Monday, January 30, 2012
onlinemarketing: The personal ad you’d love to post… but don’t have...
onlinemarketing: The personal ad you’d love to post… but don’t have...: Author’s program note. As far as I can tell, everyone in the world has either run a personal ad (mostly online), is running one at this mo...
The personal ad you’d love to post… but don’t have the guts!
Author’s program note. As far as I can tell, everyone in the world
has either run a personal ad (mostly online), is running one at this
moment… or will run one before you can say “Jack Robinson.” This means
you. The question is not whether you will use personal ads… but whether
they’ll deliver the exact person you are seeking. Sadly, the vast
majority of personal ads cannot deliver the bacon (or the cheese cake or
the beef cake). They just don’t provide enough detail and so are quite
capable of delivering the Wrong Prospects. Witness the personal ad
celebrated by Jimmy Buffet in the tune that made Pina Coladas mandatory
Happy Hour fare as you bar hopped in pursuit of nirvana.
Start by going to any search engine and listen to Buffet’s anthem. It was written by Rupert Holmes and recorded in 1979. It’s official title is “Escape” but hardly anyone knows that except Buffet who became with each insouciant word the recognized master of la dolce far niente… or, since most of you know no Eye-talian, the art of doing absolutely nothing… and doing it with the utmost style and grace, but without ever breaking a sweat.
Buffet’s tune makes it clear why personals as currently structured are silly, pointless, absolutely certain to deliver people you wouldn’t be seen dead with. I mean, who doesn’t like getting caught in the rain (given the right person on your arm)… who doesn’t hate yoga…. and is hardly into health foods… but insists on champagne? Add long walks on a beach, making love at midnight in the dunes of the cape, and holding hands at the cinema… and you’ve got the personal ad in all its banal insipidity.
The wonder is not that they don’t work for most people investing hope, time and money in them; the wonder is that they work for anyone at all… but then there are people (one hopes not you) who can be fully described with a few generic phrases. Avoid them like the plague.
Time for rethinking the personal ad.
In the olden days when personals appeared solely in newspapers and a few progressive publications like the alumni magazine for Harvard and such finicky folk as insisted on making known their preference for classical composers, stock brokers, and obscure holiday destinations; in those days one paid by the word and through the nose. Publishers counted on your desperation and longing to fill their coffers. Even the august Times of London cleaned up with such ads, universally called the agony column and always run on Page 1: “Should the fine lady in the blue mantle with yellow sleeves exiting the horse cars at Grosvenor Square Thursday last at 10:59 a.m. desire the acquaintance of a gentleman of means…”, but you get the picture.
When writing such ads, where each word raised the cost, it was necessary to cultivate the virtues of laconic language, short, sweet, clipped. The objective was always to meet the person ardently desired but spend pennies, not pounds. As a result, it was understandable, even excusable when advertisers slashed words; robust clarity at all times was desirable… but unaffordable.
Enter the Internet.
The very first thing I learned about the ‘net was that it’s boundless, inexhaustible, absolutely unlimited. Thus, it can hold, maintain and preserve infinity. The implications of this fact are fathomless, too… not least on the matter of creating personal ads that get you the long-awaited apple of your eye. For now, since we have an infinity of space, there can be absolutely no excuse for writing and posting ads which are at once jejune, inadequate, and platitudinous in the extreme. They don’t work, can never work, and must be abandoned, jettisoned, abjured, forsaken and, in case you miss the point, tossed into the dustbin of history at once.
Now you can write this all-important ad without being hobbled and restricted. You are at last permitted, nay empowered and directed to write what must be written, the ad, the whole ad, and nothing but the ad.
… but this will take careful thought and planning, for it is doubtful ere now that even one personal advertiser has written the magnificent advertisement you are about to write, edit, post, and benefit from for a lifetime. As such the most scrupulous planning is de rigueur and cannot be stinted.
Two people, two parts.
A good personal ad, which is to say an ad that accomplishes the desired objective, must be divided into two parts: half about who you are; half about what you desire in the person you wish to present the key to your (probably much bruised) heart.
Brainstorming, musing, total honesty.
Now, we all know that everyone, absolutely everyone lies in their personal ads. Excess pounds disappear as if by magic; years are thrust in the dresser drawer; educational degrees are now cited from institutions which scorned the pleasure of your company; financial net worth up, all manner of imperfections down; spouses of decades unmentioned, and the eight darling children, too. This is the nature of the beast… until now. Now you have the space to tell everything… and complete details on the extenuating circumstances. Yes, you were flunked out of Alma Mater, but it was most assuredly not your fault… and you insist upon making the full dossier available right here and now. You have the space; honesty is desirable; and your bringing up the subject at all proves what a gem you are.
Thus instead of lying about the pounds you haven’t lost, cite the reasons why. Honestly own up to the fact that your dietary habits are lax; list all your favorite foods… and the rate you consume them. List your last month’s worth of dinner menus… and be scrupulous, entirely above board with everything you consumed, the kind of dishes on which you served the repast, and exactly what you did with the left-overs. You want your soon-to-be beloved to know you, fully, completely and so ardently; for after all, honesty is the bedrock of every meaningful relationship, don’t you agree?
The desired one.
Once you have gathered all the critical intelligence about yourself, proceed at once to Part 2 of your ad, the absolutely crucial verbiage about the person to whom you wish to extend the glorious honor of sharing bed and board. Your complete and total focus is required. Again, brainstorm every desirable point, giving equal attention to what you do not want and cannot abide, and what you must have, a deal killer if not readily available, and in the desired quantity, too.
Starting this list is easy, almost effortless. You either want a smoker… or you don’t. You either can accept pets (even the most exotic)… or you can’t. But make it a point to move beyond these obvious points. Consider such matters as the odor you desire in a mate; how many showers per day; the kind, frequency and intensity of bodily hygiene. Honesty is required, and so honesty there must be. And if the length of your ad grows long and weighty, what of it? What you are doing here impacts the curvature of two lives, so no apology is necessary.
Post at once, reap your reward.
First, you are to be congratulated. You are a pioneer, a model of integrity and rectitude. Now it’s time to reap the inevitable rewards which must come with posting. Mind, it may take a little time to get the single response this ad is meant to generate, for so thorough have you been that there can only be one response… from that extraordinary person daft enough to put up with you…and love you anyway.
*** We invite you to post your comments to this article below.
Start by going to any search engine and listen to Buffet’s anthem. It was written by Rupert Holmes and recorded in 1979. It’s official title is “Escape” but hardly anyone knows that except Buffet who became with each insouciant word the recognized master of la dolce far niente… or, since most of you know no Eye-talian, the art of doing absolutely nothing… and doing it with the utmost style and grace, but without ever breaking a sweat.
