living on the earth: faith, hope, and love. And while he said that the greatest of these is love (and I agree), I believe that love is birthed when we mix faith and hope.

Optimists just spend less time dwelling on what’s wrong with the world. They spend less time thinking about what might go wrong with their plans.

Sometimes they fall on their faces.

But everything we love about the world originated in the heart of an optimist.

You might think that is overstating the case.

But I happen to believe we were all created by the ultimate optimist-God.

He knew just how wrong the human race would be capable of going. How wrong we would go.

But he saw something in us that he loved.

And he created us anyway.

Gave us the capacity for faith, and for love, and for hope.

That, my friend, is optimism. I like it.

So I’ll just keep on selling hope.

And I hope you will too.

While the motorhome is definitely a luxury, it isn’t really big. I mean, it’s a big vehicle, but it’s not very big as a house. In fact, it comes to about 300 square feet.

When you’ve been living in a 300 sq. ft. house for 4 months, and you come home to your full-size house, you see a real contrast.

Our house seems large to us now, yes.

But that wasn’t the shocking thing.

The surprise for us was how appalled we are at how much stuff we own.

It began to weigh on us.

After all, we had just spent four months without all the stuff. Why did we need it now?

We began to realize the truth of the saying, “you don’t own your stuff; your stuff owns you.”

We decided to start lightening up.

Simplifying.

Here’s our plan for phase one of what we are referring to as “un-stuffing”:

1. Get rid of 80% of our books. Boy, do we own a lot of books. The good news is, we have read most of them. But why do we feel the need to own all of them? Chances are we will not read them again. And the ones we do want to read again are available for free from the public library. Or very inexpensively on the Kindle. So the books are the first thing to go.

2. Get rid of the DVDs. We have quite a collection of DVDs, too. Most of them are great movies, and we really enjoyed watching them. But the truth is, at least 80% of the DVDs we own are just gathering dust and will probably never be watched again. When you add the fact that most of our movie-watching takes place via Netflix, Hulu, or some other on-demand digital format, keeping all these discs doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.

3. Get rid of anything broken or unused. I’m surprised at how many things fall into this category. For example, I have a lot of electronic gadgets that I haven’t used in years. Why am I keeping them? The same could be said of a lot of our clothes, kitchen gadgets, and a plethora of other “stuff”.

I am pretty sure that even after getting rid of the books, the DVDs, the broken stuff, and the stuff we don’t use anymore, we will have more stuff than we need.

I mean, we’ve proven we can live with the very few items were able to put inside of our 300 sq. ft. motorhome. So even after this initial “un-stuffing”, I bet we’ll still be hanging onto more stuff than we need.

That’s okay. We are willing to take it in stages.

Progress, not perfection, you know.

What about you? Do you have thoughts on simplifying, or “un-stuffing”? Share them below.

I’m sure you’ve heard it. It is usually appended at the end of a statement of opinion.

• “That jacket does not show off your best features. Just sayin’.”
• “That color looks like something you’d find in the babies diaper. Just sayin’.”
• “It seems like you could find a better way to spend your spare time. Just sayin’.”

People use the phrase “just sayin” as a softener. A disclaimer.

A way of indicating, “I have a serious opinion about this, but I’m afraid you won’t like it. So let’s pretend I don’t really mean it-that I’m ‘just saying’ it, but don’t expect you to do anything about it or even take me seriously.”

I’m working on this: if I say it, I mean it. And if I don’t mean it, I don’t say it.

EPISODE OUTLINE

Announcements

• Plugs for hosting accounts using this link.
• Plugs for audio shout-outs, either MP3 or call in at (509) 713-2679
• Free book promo for April; top 10 commentators
• Coming Web Class in setting up your platform
• Follow Ray on Twitter and friend Ray on Facebook
  

This Week’s Tip(s)

• Laptop Battery Time Management Trick from Stu McLaren

Product Plug Of The Week

• Great tool for making 3D boxes, books, and manuals: BoxShotKing

Spiritual Foundations

We should expect good things to come our way – and it’s Scriptural to believe so!

“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, His own special people, that you may
proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of
darkness into His marvelous light.”

1 Peter 2:9

Feature Story: How To Write A Book In 7 Days 

If you really know your topic well, you could probably complete your first draft in a week. Here’s a simple plan for doing just that:

“Prep Day” – Day ZERO: Come up with your title. Something like “The Insider’s Secrets of Raising Chinchillas” (or whatever your topic is). Then write an outline of what you want to say about your topic: 7 main subjects (chapters) with 3 points about each chapter. Sample:

“The Insider’s Secrets of Raising Chinchillas”

Chapter 1: Why Raising Chinchillas Is A Great Business

1.    The facts about the Chinchilla business

2.    What other Chinchilla ranchers have to say about it

3.    My personal Chinchilla story

…and so on, for 7 “Chapters”. Then, you keep going…

Day 1: Record yourself just talking through your outline of Chapters 1 & 2.

Day 2: Record yourself just talking through Chapters 3 & 4.

Day 3: Record yourself just talking through Chapters 5&6.

Day 4: Record yourself just talking through Chapter 7 … and a short talk on “About this book” that will serve as the book’s “Introduction” (It’s best to do this after you have finished dictation of the whole book. You’ll have a better idea what to say.)

