Hurry, because a small baking business, a home-based shoe business, and an aquatic rehab facility for dogs are already in the running. Enter your own business, or vote for your favorite entry.

Check it out here: tinyurl.com/3dn76cm

Here’s Ali Brown’s list of a few recommended reads for you to dig into during your downtime:

http://www.alibrown.com/blog/?p=1436

If you’re already a Success Circle Member, I want to give you a sneak preview of the information that you will be receiving shortly in your mailbox.

http://www.successcirclemonthly.com

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Guerrilla Marketing: How to Make Big Profits From Your Small Business

with Jay Conrad Levinson

Here’s some of what you’ll learn inside your June 2010 SUCCESS CIRCLE interview:

- What Guerrilla Marketing is… and what it isn’t

- The 11 things Guerrilla marketers do that non-Guerrillas don’t do

- A critical weapon for your Guerrilla arsenal (and it only takes 5 minutes to create!)

- Surefire strategies for determining the right Guerrilla Marketing tools for your business

- Jay’s favorite Guerrilla Marketing weapons, and how to implement them today!  

- How to balance the demands of Guerrilla Marketing with the joys of life outside of work 

Recently, I interviewed Jay Conrad Levinson. Jay Conrad Levinson is the father of Guerrilla Marketing and the author of the Guerrilla Marketing series of books.

Guerrilla Marketing is the best-known marketing brand in history and has been named one of the 100 best business books ever written, with over 21 million copies sold.

His Guerrilla Marketing concepts have influenced marketing so much that his books appear in 62 languages and are required reading in MBA programs worldwide.

A winner of first prizes in all the media, Jay has been part of the creative teams for such brands as the Marlboro Man, the Pillsbury Dough Boy, Tony the Tiger, the Jolly Green Giant and many others.

Additionally, Entrepreneur Magazine calls Jay Conrad Levinson “one of the foremost business marketing experts in the world.”  

Here’s an excerpt from my interview with Jay Conrad Levinson:

“It’s very simple because a Guerilla Marketing calendar, first of all, it prevents emergencies.  Secondly, it motivates planning.  And thirdly, it’s very simple and it’s free to do.  In order to create a Guerilla Marketing calendar, all you really need is one piece of paper and a pen and maybe it will be help if you had a ruler to draw straight lines with.  When you create a marketing calendar, you draw 12 lines, because there’s only 12 months in a year.  Then you have five columns, so it becomes a grid, 12 rows and five columns.  And the first column is called month, which is very easy.  Starting now, you’d say April, May, June, July, and so on.  That’s very easy. 

The second column is called thrust.  What was the thrust of your marketing that month?  What was the message you were putting forth?  Were you talking about a new innovation?  Were you talking about a new service?  Were you talking about a special price you’re now offering?  What is the thrust of your marketing that month?

The third column is called media.  What media did you use that month?  Did you happen to be, did you have a special promotion and market it on your Web site on a landing page?  Did you put an ad in the newspaper?  Maybe you ran an ad on cable TV.  Maybe you put something up on Google.  What media did you use that month?  That’s the third column. 

The fourth column is where you draw a dollar sign.  And that column says how much did you invest in marketing that month.  And the final column is when you magically transform yourself into a college professor.  And that month gets a grade, gets an A, B, C, D or F.   At the end of the year, and this is where the Guerillas are separated from the non-Guerillas, at the end of the year, you change everything in your marketing calendar that didn’t result in an A or B for you.  At the end of the second year, you get rid of the things that didn’t get an A for you.  So you’re left by the third year with things you’ve proved in action for your company that only got an A.”

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By now you understand that in order to work less and make more, you’ll have to delegate. Your job is to focus the majority of your time on the high-payoff activities that best use your talents and feed your passion. What about all the other stuff that needs to get done? Those things can be delegated to motivated, trustworthy people who’ll do them better than you anyway.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re just at the beginning of your Work Less, Make More journey, and you’re budget won’t allow for extra support. How are you supposed to delegate if you can’t afford to?

Don’t worry. It’s a common problem, and there is a solution. Take one of my clients, Janet.

