| Several weeks ago, I told you about a guy I met at Joe's cigar bar. He was 54, out of a job, and ready to give up. He was too old to start over, he claimed. Death is inevitable, I told him. But aging is mostly a state of mind. It's perfectly possible to live an active and meaningful life well into your eighties. I was reminded of this conversation by a story Paul Lawrence told in a recent issue of his Small Biz Riches newsletter. It was about Jane Bockstruck, who celebrated her 92nd birthday by jumping out of a plane at 13,000 feet. My father learned to ski at 74 and hang-glided when he was 76. Jack LaLanne, the greatest fitness guru of them all, celebrated his 70th birthday by swimming a mile -- while towing 70 boats filled with 70 people. And let's not forget George Burns, who was still drinking martinis, smoking stogies, and doing standup until he died at 101. I started taking Jiu Jitsu lessons when I was 50. The guys I was learning with were in their early twenties. Nine years later, I'm still training and have earned a brown belt (an accomplishment I'm really proud of). In fact, I just returned from a week-long trip to Rio de Janeiro where I trained in the world-famous Brazilian Top Team dojo. I competed with brown and black belts exclusively (most in their twenties or thirties) and I won most of my matches. There's almost nothing you can't do in the second half of your life. So why is it that so many people stop trying? I think it's because we recognize our vulnerability as we get older. We realize, through experience, that we can hurt ourselves by making foolish choices. There is nothing wrong with recognizing our vulnerability. It is a natural form of wisdom. But it must be balanced with a commitment to live boldly. Without that, you will shrink away from anything that involves risk. Your instinctive fear of death will evolve into a stultifying fear of living. If you find that you have given in to getting old, it's not too late to make a new start. First, make a list of everything you've ever wanted to do, every place you've ever wanted to see, and every dream you've wanted to fulfill. Now cross out those you've accomplished. Study the remaining items. Ask yourself why you haven't accomplished them. What excuses are you giving yourself? To change your life you need two things: 1. Courage You need courage to wake up in the morning with a smile on your face. You need courage to go into work with a can-do attitude. You need courage to do all the things you have been putting off. (John F. Kennedy called this "the courage of your convictions.") 2. A new path To go in a new direction, you need a new path. And ETR is devoted to giving you dozens of proven paths to choose from. You need specific guidance from someone who's been there -- and that's what you get with every one of our programs. If you've been putting off starting a self-improvement program because, deep down inside, you are scared of the change it will bring, "sack up" as the kids say. Sack up and do it. ---------------------------------------------- Highly Recommended ---------------------------------------------------- ETR's 10-Pound Confidential Internet Marketing Playbook - When the Internet exploded 10 years ago, Michael Masterson was excited about its potential. But he predicted that it would develop very differently from what most "experts" expected. Since then, he and the rest of the ETR team have been making notes in a private journal. This "Playbook" contains all our best secrets. It was meant for our eyes only. But for a limited time, you can get a peek. Read more... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success." Pablo Picasso Online Marketing Is a Science, Not an Art Form
By David Cross Only the faint tick of the grandfather clock broke the silence as I waited for him to acknowledge my presence. He'd summoned me to his office to discuss the great idea I'd outlined in a memo only last week. So new in the company, yet already meeting with the Managing Director! After a few moments, he lifted his head from what he'd been working on, reached across his desk, and picked up two sheets of paper between his thumb and forefinger. My memo! "The idea itself is interesting and not devoid of merit," he said. "But then you fail to provide me with even a mediocre marketing plan or a smidgen of meaningful data to back it up. Do not ever waste my time again in this way." With that, he ripped my memo in half and dropped it in the trash. Precisely five minutes after I had entered his office, I was headed for the door. It took me many years to appreciate the lesson I should have learned that day: Without a plan that includes a way to measure the potential of your great idea, you'll never know if it is a rip-roaring success or an abject failure. That came to mind just last week. I was reviewing a client's e-mail acquisition strategies -- what was working, what we would test, and how we could keep costs down and still acquire profitable names. My client, "Elizabeth," had made some fairly significant changes to campaigns that were underperforming. I was interested in hearing how much of a difference those changes had made. "I don't know," she said. Then we reviewed changes Elizabeth had made some weeks earlier to her pay-per-click campaigns. What difference had those changes made? She didn't know. "Let's check, shall we?" I said. When we looked