Day 5: Send off your audios for transcription. Use someone who will “clean up” all your stumbles and false starts, etc.

Day 6: Do nothing.

Day 7: Receive your transcriptions back. You now have a first draft of your book.

Now get busy and write that book, willya?

LISTENER QUESTIONS

I answered  question from listener Ted from California on how to get started.

EPISODE RESOURCES

Links to resources I mentioned in the show:

• Dragon Dictate software
• Success Transcripts
• Writing Riches book

SUBSCRIPTION LINKS

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe (and leave a review) in iTunes.

Call in your questions or comments to our new, fancy “request line” at (509) 713-2679

Question for you: Have you written a book – and if so, how long did it take you? Comment below, or call in at (509) 713-2679

Top 10 posts for March 2012:

1. Copywriting Bullets That Hit The Target
2. Free Book Giveaway
3. Who Is Really Your Friend?
4. 5 Ways To Get More Clients Or Customers – NOW [Podcast]
5. Top 5 iPad Apps For Copywriters
6. Car Wash In A Can
7. The Much-Exaggerated Death of Internet Marketing
8. Instant Value From Old Info-Products
9. Deciding Who You WON’T Sell To
10. Book Review: Value Based Fees

Top 10 commentors for March 2012:

1. William McPeck
2. Doug Hammett
3. Benson Agbortogo
4. Katherine Haag
5. Stu McLaren
6. Dana Beasley
7. Daniel Axelrod
8. Kevin Francis
9. Alan Allard
10. Andrew Stark

Each of our top 10 commentors will receive a copy of my book, Million Dollar Marketing Secrets.

By the way – we’ll be doing this each month. April’s prize will also be a book, though I haven’t decided which book it will be.

So comment well, and comment often!

My intention is to publish a new podcast each week on Tuesdays, along with an outline (or “show notes” like these.) While you will be able to listen or download episodes here on my blog, it will be much easier for you to subscribe in iTunes.

EPISODE OUTLINE

Announcements

• Affiliate Relationships
• Website reviews
• Plugs for hosting accounts using this link.
• Plugs for audio shout-outs, either MP3 or call in at (509) 713-2679
• Free book promo for March; top 10 commentators
• Coming Web Class in setting up your platform
• Follow Ray on Twitter and friend Ray on Facebook

This Week’s Tip(s)

• From coaching member Kirt Christensen: use Google Apps for Business and Insightly to replace more expensive email, apps, CRM, and project management,
• Backups

Product Plug Of The Week

• We’re using a WordPress Opt-In Plugin called Opt-In Skin, developed by Pat Flynn and Glen Allsop.

Spiritual Foundations

Facing tough times? One reason God performs miraculous works is so that we will remember them. These remembrances, or testimonies, are to be food for us! That food – nourishment – reminds us and feeds our faith so we can believe that He always remembers His promises to us.

“He has made His wonderful works to be remembered;
The Lord is gracious and full of compassion.
He has given food to those who fear Him;
He will ever be mindful of His covenant.”

Psalm 111:4

Feature Story: 5 Ways To Get More Clients Or Customers – NOW

1. Start a blog.
2. Build an e-mail list.
3. Develop an information product.
4. Make More Offers
5. Mail often.

LISTENER QUESTIONS

I also answered these questions from my listeners.

1. “Where should you put testimonials on a sales page?” Douglas Hammett
2. “What can you do to increase opt-ins to your email list – other than testing a different opt-in offer?” Dr Kevin
3. “Where can you get website help.?” Eleanor Lynar

EPISODE RESOURCES

Links to resources I mentioned in the show:

• Bluehost website hosting.
• Google Apps for Business
• Insight.ly
• Writing Riches membership site
• My coaching program.
• Opt-In Skin WordPress Plugin
• Aweber email marketing and list-building service
• AutoResponsePlus email marketing and list-building service

SUBSCRIPTION LINKS

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe (and leave a review) in iTunes.

Call in your questions or comments to our new, fancy “request line” at (509) 713-2679

Question for you: What tips do you have for getting more clients or customers? Comment below, or call in at (509) 713-2679

I’m currently going through a re-vamping, refining, and re-evaluating phase of all my business and productivity systems, and I thought it might be useful to you if I shared some ideas I’m trying out.

I’m telling you right up front these items are EXPERIMENTAL. If they prove successful, I’ll have more to say here in the future about them.

1.Three-Sentence Emails. I have tried this one before, abandoned it, and am now giving it another go. 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/ Here’s my latest twist: While I am practicing this policy, I have not included the e-mail signature explaining it. So far, I have not received a single complaint. Apparently, nobody is upset that my e-mails are not long enough.

2. Fifteen Minute Meetings. 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’d better be working on something like the Middle East Peace Talks or nuclear disarmament.

3. Free Days.  This is something I have tried to enforce in days gone by, failed, “reset the clock”, and tried again. I “fell of the wagon” on this one again recently. 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”.

 Question: what productivity tricks have you been testing lately, and what is working well?

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.

Question: do you think it is important to carefully guard your time, and if so, how do you do it?