Buffet’s tune makes it clear why personals as currently structured are silly, pointless, absolutely certain to deliver people you wouldn’t be seen dead with. I mean, who doesn’t like getting caught in the rain (given the right person on your arm)… who doesn’t hate yoga…. and is hardly into health foods… but insists on champagne? Add long walks on a beach, making love at midnight in the dunes of the cape, and holding hands at the cinema… and you’ve got the personal ad in all its banal insipidity.
The wonder is not that they don’t work for most people investing hope, time and money in them; the wonder is that they work for anyone at all… but then there are people (one hopes not you) who can be fully described with a few generic phrases. Avoid them like the plague.
Time for rethinking the personal ad.
In the olden days when personals appeared solely in newspapers and a few progressive publications like the alumni magazine for Harvard and such finicky folk as insisted on making known their preference for classical composers, stock brokers, and obscure holiday destinations; in those days one paid by the word and through the nose. Publishers counted on your desperation and longing to fill their coffers. Even the august Times of London cleaned up with such ads, universally called the agony column and always run on Page 1: “Should the fine lady in the blue mantle with yellow sleeves exiting the horse cars at Grosvenor Square Thursday last at 10:59 a.m. desire the acquaintance of a gentleman of means…”, but you get the picture.
When writing such ads, where each word raised the cost, it was necessary to cultivate the virtues of laconic language, short, sweet, clipped. The objective was always to meet the person ardently desired but spend pennies, not pounds. As a result, it was understandable, even excusable when advertisers slashed words; robust clarity at all times was desirable… but unaffordable.
Enter the Internet.
The very first thing I learned about the ‘net was that it’s boundless, inexhaustible, absolutely unlimited. Thus, it can hold, maintain and preserve infinity. The implications of this fact are fathomless, too… not least on the matter of creating personal ads that get you the long-awaited apple of your eye. For now, since we have an infinity of space, there can be absolutely no excuse for writing and posting ads which are at once jejune, inadequate, and platitudinous in the extreme. They don’t work, can never work, and must be abandoned, jettisoned, abjured, forsaken and, in case you miss the point, tossed into the dustbin of history at once.
Now you can write this all-important ad without being hobbled and restricted. You are at last permitted, nay empowered and directed to write what must be written, the ad, the whole ad, and nothing but the ad.
… but this will take careful thought and planning, for it is doubtful ere now that even one personal advertiser has written the magnificent advertisement you are about to write, edit, post, and benefit from for a lifetime. As such the most scrupulous planning is de rigueur and cannot be stinted.
Two people, two parts.
A good personal ad, which is to say an ad that accomplishes the desired objective, must be divided into two parts: half about who you are; half about what you desire in the person you wish to present the key to your (probably much bruised) heart.
Brainstorming, musing, total honesty.
Now, we all know that everyone, absolutely everyone lies in their personal ads. Excess pounds disappear as if by magic; years are thrust in the dresser drawer; educational degrees are now cited from institutions which scorned the pleasure of your company; financial net worth up, all manner of imperfections down; spouses of decades unmentioned, and the eight darling children, too. This is the nature of the beast… until now. Now you have the space to tell everything… and complete details on the extenuating circumstances. Yes, you were flunked out of Alma Mater, but it was most assuredly not your fault… and you insist upon making the full dossier available right here and now. You have the space; honesty is desirable; and your bringing up the subject at all proves what a gem you are.
Thus instead of lying about the pounds you haven’t lost, cite the reasons why. Honestly own up to the fact that your dietary habits are lax; list all your favorite foods… and the rate you consume them. List your last month’s worth of dinner menus… and be scrupulous, entirely above board with everything you consumed, the kind of dishes on which you served the repast, and exactly what you did with the left-overs. You want your soon-to-be beloved to know you, fully, completely and so ardently; for after all, honesty is the bedrock of every meaningful relationship, don’t you agree?
The desired one.
Once you have gathered all the critical intelligence about yourself, proceed at once to Part 2 of your ad, the absolutely crucial verbiage about the person to whom you wish to extend the glorious honor of sharing bed and board. Your complete and total focus is required. Again, brainstorm every desirable point, giving equal attention to what you do not want and cannot abide, and what you must have, a deal killer if not readily available, and in the desired quantity, too.
Starting this list is easy, almost effortless. You either want a smoker… or you don’t. You either can accept pets (even the most exotic)… or you can’t. But make it a point to move beyond these obvious points. Consider such matters as the odor you desire in a mate; how many showers per day; the kind, frequency and intensity of bodily hygiene. Honesty is required, and so honesty there must be. And if the length of your ad grows long and weighty, what of it? What you are doing here impacts the curvature of two lives, so no apology is necessary.
Post at once, reap your reward.
First, you are to be congratulated. You are a pioneer, a model of integrity and rectitude. Now it’s time to reap the inevitable rewards which must come with posting. Mind, it may take a little time to get the single response this ad is meant to generate, for so thorough have you been that there can only be one response… from that extraordinary person daft enough to put up with you…and love you anyway.
*** We invite you to post your comments to this article below.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
onlinemarketing: They have this dance for the rest of their lives.
onlinemarketing: They have this dance for the rest of their lives.: Author’s program note. Remember your first crush? The heat! The intensity! The euphoric ups and despondent downs? Of course you do… becau...
They have this dance for the rest of their lives.
Author’s program note.
Remember your first crush? The heat! The intensity! The euphoric ups and despondent downs? Of course you do… because while it lasted, we all felt vital! Alive! Complete…. for all that the parents told us, over and over again, that this was nothing but “puppy love” and wouldn’t last. But it did last, didn’t it, in your mind and heart… to the point where you must find this well remembered person and see how they turned out and whether they still remember you, too, and the special song that was your signature and which even today causes reverie and the sharp, bittersweet pangs of remembrance and a bad case of the “what ifs”…
And so, for the fortieth time, you sit down at the keyboard and search the ‘net and its social networks for intelligence… intelligence that will enable you to rediscover your lost love, your youth, and the life you might have had if only… if only…
“Goodnight, sweetheart”.
To put yourself in the mood, go to any search engine and find “Goodnight, sweetheart” written by Calvin Carter and James “Pookie” Hudson in 1953. I recommend the original version by The Spaniels (1954). It was bubble-gum music, a tune that signalled you’d better snuggle up fast and close since your evening and its possibilities were about to end…. Whatever you planned to do needed to be done and done now… You know its lyrics so well… you know just how much time you’ve got left… and you’ve got something important to say and do.
“Goodnight, sweetheart, well, it’s time to go…. I hate to leave you, I really must say, Oh Goodnight, sweet heart, goodnight.”
This is a moment that determines fate… for in this moment the ultimate words of destiny pour out… hot, fast, insistent…. every word of consequence, every word packed with meaning… words of love… desire…. commitment… eternity. You cannot say where these words originate; you didn’t even know they were in you… but they are present now, urgent, eloquent, raw, powerful motivating words delivered in a powerful motivating way.