Janet owns a regional magazine, and she was about to give it up when she came to me. She had been in business for almost two years, and cash flow was extremely tight. While she had already done the hard part of defining where she should concentrate her efforts and where she needed help, she simply couldn’t afford that help. I was her last resort. Was there a way for her to save her business without bringing others on board?

My answer was a simple “no.” Unless Janet found a way to focus on the big stuff—which meant finding others to do the little stuff—her business would not succeed.

While Janet was looking a little dejected at this point, the next thing I told her perked her up a bit. It’s possible to delegate without spending a dime. You don’t need tons of money. As a matter of fact, you don’t need any money at all. All you need is a little creativity.

Here’s the basic idea: If it’s difficult for you to hire someone to handle important tasks, why not trade them out instead?

That’s right. Forming partnerships and sharing strengths is key to creative delegating. In Janet’s case, she traded advertising in her magazine for services that she needed—things like home and office cleaning, computer support, and administrative tasks. It worked extremely well. Janet got to do what she wanted to do, but the other stuff got done too.

Take my word for it. If you need something done, there’s a way to get it done. And you don’t need to break the bank. All you need to do is break open your creativity.

                   

I was on the phone the other day with Bill, who was lamenting the fact that his wife was angry that he hasn’t been to their vacation home in over three years. “I mean jeez,” he said to me. “How does she think I was able to afford the home in the first place? Doesn’t the woman realize I need to work?”

I had to chuckle. Here Bill was, logging 80-hour work weeks so that he could afford to buy things he didn’t have the time to enjoy because he was working so much. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

The fact is, many of us are crazy busy. But we’re not busy doing things that fuel our passion. Instead, we’re busy working our lives away. Most of us believe that only dreamers chase their ideas and passions. And dreamers—let’s face it—don’t exactly enjoy social status in today’s world. In fact, it seems like the busier you are, the more respected you are.

If this sounds like your life, you’re not alone.

But if you’re like most people, you’ve this game stops working at some point. You become tired. Stressed out. Grouchy. Nothing would be better for you than to stop working so hard. And you know it, too.

Yet you continue to work harder than we should. Why? Because you don’t know what else to do. If you are like many of my clients, maybe being busy has become a modern-day addiction. Something is missing inside, and you’re not quite sure what it is. So you work really hard to earn lots of money to try to fill the void with material things—the fancier car, the bigger house, the pricey wardrobe.

Does this work? Maybe for a little while. But the feeling of emptiness always comes back. So what do you do? You work even harder to get even bigger and better things. The sad thing is, you never have the time to enjoy what you’ve earned, with the people who matter most to you. Why? You guessed it. Because you are too busy working.

When you put all of your focus on being busy, other things, like your relationships, are bound to suffer. But does this make people change their ways? Hardly. As a matter of fact, being busy is a great—and unfortunately accepted—excuse for poor performance. Your marriage is falling apart and needs some attention? No worries. Just stay really busy and everyone will understand.

If you are so busy being busy that you aren’t getting anything meaningful done, it’s time to take stock. If you are so busy that you don’t have time to enjoy the people and hobbies you love, it’s time to ask yourself why. Are you busy because you are afraid of underperforming? Are you busy because it’s easier than addressing the issues with your spouse or kids? Are you busy because you hate your job but don’t want to admit it? Are you busy because it’s hard to admit you’ve lost touch with yourself, your dreams, and passions?

Figure out why you’re so busy, and you’ll ultimately figure out what’s stopping you from truly living your life.

                   

If you’re already a Success Circle Member, I want to give you a sneak preview of the information that you will be receiving shortly in your mailbox.

http://www.successcirclemonthly.com

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INSIDE YOUR SEPTEMBER 2009 SUCCESS CIRCLE INTERVIEW:

Teleseminar Power: How to Leverage the Power of Teleseminars to Grow Your Business, with Michael Cage

Teleseminars are one of the fastest, most effective ways to grow your business, but they’re also one of the most misunderstood and under used marketing strategies out there. Michael Cage has mastered what it takes to teach people how to do revenue generating teleseminars that sell. He teaches it in a way that turns four, five and even six figure teleseminars into auto pilot money machines for businesses and professional practices.