Delight yourself also in the LORD,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

This is a relaunch of my more “occasional” podcast. I owe my inspiration to get it going again to Michael Hyatt and especially to Cliff Ravenscraft.

For a long time I have been thinking about re-starting this podcast but wanted to wait to launch it until I got it “perfect.” Here’s what I’ve learned:

Perfectionism is the enemy of accomplishment.

Ray Edwards

My plan for the podcast is to focus on these core topics:

• Internet Business: starting, growing, and profiting from your own Internet Business.
• Marketing: practical steps for selling more of your products, services, and ideas.
• Leadership: the keys to leading yourself and others in a transformational way.
• Productivity: tips, tools, and tactics to help you get more done in less time.
• Writing: how to write for strategic influence.
• Spiritual Foundations: keeping first things first.
• Miscellany: freedom to talk about anything else I want.

My intention is to publish a new podcast each week on Tuesdays, along with an outline (or “show notes” like these.) While you will be able to listen or download episodes here on my blog, it will be much easier for you to subscribe in iTunes.

EPISODE OUTLINE

I share the “State of Ray Edwards International, Inc” – and why it matters to you. Current reality:

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 and 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 rewrites. 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. New Partnership. More info coming soon.

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. 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 probably going to be around $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 )

11. Coaching Program. This is a time vortex for me, but it is profitable and rewarding. Still “testing” the best format and pricing.

12. Info Products. Retooling, simplifying, and systemizing.

13. Podcast. Already covered this earlier.

HOW TO START AN INTERNET BUSINESS FROM SCRATCH IN 10 STEPS

I also discuss how anyone can start their own Internet Business and sell their own ideas and expertise, if they follow these 10 steps:

1. Research your market.
2. Buy your domain name.
3. Get hosting for your website.
4. Build a site with WordPress + a Premium Theme.
5. Create a Social Media “Wheel”
6. Build your list.
7. Drive traffic to your site.
8. Build a community.
9. Create solutions.
10. Monetize.

LISTENER QUESTIONS

I also answered these questions from my listeners.

“It would be great to have tips on how to choose a business that doesn’t require so much follow up tasks like emailing your list regularly, etc. How to set up systems you can leave running and check in once in a while.” Daniel Axelrod

“Want to start a health/wellness coaching business. Being able to gain clients around the world, have intergrated web-site and using media to change the health status of our country.” Marsha Warren Hays

“How to find someone to set up your site who will do a quality job for a reasonable price. I could never set up a WordPress blog and get it to look professional, so I went with something else. It’s OK, but I think WordPress would be better. I’d really like someone to teach me how to set it up myself.” Mila Clark

EPISODE RESOURCES

Links to resources I mentioned in the show:

• Michael Hyatt’s website.
• Cliff Ravenscraft’s website.
• Bluehost website hosting.
• Writing Riches book on Amazon.
• Writing Riches membership site
• My coaching program.
• Market Samurai keyword research tool (FREE trial)
• Wordtracker keyword research tool
• Aweber email marketing and list-building service
• AutoResponsePlus email marketing and list-building service
• EmailDelivered - make sure your emails get through!

SUBSCRIPTION LINKS

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe (and leave a review) in iTunes.

Call in your questions or comments to our new, fancy “request line” at (509) 713-2679

Question for you: What insights do you have about Internet business building tactics? Comment Below or call in at (509) 713-2679

SPECIAL NOTE: I’m starting a brand-new weekly podcast, which begins tomorrow. Be on the lookout for an e-mail about the inaugural episode. Or, if you want to just get the new podcasts automatically delivered to your iPod or other MP3 player, just subscribe to the show in iTunes now.

-Ray Edwards

If you’ve been reading this blog very long, you know I tend to have many “irons in the fire” at any given time.

How is it I’m able to juggle so many priorities and projects?

More importantly, how can you juggle your own priorities and projects – and get more done in less time?

The answer: through careful conscious choice, and good systems. In this article, I will share my own insights, learned in the trenches of my daily business.

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 end of the 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,  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  once per day,  Monday thru Friday. Usually around  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 keep office hours.  I keep regular business hours most of the time: Monday – Friday, 8am – 5pm Pacific.

Bottom Line

These simple tactics in the saving me a minimum of 2 hours each day – or 10 hours per week. Think about it this way-if you are able to save just 10 hours per week of wasted time, that means you save 520 hours in a year. That comes to 65 work days! It’s like giving yourself an extra 2 months every year.

By the way, productivity is one of the topics that I’ll be focusing on in my brand-new podcast, which begins tomorrow. Be on the lookout for an e-mail about the inaugural episode.

Or, if you want to just get the new podcasts automatically delivered to your iPod or other MP3 player, just subscribe to the show in iTunes.

Question for you: what tips or tactics have helped you the most in being more productive? What do you do to get more accomplished in less time? Comment below.

This is a book written for today, for a world where you may have only a few seconds to make your case, pitch your product or secure that job.

Jones opens the book with a quick little bit asking the question: how often you have left an interview, a meeting, a presentation, or an audition thinking that you nailed it – only to discover you didn’t get the job, the client, the account, the funding, or the part?

She spends the rest of the book giving you tools to ensure that that doesn’t happen to you.  These tools are well thought out, succinct, and well written.

What about you?

Are you ready for that elevator ride with your CEO?