“Mother oh and your father, Might hear if I stay here too long, One kiss and we’ll part, And I’ll be going You know I hate to go.”
And so, at last, reluctantly, you did part… only to hurry home and call the object of your affections … who might be someone entirely different …thereby continuing the night, its emotions, its possibilities.
It was all a game, an enticing, exhilarating marvel… and you loved every difficult, contorted, thwarted moment of it.
No one more than Doyle Taylor.
In 1955 and for many years to come, Doyle Taylor was a recognized “catch”. Cute, funny, charismatic, Doyle played the dating game with the same manic intensity he brought to the football game. His manifest personal advantages brought him followers, an entourage particularly of the female variety. He liked girls… girls liked him… and these two facts made for exciting, explosive, entirely thrilling times.
Doyle delighted in the messy contortions of his young life; scheduling multiple dates with multiple people; testing his skills, his powers of persuasion and of escape; seeing how far he could push the envelope. Being Doyle, he could always push it just a little bit more…. then a little bit more again. Life was good! Packed with possibilities that caused him to jump up of a brilliant California morning, glad to be alive.
Then he saw Casey… and he knows in the way one does (even if one has never known it before) that this is the person who offers you more in one complete, captivating package than all the others put together, no matter how attractive. And all of a sudden you experience a flood of emotions that weren’t there yesterday: tenderness, compassion, wonder… and in an instant this confusing life becomes more confusing still, more confusing and infinitely more important. Life is no longer just about you and what you can get; life is now about what you can give. And Casey was a girl you wanted to give to… without asking for anything but her love in return.
Blocked by Dad.
But as every novel reader knows, the path of true love is never smooth. And so it was with Casey, whose father was strict and knew the insinuating ways of boys. Doyle was not welcome in his house… and so school with all its limitations became the only place they could meet. Little did they suspect that its very restrictions were precisely what their love needed to flourish; from obstruction grew determination… enhanced at the Friday sock hops they never missed… and which ended with their anthem “Goodnight, sweetheart.”
But this wouldn’t be much of a story if it ended here, two young people captivated by each other who decide to venture forever together. What makes this story a tale worth the telling is what happened next… and what happened after that. Like millions of starry-eyed couples, they split up in high school and went their very separate ways…
… ways that led them to marry others, have children and lives which would only have been dislocated had they connected too early. And so these one-time fierce lovers grew old, apart, and lonely… existing, not living, without love or its magic. And this, too, is the fate of millions. And it might have been their fate, too… but for the fact that out of loneliness they began to think of each other and what had each, so long ago, been for the other. Thus, apart, they began the process of rediscovering each other, beholden to a fate benevolent to them.
One day Casey’s computer crashed; all her personal data obliterated. She called a friend to begin the recovery process and asked if this friend remembered Doyle and possibly knew how to find him. The friend did…. and within minutes Casey with excitement and trepidation had emailed Doyle… who answered her at once… and so two once kindred spirits connected… and found that the excitement they had shared so long ago existed still… this time forever.
They met, as so many long ago lovers have met, compliments of the Internet… and at once, in the very first moment, they knew their long ago destiny was at last to be fulfilled.
And so it was. Two people, now married, forever young in the eyes of their beloved, committed to just one thing: loving each other, everything else insignificant and insubstantial. No more “Goodnight, sweetheart” and separation, but “Could I have this dance for the rest of my life?” No need to ask…they know the answer only too well, and gladly.
To put this touching tune sung by Anne Murray in 1980 to work for you, go to any search engine. As you listen to what Wayland Holyfield and Bob House wrote, think… for isn’t there a very special person you’d like to dance with for the rest of your life? Go ahead… ask them now, before another day is lost forever.
Remember your first crush? The heat! The intensity! The euphoric ups and despondent downs? Of course you do… because while it lasted, we all felt vital! Alive! Complete…. for all that the parents told us, over and over again, that this was nothing but “puppy love” and wouldn’t last. But it did last, didn’t it, in your mind and heart… to the point where you must find this well remembered person and see how they turned out and whether they still remember you, too, and the special song that was your signature and which even today causes reverie and the sharp, bittersweet pangs of remembrance and a bad case of the “what ifs”…
And so, for the fortieth time, you sit down at the keyboard and search the ‘net and its social networks for intelligence… intelligence that will enable you to rediscover your lost love, your youth, and the life you might have had if only… if only…
“Goodnight, sweetheart”.
To put yourself in the mood, go to any search engine and find “Goodnight, sweetheart” written by Calvin Carter and James “Pookie” Hudson in 1953. I recommend the original version by The Spaniels (1954). It was bubble-gum music, a tune that signalled you’d better snuggle up fast and close since your evening and its possibilities were about to end…. Whatever you planned to do needed to be done and done now… You know its lyrics so well… you know just how much time you’ve got left… and you’ve got something important to say and do.
“Goodnight, sweetheart, well, it’s time to go…. I hate to leave you, I really must say, Oh Goodnight, sweet heart, goodnight.”
This is a moment that determines fate… for in this moment the ultimate words of destiny pour out… hot, fast, insistent…. every word of consequence, every word packed with meaning… words of love… desire…. commitment… eternity. You cannot say where these words originate; you didn’t even know they were in you… but they are present now, urgent, eloquent, raw, powerful motivating words delivered in a powerful motivating way.
“Mother oh and your father, Might hear if I stay here too long, One kiss and we’ll part, And I’ll be going You know I hate to go.”
And so, at last, reluctantly, you did part… only to hurry home and call the object of your affections … who might be someone entirely different …thereby continuing the night, its emotions, its possibilities.
It was all a game, an enticing, exhilarating marvel… and you loved every difficult, contorted, thwarted moment of it.
No one more than Doyle Taylor.
In 1955 and for many years to come, Doyle Taylor was a recognized “catch”. Cute, funny, charismatic, Doyle played the dating game with the same manic intensity he brought to the football game. His manifest personal advantages brought him followers, an entourage particularly of the female variety. He liked girls… girls liked him… and these two facts made for exciting, explosive, entirely thrilling times.
Doyle delighted in the messy contortions of his young life; scheduling multiple dates with multiple people; testing his skills, his powers of persuasion and of escape; seeing how far he could push the envelope. Being Doyle, he could always push it just a little bit more…. then a little bit more again. Life was good! Packed with possibilities that caused him to jump up of a brilliant California morning, glad to be alive.
Then he saw Casey… and he knows in the way one does (even if one has never known it before) that this is the person who offers you more in one complete, captivating package than all the others put together, no matter how attractive. And all of a sudden you experience a flood of emotions that weren’t there yesterday: tenderness, compassion, wonder… and in an instant this confusing life becomes more confusing still, more confusing and infinitely more important. Life is no longer just about you and what you can get; life is now about what you can give. And Casey was a girl you wanted to give to… without asking for anything but her love in return.
