When You Try To Be All Things to All People, You Become Nothing to Everybody
By Michael Masterson
It takes courage to turn away a paying customer. But sometimes that is what you should do. Let's say you have a business that repairs car brakes. You have three mechanics who work for you. One of them is a master mechanic. He can do just about anything. Someone comes into your shop and asks you to repair his muffler. You could use the business, so you take the job. Fast-forward one year and you have become a regular auto repair shop with no unique selling proposition. You are plenty busy, but you are not making nearly the profit you projected. What happened? By generalizing, you gave up three significant advantages: - You lost the overhead savings that come from doing only one thing.
- You went from a business that had a memorable purpose to something very ordinary and forgettable.
- You gave up the high profit margins that come from specializing in one product or service.
MacDonald's sells several dozen products today. But when Roy Kroc took it over, he focused on hamburgers and fries. If he had succumbed to the temptation of turning his restaurant into a diner, he would have become just another diner owner instead of one of the most successful restaurateurs in American history. ---------------------------------------------- Highly Recommended ---------------------------------------------------- The Relaxation Technique That Eases Stress in Seconds You're stuck in a boring meeting... a long line at the bank... or bumper-to-bumper traffic. Your blood pressure is rising. But with one unconventional (and often misunderstood) technique, your frustration, anxiety, and stress simply slip away. You'll feel peaceful, in control, and happy within seconds. Any time. Anywhere. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "People have moved beyond apathy, beyond skepticism into deep cynicism." Elliot Richardson Are Marketing Sea Changes Killing Your Response?
By Clayton Makepeace I'm so old, I'll betcha my tie has gone in and out of style at least five times. Not that I pay much attention to such things, mind you. My professional life revolves around marketing trends. And there again, my advanced age means I've seen many promotional styles over the years. But through it all, the principles of creating effective sales copy pretty much stayed the same. And for one simple reason: Our prospective customers weren't changing much. In 1975, for example, my average 65-year-old prospect had been born in 1910. In '85, I was writing primarily to folks who'd been born in 1920. In '95, my average prospect had been born in 1930. All of these prospects had common values. They all had memories of the Great Depression... World War II... and of gathering around a flickering black-and-white television for Ozzie and Harriet and Father Knows Best. Their Weltanschauung was formed at a time when a man's word was his bond and good character meant everything. They were raised by their parents to revere the government... trust the family doctor... respect their employers... believe what the media told them. And also to assume that most of the advertising they saw and heard was true. It was for these generations that the great advertising masters created their legendary ads. And it was from these generations that the masters learned what worked best before passing it on to us in their classic books. Now, these generations are being gradually replaced. Oh, what a difference a single generation can make! Today's 65-year-old prospect was born in 1942. Way too young to remember World War II, let alone the Great Depression. More important, he turned 18 in 1960. And he acquired his skills as a consumer smack-dab in the middle of the "Question Authority" era of the 60s and early 70s. Vietnam and Watergate produced the most cynical generation America had ever seen. What's more, that generation did an excellent job of passing its skepticism on to its children. Those hyper-cynical "Generation Xers" are now your 26- to 47-year-old prospects. Meanwhile, two additional sea changes have been giving our prospects even greater reasons to distrust anything they see, hear, or read. Including our ads. The first one began with the appearance of The National Enquirer, packed with stories of alien encounters and other such horsepucky. Soon, other publishers figured out they could get rich by appealing to our baser instincts. And tons of "me-too" tabloids -- featuring stories of the lurid and bizarre -- began springing up like crazy. Finally, the national media figured it out too -- and started spending less time covering news that matters. They became obsessed with Joey Buttafuoko, Lorena Bobbit, Monica Lewinsky, the status of Britney Spears's underwear -- and, of course, UFOs. Now, I ask you. Can you imagine the venerable Walter Cronkite reporting on such things? Neither can our prospects. And now, while the once-respected media have been busy debauching themselves, a second sea change has taken place. The Internet -- an even less responsible medium -- has taken center stage. Since people can pretty much say whatever they want on the 'Net -- whether it's true or not -- many do. And so, for consumers whose IQ is larger than their shoe size, online advertising claims are taken with a grain of salt. What does all this mean to you? Well, for one thing... Everything you think you know about marketing is becoming obsolete. The advertising masters -- Kennedy, Lasker, Hopkins, Collier, Schwab, Caples, Reeves, Ogilvy, and others -- created their classic ads for a radically different audience. It's time to stop asking, "What did the masters say in their books?" and to begin asking, "What would they HAVE DONE if they had been presented with today's prospects?" As a marketer, overcoming your prospects' skepticism is your greatest challenge. The good news is, it can be done. Because though our prospects are radically different than their parents and grandparents, they have one thing in common with them: They like to spend money. The desire to feather our nests... purchase products that can make us richer or healthier... buy things that save us time, effort, or money... spend on things that assuage boredom or improve status... is every bit as powerful as it ever was. Nevertheless, the way in which we deliver the message that our products can satisfy those desires must change. Today, it's all about developing a relationship with your prospect. It's about building credibility and loyalty over time. Marketers who do that are growing by leaps and bounds. Those who cling to the old models are losing ground. Today's prospect is likely to ignore sales communications that look like sales communications. Instead, newsy leads that key on something they are already thinking about often work best. Lower-key, value-added advertorials that reward prospects for reading by delivering useful information is leaving the high-energy language of the carnival barker in the dust. It's all about persuasion. Falling back on the old ways and just throwing around a bunch of promises is easy. Thinking is hard. Climbing inside your prospect's skin... fully understanding what he must first know before he's likely to purchase your product... then