How about that impromptu presentation for the board?

Whatever your area of specialty, you need to be better at positively presenting your case, making the right first impression, and communicating the message you really want to communicate.

This book is a good tool to help in all those departments.  My favorite part of the book was actually chapter one, which is called Don’t Leave Home Without Them,”the nonnegotiable general principles”.  In this chapter, Jones provides some of the best summarized tips for good communication and persuasion I have ever seen collected in one place.

She follows this chapter up with details on how to make the most out of one-on-one encounters, how to maximize your meetings, how to ace job interviews without the stress and turmoil, the key to giving speeches that bring people to their feet and move them to action, and an entire chapter on creating powerful PowerPoints.

Each of these chapters is a seminar in and of itself, but Jones also includes chapters on how to put things in writing in a way that puts your best foot forward, making the most of social interactions (and, might I add, not completely blowing it during social interactions), and the fine points of what she calls “verbal finesse” (how to answer questions and how to handle question and answer periods after you speak).

If I were to levy any criticism of the book, it would be that it spends a lot of time on things that seem like basic principals to me — but based on my interactions with other human beings, they are basic principals that are not widely known.

The most useful function of the book is the handy bullet point summary at the end of each chapter.  Truly, if you don’t have time to read, buy the book and photocopy the bullet points at the very least.  If you employ at least half of them,  I guarantee they will change your quality of life.

This book gets my recommendation.

You might think, for instance, you just did something to serve the customer… and they might have an entirely different perception.

Case in point…

I recently enrolled a large number of students in an online training webinar series.

So far, so good.

At least I thought so…

Thinking I would best serve those students by getting the series underway as soon as possible, I scheduled the webinars immediately after enrollments were complete.

I felt good about this decision, because I would be delivering the material the students had paid for in a very timely fashion.

They wouldn’t have to wait.

I was somewhat surprised to receive an e-mail from a student who was upset with me… for not waiting longer to schedule the online classes!

This student criticized me as being “just like those other Internet marketers” who think only of themselves, and not of their students. What?! I thought I was thinking of my students!

I quickly got over my feelings of having been spat upon, and realized this was an opportunity for me to learn something. My perception of what’s happening can be completely opposite of my customer’s perception.

One of my primary responsibilities as a business owner is to be as aware of these differences as possible, and always working to close the gap between the two.

As my friends in the UK are well aware, it’s very important to “mind the gap”.

Like-minded people who are interested in discussing, refining, and spreading their ideas. Making the world better.

I truly value the discussions that happen in response to the things I post here. While it’s true I don’t reply to every single comment, you can be certain that I read every single one.

To encourage more community-and more discussion-this month I’m starting something new. I have to give credit for this idea to fellow blogger Michael Hyatt, who does something similar on his intentional leadership blog.

This month, March of 2012, will be the first month that we will award recognition for the top 10 commenters to this blog.

Basically, the people who comment the most will be those who make it into the top 10. But the quality of comments that are left will also be a determining factor.

Now let me be clear…

I am not looking for “junk comments”. You know what I mean. If all you have to add to the discussion is “great post!”, you’re not going to make it into the top 10 commenters.

My plan is to award my top 10 commenters with a free gift each month. This month, the gift will be a copy of my book, “Million Dollar Marketing Secrets”.

I will also publish a list of the top 10 commenters each month with a link to your blog or website (if you have one.)

My advice to you if you want one of these books (and a link back to your site in my “Monthly Top 10″ post): start reading the posts on this blog, including the ones from the past, and when you think you have something to add to the discussion… do it!

You can start with this very post.

What do you think of the “Monthly Top 10 Commentors” idea?

It’s okay. I understand – really. Because I’ve been there, too.

And I’ve got some good news for you, sunshine.

Here’s a way to get back all the money you’ve invested… and feel immensely good about yourself.

And in the process, you’ll most likely make a nice little pile of cash because you’re actually taking some action!

You’ll need a couple of hours, a legal pad and a pen.

Start with the info-product on top of the pile. Open it and look for the “Quick Start Guide”, “Cheat Sheets” or “Checklists” they so often come with.

Go through the Quickstart Guide, or Checklist, or Manual, or (heaven forbid) the actual DVD or CD labeled #1. Find the FIRST action-item you can locate from this particular info-product. Doesn’t matter how small. Just find one item you can DO. The only rule is, it must be something you can do in ONE SITTING.

Got your first action item? Write it down on your legal pad.

Now put away info-product #1. Move on to info-product #2 and repeat until you’ve gone through the whole pile.

When you’re done you should have a good list of things to do, each of which can be done in just one sitting.

Now — and I mean NOW — schedule a time on your calendar when you will sit down and do ALL these items. The very best scenario is: do them right now.

If you’ll do this exercise, I guarantee three things:

1. You will have gotten most – if not all – your value from those info-products, everything else in there that you act on is just “gravy”.
2. You will have done more than 99.9% of all info-product buyers will EVER do.
3. You’ll see a surge in your results AND you’ll have an immediate boost in your self-esteem.

Well, peaches… whatcha waitin’ for?

Value-Based Fees, subtitled “How to Charge – And Get – What You’re Worth, A Guide for Serious Consultants” is a veritable treasure map that leads to other treasure maps.