Blocked by Dad.
But as every novel reader knows, the path of true love is never smooth. And so it was with Casey, whose father was strict and knew the insinuating ways of boys. Doyle was not welcome in his house… and so school with all its limitations became the only place they could meet. Little did they suspect that its very restrictions were precisely what their love needed to flourish; from obstruction grew determination… enhanced at the Friday sock hops they never missed… and which ended with their anthem “Goodnight, sweetheart.”
But this wouldn’t be much of a story if it ended here, two young people captivated by each other who decide to venture forever together. What makes this story a tale worth the telling is what happened next… and what happened after that. Like millions of starry-eyed couples, they split up in high school and went their very separate ways…
… ways that led them to marry others, have children and lives which would only have been dislocated had they connected too early. And so these one-time fierce lovers grew old, apart, and lonely… existing, not living, without love or its magic. And this, too, is the fate of millions. And it might have been their fate, too… but for the fact that out of loneliness they began to think of each other and what had each, so long ago, been for the other. Thus, apart, they began the process of rediscovering each other, beholden to a fate benevolent to them.
One day Casey’s computer crashed; all her personal data obliterated. She called a friend to begin the recovery process and asked if this friend remembered Doyle and possibly knew how to find him. The friend did…. and within minutes Casey with excitement and trepidation had emailed Doyle… who answered her at once… and so two once kindred spirits connected… and found that the excitement they had shared so long ago existed still… this time forever.
They met, as so many long ago lovers have met, compliments of the Internet… and at once, in the very first moment, they knew their long ago destiny was at last to be fulfilled.
And so it was. Two people, now married, forever young in the eyes of their beloved, committed to just one thing: loving each other, everything else insignificant and insubstantial. No more “Goodnight, sweetheart” and separation, but “Could I have this dance for the rest of my life?” No need to ask…they know the answer only too well, and gladly.
To put this touching tune sung by Anne Murray in 1980 to work for you, go to any search engine. As you listen to what Wayland Holyfield and Bob House wrote, think… for isn’t there a very special person you’d like to dance with for the rest of your life? Go ahead… ask them now, before another day is lost forever.
Friday, January 27, 2012
onlinemarketing: Creating Offers That SELL!
onlinemarketing: Creating Offers That SELL!: WARNING: The information in this article could help you make tens, even HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars. Print this! Read this! Live this…...
Creating Offers That SELL!
WARNING: The information in this article could
help you make tens, even HUNDREDS of thousands
of dollars. Print this! Read this! Live this… and
prosper!!!
Let’s start from the very beginning… you’re in
business to make MONEY. Why say this? Because
millions of people are so busy working, they’ve
lost the purpose of the endeavor: to get rich.
When you remember, and focus on the fact,
that business is supposed to be a constant money
maker, you understand why THE OFFER is so
important. Offers deliver the bucks.
“Sell The Sizzle, Not The Steak.”
We all know this old-time marketing expression.
Problem is, most people either don’t know what
it means, or haven’t learned how to use it.
Consider: steak is… dead animal meat. Gross.
On the other hand, think about the sizzle: warm,
inviting, the enticement to something delicious,
nutritious, satisfying.
Which would you rather have? And, more to the
point, which is easier to sell?
The ENTIRE purpose of the offer is to get
folks, your prospects, to stop in their tracks,
focus on what YOU have… and buy it. The
better you get at making offers… the more
money you make. It’s as simple and all-
important as that!
Creating Offers That Sell
The MINUTE you’re in business is the MINUTE
it’s time to concentrate on the offer. Here are
key steps to follow.
1) Start reading lots of offers. There isn’t a
day that goes by that I don’t read offers from
print media, the Internet, and on television. You
should too.
2) Become an inveterate offer collector. There’s
no need to re-invent the wheel when, in our capitalist,
market-driven culture, superb offers are everywhere.
3) Make sure the great offers you find are
easily accessible. Don’t bury them. These are
treasures to be scrutinized, studied — and used.
Brainstorm Offers Constantly
Remember, the key to motivating people to
act NOW is the offer.
And the key to the offer is giving enhanced
limited time value, like two for the price of one,
etc.
Look at your current marketing tools: business
cards, brochures, newsletters, all ads, etc. Where
have you placed the offer? Do you even have an
offer?
Now hear this: EVERYTHING you intend your
customers to see MUST contain an offer, with
absolutely NO exceptions.
Marketing ONLY works when it is based on
offers. And offers ONLY work when you say
to your customer, “Look at all I’ve got for you
IF you act by (date).
Start Using Offers Today
Don’t wait another minute to turn yours into
a magnificent, cash-generating offer MACHINE.
* Start rewriting all marketing materials until
they’re motivating muscle.
* Include offers with everything you mail — or
e-mail.
* Place your offers prominently… on the
envelop, at the top of the page, in an attention-
grabbing postscript.
Do this and watch your sales soar. And don’t
forget: when you deliver the goods and services
these offers have generated… include yet ANOTHER
offer thereby adding to your profits. You’re a hot-shot
marketer now… and that means you NEVER stop
creating and using offers!
help you make tens, even HUNDREDS of thousands
of dollars. Print this! Read this! Live this… and
prosper!!!
Let’s start from the very beginning… you’re in
business to make MONEY. Why say this? Because
millions of people are so busy working, they’ve
lost the purpose of the endeavor: to get rich.
When you remember, and focus on the fact,
that business is supposed to be a constant money
maker, you understand why THE OFFER is so
important. Offers deliver the bucks.
“Sell The Sizzle, Not The Steak.”
We all know this old-time marketing expression.
Problem is, most people either don’t know what
it means, or haven’t learned how to use it.
Consider: steak is… dead animal meat. Gross.
On the other hand, think about the sizzle: warm,
inviting, the enticement to something delicious,
nutritious, satisfying.
Which would you rather have? And, more to the
point, which is easier to sell?
The ENTIRE purpose of the offer is to get
folks, your prospects, to stop in their tracks,
focus on what YOU have… and buy it. The
better you get at making offers… the more
money you make. It’s as simple and all-
important as that!
Creating Offers That Sell
The MINUTE you’re in business is the MINUTE
it’s time to concentrate on the offer. Here are
key steps to follow.
1) Start reading lots of offers. There isn’t a
day that goes by that I don’t read offers from
print media, the Internet, and on television. You
should too.
2) Become an inveterate offer collector. There’s
no need to re-invent the wheel when, in our capitalist,
market-driven culture, superb offers are everywhere.
3) Make sure the great offers you find are
easily accessible. Don’t bury them. These are
treasures to be scrutinized, studied — and used.
