I’m in the process of getting a new house now, and I was looking for window price online.

I did a Google search, and a bunch of typical sites came up.

But there was one that jumped at me.

Every other one said a bunch of stuff about windows, sizes, etc….  But there was one Google Adwords ad, that simply said – “Looking for New Windows?”

Now is that simple or what.  But guess what, made me click, because it was EXACTLY what I wanted.  I was looking for new windows.

Great ads, they pick up on the conversation the prospect has in their head.  This was the most perfect match to what I was looking for.

Most businesses would say, we have the cheapest, the best windows, we’ve been selling windows since 1955, the largest selection, and on, and on, and on …. Who cares?

Nobody cares about all this stuff.  The only thing a person cares about is what’s in it for him.

So when your prospects are looking for something, what are they looking for, and are you picking up on the conversation they’re having in their head?

Posted in Copywriting, Marketing | No Comments » | Tags: advertising, business success, Copywriting, Marketing, marketing tips, small business marketing

A big mistake most marketers and entrepreneurs make in their advertising is talking too much about the product or service they offer and NOT what it will do for their prospect.

Now I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times if you studied any sales or marketing courses or books, and that is, sell the benefits not features.

BUT that’s not the only thing I’m referring to.

I want you to recall one of the most fundamental rules in selling and marketing, and that is that people buy emotionally and NOT logically.

They make their decisions on emotion, and then justify it with logic.

Ok, so when you sell the benefits you are appealing to their emotions. Doing that you will probably be ahead of 90% of businesses out there.

But in this post I’d like to go a little deeper, and give you an advanced copywriting technique.

Are you ready?

Here it goes, Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Copywriting, Marketing | No Comments » | Tags: Copywriting, copywriting techniques, copywriting tips, Marketing, marketing tips, marketing tools, small business marketing

A friend of mine, who is in the printing business, recently put a magnetic sign on the side of his car, “5000 business cards for $119”. When I asked him if he’s getting any calls from that, he said that he’s got several in the 3 days since it’s up. He also had all the salespeople put the signs on the side of their cars.

Now isn’t that a brilliant idea. I’m sure you’ve seen similar signs, but they typically say general things, like “we do printing” or “computer repair” or “plumbing” (I had a post about this one recently.

My friend created a direct response offer. It’s not just “we sell business cards”, it’s very specific, “5000 cards for $119”. Anyone who is in business, or is self-employed and needs business cards from time to time will obviously be interested in that and will respond.

I would, wouldn’t you?

I’ve said that before, that I live, in a supposedly “declining” area of United States. That’s Michigan. According to the news and what people say, this is one of the states that got hit the hardest economically.

Yet for $70, Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Marketing | No Comments » | Tags: advertising, direct marketing, Marketing, marketing tips, marketing tools, small business marketing

One of the things I’ve always loved to do is to draw.  Not because I’m great at it, I just enjoy drawing.  And my daughter and I draw quiet often.  She always asks me to draw her favorite cartoon characters, like Mickey Mouse, Strawberry Shortcake, Dora, and Disney’s Princesses.

Lately she’s been asking me, “How do you draw so good, why can’t I draw like you?” What a great opportunity to teach her about practicing.  So tell her, you’ve got to practice.  If you want to get good at something, you simply practice.  There’s no talent, no luck, it’s just practice, and keep improving.  I’m drilling this into her brain (she’s 5, so it’s easy), and she believes it.  She doesn’t doubt that she will not be able to do it.

Recently we bought one of those piano keyboards with a stand.  And she’s been playing around with it.  I taught her to play the tune to “Happy Birthday” and “Jingle Bells” (That’s about 50% of what I know )  Anyway, she’s asking me, “So if I practice can I be good at this too?

You see we all need to remember that practice is the key to anything.  This is both mental and physical.

I remember years ago, I was starting out (it didn’t last but for 3 years) in a jewelry business.  I was learning to set diamonds, and one of the settings called bead or pave setting, requires a TON of practice.  And you start with putting cubic zirconium into copper, before you move on to gold and diamonds.

I’ve spent weeks, practicing on copper.   But as a result I learned how to do it.

When I began in sales Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Personal Development | No Comments » |

As I’m in the process of buying a new house and having to deal with a whole slew of people, it amazes me how few people actually do what they’re supposed to do.

Today’s post is about excellence.  Whether you’re in selling or marketing or both, you have to deal with people.  Even if you sell through a website it’s people that buy from you, not machines.

I’ve been fortunate to have spent over a decade in personal one on one direct sales, which taught me some very important lessons about this concept of excellence.