Michael achieved great success with teleseminars after working 18 hour days and struggling in many ways. Being an entrepreneur since his pre-teen years, Michael knew there had to be a better—and easier—way to succeed. He got the idea to host teleseminars, and Michael has transformed this medium into a powerful and profitable way to grow businesses.

This interview provides a great opportunity to learn the secrets of teleseminar success, and how to apply them to your business. Watch your mailbox, because your package will be arriving soon.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn:

- The key difference between “doing a teleseminar” and “doing a teleseminar that sells”

- How to use teleseminars to generate an additional 5-6 figure annual income in your business

- The five things you must get right when delivering your teleseminar

- The most important part of the call (Get this wrong, and you can forget about selling anything!)

Here’s an excerpt from our interview:

… teleseminars done well can really accelerate and increase the conversion in your sales cycle. Whatever your business looks like. If you sell information, if you’re publishing, putting out CD’s or manuals or ebooks or what have you. If you are selling consulting services, or coaching services, if you are selling virtually anything there’s a sales cycle that you have.

The time, what happens from the time that someone becomes aware of you or what you do or what you’re product is, and the time that they actually make a buying decision? When you put a teleseminar in place, what happens is that they buy faster and more people buy. So you end up making more money faster when it’s done well.

Now depending on the business type, this could take, you know, a hundred, a thousand different forms. But the number one thing is going to be putting people on the call with the intention of getting them to take a very specific next step towards interacting with your business. Buying the thing, doing an initial consultation, coming into a store, you know whatever it is that happens when you want to generate a sale. And ideally we integrate this in with your existing marketing funnels.

So you look like, look how do you currently get clients? How do you currently get customers? And where can we build in a teleseminar to work? Now let me make an important point about this. One of the big reasons why this works so well is that you come across on a teleseminar as a real person. Especially in times when people are fearful of making decisions. When people get scared they end up freezing, and when people are frozen, they are afraid to make decisions, they are afraid to make mistakes, they become much more selective on what they purchase or what they don’t. And one of the big criteria that becomes much more important is, is the person I’m talking, is the person I’m considering buying from. You know because even when you’re buying from a business, people really feel and prefer to buy from a person, not a nameless faceless business. So one of the big things that comes into play is do we trust this person, do they have credibility, do we believe that they’re going to take care of us?

For most people getting that across in the written word is really, really tough. But if you talk on the phone they get to hear your voice, they get the sense that you’re a real person. And you don’t have to be a professional speaker. It actually helps in some ways if you’re just you. You don’t have to have a big radio voice or anything like that. I’m embarrassed to go back and listen to my early teleseminars. You know I’m kind of comfortable with them now. But in the early, early days you know I would say a couple of words and have to take a real deep breath, because I wasn’t breathing enough, because I was nervous, and you know all these things. But people could still tell that hey this is a real person on the other end of the phone. And what ends up happening then is that you get an enormous spike in the trust factor and as a result of that, you, combine that with a good structure for selling, which we’ll be talking about, and you end up making more sales faster.

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Not yet a Success Circle Member?

Not receiving the Success Circle Interview Series in your mailbox each month?

That’s easy to fix. And you can even test drive two FREE months…starting with the Michael Cage interview!

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So let’s get started!

PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT YOUR FAMILY

I’m married to my high school sweetheart, Heidi. We started dating 27 years ago, and we celebrated our 20th anniversary this week! We have four beautiful children. Andy is 18, and is leaving this week for college. Abby is 15, Carly is 12, and Caleb is 7. God has blessed me in many ways, but my family is by far the greatest gift he has given me. Thanks for asking!

Do you have any pets?

Growing up, we had both dogs and cats. My cat was Clover, and he lived about 18 years! Most of my family is allergic to cats, though, so my cat days are over. We now have a Shih Tzu named Buddy, and he is 11 years old. He’s a great dog—very easy going, trouble free, and affectionate. He’s also small enough that it’s easy to find a place for him to stay when we’re on vacation!

Who would you most like to meet?