Brainstorm Offers Constantly
Remember, the key to motivating people to
act NOW is the offer.
And the key to the offer is giving enhanced
limited time value, like two for the price of one,
etc.
Look at your current marketing tools: business
cards, brochures, newsletters, all ads, etc. Where
have you placed the offer? Do you even have an
offer?
Now hear this: EVERYTHING you intend your
customers to see MUST contain an offer, with
absolutely NO exceptions.
Marketing ONLY works when it is based on
offers. And offers ONLY work when you say
to your customer, “Look at all I’ve got for you
IF you act by (date).
Start Using Offers Today
Don’t wait another minute to turn yours into
a magnificent, cash-generating offer MACHINE.
* Start rewriting all marketing materials until
they’re motivating muscle.
* Include offers with everything you mail — or
e-mail.
* Place your offers prominently… on the
envelop, at the top of the page, in an attention-
grabbing postscript.
Do this and watch your sales soar. And don’t
forget: when you deliver the goods and services
these offers have generated… include yet ANOTHER
offer thereby adding to your profits. You’re a hot-shot
marketer now… and that means you NEVER stop
creating and using offers!
onlinemarketing: War with all its barbarity, cruelty and crudeness ...
onlinemarketing: War with all its barbarity, cruelty and crudeness ...: This is about an incident of war; an incident in which four U.S. Marines decided to outrage the vulnerable corpses of some of their tenacio...
War with all its barbarity, cruelty and crudeness comes to Main Street compliments of YouTube and the U.S. Marines…. what now?
This is about an incident of war; an incident in which four U.S. Marines
decided to outrage the vulnerable corpses of some of their tenacious Taliban
foes, dead in the dust at their feet. Such incidents — and many worse — have
always been a part of war… But such incidents nowadays are not merely rumored or
surmised… now they can be seen in your office or home in all their disgusting
detail. War, with all its coarseness, vulgarity and shock, is now a thing we
cannot escape… for we have now reached the point where every war will take place
not just on far-flung battlefields, but — as fast as a video clip can be posted
— before your very eyes and in your very mind.
The facts.
On January 11, 2012 an undated video was posted by a YouTube user identified as “semperfi LoneVoice”. It shows four men in U.S. Marine combat gear standing in a semi-circle over 3 bodies. These men were urinating on the bodies.
The entire film clip took just about a minute.
It was not the worst outrage in the long saga of human warfare, where the desecration of corpses was a garden-variety barbarism. But this act of desecration went viral at once, a matter of instant and immediate concern to officials at the very highest reaches of government. In short, it instantly became a Problem that had to be dealt with, responded to, and contained before the next news cycle commenced.
Who would make such a video… and why would they do it?
I can surmise — but do not know — that this video was made for the same reason that 19th Century big game hunters were photographed before the bodies of elephants, tigers and lions… a form of bragging, to show their friends where they had been, what they had done, and, Tarzan-like, beat their breasts and release a primal scream of superiority and glee.
Thus did a fifth marine, perhaps the originator of “what seemed a good idea at the time”, egg on his buddies, “Ah, come on. Don’t be a wuss; the bastards had it coming.” Thus did the idea emerge, spontaneous, ill-considered of course, but an act that would bond the buddies while handing each something to show the admiring folks back home. And so the buddies were positioned just so; zippers opened, a crude video made with cruder remarks about giving the bodies a “shower”, ending with “Have a nice day, buddy” … the final result a video that showed in outrageous detail that these Marines, charged with service to the Great Republic, knew nothing about who we are, how we behave, what being an American is all about…
… Yes, in a minute, just 60 seconds, they had outraged their God, their family values, everything they had ever heard or thought about the shining city on a hill… they had lowered themselves; shown their “Semper Fi” motto to be mere words, not high ideal. And they did this willingly, happily, believing this was suitable for them, unexceptional, a thing right and appropriate to do… good for laughs, another beer, a clap on the back from an appreciative audience back home.
All this was bad enough. But then someone got the bright idea of posting this video. This person had one of two possible objectives in mind; either as a proud trophy…, or shrewder, to show us up as a nation of high words but debased realities and so besmirch the Great Republic, its solders, and the lofty ideals by which we live and for which we fight.
And so the video was posted… its unmistakable image of hubris instantly the property of a world which thereby gained another stick with which to beat us, a stick which our own soldiers had fashioned, completely clueless on what they had done and how destructive to our cause, themselves, and their own buddies, whom the Taliban, biding their time, would serve out worse than the outrage perpetrated upon the bodies of their comrades… for retaliation there must be… swift, sure, painful, revolting. It is as certain as anything can be in the uncertain business of war: some young American Marines, now vibrant and alive, will be captured, tortured, subjected to the most severe pain, killed, then outraged… an unspeakable, horrific end made inevitable by the unconsidered lark of 5 Marines who not just failed us but didn’t even know they were doing so.
High-level condemnation, inadequate response.
To their credit, the Marine Corps immediately named an investigative officer to decide whether charges would be brought. They have already identified two of the four who committed the outrage; they are believed to be members of the 3rd Batallion, 2nd Marines, based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. It served in Afghanistan from March to September 2011, presumably the time when the video was made.
Officials at the very highest level of government, Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as other members of the Obama Administration stepped forward to condemn the desecration… and to limit the damage and repercussions.
But they were checkmated by a belief as old as war itself: that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can never do wrong, whatever they do, so long as it is in defense of the realm; Texas Governor and (then) presidential candidate Rick Perry the case in point.
Perry’s worrisome reaction went like this: “These kids made a mistake. There’s not any doubt about it. They shouldn’t have done it. It’s bad. But to call it a criminal act, I think, is over the top.”
In other words, boys will be boys; they’re our boys so sacrosanct. Yes, the act’s bad… but slapping their wrists constitutes an appropriate punishment; enough said, let’s get back to America’s unending business, the business of war. Such remarks constituted the thin edge of the wedge; mild condemnation of the “kids” (Perry’s grossly inadequate word and description)… their action bad, yes, but not really so very bad… not least because other nations at other times have done far worse, including worse to us. And that, is that.
But it most assuredly is not…. for if we wish to derive a good result from this entirely avoidable incident a very different response is called for. For if we leave this now in this way we shall surely pay for our negligence with more such incidents, frequent and worse.
The curriculum of war as taught at our great military institutions must be enhanced to include tuition, instruction, and practical training on how to handle the urge to maim, murder, desecrate and outrage our opponents. For if you do not make the act reprehensible and make it clear what must be done and how it must be done, you are surely inviting its frequent occurrence. In other words, silence on this aspect of war, every war, is tantamount to condoning what you say is reprehensible. And so swift, positive action is necessary… so that America and the world need never wake up again to graphic, tangible evidence that we say one thing but do and accept another.