into it, the changes she'd made actually HALVED her signup rates and increased her acquisition costs. Elizabeth had no excuse. She'd been taught how to test changes and measure results. But she didn't bother. Shooting blindly in the dark and hoping to hit something is nuts! The Internet is perhaps the most measurable of all marketing channels, yet few online marketers measure what they are doing. Measuring the success -- or failure -- of your marketing activities is crucial. It is the basis upon which you must build your marketing campaigns. Every single online effort should test an assumption and should be set up in a way that allows you to measure that assumption. What should you measure? That depends. You'll probably want to measure several different aspects of any marketing activity. If, for example, you are bringing in new prospects, you'll want to assess both their initial acquisition cost and their subsequent purchases. You need to know if the means you're using to bring in those names is worth it or if you're throwing your money away. Let's take the painful example I outlined above and make some assumptions. (I'm being kind, but my gut feeling is that not only did Elizabeth not measure her results, she had no clue what she should be testing in the first place.) Elizabeth: 1. Ran a campaign to acquire e-mail addresses
2. Wanted to increase the number of signups to her e-mail newsletter
3. Wanted to keep her acquisition costs steady
4. Wanted the prospects she acquired to purchase at least at the same rate as previous prospects acquired through this same method Elizabeth's e-mail signup rate (baseline conversion rate) for her current campaign was about 8.5 percent. So any changes she made should have been done to improve that percentage. Instead, her signup rate decreased to less than 4.3 percent -- because she kept blindly making changes and ignoring all the data. If her signup rate had increased, the next thing would have been to continue to tweak the changes, possibly repeating those changes across other campaigns. Meanwhile, she would be watching to make sure the subscribers acquired after the changes made purchases at the same rate as subscribers brought onboard before the changes. At this point, you may be rolling your eyes at the hoops through which I am asking you to jump your little marketing pony. But unless you want to waste your time, money, and resources, you must define and track at least some simple baseline metrics and measure all your marketing efforts against those metrics. P.S. It really isn't as complex as it may sound. And I can help you get the answers to all the important questions you need to be asking as an Internet marketer. With my Internet Rant newsletter, you'll get "tough love" as well as my brutally honest take on the marketing tactics you should -- and should not -- be using. Find out more here. ----------------------------------------------Highly Recommended --------------------------------------------------- The "Obvious" Marketing Strategy... That Almost Every New Business Owner Forgets - Your favorite restaurant almost certainly does it. So do McDonald's and Starbucks. But I'll bet your new online business is missing out. If so, you're probably losing thousands. Read more to find out what "it" is... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Your Business Founders, Take Charge of Selling
By Michael Masterson
Contrary to what the Obama administration would like you to believe, the Great Recession is alive and growing. Businesses are going bankrupt right and left. And those that aren't tanking are seeing their profits diminish. This trend will probably continue. So if you are struggling to make profits and are hoping the economy is going to come roaring back, forget it. Government bailouts are going to the big bankers and brokers who aided and abetted the Great Recession. Entrepreneurs, at best, will get a little lip service. But nobody is going to send you a check or send checks to your customers suggesting that they spend that money with you. When your business starts foundering, procrastination is a mortal sin. At the first sign of diminished cash flow, you have to bring together your key people, share the numbers, and create a plan. As CEO, you are the team leader. And the team's first two goals should be to increase cash flow and cut expenses. (By the way, if you are not the CEO, this is a great opportunity for you to step up and become his right-hand man.) Usually the best way to increase cash flow is to introduce new products and offers to your existing customer base. If you have been running a good business and have good relationships with your customers they will do their best to respond to special offers, if only to help you out. Cutting expenses is emotionally challenging because it means discontinuing products you like, eliminating processes you have personally established, and, in some cases, firing perfectly good people. But for a business in trouble, it is essential. If you fail to do it, chances are you won't be around next year. Though cutting expenses may be difficult, your toughest job will be getting your marketing working again. And you can't delegate this responsibility to anyone else. You have to take charge of the marketing. That means really digging into it and using your experience to suggest changes you can test. It also means motivating your