It’s actually difficult to overstate how much great information is contained between the covers of Alan Weiss’ book.

Value Based Fees was first published in 2002, and it quickly became the top book for consultants who needed to figure out how much they should charge their clients for their services.

Weiss has revised this book in this new edition, and he shows how consulting fees are really based on only two things: The value provided in the perception

of the buyer, and the intent of the buyer and the consultant to act ethically. While this sounds like a small distinction, it carries the weight of a $1M idea. The problem, Weiss postulates, is that most consultants just don’t understand that the perception of value is the basis of the fee, or that it is necessary for the consultant to articulate the importance of their advice into long-term gains for the client (Again, in the client’s perception).

Another problem that Weiss identifies is the fact that consultants often simply don’t have the courage nor the actual belief that support the high value they

deliver to clients, and as a result they end up reducing their fees to a level that reflects the consultant’s own low self-esteem.

In the end, according to Weiss, consultants are the reason for their own low incomes.

This book aims to change that phenomenon.

The book is filled with stories of successful consultants, and demonstrates in concrete ways how you can educate your clients about the value you’re

rendering, and, more importantly, how you can command high fees that are commensurate with the value you render.

The book is filled with step by step guidance, and proven systems for establishing the value of your services and getting clients to pay for that value. This is a hands on book with hands on advice including:

• Current information on ethical issues.
• Guidance on making consulting scalable.
• Key formulas for today’s marketplace.
• New chapters on building wealth and the implication of technology fees.

This book clearly explains how to charge exactly what you’re worth and get that price, giving you not theories, but practical advice that will help improve your practice and your income immediately.

Don’t be deceived by the book’s title or subject matter.  The ideas set forth in this book are not for consultants only, but for anyone who needs to establish and get a higher value for the services or products that they render to their customers and clients.

If you are in any kind of business at all, and even if you are an employee, the ideas, tools, and tactics in this book can revolutionize your life and multiply your income.  Let those with eyes and ears see and hear.  Highly recommended.

Mike Filsaime and Ray Edwards

One of my private clients (Mike Filsaime) is perhaps single-handedly responsible for the proliferation of “Death of…” reports that have appeared in recent years (The Death of Google, The Death of Adsense, The Death of Salesletters, etc.).

Not that he produced them all, but I think more than anyone he popularized the concept (still a good one, by the way) and was copied by a lot of others.

So I’ll lay the credit on Magic Mike. He even released a report called, of all things, The Death of Internet Marketing, Now don’t get all lathered up.

Mike doesn’t think Internet Marketing is really dead. He was just pointing out in his report that the “old way” of doing things wasn’t going to cut it any more.

Of course, it seems an eon ago when he released that report.. But even now, a mere few years later, others are saying that “Internet Marketing” was a fad, it’s dead, the FTC has killed it, etc. Pick your “Chicken Little” poison.

Yet once again, the reverse is true. The opportunities abound. It’s just that the “tricks” that worked last year don’t work any more.

We all have to step up our game and play at a new level. Even as I write this, Mike is raising the bar for himself and others – for instance, with his Automated Webinar software which allows you to hold webinars every day, all day, on auto-pilot. I’m using it myself – here’s a link to my webinar on how to make customers come to you.

The people who are “sweating bullets” right now are those who refuse to adapt, improvise and overcome.

If you’re willing (and since you’re a Friend of Ray, you’re probably not only willing but probably downright eager) to seize new opportunities and step out boldly, you’re going to prosper.

That’s what I love about you. Thanks for being who you are.

Your dog.

Let’s start with your best friend.

Dogs are not fickle, they don’t lie, and they stick by you.

Mark Twain said, “If heaven went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would get in.”

Lest you take me as a hopeless misanthrope, know that it ain’t so. I love people.

And yet I find dogs often more reliable (you can see  my “Pugs of Persuasion”, Rollo Tamasi and Parker, in the photo above).

A good friend of mine and longtime private client – whose name you would recognize but I shall withhold (for reasons soon obvious), phoned me recently. He wanted some help with headlines to test on a new promotion.

We talked about a campaign that went sour on him a couple years ago.

At that time a number of “friends”, who had supported said campaign, attacked him in a public forum. Mostly, it seemed, as a way to make themselves look better.

“I sure learned who my real friends were,” he told me. “And I won’t forget it.”

My hope for you is it won’t take a “problem” like this for you to figure out this vital information.

Find out now who you friends are. Or they may turn on you in a crucial moment someday… hoping to throw you on the altar in order to save their own skins or to feather their own nest.

Worth knowing: who is who.

I’m pumping 100 gallons of gasoline into my motorhome. Some guy with the name “STEVE” on his shirt walked con?dently around the front of my motorhome, an aerosol spray can in his hand.

Steve launches into a very vigorous sales pitch for his “car-wash-in-a- can” product.

Having been in sales most of my life, there’s no way I was going to shut Steve down. He was selling with con?dence & personality. He demonstrated the product for me.

I ended up buying four cans of the stuff from Steve.

He had a little table set up in front of the gas station, and was working with a guy named Larry. They tried to upsell me. Twice.

I asked Steve a lot of questions about his business. Was it tough making a living this way?