Too much brought to our attention, too little time for thoughtful consideration and response. Sadly, the very process that brought us the intelligence on this incidence will bury it and fast. For the shear amount of data on so many subjects of significance and importance acts to sweep this outrage away… replacing it — for just a minute — with others. We once thought that bringing outrages to wide attention would be sufficient to effect reform… but the very ease of disseminating and posting information, its shear volume, has submerged the desired goal. And so, as information explodes and its demands on us grow onerous, the urge neither to see nor to hear evil grows apace… evil proliferating, evil tolerated, evil condoned, thinly condemned, broadly ignored, a fact of life that dismays us but which we will not seriously confront, and less so every single day .
God help us.
* We invite you to post your comments to this article below.
The facts.
On January 11, 2012 an undated video was posted by a YouTube user identified as “semperfi LoneVoice”. It shows four men in U.S. Marine combat gear standing in a semi-circle over 3 bodies. These men were urinating on the bodies.
The entire film clip took just about a minute.
It was not the worst outrage in the long saga of human warfare, where the desecration of corpses was a garden-variety barbarism. But this act of desecration went viral at once, a matter of instant and immediate concern to officials at the very highest reaches of government. In short, it instantly became a Problem that had to be dealt with, responded to, and contained before the next news cycle commenced.
Who would make such a video… and why would they do it?
I can surmise — but do not know — that this video was made for the same reason that 19th Century big game hunters were photographed before the bodies of elephants, tigers and lions… a form of bragging, to show their friends where they had been, what they had done, and, Tarzan-like, beat their breasts and release a primal scream of superiority and glee.
Thus did a fifth marine, perhaps the originator of “what seemed a good idea at the time”, egg on his buddies, “Ah, come on. Don’t be a wuss; the bastards had it coming.” Thus did the idea emerge, spontaneous, ill-considered of course, but an act that would bond the buddies while handing each something to show the admiring folks back home. And so the buddies were positioned just so; zippers opened, a crude video made with cruder remarks about giving the bodies a “shower”, ending with “Have a nice day, buddy” … the final result a video that showed in outrageous detail that these Marines, charged with service to the Great Republic, knew nothing about who we are, how we behave, what being an American is all about…
… Yes, in a minute, just 60 seconds, they had outraged their God, their family values, everything they had ever heard or thought about the shining city on a hill… they had lowered themselves; shown their “Semper Fi” motto to be mere words, not high ideal. And they did this willingly, happily, believing this was suitable for them, unexceptional, a thing right and appropriate to do… good for laughs, another beer, a clap on the back from an appreciative audience back home.
All this was bad enough. But then someone got the bright idea of posting this video. This person had one of two possible objectives in mind; either as a proud trophy…, or shrewder, to show us up as a nation of high words but debased realities and so besmirch the Great Republic, its solders, and the lofty ideals by which we live and for which we fight.
And so the video was posted… its unmistakable image of hubris instantly the property of a world which thereby gained another stick with which to beat us, a stick which our own soldiers had fashioned, completely clueless on what they had done and how destructive to our cause, themselves, and their own buddies, whom the Taliban, biding their time, would serve out worse than the outrage perpetrated upon the bodies of their comrades… for retaliation there must be… swift, sure, painful, revolting. It is as certain as anything can be in the uncertain business of war: some young American Marines, now vibrant and alive, will be captured, tortured, subjected to the most severe pain, killed, then outraged… an unspeakable, horrific end made inevitable by the unconsidered lark of 5 Marines who not just failed us but didn’t even know they were doing so.
High-level condemnation, inadequate response.
To their credit, the Marine Corps immediately named an investigative officer to decide whether charges would be brought. They have already identified two of the four who committed the outrage; they are believed to be members of the 3rd Batallion, 2nd Marines, based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. It served in Afghanistan from March to September 2011, presumably the time when the video was made.
Officials at the very highest level of government, Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as other members of the Obama Administration stepped forward to condemn the desecration… and to limit the damage and repercussions.
But they were checkmated by a belief as old as war itself: that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can never do wrong, whatever they do, so long as it is in defense of the realm; Texas Governor and (then) presidential candidate Rick Perry the case in point.
Perry’s worrisome reaction went like this: “These kids made a mistake. There’s not any doubt about it. They shouldn’t have done it. It’s bad. But to call it a criminal act, I think, is over the top.”
In other words, boys will be boys; they’re our boys so sacrosanct. Yes, the act’s bad… but slapping their wrists constitutes an appropriate punishment; enough said, let’s get back to America’s unending business, the business of war. Such remarks constituted the thin edge of the wedge; mild condemnation of the “kids” (Perry’s grossly inadequate word and description)… their action bad, yes, but not really so very bad… not least because other nations at other times have done far worse, including worse to us. And that, is that.
But it most assuredly is not…. for if we wish to derive a good result from this entirely avoidable incident a very different response is called for. For if we leave this now in this way we shall surely pay for our negligence with more such incidents, frequent and worse.
The curriculum of war as taught at our great military institutions must be enhanced to include tuition, instruction, and practical training on how to handle the urge to maim, murder, desecrate and outrage our opponents. For if you do not make the act reprehensible and make it clear what must be done and how it must be done, you are surely inviting its frequent occurrence. In other words, silence on this aspect of war, every war, is tantamount to condoning what you say is reprehensible. And so swift, positive action is necessary… so that America and the world need never wake up again to graphic, tangible evidence that we say one thing but do and accept another.
Too much brought to our attention, too little time for thoughtful consideration and response. Sadly, the very process that brought us the intelligence on this incidence will bury it and fast. For the shear amount of data on so many subjects of significance and importance acts to sweep this outrage away… replacing it — for just a minute — with others. We once thought that bringing outrages to wide attention would be sufficient to effect reform… but the very ease of disseminating and posting information, its shear volume, has submerged the desired goal. And so, as information explodes and its demands on us grow onerous, the urge neither to see nor to hear evil grows apace… evil proliferating, evil tolerated, evil condoned, thinly condemned, broadly ignored, a fact of life that dismays us but which we will not seriously confront, and less so every single day .
God help us.
* We invite you to post your comments to this article below.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
onlinemarketing: Of Adam B. Wheeler and how this youthful con man e...
onlinemarketing: Of Adam B. Wheeler and how this youthful con man e...: This is the story of the world’s greatest university, rich, secure, inviolate, invulnerable… arrogant… ripe for the taking. This is the s...
Of Adam B. Wheeler and how this youthful con man extraordinaire made the world’s greatest university — and others — see red.
This is the story of the world’s greatest university,
rich, secure, inviolate, invulnerable… arrogant… ripe for the
taking.
This is the story of a talented young man, not
merely good at lying, deception, prevarication
and hoodwinkery… but (though connoisseurs of
such matters may cavil) great.
