ETR Way Ahead of The Wall Street Journal! The Wall Street Journal warns that the commercial real estate (CRE) market is disintegrating. It's about time. Stansberry & Associates' Dan Ferris warned his readers about it in March. He predicted: "The massive leverage and billions of dollars of overvalued CRE on financial institutions' balance sheets would surely lead to massive writedowns and dissolving equity." ETR readers got the word even earlier. In December 2008, I predicted: "The commercial real estate market will definitely fall apart in the second half of 2009. In the past 10 years banks have made hundreds of billions of loans to develop strip malls, 'big box' stores, fast-food eateries, movie theaters, office parks, warehouses, and parking garages. "Commercial real estate loans are generally short-term: five to seven years. Many of these will be coming due starting next year. The government will attempt to force banks to extend credit, but the credit will go only to A properties. The B and C properties (strip malls and office parks and warehouses) will go belly up. This, in turn, will spur more retail bankruptcies and spike unemployment." I advised readers who owned B-level CRE (directly or through stocks) to get out. Let's hope they did.
In today's issue: - Wealthy: Why You Shouldn't Cheer the "Recovery"
- Healthy: Another Reason Not to Let Yourself Go
- Wise: John Forde on Why "Ideas" Are Just the First Step
---------------------------------------------- Highly Recommended ---------------------------------------------------- E-Mail Trash or Treasure? - Bob Bly wrote an e-mail in five minutes. It generated a $7,449 profit in a single week. Here's what he said... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality." - Napoleon Hill How to Turn Your Pile of Research Into a Seamless Promotional Package
By John Forde Every business is in sales. But not everyone feels comfortable selling. As someone who writes sales copy for a living, that's worked out great for me. I get hired to craft the persuasive sales pieces that even crack entrepreneurs are sometimes afraid to touch. But what do you do when you don't have the luxury of getting someone else to put together your all-important sales messages? And what about working with copywriters? Even a seasoned pro will do a better job selling your product when you've already worked out some of the details yourself. Whichever situation you're in, I have a focusing exercise that can help you generate one solid selling idea after another, even if you've never done it before. In my years of writing copy for information products, I've never seen this method fail. And I'm certain it can work for all kinds of products in all kinds of markets, and targeting all kinds of customers. It might look a little complicated. But it gets easier as you go along. And even more effective each time you repeat the process. You start with five sheets of paper spread out on a table. Write the following, one item per sheet: 1. The Target 2. The Product 3. Credibility 4. The Facts 5. The Offer Now, start building piles on top of those sheets of paper ... 1. The Target Pile up a customer profile. Warm up with the general, aim for the specific. Use demographics and mailing lists. Surveys and focus groups. Attend a conference, sit in the back and write down phrases that make heads nod. Eavesdrop on after-talk conversations with speakers. Talk to customer service. Visit related chat rooms and ask questions. Pick a friend most like your customer and hand-write a personality profile for him that would make the FBI proud. Then move on to building the next pile. 2. The Product Start this pile with a sample of the product you're selling. If it's a newsletter, start with a year's worth of issues. On a piece of paper, list features. Print out e-mails to customers. Tally up track records. Interview the editor or owner about product history. Take it apart like a watch and make notes. Limit this pile to notes and clippings directly from the core product. Next pile. 3. Credibility Start with testimonial letters. Then read surveys. Look for customers to contact and interview. Especially those with a detailed success story. Pile up clippings about the editor or the product. You're looking for things that would make it into the foreword of a biography or the liner notes of a book. Interview editors over the phone. Jot down notes on their school and career experience. But get personal too. In this pile, third-party validation, personal stories, and track record are what count. 4. The Facts Photocopy information-based products for charts, tables, and statistics. Scan the editorial for recommended reading ... then look for supporting logic in those recommended texts. Collect copies of sourced articles. Surf the Web using keywords creatively. Google.com is the search engine to use. Don't bookmark. Print out articles instead. Eight to 10 relevant articles should be good enough. Facts validate emotional sales pitches. Gather to over-prove. You'll cut the excess during revision. 5. The Offer Save this last pile for premiums, past guarantees, and specs on price, delivery, and extras (like websites, telephone hotlines, customer service numbers, address, and reply instructions). Question the history and logic of product price. How does it compare with similar services? Set a deadline on orders that makes sense. These details are essential. Knowing the offer beforehand will give you focus. If you've done this right, your table should be sagging. Now, you'll knock out each pile, one by one, converting research into marketable ideas. Take a stack of 3 x 5 index cards. Start with the first pile. Piece by piece, take notes. One sales point per card. If you can, write your notes as copy. When you come across a feature, write it on the card as a benefit. Turn hot stories into headlines. Resist the temptation to fill both sides of a card. At this stage, don't try to edit your ideas. Just open the floodgates and let them flow. When you've gone through all the piles, you'll have more knowledge about your product than you ever had before. And many more ideas on how it could be sold. You can put your scraps of information, your