“Not really,” Steve said. “I like talking to people, and business has been good.”

As we talked, it was obvious that these guys enjoyed what they did, and were very good at it.

Steve handed me a business card. “If you send me business, I’ll send you checks,” Steve said. Bingo! The gas station salesman has an af?liate program.

What does this have to do with Internet business?

Everything. Here we are, in a time when a lot of people are being washed out of all kinds of businesses, online and of?ine.

The excuse given is usually: “the economy”.

I’ve addressed the use of those two words as excuse elsewhere.

You see, the very qualities exempli?ed by Steve and Larry are the same qualities that could save a lot of businesses from going under.

Usually, when I’m talking with an Internet marketer or even a brick- and-mortar business owner, and they start telling me how bad business is, there are certain questions I ask.

“What kind of referral system do you have? Have you called up past customers to try and get more business? Are you doing any kind of direct mail?” etc.

I usually only get about one question deep before they realize their usual “BS” is not going to work on me.

Look, if two guys can carve out a living selling “car-wash-in-a-can” at a gas station, does that leave any excuse for the rest of us?

And does it leave any room at all for excuses from those of us who make our living sitting on our behinds in front of a computer screen?

Answer: no.

Product Launch Application

It’s fair to ask what this has to do with product launches.

Plenty, as it turns out.

My opinion: the #1 cause of product launch failure is: laziness.

Most “product launchers” don’t want to invest money and effort in things like outbound telemarketing, direct mail promotion, telephone sales rooms, and all the things that go into making a product launch really work. So this is my message, observed while embedded in the trenches (just like you): what works right now is… work.

As Warren Buffett said, “When the tide goes out it’s easy to see who’s been skinny dipping”.

Certainly that’s true in the Internet marketing world.

We’re not experiencing a “bad economy”. For the ?rst time in perhaps ?ve years, we’re experiencing an “accurate economy”. Treasure it. Value it. Learn from it.

And get out there and sell something, willya?

I might punch you.

“The economy,” used as an excuse for some business or personal failing. That’s what I’m talking about.

It seems like wherever I go these days, someone is determined to explain their business problems with those two words.

I’ll get to the airplane photo in a moment, but indulge me. I have a point to make, and I think it’s important directly to you (and me, too).

The point is simply this: it’s important that you and I don’t buy into this kind of loser thinking.

Now if you’re reading this post, chances are you’re not prone to use “the economy” as excuse.

Warning: listening to others who talk this way can slow you down. It’s important that you and I don’t let this garbage start building up in our heads. Because the “economy” depends on our keeping the machine (our brains) clean (free of error).

As entrepreneurs, we (you and I) are the only thing that will “?x” the “economy”.

Atop this post you see me and my buddy Chad, about to go ?y his $700,000 airplane. Chad’s company employs about 20 people. He creates wealth not just for himself, but also for his employees and vendors. Where would all those folks be if Chad threw in the towel because “the economy” is tough?

This winter me, my wife, and the Pugs of Persuasion went on a 5-month, 2,500-mile trip around the Southwestern USA in our motorhome.

Along the way we supported gas stations, restaurants, campgrounds, the National Parks, and a myriad of other entities that needed our money. All fueled by our business. If that’s what you mean by “the economy”, then I’m with you.

If, on the other hand, you mean “the economy” as excuse for poor performance or failure to adapt, then I have just two words for you: stop it!

1. It’s good for business. It wasn’t always this way. When I started blogging, it didn’t take long for me to realize blogging was building my business, too. I get a steady flow of new business from people who say something like, “Well, I started reading your blog and finally decided I would call you.”
2. Self-expression. Once upon a time, I was a radio DJ. Highly-rated, successful, and loving it. Being on the radio was my own personal megaphone. It was my way of being heard. Now I get that same satisfaction from blogging. You can too. Now everyone’s a DJ!
3. Building a relationship with my readers. There’s nothing like a blog to build a relationship with your readers. My blog is the source of most of the conversations I have with my readers.
4. Marketing. I know there are many who say you can’t “monetize” a blog. Really? My own blog has brought me… well, let’s call it “a substantial amount” of revenue. And I don’t even use Adsense (as of this writing). One of the very best Internet Marketers is a guy name Dave Winer. And you’d never categorize him as a marketer… but he is a consummate marketer, though most of his readers probably don’t realize it.
5. Research and testing. The quickest way I know to test a new idea, get some feedback, or get an answer is… make an appropriate post on my blog.

Those are just 5 reasons – there are dozens more.

How about you? Do you blog – and if so, why?

Today’s post is a guest post by my trusted colleague Heather Seitz, of Email Delivered.
-Ray Edwards

More often than not, we assume that the main reason people aren’t buying our products and services is related to price.

The truth? It’s not price at all. It all comes down to value!

If the value is not there, then people are not going to spend the money on whatever it is you are selling. It doesn’t matter if it’s a $17 eBook or a $17,000 coaching program, or something in the middle, if the value isn’t there, you’re not going to spend your money.

And let’s face it… in the current economy, just about everyone is a bit more discerning about where they spend their dollars.

So how do you determine “value”?

That’s the million-dollar question… Let me illustrate with an example of something that happened recently where I really “got” the concept of value and how it relates not only to the decision of whether or not to buy, but also to the overall perception of your customers – and, as a result, the long term impact on your bottom line.