marketing team to implement those changes. There are several important benefits you will enjoy the moment you take charge of the marketing. For one thing, you will be able to stimulate new energy and enthusiasm in a team that may be demoralized. They've exhausted themselves trying to make the old tricks work. They'll welcome any new ideas you may come up with. Also -- by putting yourself back into the front-end action -- you will be able to see your business like you haven't seen it in some time. Furthermore, you'll be able to get really close to your customers -- to their beliefs, desires, and feelings about the products you are selling them. And that may give you the breakthrough idea you need. I recently tested this with a client whose business was losing money in chunks. Some projects were still working reasonably well. Others were gushing losses. After several months of trying this and that, I convinced him to fire his top marketer and do the marketing himself. Three months later, what was looking like a million-dollar disaster had reversed itself and was making a healthy profit. The bottom line: This is a bad time for small businesses. If your business is in trouble, don't expect to be rescued by the government or the economy. The rescuing must be done by you. You're the boss. You get the big bucks. Roll up your sleeves and do the hard work. You'll find the answers you need, and your business will be in the black again in no time. Think you're being "good" by eating low-fat foods? Sorry, says Total Health Breakthroughs' Melanie Segala. They're bad for you. That's because when the fat is removed manufacturers add starchy processed carbs to keep the food tasty. So stay away from low-fat. The added carbs could cause heart disease and diabetes. Train Your Staff To Be Your Information Filters
By Michael Masterson
Your staffers may try to dazzle you by producing voluminous white papers, complex analyses, etc. So what? These days, anyone can find huge amounts of data on the Internet on any topic. And it's a big waste of your time to dig through it to find something you can use. What you need is highly distilled, critical information. So if your people really want to impress you, they should bring you only what's necessary. The best way to train them to do that is to simply reject their massive reports. Say, "Bring this back to me when you've got it refined down to a single page." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Latest News - Suspicious of New Agey self-help mumbo-jumbo? So are we. But we do like practical tips for improving your life. Yesterday, we introduced a program we created with self-improvement mentor Dr. Srikumar Rao. Did you miss it?
- Rich Schefren, founder of Strategic Profits, is a good friend of ETR and will be a featured speaker at our upcoming Bootcamp. He's just launched a new program called "The League of Extraordinary Minds." It's been under wraps, so even we don't know much about it. But if it's from Rich, we know it's good. Check it out.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Many implementable ideas." "Today's articles were indeed good and relevant, with many implementable ideas. "Hobbies are great stress busters, and also add value to one's life. And it's absolutely true that the saving habit can improve your financial well-being. A simple formula that can be adopted is 'Do not buy what you do not need today.' Instead, invest in education and the health of the family." R. Sundaresh
Pune, Maharashtra, India ---------------------------------------------- Highly Recommended --------------------------------------------------- Watch Out for Hidden Fees - Using an online broker is a quick and easy way to manage your investments. But soon you're paying thousands in fees they "forgot" to mention when you signed up. Ka-Ching Editor Matthew Adams has found five online brokers that do not increase fees after the introductory period. Plus... they don't charge inactivity, minimum trade, or option trade fees. Read on to find out who they are... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Language Perfectionist: Whose Rules?
By Don Hauptman
If you're old enough, you may recall a song that contains the lyric, "So it's the meantime, meantime / All they gave me is that in-between time." The words meantime and meanwhile are handy transitional devices, but they are sometimes misused. For all practical purposes, the words are interchangeable. Both mean simultaneously or during a brief intervening time. Both words may be used alone. But always write or say in the meantime, never in the meanwhile. To begin a sentence, use Meanwhile, not Meantime. The following are correct: - "I'm waiting for an important e-mail message to arrive. In the meantime, I'm reading the headlines."
- "The sheriff pursued and captured the two bank robbers. Meanwhile, back at the ranch..."
A final tip: In The Careful Writer, Theodore M. Bernstein advises his readers to be certain that the two events under discussion really are simultaneous or close in time. An example of what to avoid: "The play opened in Chicago a year ago. Meanwhile, the producers are raising money to transfer it to Broadway." [Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We want your feedback! Let us know your thoughts on today's issue. Email us at: AskETR@ETRFeedback.com | 
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