article clippings, and everything else aside. Because now everything you'll need is on the index cards. At this point, I recommend you take a break. An hour. An afternoon. Even overnight. Then come back to the cards with fresh eyes, so you can strip out distracting points, redundancies, and things that just don't feel like they belong. Once again, we're refining. Polishing. When that's done, you're going to do some sorting according to the sales-pitch structure you've decided to use. The model you've seen recommended most in ETR is PPPP -- Promise, Picture, Proof, Push. So let's work with that one. The Promise pile gets all the cards that best describe product benefits ... The Picture pile gets the descriptive cards that make the benefits or the emotional context of the pitch feel vivid. In the Proof pile, place any cards with strong statistics, facts, figures, and testimonials ... Finally, in the Push pile, put any cards that seem most related to describing the offer. With this technique, creativity is almost automatic ... simply a sorting exercise. If you've done your work right, you can almost pick up each pile of cards in the proper PPPP order and start typing. If you still feel overwhelmed, reorganize your ideas within each of the four piles. (The more experienced you become, the less necessary this will be.) Give it a try. There is no better way to train your mind to spot selling ideas within a pile of untamed information. I'm sure you'll be impressed with the results. P.S. For more tips on developing your sales message ... and turning ideas into promotions that can drive your business ... check out the world's premier copywriting program from American Writers & Artists Inc. In their Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting, you'll discover the secrets behind one of the biggest, most lucrative, and least well-known industries in the world. And be sure to sign up for my weekly "Copywriter's Roundtable" e-letter. It's one of the longest running letters for marketers and copywriters online (since 2001) ... one of the best, according to top copywriter Bob Bly ... and free. You can sign up here, where you'll also get a free report: http://copywritersroundtable.com. ---------------------------------------------- Highly Recommended --------------------------------------------------- 90% of the Billionaires Living in America Weren't Born Rich - They became rich because they had the "Billionaire Mindset." This is the observation of Bob Cox, a gifted success mentor who had the rare privilege of working with four of the richest men in the world. If you want to learn how billionaires really think just listen to Bob… --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- More from Masterson... The Fed's Double-Dip Dance Everybody's saying we will be out of the recession by the third quarter. All that means, of course, is that GDP will be positive for one quarter. But as Investor's Daily Edge Investment Director Bob Irish notes, the government is driving that "recovery." They've injected money into housing, banks, and automakers. But they'll not be writing checks much longer. Cash for Clunkers is over. The T-bond buying spree will be over in October. And the Fed will stop buying mortgage-backed securities the first of the year. Bob says to expect a double-dip. That's right. Back into recession. ETR readers don't have to worry about that. We will find plenty of ways for you to make good money in the coming months. Keep us on your priority reading list. You won't be disappointed. A Midlife Crisis You Can Avoid Men -- there's yet another reason to keep belly fat to a minimum. Having too much fat around your middle increases your chances of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and cancer. In fact, a new study I read about in Total Health Breakthroughs found that the extra fat can double your risk of prostate cancer. Now, consider this: That belly makes it harder for you to get hard. I haven't actually seen any studies to support this. It's just a theory of mine based on, er, personal experience. But even if my theory is wrong, it will definitely make it less likely that you'll get laid. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Your format and content are much improved." "I'm a longtime reader of ETR. So is my son. We find it very stimulating. Your format and content are much improved, although your previous format was fine and we read it everyday.
"I find almost all the content to be helpful, even the ads 'Stellar Chance' complained about in the Sept. 1 issue. I learn almost as much from GOOD advertising as I do from editorial content. It is obvious that 'Stellar Chance' has very little 'chance' in marketing in any form. Certainly not 'Stellar.' He/she doesn't seem to understand how the world works. No doubt it was news to him/her that you are a business not a charity."
Doug Kelly
Springfield, MO ---------------------------------------------- Highly Recommended --------------------------------------------------- "But I'm not a writer" - As an Internet entrepreneur, you have to understand how to sell your product to the market that wants it. Part of that knowledge is technical: pay-per-click ads and SEO marketing. But the most important part is the copy itself: knowing which words persuade people to buy. You don't have to be a copywriter to recognize and create profit-producing copy. You can learn it from copy masters John Forde and Charlie Byrne. Read more… --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's Words That Work: Demographics Demographics (dem-uh-GRAF-iks) are statistical data that identify the characteristics of a segment of the population -- things like age, income, and level of education. In marketing, demographics are used to identify a targeted group of consumers. Example (as used by John Forde today): "Pile up a customer profile. Warm up with the general, aim for the specific. Use demographics and mailing lists. Surveys and focus groups." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We want your feedback! Let us know your thoughts on today's issue. Email us at: AskETR@ETRFeedback.com | 
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