(As you read this case study, think about how this applies to your business and how your prospects react to your “offers”)

We were getting ready to do a complete system redesign (from the ground up) of one of our web applications.

We met with the developer and spent a good bit of time sketching out screens, processes, and flow of the design. We detailed all of the system requirements and went through a number of user interfaces, highlighting what we liked and didn’t like.

The meeting went well and we were ready to get started.

He’d estimated about 80-100 hours to complete everything. We were happy with this and excited to move forward.

Two days later, an email arrived with the mockups (based on our discussion). There were 5 attachments in total (4 mockups and proposal).

I started with the mockups first.

First impression: “not bad”. I wasn’t WOWED or blown away, but they were “okay”. It looked like he got about 80% of the concept we were going for, but missed about 20%.

It’s as if they tried to model existing interfaces, but “missed”. There was just something off – that wasn’t quite right. He certainly hadn’t nailed it! I wasn’t “excited”. (Check out the book “Blink”. It talks about this concept and the fact that we all make snap judgments based on first impressions. And even if we can’t articulate what’s wrong, we know when something’s not quite right!)

This isn’t the major problem, however! I realize I demand a lot out of design and was fully prepared to participate in this portion of the project, even editing Photoshop files for the UI designer if need be.

The BIG problem came when I opened the last, and final, document: the actual proposal.

What was supposed to be 80-100 hours came in at 200 hours! Yep, more than double the higher range of his verbal estimate.

What’s more is that it was basically little more than a new user interface. We had spent HOURS going over the fact that we wanted to build EVERYTHING brand new and on an entirely different infrastructure. That wasn’t included… and would cost another $5,000 – $7,000! So what started off as a $8000 – $10,000 project was going to cost us closer to $25,000.

Talk about sticker shock!

We were mad… frustrated… felt deceived… etc.

What happened next was where the big lesson became clear!

My partner asked me this question: “If we were starting this application from scratch, and it was everything we wanted, would we be willing to pay that?”

The answer was, “Sure… no problem!”

That’s when it became crystal clear!

What we had wasn’t a “price” problem. It was a value/trust problem…

It wasn’t the money we were asked to pay, but what we felt we were getting in return for that money.

I took a step back to really think about the experience and what I took from it was a huge lesson in value and customer perception. Here are some lessons we can all use in our business:

1. Initial Impact. Does your “look and feel” match your message? Appearance matters. And the “good enough” bar has shifted. People place value on how something looks and what that first impression is. And remember that “Blink” concept I mentioned before. If it doesn’t FEEL right, then you’re already at a disadvantage before they get to the actual message (and offer). This can impact whether or not the initial sale is ever made.
2. Value. Are you demonstrating value in such a way that your customers are HAPPY about the exchange? (Their money for your product or service). Your customers should feel that they got an incredible deal. This is the key to repeat business. If your customer decides to evaluate the competition before making a decision, you’ve failed – or at least stumbled a bit.
   
3. Trust. This is a little harder to quantify or define. And it didn’t actually hit me right away in the story above. It took a few minutes on this one! Considering we were expecting an estimate to come in around $8000 – $10,000 including some wiggle room, when we got the “proposal” with a estimates for each segment which were admittedly “padded”, we felt that we were going to get ripped off… that we’d get a little ways into it and that the scope of each section would multiply just as the initial estimate did.

The problem with “trust” is that one it’s gone… it’s gone! And it’s very difficult to gain it back.

You can always change the image of your website or add more “value” to your product or service (or simply change your message to convey the value that’s there). But you can’t simply wave a wand and regain trust.

So the question is… do your customers trust you? If not, what can you do to establish that trust and CONTINUE TO EARN IT?

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.

Also not always easy for copywriters: getting more customers, more often, for more money… hence the reason I am working on a brand-new project. If you get paid to persuade — you probably want to get on the VIP early-bird list about my upcoming print newsletter.

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

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

Freelance copywriter? Join the VIP early-bird list about my upcoming print newsletter just for folks like you.

I recently read a great book on marketing that takes a slightly different turn than my usual reading.

I’m recommending the book to you.

It’s called Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green and is written by Shel Horowitz and Jay Conrad Levinson.

I think the book’s main virtue (aside from being well-reasoned and well-written) is demonstrating the work we do as business owners and entrepreneurs is important. Not only in an economic sense, but in other ways as well.

In the book, Shel does a great job of marrying the ethics and pragmatics of business, and showing us that the two are inextricably linked. These ethical, spiritual viewpoints are important as determiners of the paradigm from which we operate as business people.

(As an aside: the section on copywriting is brilliant, a great distillation of timeless truth, presented in a fresh new way. I’ll be discussing these ideas in an upcoming issue of my soon-to-be-launched print newsletter for copywriters.)

Historically, there have been two disparate camps in the Western world. One one hand: the “Ayn Rand style” of entrepreneur, out primarily to make money. On the other hand: the spiritual-socially-conscious people, who have tended to paint “big business” primarily as robber-barons.

There is a third way, and it is masterfully articulated in this book.

And while I don’t agree with everything in the book, I have no hesitation in recommending it.

