| If you're feeling guilty about pushing people around, cheating on your spouse, or neglecting your children, here's good news: It's never too late to be forgiven. You may not get your victim to forgive you -- especially if you have been abusing him or her for years and years. But you can get someone else to. That someone else is you. It's astonishing, really. No matter how serious your offense -- no matter what people say or think about you and your past -- you can relieve yourself of its psychological burden with a simple act of will. And the moment you do, you'll be free to move on. I'm not necessarily recommending self-forgiveness. Just pointing out that it's within your reach. And here's something else to ponder: If it's never too late to forgive yourself, it's also never too late to revise yourself. -----------------------------------------------------Highly Recommended ----------------------------------------------------- Do You Make the Most of Your Time? - Michael Masterson has a super-busy schedule. But he can still make time to do what he loves. Can you do the same? If you feel hemmed in by deadlines and obligations... and never have time for yourself... let success mentor Bob Cox show you his proven time-management techniques. Read more...
"If your goal is anything but profitability -- if it's to be big, or to grow fast, or to become a technology leader -- you'll hit problems." Michael Porter The Most Important Piece of Equipment Any Marketer Can Own
By Bob Bly
What's the most important piece of office equipment any marketer can own? It's not a copier... a color printer... or even a PC. It's a pocket calculator. Costs only a few bucks to buy one, yet many marketers I speak to seem either not to own one... or, if do they own one, they don't use it. Here's what leads me to this conclusion... At least once a week, I get a call or e-mail that goes something like this: "Bob, my name is John Q. Public. I've self-published a terrific book, and I want you to write a direct-mail package to help me sell it. What do you charge?" After I ask a few questions, I find out what I need to know... The book has a cover price of $15. John printed 3,000 copies at a short-run book printer for $3 a copy... and, therefore, his net per copy is $12. I tell John to forget it, because he'll never make money selling that book with a direct-mail campaign. John is shocked. He spent nine grand of his kid's college fund printing those 3,000 books. They are cluttering up his spare bedroom. His wife wants them out of the house. Bookstores have no interest in carrying John's self-published book. Newspapers aren't reviewing it. He was counting on direct mail to make him rich and famous. And here I am, crushing his hopes and dreams. "Why can't you write a direct-mail package to sell this book?" John wants to know. "Do the math," I urge him. I get out a calculator and do it for him. And here's what we find... His net revenue is just $12 per book. To do a small test of a traditional direct-mail package -- outer envelope, sales letter, flier, order form, reply envelope -- could cost him $600 per thousand or more. Let's say he tests a thousand pieces. At a cost in the mail of $600, he needs to sell 50 books just to break even. That's a response rate of 5 percent -- very difficult to achieve with a rented mailing list. To make a profit of $600 on every thousand pieces mailed, he'd have to sell 100 books. That'd mean a 10 percent response to his mailer. Almost impossible. I explain all this to John. He becomes more depressed with every word. I'm not telling him what he wants to hear. "Don't worry," I tell John. "There are dozens of marketing consultants and copywriters out there who will tell you it can work. And they'll be happy to take your money and write a promotion for you." But that doesn't matter. Because the numbers say that, no matter how great the direct-mail copy is, the promotion won't make money. John didn't need me to tell him that. He could have determined it for himself by using the most powerful tool a marketer can own: a pocket calculator. The problem with many marketers -- especially entrepreneurs -- is that they are "idea people," dreamers who think big. Unfortunately, the point of marketing is not just to innovate... or be creative... or come up with really nifty products and services. It's to sell your products and services at a profit. And to be an effective marketer, you have to know a few numbers -- like product pricing... cost of goods... profit margins... typical response rates... and mailing costs. You then get out your calculator. And, based on those numbers, you can quickly determine whether your idea can fly -- or is doomed to lose money. (By the way, though it's not difficult to calculate the response rate needed to break even on a direct-mail campaign, I don't have space to show you the simple formulas here. So I've created a free online calculator you can use at dmresponsecalculator.com.) What John needs is a higher price point and a bigger profit margin. The easiest way to achieve that is to publish his information as an e-book instead of a physical book. Physical books are priced based on their resemblance to books sold in bookstores, which, for a paperback, means $10 to $20 per copy. E-books do not resemble "bookstore books" in appearance, and so their price is dictated by the value of the information they convey. That's why e-books typically sell for anywhere from $29 to $49 or more. Also there are no printing or binding costs with e-books. Since an e-book is a downloadable PDF file, the profit margin is close to 100 percent. In John's case, even if his book were an e-book selling for $49, I still would have discouraged him. That's because the profits in direct marketing are mostly in the "back-end" -- repeat sales to customers who have bought an initial product from you. But as a self-publisher who has only one product, John has no back end. And, therefore, no viable business. Solution: Create a line of e-books all related to the topic of the first book. Once a customer has purchased the first book, repeatedly market to him via e-mail to sell additional e-books in the product line. P.S. To find out more about making money with e-books, read my e-book "Writing E-Books for Fun and Profit." For more information or to order on a risk-free 90-day trial basis, visit www.myveryfirstebook.com. -----------------------------------------------------Highly Recommended ----------------------------------------------------- "But I'm not a writer" - As an Internet entrepreneur you have to learn to recognize effective sales copy -- if not write it yourself. Good copy is just too important to your business. But even if you're not a "writer," you can learn the secrets of profit-producing copy. And why not let master copywriters John Forde and ETR's own Charlie Byrne be your teachers? Read more...