I currently have 34 people I would like to meet on my Goals List. The person I would most like to meet on that list is Richard Branson. He is a phenomenally successful businessman, founding the now famous Virgin brand—Virgin Records, Virgin Atlantic airlines, etc. And, according to people I know who’ve met and spent time with him, he’s a down-to-earth, great guy, too. I think he exemplifies the idea of “living life to the fullest” which is something I try to do in my own life. Where would we meet? Necker Island of course—Branson’s own private island located in the British Virgin Islands!

"Sometimes I do wake up in the mornings and feel like I’ve just had the most incredible dream. I’ve just dreamt my life." – Richard Branson

Where would you most like to visit?

I love to travel. There’s so much to learn from visiting other places, and I’ve been very fortunate to have not only traveled extensively myself, but to have also exposed our children to other places, and other cultures. I’ve visited 32 states outside Michigan, and 9 countries outside the United States. Most of my foreign travel has been in the form of family vacations, which I am really grateful for.

I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface in terms of places to see, because there are still so many places I want to visit. Probably at the top of my list is Australia. I think Sydney is one of the greatest cities in the world, and I’m sure other parts of Australia are equally amazing. Three of our four children are now certified scuba divers, which has added a new dimension to our vacations involving water. I would love to spend several days with my family on a boat, diving the Great Barrier Reef.

What is the biggest risk you’ve taken?

A few years ago, as I was approaching my 40th birthday, I really wanted to do something spectacular. My gift to myself that year was a skydiving adventure! I always wanted to skydive, and what better way to celebrate my birthday? I’m not sure that was the smartest thing to do with a wife and four children, but fortunately I lived to tell about it. Life doesn’t get much riskier than jumping out of a plane! It was an absolute thrill-of-a-lifetime adventure, and I’d do it again in a second. I want to go with someone else next time, though. So far, I haven’t had any takers.

If you could be any movie, book, or TV character, who would you like to be?

James Bond. I think “007” is the movie/book character most men really aspire to be, and I’m no exception. I mean, who wouldn’t want to live his life? He travels the world, drives nice cars, and always has the coolest toys. Bond lives a little more dangerously than I would like to…but it always works out in the end!

What kind of music do you listen to?

When I was in school, I played the French horn, the saxophone, and the oboe. I played in the school band, as well as a Wind Ensemble and Jazz Band. That diverse background helped me to appreciate different genres of music. I love jazz and classical music. I’ve attended several operas, and have enjoyed them immensely. I even listen to some hip-hop and country, genres I’m exposed to right now by my two oldest children. But the music I like most is rock. I like classic rock, but there are a lot of bands out there today that are great, too. I probably listen to Dave Matthews Band more than any other group. Coldplay, The Fray, and U2 are some other bands that come to mind.

What kind of car do you drive, and if you could drive any car, what would it be?

I’ll answer the second question first. My dream car when I was growing up was a Rolls Royce. For me, that was always the epitome of excellence in automotive design. The car at the top of my list now is a red Ferrari Testarossa with tan leather interior. I just saw one in LaJolla when I was in California recently. I parked next to it, so I guess that means I’m getting closer to my goal, right?

A car I’d love to drive that is more in my price range is the Maserati GranTurismo. Maserati makes great Italian sports cars, and I love both the coupe and the sedan (Quattroporte). I like nice cars, and the GranTurismo is beautiful! It’s a bit of a leap, though, so for now I’ll enjoy my Infiniti M45, which I absolutely love.

I HAVE WORKED VERY HARD FOR YEARS, BUT I’M NOT WHERE I WANT TO BE IN LIFE. I FEEL LIKE I’M ON A TREADMILL, AND DON’T KNOW HOW TO STOP. I WANT TO WORK LESS, AND MAKE MORE MONEY, BUT WHERE DO I START? PLEASE HELP ME FIGURE OUT HOW TO HAVE A BETTER LIFE.

Thanks for your question. First of all, I want you to know that you’re not alone. You have been brought up in a culture that defines people, at least in part, by how hard they work and how much money they make. One of the problems with that is it never seems to be enough. It probably seems like, no matter how hard you work, you never seem to get caught up. And, if you’re like most other people today, regardless of your income, you still want or need more money to get to where you want to be.