Read Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green, and be encouraged. The work you’re doing is more important than you may think.

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?

By the way, here’s one more recommendation that is only for copywriters who want more customers, more often, for more money…  get on the VIP early-bird list about my upcoming print newsletter.

“The population of the world just crossed the seven-billion mark. There are currently an estimated 2.26 billion Internet users worldwide — one billion of which are from Asia, and only 273 million of which are from North America.

Here’s the current breakdown for Internet use globally:

Asia: 1 billion Web users (26% penetration)
Europe: 500 million Web users (61.3% penetration)
North America: 273 million Web users (78.6% penetration)
Latin America: 235 million Web users (39.5% penetration)
Africa: 139 million Web users (13.5% penetration)
Middle East: 77 million Web users (35% penetration)
Australia: 23 million Web users (67% penetration)

Sources: Nielsen Online, UN International Telecommunications Union, GfK, local Regulators and other reliable sources.”

I’m willing to bet most American websites are oblivious to the other (majority) “World Wide Web”.

What does this tell us?

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’.

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.

You might also avail yourself of my soon-to-be-released print newsletter designed just for you. You can’t buy it as of today, but you can get on the Early-Bird VIP Notification List - that way you will be the first to know the minute it becomes available.

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.

And if you are a copywriter, consultant, or freelancer… you will want to get on the VIP Early-Bird Notification List by clicking here.

Ben really knows what he’s talking about when it comes to selling by email. What’s remarkable about him is he is one of the very few “Internet Marketing teachers” who actually practices what he teaches. Ben’s blog is here, and his “Email Players Newsletter” is available here.

In this interview you will hear:

• Why Ben does the exact opposite of what most “Internet Marketing” gurus teach.
• Why mailing your list every day is a good thing.
• Why it’s not always bad to have a high unsubscribe rate.
• The secret “autoresponder feature” that saves you money.
• The simple little trick Ben does once a month that saves him money and makes more sales.
• Why Ben laughs at what almost every other “email marketing course” teaches… and what you can learn from this.
• How to generate an endless stream of ideas for email copy, effortlessly and quickly.
• Why Ben doesn’t own a membership site, doesn’t do social media, and doesn’t do marketing like most of the “Internet Marketing Gurus”.
• How Ben makes his money easily every month by working about 3 hours! Not for everyone – but really fascinating!

Two Notes:

To hear the full “inner circle” version of this interview, get yourself over to this page and register for either the GOLD or PLATINUM levels of our Inner Circle.

If you’re a copywriter who wants more customers, more often, for more money… you probably want to get on the VIP early-bird list about my upcoming print newsletter.

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.

Captain’s log: if you’re excited about learning more ways to woo more customers, more often, for more money… you probably want to get on the VIP early-bird list about my upcoming print newsletter.

Kirk out.

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.

SPECIAL NOTE: For a limited time, you can become a member of my new Writing Riches Community at our special Preferred Member Rate. Right now, membership is a no-obligation $97… but in the near future, we may raise the price to $147. Click here right now to lock in your Preferred Rate and save $50.

Five Best Distraction-Free Writing Tools

50 Free Resources to Improve Your Writing

Open Source Novel Writing Software

10 Free Writing Software Downloads

Free MindMapping Software

And here’s a bonus link…

Newsletter for copywriters who want more clients… juicier assignments… and bigger fees… fast.

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.

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!

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.

SPECIAL NOTE: For a limited time, you can become a member of my new Writing Riches Community at our special Preferred Member Rate. Right now, membership is a no-obligation $97… but in the near future, we may raise the price to $147. Click here right now to lock in your Preferred Rate and save $50.

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.

SPECIAL NOTE: For a limited time, you can become a member of my new Writing Riches Community at our special Preferred Member Rate. Right now, membership is a no-obligation $97… but in the near future, we may raise the price to $147. Click here right now to lock in your Preferred Rate and save $50.

“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.

SPECIAL NOTE: For a limited time, you can become a member of my new Writing Riches Community at our special Preferred Member Rate. Right now, membership is a no-obligation $97… but in the near future, we may raise the price to $147. Click here right now to lock in your Preferred Rate and save $50.

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?

SPECIAL NOTE: For a limited time, you can become a member of my new Writing Riches Community at our special Preferred Member Rate. Right now, membership is a no-obligation $97… but in the near future, we may raise the price to $147. Click here right now to lock in your Preferred Rate and save $50.

“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.

SPECIAL NOTE: For a limited time, you can become a member of my new Writing Riches Community at our special Preferred Member Rate. Right now, membership is a no-obligation $97… but in the near future, we may raise the price to $147. Click here right now to lock in your Preferred Rate and save $50.

“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.

SPECIAL NOTE: For a limited time, you can become a member of my new Writing Riches Community at our special Preferred Member Rate. Right now, membership is a no-obligation $97… but in the near future, we may raise the price to $147. Click here right now to lock in your Preferred Rate and save $50.

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.

SPECIAL NOTE: For a limited time, you can become a member of my new Writing Riches Community at our special Preferred Member Rate. Right now, membership is a no-obligation $97… but in the near future, we may raise the price to $147. Click here right now to lock in your Preferred Rate and save $50.

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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“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”?

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.

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.