presenting that information in a way that's engaging, entertaining, and credible -- and doing all that without having your sales copy sound like sales copy. That is the hardest kind of hard. But it's worth it. A while ago, I wrote a series of friendly e-mails inviting prospects to attend a free teleseminar on international investing. More than 5,000 people signed up. And the call delivered valuable, actionable advice to help investors profit in foreign stock markets. It also sold somewhere north of $1.5 million in subscriptions in a matter of hours. Meanwhile, we blasted an "obvious" USP-based promotion to prospects. It barely registered on the response Richter scale. Worth thinking about... P.S. At Early to Rise's Info-Marketing Bootcamp this November, I'll be sharing even more insights about what is working in Internet marketing today -- and what isn't. I'll reveal how to boost response and sales in today's market. And I'll tell you exactly how to avoid the mistakes that have been slowly killing so many online businesses in the past couple of years. Find out more about Bootcamp here. ----------------------------------------------Highly Recommended --------------------------------------------------- The Greatest Dirty Little Secret of the Internet To make money on the Internet, you have to produce and sell lots of products. But producing all those products can be expensive and time-consuming. And after all the work and investment, you could end up broke. There is a very clever way to get around this problem. It's being used by a few of today's top Internet moneymakers. But they aren't talking about it. They don't spend time (or money) on products that may or may not sell. Instead, they pluck moneymakers from a reservoir of pre-made products and sales promotions. A martial arts expert from Florida turned this strategy into a small fortune. He estimates that one "pre-made product" made over $20,000 in one month. Another has gone on to pull in over $332,250. Discover how he found these moneymakers ... And learn how you could use this secret to make anywhere from a few hundred bucks a month to a few hundred thousand a year right here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The 3 Essential Functions of Every Successful Business
By Michael Masterson
What I am about to tell you is the most important thing you will ever hear about starting a business. (I have probably started more businesses than anyone I've ever met, so please forgive me for sounding like a know-it-all.) Ready? To start a business -- any business -- successfully, you must be able to do three things: - Develop a product that people want to buy.
- Figure out how to sell it at a profit.
- Push yourself and everyone else on your start-up team to get the first two things done before you run out of money.
To make that happen, you must have three distinct personalities on your start-up team: - A thinker
- A marketer
- A pusher
The thinker's primary job is to come up with new ideas. He must understand the psychology of the market. He must know who your typical customer is, what he likes to buy and why. The marketer's primary job is to understand the mechanics of sales and marketing. He must know all the details -- and pay attention to them. The pusher's primary job is to be pushy. He must be goal-oriented and willing to take on the responsibility of making the thinker and marketer do their jobs. In an ideal world, every new business would be launched by three people: a thinker, a marketer, and a pusher. But in most cases, new businesses are started by one or two people. And that means one person must do the work of two or three. You might have a good marketer who is a so-so idea man and is trying to run the business himself. Or a talented product developer who partners with a good marketer but has no one to do the day-to-day pushing. I know of one business that has neither a good marketer nor a good idea person. It gets by -- barely -- but only because its CEO keeps pushing inexperienced people to make mostly mediocre efforts. Imperfectly balanced start-ups can succeed so long as all the people at the top recognize the work that needs to be done and work hard. But don't lose sight of the three essential jobs that need to be done and the different personalities those jobs require. Ignore them at your peril. Do you depend on the major media for your health information? If so, you may think osteoporosis affects only women.
In fact, it's a health problem for men too. And because most men don't know they're at risk, they're far less likely to take action to prevent it. Men get one-third of all osteoporosis-related bone fractures. But their chances of complications are dramatically higher than they are for women. Men with prostate cancer are especially vulnerable. Both the disease and a common treatment -- androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) -- contribute to bone loss. Here's how to lower your risk: - Maintain adequate levels of vitamin D. All it takes is two or three hours per week of exposure to sunlight, say the folks at Total Health Breakthroughs. If you can't spend that much time in the sun, take a vitamin D supplement or cod liver oil.
- Get at least 1,000 mg of calcium per day, preferably from your diet. A high-protein diet makes more calcium available for building bone density. Just one more reason to make healthy protein part of every meal.
Don't Let Anyone Tell You What You Can -- or Can't -- Do
By Michael Masterson
"I'd love to be in the communications business," Sarah, an accountant, told me. "But I'm an introvert. Plus, I'm boring. So I studied accounting in college. And though I'm doing something I'm good at, I hate my job." "Who beat this girl up?" I wondered. "Where did she get the idea that you have to be an extrovert and interesting to be successful at communications?" Most of the successful writers I know are introverts. And some of the most popular public speakers I know (you know them too) are just plain boring when you sit down and talk to them. I blame those stupid personality tests given by guidance counselors for Sarah's self-imposed limitations. The idea that you will be happier and more successful if you know "who you are" is bunk. It's just pure bunk. You can become good at anything that appeals to you. It doesn't matter what your "personality" is right now. That will change over time with the confidence you will get from learning and growing and acquiring skills. Study the field you want to go into and figure out what it is that successful people in that field do. Break down each thing they do into its component parts, and practice each part till you get good at it. If you put in 1,000 hours of work (less if you have good coaching), you will be on your way to success in any career -- even if the "experts" tell you that you have zero talent for it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Latest News - Scared off Wall Street? Liberty Street League Editor Charles Newcastle has the perfect remedy. It's a monthly guide to "off the Street" investment and wealth building opportunities, with some of the financial world's top experts leading the way. Check it out here.
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