This is the story of a young man so keen to
have the good things in life that he was willing
to sell his soul to get them… and of parents
who so loved their son that they were willing
to put him in prison to redeem him.
This is the story of the highest university officials
who thought this unthinkable thing could never happen…
and who drank deep from the chalice of
chagrin and public humiliation when it did.
This is the story of peers who, when forced
to confront this tale found that the perpetrator
was cute and desirable… and therefore deserving
of understanding, absolution, and a date.
This is the tale of Adam B. Wheeler. And I
suspect you will find it as riveting as I did
for, verily, it is a true tale of our times and,
therefore, irresistible and completely appalling.
Ole!
Adam B. Wheeler, a boy in a hurry
Adam B. Wheeler, by all accounts, was an average
student, neither good nor bad, outstanding in
no way, prosaic in all. However, such a boy could
dream… and Adam B. Wheeler did so dream… of
a place called Cambridge and a college called
Harvard, where sport the irresistible jeunesse
doree. Adam dreamt… then despaired… for
Harvard looked for the exceptional and Adam
was merely average and hence beneath Harvard’s
notice.
So this average boy took the first extraordinary
decision of his life: he decided to risk all to escape
from the usual, the hackneyed, the average, the
dull, the prosaic. He decided, in short, to invent
the vehicle that would give him escape; he decided
to craft himself.
Years later, at Adam’s fraud trial, his lawyer Steven
Sussman, Esq. said “There is no answer to why Adam
did this. ” But Mr. Sussman, like so many adults involved
in this case, was wrong. Sussman has forgotten what
it is like to walk high school corridors and be nothing
more than one of a mass, faceless, dull, average,
forgettable. Adam knew that feeling… and, with growing
insistence, was ready to do everything, anything to
rise and get out of this situation… to take his place, however
wrongly, amongst the best and brightest of his generation. The
quickest way to do that, he concluded, was by mastering the
potent and practical arts of the fraudulent presentation, prevarication,
deception.
And so, Adam B. Wheeler commenced, by diligent study,
an ascension of trickery where each step successfully encountered
fueled the next. He submitted a plagiarized school essay and
winning the prize discovered the ease of deceit,
thereby engendering more and greater boldness.
Audacity, he discovered, could be created by successful
deceptions, which also delivered a plethora of benefits — money,
social recognition, the compliments of teachers and peers, the
thrilling feeling that he was “somebody”… and, all important,
further insights into how to rise higher still on his new skills and
expanding confidence. Adam B. Wheeler was moving… so fast that
goals once unimaginable were now within his grasp.
And so he grabbed.
Proud Bowdoin College with its picture-perfect campus gave
Adam a place by deceit. But Adam wanted, had always wanted more.
For such damnation as he was willing to risk, he demanded the
very best.
So, then, fair Harvard’s turn. Adam, now almost through his
apprenticeship of deft manipulation, doctored his College
Board scores and forged letters of recommendation. These
were panegyrics of such transcendence that in a
more perfect world they would have moved Harvard to
contact him rather than he condescending to contact them.
And so Harvard, confident its summit could not be so
breached, became Adam’s trophy, too… and , with its welcome
acceptance, gave him, he well knew, life’s ticket to privilege,
deference, and open doors everywhere. It was thrilling, heady…
dangerous because the very ease and extent of success caused
hubris, the most dangerous thing of all.
Adam B. Wheeler became an Icarus with no Daedalus to counsel
and advise. But even Icarus, with such a wise and seasoned
advisor at hand, was so fueled by arrogance and the certainty that
only the young possess, even well-advised Icarus flew too high, too soon, too
close to the sun… and so, his wings melting, plunged into death.
What chance, then, had still-learning Adam B. Wheeler to
know, so soon in life, the virtue of restraint? Icarus-like, he
chose to fly too fast, too high, eschewing restraint because
constant victories were so exciting and gratifying…and, he had proved,
so easy.
However his fall, inevitable though he never knew it, was, in
the classical tradition, sharp, painful, ironic. Continuing
to want the best, he fabricated a fake straight A Harvard
transcript and aimed to grab a Fulbright or even a Rhodes
scholarship, much desired, achieved by only the elite,
amongst whom he insisted to be.
However, grinning fate was at hand with Adam’s
nemesis.
It was his parents, the good, decent, profoundly
appalled creators of Adam B. Wheeler, his mom and
dad. To save him, they laid him low, beginning his unravelling
with a call to the chagrined Harvard officials whose
certainty and carelessness had moved Adam so appreciably
forward. They, powered by revenge and sanctimonious
moralizing, happily pounced, determined to end his career
and make sure This Could Never Happen Again. His
Harvard status was rescinded…. his trial ensued. His
conviction inevitable, he plea-bargained, admitting
culpability and accepting restitution for all funds and
prizes falsely won. Prison was avoided but shame was
not. It was the end of Adam B. Wheeler.
Or was it?
In the blog of the Crimson, Harvard’s student
newspaper, another stream was unexpectedly
running. Here the story took another turn, for
many bloggers (not just women either) saw what
“Daniel” saw: “He really is totally adorable. He probably gets
away with half of his shenanigans because people
look into those big blue eyes and see the floppy hair
and think he’s adorable”. Ah, too fetching to be guilty, much
less locked away.
It was, under these circumstances, no doubt wise
of the judge in his sentencing order of December 16, 2010
to prevent Adam from enjoying any financial gains from
his story from books, stage, and screen. It’s sad, though,
for local boy-made-good Matt Damon, who would have done full
justice to this tale of Cambridge, a place he knows so well. However,
no doubt in due time, Adam B. Wheeler will find a way
around this (temporary) obstacle. I hope so, for I long to
see this film.
rich, secure, inviolate, invulnerable… arrogant… ripe for the
taking.
This is the story of a talented young man, not
merely good at lying, deception, prevarication
and hoodwinkery… but (though connoisseurs of
such matters may cavil) great.
This is the story of a young man so keen to
have the good things in life that he was willing
to sell his soul to get them… and of parents
who so loved their son that they were willing
to put him in prison to redeem him.
This is the story of the highest university officials
who thought this unthinkable thing could never happen…
and who drank deep from the chalice of
chagrin and public humiliation when it did.
This is the story of peers who, when forced
to confront this tale found that the perpetrator
was cute and desirable… and therefore deserving
of understanding, absolution, and a date.
This is the tale of Adam B. Wheeler. And I
suspect you will find it as riveting as I did
for, verily, it is a true tale of our times and,
therefore, irresistible and completely appalling.
Ole!
Adam B. Wheeler, a boy in a hurry
Adam B. Wheeler, by all accounts, was an average
student, neither good nor bad, outstanding in
no way, prosaic in all. However, such a boy could
dream… and Adam B. Wheeler did so dream… of
a place called Cambridge and a college called
Harvard, where sport the irresistible jeunesse
doree. Adam dreamt… then despaired… for
Harvard looked for the exceptional and Adam
was merely average and hence beneath Harvard’s
notice.