Is Your Product Trapped in "Commodity Hell?"
By John Forde
I shaved this morning thinking about "commodity hell." That's when a market for a product is so crowded that every version of it is practically the same. Interchangeable with the competition. And the only way to give yourself an advantage is to slash prices until the pain of profit loss squeezes either you or your competitors out of the business. This is not a position you want to be in. But it happens. In an old New Yorker -- June 15, 1998 -- James Surowiecki wrote about how one company, Gillette, managed to dig itself out. First, Gillette focused heavily on advertising. And it worked. But only for so long. Other razor companies had new products in the pipeline. So Gillette had to switch its focus to the staple of cutting-edge competition: product innovation. An enormous amount of research and testing went into binding a substance called "DLC" (for "diamond-like carbon") to steel. The result was a blade not only 3-4 times stronger than plain steel but also thinner and sharper. While other razors had two blades, Gillette's had three. Engineers watched Terminator 2 to visualize the chrome-coated design. Marketing whittled over 100 name choices down to four. And then one -- the Mach 3. Gillette sold $2.9 billion worth of Mach 3s in a single year. It is far and away the industry leader. (I use one. There's a chance you do too.) When you've got a product that's hard to differentiate, think of the Gillette story. Is your product newer and better than all the rest? How well is that emphasized in your advertising? And if the advertising is pulling its weight, is there a way you could innovate or update the product? Simple thoughts. But if it's good enough for a giant like Gillette... well, you get the picture. [Ed. Note: To get more of copywriting expert John Forde's wisdom and insights into marketing (and much more), sign up for his free e-letter, Copywriter's Roundtable, at www.copywritersroundtable.com.] -----------------------------------------------------Advertisement----------------------------------------------------- The Closest You'll Get to Effortless Weight Loss Suppose you could drop all your unwanted fat... without going to the gym or forcing yourself to live on rice cakes and tofu burgers? A new clinical study says it's possible -- with what may be the most successful weight-loss compound ever tested. The people in this study -- which was published in the medical journal Lipids in Health and Disease -- lost an average of 28 pounds and 6 inches off their belly. And they didn't change their diet or exercise habits.
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How to Find the Lighter Side of Life
By Bob Cox Whether you are trying to build a business... lose 20 pounds... learn French... or get that promotion you've been eyeing, you're working hard to achieve something that's meaningful to you. You take your goal very seriously. And you should. You should work hard and be punctilious. But there's one other thing you need to do: You need to lighten up. I'm not suggesting that you should laugh and shrug off any problems that come up. I'm just saying that you should be a little more flexible in the way you deal with them. A few years ago, I got caught up in my desire to complete a particular project on time and on budget. It's a worthy goal. But that mission dominated my mind to such an extent that my team members did not enjoy working with me. And the project wasn't getting done. After enough negative feedback, I realized that I was the problem. I recognized that I wasn't saving the planet or doing brain surgery. I needed to step back and lighten up. Once I did, we all started to enjoy the work. The lighter side of me brought tons of creative input and ideas to the table. The others started contributing too. They felt more comfortable. With renewed vigor, we finished on time and on budget. My sense of accomplishment was sweeter because of the camaraderie. And things kept getting better after that initial success. The entire team was looking forward to our next goal, because the experience of working together had been so rewarding. It's a surprising and powerful revelation: You can make any process more productive and enjoyable when you lighten up on yourself and others. [Ed. Note: Take a tip from Bob Cox: Relax and let go a little bit, even when it comes to your most important goals. Bob's a career high-achiever -- and he's helped four men become billionaires. You can get his expert advice and strategies for making your longest-held dreams come true. Learn how right here.]
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Samuel Thompson -----------------------------------------------------Highly Recommended----------------------------------------------------- The Greatest Dirty Little Secret of the Internet To make money as an entrepreneur, you've got to constantly scour the earth for high-quality, in-demand products. You could create new ones. But that can be expensive. Time-consuming. And after all the work... you might wind up with nothing. But a few of the Internet's top marketers have found a way around this problem. They don't spend time (or money) on products that may or may not sell. Instead, they pluck money makers from a reserve of pre-made products and sales promotions. A martial arts expert from Florida has 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 money makers... And learn how you could use this secret to make anywhere from a few hundred bucks a month to a few hundred thousand bucks a year right here.
Today's Words That Work: Punctilious Punctilious (pungk-TIL-ee-us) -- from the Italian for "point" -- means conscientious or meticulous, paying strict attention to details. Example (as used by Bob Cox today): "You take your goal very seriously. And you should. You should work hard and be punctilious."
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