The first thing to realize is that it is possible to work less and make more. It’s not easy, and it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight. But thousands of people have been in the same situation as you, and they’ve literally turned their lives around. They’ve created thriving businesses, or great careers, and yet they still have a life. They have been able to take back control of their lives, rather than being controlled by the endless demands in their lives. They have designed the lives they want to live, and figured out how to make a reality, rather than just wishful thinking.

If you don’t have the book Work Less, Make More, you might want to pick it up. The book is a step-by-step recipe for creating the life you want to live. You won’t get there by just reading the book, though. You must be completely committed to the 10-step process outlined in the book. Once you complete the questionnaires and exercises in the book, and apply what you learn, you will discover that there’s no limit to what you can accomplish.

If you want to get a jump-start before you get the book, here are a couple key thoughts:

1. The first thing you must get very clear about is what your life will look like once you’re working less and making more. You must define, in very specific terms, what Work Less, Make More means to you. For example, how many hours will you work? How many vacations do you want to take each year? How much money will you earn per week, month, or year? How will you know when you’re working less and making more? The more specific and measurable you make your vision, the more compelling it will be.

2. Equally important is to figure out what’s stopping your success. Once you identify what’s preventing you from working less and making more, you can begin to change your thoughts, beliefs, and behavior to overcome those obstacles. Make a list of all the things that are holding you back. You can also complete the assessment on page 25 of Work Less, Make More. The nice thing about the assessment in the book is that each question corresponds to a specific chapter in the book. Once you finish the assessment, you will be directed to the chapters of the book that are most relevant for you. Either way, determining what’s holding you back is a critical step on your Work Less, Make More journey.

3. The Work Less, Make More website and blog also contain valuable tools, techniques and strategies to help you get to where you want to be in life. The material is constantly being updated, so be sure to check those resources, too.

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Have a great weekend, and I’ll be in touch again next week. Remember, you may submit your questions in one of three ways:

1. Send an email to info (AT) jwcgroup (DOT) com, with “You Asked For It” in the subject line.

2. Fax your question to our office. (734-254-9973, Attn: Marti)

3. Comment on the Work Less, Make More blog.

Submit your questions today… and stay tuned for the next edition of “You Asked For It!”

http://www.successcirclemonthly.com

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INSIDE YOUR AUGUST 2009 SUCCESS CIRCLE INTERVIEW:

How to Achieve RockStar Status in Your Industry, with Craig Duswalt

Recently, I interviewed Craig Duswalt. Craig is a professional speaker and the creator of RockStar System for Success: How to Achieve RockStar Status in Your Industry. Craig’s background includes touring with the band Guns N’ Roses as Axl Rose’s personal manager and Air Supply as the band’s personal assistant.  

Craig was also an award-winning copywriter, working as a senior copywriter for a Los Angeles based ad agency until opening up his own ad agency, Green Room Design & Advertising, which was recently named Small Business of the Year by the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce. Craig combines his backgrounds in both music and marketing, and he teaches numerous ways to save a ton of money on marketing and advertising, and also, how to become perceived as a celebrity and an expert in your business, where potential clients will come to you instead of you having to go after them.  

This interview provides a great opportunity to learn the secrets of promotion from a former insider in the multi-billion-dollar music industry, and how to apply them to your business. Watch your mailbox, because your package will be arriving soon.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn:

- What it takes to create RockStar status in your business

- How to use the power of social networking to generate tons of business

- Why having a “title” is the key to self-promotion

- The one thing you must do to establish yourself as an expert…and how to do it in the next 30 days!

- Why you don’t need business cards any more…and what replaces them

- How to increase your fan base by using a little known RockStar secret!

- Why RockStars always do encores…and how you can, too

Here’s an excerpt from our interview:

Guns N’ Roses, let’s just say if this were to happen on the road, I’m not saying this happened with Guns N’ Roses, but for example, say we’re playing a show in Denver, Colorado, and the next night we’re playing a show in Kansas City, Missouri.  And Kansas City’s ticket sales are low, and we need to promote the show.  Now the band doesn’t specifically promote a show.  The promoters do.  But we can certainly do something to spark an interest in Guns N’ Roses again.  Or, I’m not saying this happened with Guns N’ Roses, but if it were to happen with a band like this.