If you want to attract more people to do business with you, here’s an idea: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Marketing, Sales | No Comments » | Tags: business success, Marketing, marketing ideas, marketing tips, marketing tools, Sales, small business marketing

On my way home today I saw a plumber’s van, with big bright letters Bill’s Plumbing, and logo with a phone number.  The logo said – “Tonight you can sleep without hearing a drop”  It’s written in big, bright letters.  It’s cute, but you gotta think, does it really get someone to call?

I give credit to anyone that does anything to market their business.  But one big mistake that most businesses make, and when I say most, I mean 99.9999%, is that they come up with either some cute or loud logos that mean absolutely nothing.

Let’s break this down.

The only purpose of any kind Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Marketing | 2 Comments » | Tags: business success, Marketing, marketing ideas, marketing tips, small business marketing

Here’s an important question to ask yourself. Are feeding your dreams or your nightmares?

What influences your mind the most? Is it what you want or what you don’t want. Are you letting fears or desires dictate your state of mind.

One of the 13 principles of success that Napoleon Hill wrote about in his classic “Think and Grow Rich” is the principle of Autosuggestion. Which is all suggestions that reach your subconscious mind by what you allow to remain in your conscious mind.

We get exposed to lots of stimuli in our day to day activities. The media, the society, the books and magazines we read, and our interpretation of this huge stream of information and what we think and how feel it will affect us, is what gets programmed into our minds.

Whatever we allow to dominate our mind is what gets imprinted into our consciousness.

Here’s what’s important to realize. Is that we have complete control over what we allow to go into our mind.

Some people will argue that they’re not in control, but I disagree. If you tune into a station on the radio or a channel on TV that you don’t like, why keep watching or listening to it, just change the channel or tune into a different frequency on the radio.

If you go see a movie you don’t like, are you going to buy it on dvd to watch it again?

That’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? But that’s exactly what most people do when it comes to thoughts and ideas.

Changing the course of your thoughts is as simple as changing the channel on your TV.

It simply takes a decision. It’s a lot easier when you know specifically what it is that you want, and you can feed those dreams, and starve your nightmares.

Posted in Law of Attraction, Personal Development | No Comments » | Tags: Law of Attraction, Personal Development, self-improvement

Every now and then, I stop by a forum and eavesdrop on what people talk about. As it relates to the Law of Attraction, it seems that there’s a group of people that firmly believes in this amazing power, and also there’s a group that questions it, and doesn’t really believe that it’s that simple.

One comment I saw from someone who saw “The Secret” and stated that “…where’s the proof? … it can’t work just like that…”

My first reaction was that it’s just another cynic. However, after I thought about it for a while, it made me realize that there are a lot of people like this guy. They don’t believe in anything or anybody. They’re always looking for the catch.

When I was recruiting people in my former business, and I would do a meeting, talking about the opportunity, there would always be someone in the room who would be a total skeptic and question everything.

I remember 2 specific times. One lady Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Law of Attraction, Personal Development | No Comments » | Tags: Law of Attraction, Personal Development, self-improvement

I heard a great quote on the radio today, by an unknown author.

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift.  That’s why it’s called present.”

That’s a great way to look at it.  As far as our past is concerned, it’s gone.  We can’t change it, only learn from it.

Jim Rohn says “Don’t use the past as a hammer, but use it as a book.”  That’s a good outlook on the past.  We can’t change it, so why waste our mental energy on it.  All that does is recreates in the present, by us focusing on it.

Tomorrow is truly a mystery.  We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.  Goal setting, and dreaming about the future is very important, but we only live in the NOW, not in the future.

Even when we think and ponder about the future, we’re doing it NOW.  So it’s the present, the now, where we have power.  We only have power of what we’re doing right now.

Your subconscious mind Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Law of Attraction, Personal Development | No Comments » | Tags: Law of Attraction, Personal Development, self-improvement

Last week Ebay announced something that shocked a lot of people.  They’re discounting the sales of any digital download products.  Now at first that was a shock to most people, and still is.

There are sellers that all they have is digital download items, that means that their business is gone overnight.  I myself, have quiet a few products that are completely digital and are only available by download.

At first, my initial reaction was just like everyone else’s.  I was shocked, disappointed and somewhat upset at the whole situation.

But then I quickly asked myself, what good can come out of this?

And after pondering for sometime here’s what I came up with. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Marketing, Personal Development | No Comments » | Tags: attitude, ebay, ebay policies, Marketing, Personal Development, self-improvement, small business marketing