Anyway, you’re in a hotel in Denver, Colorado, and Kansas City is the next night, and ticket sales are….  So you could always trash a room.  You can throw the TVs out the hotel room window into the pool, like you hear all the time, all the stories about stuff that that’s happened is very, very true.  And it happens because they get in the news.  They’re in the news that night in the local town.  And it usually gets onto CNN that, oh my, God, Guns N’ Roses did something bad again.  They’re in the news.  And then what happens the next city, all of a sudden, the ticket sales go through the roof because they’ve been in the news for something that they did.

Now they were known as the bad boys of rock-n-roll, so the worst they did, the better their attendance was.  When Axl went off and did something bad, the next show would sell out.  I mean, every show would sell out within a week of what happened because everyone – you know, they say Howard Stern, 50% of the people in this world listen to him because they love him, and 50% of the people in this world listen to him because they hate him.  You know, people want to – if they’re bad boys, they want to be – they just want to see what’s going to happen.

How does a business use something like this?  Well, do something in your community that stands out from the rest, whether it’s a charity event.  Chairing charity events, I do that all the time.  I help with charity events, and you always get in the news, and the name of your business gets in the news as well.  Anything local, if you’re a local company doing things local with your Chamber and doing things local with a lot of associations in your town can help you get into the press.  Obviously you’re not going to trash hotel rooms because not only will you get in the press, but you’ll probably get arrested, whereas we can avoid that being bands, you know, big bands.  

But it’s a lot of just, you know, just standing out from the rest.  Do something different than everyone else does, and that’s what rockstars do.  Their albums, every time they put out a new album, you know, Queen was famous for this.  They always put out a new album with a whole different genre of music, and they’d get a whole new audience.  

Duets, I talk about this all the time.  Rockstars do duets with other bands, and the reason why they do that is, yes, they’re fans of the other people, but they get to tap into their database.  Look at David Bowie and Bing Crosby, I mean, two totally different people.  But David Bowie, now, the people that listen to Bing Crosby are all going to say, who is this David Bowie guy?  Oh, look, he’s kind of normal.  We could buy this album, so they’re using each other’s database.  The same thing with joint ventures with businesses.  Partner with other people that have, like, a common interest with what you do, and then you get to bank off of each other’s databases.  So joint ventures is a big thing that I teach because working with other people, you get double the database.  

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Not yet a Success Circle Member?

Not receiving the Success Circle Interview Series in your mailbox each month?

That’s easy to fix. And you can even test drive two FREE months…starting with the Craig Duswalt interview!

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Each letter approached this topic differently. One reader (and a coaching client of mine) recalled that I had once taken my son Andy to the Super Bowl, and had a question related to an article I had written about that experience. The second letter, from a newsletter subscriber, asked about the work that I had done with Brian Tracy and Tony Robbins.

The third was more general in nature. The woman who wrote that email asked why I don’t talk more about my personal life, and about my family. “I know you have four children,” she wrote. “Since you’re all about LifeExcellence, working less and making more, and living a balanced life, why don’t you talk more about your family?”

I appreciate the questions, and I’ve receive similar questions and comments from time to time.

As I thought about those emails and letters, I realized that I’m guilty of something else. I realized that topic selection for newsletter articles and blog posts involves me and my staff coming up with topics that we think are relevant. I hope we are providing useful information (and the feedback we receive indicates that subscribers are getting value from it), but we should probably get more input from our clients, customers and newsletter subscribers.

To change things up a bit for August, I’ve created a theme called “You Asked For It.” Over the next few weeks, I would like you to submit questions that I will then respond to. Your questions can be about me, or they can be about anything else you would like to ask (including the areas of business/career, wealth/finance, relationships/family, health/fitness, spiritual/inspirational, etc.)

You may submit your questions in one of three ways:

1. Send an email to info@jwcgroup.com, with “You Asked For It” in the subject line.

2. Fax your question to our office. (734-254-9973, Attn: Marti)

3. Comment on the Work Less, Make More blog.

I’m really looking forward to this, and I hope you will find it useful, too.

So please so submit your questions now… and then in August tune in to read my response to your questions!