So this average boy took the first extraordinary
decision of his life: he decided to risk all to escape
from the usual, the hackneyed, the average, the
dull, the prosaic. He decided, in short, to invent
the vehicle that would give him escape; he decided
to craft himself.
Years later, at Adam’s fraud trial, his lawyer Steven
Sussman, Esq. said “There is no answer to why Adam
did this. ” But Mr. Sussman, like so many adults involved
in this case, was wrong. Sussman has forgotten what
it is like to walk high school corridors and be nothing
more than one of a mass, faceless, dull, average,
forgettable. Adam knew that feeling… and, with growing
insistence, was ready to do everything, anything to
rise and get out of this situation… to take his place, however
wrongly, amongst the best and brightest of his generation. The
quickest way to do that, he concluded, was by mastering the
potent and practical arts of the fraudulent presentation, prevarication,
deception.
And so, Adam B. Wheeler commenced, by diligent study,
an ascension of trickery where each step successfully encountered
fueled the next. He submitted a plagiarized school essay and
winning the prize discovered the ease of deceit,
thereby engendering more and greater boldness.
Audacity, he discovered, could be created by successful
deceptions, which also delivered a plethora of benefits — money,
social recognition, the compliments of teachers and peers, the
thrilling feeling that he was “somebody”… and, all important,
further insights into how to rise higher still on his new skills and
expanding confidence. Adam B. Wheeler was moving… so fast that
goals once unimaginable were now within his grasp.
And so he grabbed.
Proud Bowdoin College with its picture-perfect campus gave
Adam a place by deceit. But Adam wanted, had always wanted more.
For such damnation as he was willing to risk, he demanded the
very best.
So, then, fair Harvard’s turn. Adam, now almost through his
apprenticeship of deft manipulation, doctored his College
Board scores and forged letters of recommendation. These
were panegyrics of such transcendence that in a
more perfect world they would have moved Harvard to
contact him rather than he condescending to contact them.
And so Harvard, confident its summit could not be so
breached, became Adam’s trophy, too… and , with its welcome
acceptance, gave him, he well knew, life’s ticket to privilege,
deference, and open doors everywhere. It was thrilling, heady…
dangerous because the very ease and extent of success caused
hubris, the most dangerous thing of all.
Adam B. Wheeler became an Icarus with no Daedalus to counsel
and advise. But even Icarus, with such a wise and seasoned
advisor at hand, was so fueled by arrogance and the certainty that
only the young possess, even well-advised Icarus flew too high, too soon, too
close to the sun… and so, his wings melting, plunged into death.
What chance, then, had still-learning Adam B. Wheeler to
know, so soon in life, the virtue of restraint? Icarus-like, he
chose to fly too fast, too high, eschewing restraint because
constant victories were so exciting and gratifying…and, he had proved,
so easy.
However his fall, inevitable though he never knew it, was, in
the classical tradition, sharp, painful, ironic. Continuing
to want the best, he fabricated a fake straight A Harvard
transcript and aimed to grab a Fulbright or even a Rhodes
scholarship, much desired, achieved by only the elite,
amongst whom he insisted to be.
However, grinning fate was at hand with Adam’s
nemesis.
It was his parents, the good, decent, profoundly
appalled creators of Adam B. Wheeler, his mom and
dad. To save him, they laid him low, beginning his unravelling
with a call to the chagrined Harvard officials whose
certainty and carelessness had moved Adam so appreciably
forward. They, powered by revenge and sanctimonious
moralizing, happily pounced, determined to end his career
and make sure This Could Never Happen Again. His
Harvard status was rescinded…. his trial ensued. His
conviction inevitable, he plea-bargained, admitting
culpability and accepting restitution for all funds and
prizes falsely won. Prison was avoided but shame was
not. It was the end of Adam B. Wheeler.
Or was it?
In the blog of the Crimson, Harvard’s student
newspaper, another stream was unexpectedly
running. Here the story took another turn, for
many bloggers (not just women either) saw what
“Daniel” saw: “He really is totally adorable. He probably gets
away with half of his shenanigans because people
look into those big blue eyes and see the floppy hair
and think he’s adorable”. Ah, too fetching to be guilty, much
less locked away.
It was, under these circumstances, no doubt wise
of the judge in his sentencing order of December 16, 2010
to prevent Adam from enjoying any financial gains from
his story from books, stage, and screen. It’s sad, though,
for local boy-made-good Matt Damon, who would have done full
justice to this tale of Cambridge, a place he knows so well. However,
no doubt in due time, Adam B. Wheeler will find a way
around this (temporary) obstacle. I hope so, for I long to
see this film.
onlinemarketing: ‘How come you do me like you do, do, do?’ What you...
onlinemarketing: ‘How come you do me like you do, do, do?’ What you...: In 1924 America’s first crooner, red-hot pop star Rudy Vallee (and his Connecticut Yankees band) had the nation humming along with the cat...
‘How come you do me like you do, do, do?’ What your customers are saying about YOU!
In 1924 America’s first crooner, red-hot pop star Rudy
Vallee (and his Connecticut Yankees band) had the nation
humming along with the catchy rhythm of his latest hit:
“How come you do me like you do, do, do?”
The legions of liberated “flappers” who followed
Vallee everywhere (unleashing a national debate
about the “new woman”) sang along with America’s
boy next door:
“Why do you try to make me feel so blue?
I ain’t done nothing to do!”
“You better treat me right, or let me be!
’cause I can beat you doing what you’re doing to me.”
It was a phenomenon, and a golden marketing model
was born that in due course produced Crosby, Como, and
Sinatra.
The flappers, and Vallee himself, are now history… but
the song’s lyrics carry on as insistent questions customers
ask business owners worldwide:
“WHY do you do me like you do, do, do? WHY do you
do me like you do?”
Your customers are talking about you. Do you like
what they’re saying?
Now hear this: EVERY customer who steps through your
door, calls you on the telephone, writes or emails you is
going to talk about what happened. Were they treated
properly, professionally, promptly…. or was it a case of
“Why do you do me like you do, do, do?” Remember,
what they say is a direct result of what you do. Thus, you
have it in your power to ensure that they never say — and
you never suffer from them saying — ANY of these:
1) “They never returned my call!”
Not so long ago, every business made it a point to
return calls promptly and have the information the customer
needed readily at hand when they did. No longer. Now, there
is not even the pretense by most businesses that they return
every telephone call… much less promptly and thoroughly.
Yet, let’s be clear, customers WANT their calls returned…
and they are certain to complain to friends and family
when YOU don’t!
Make it a point to return all calls within 24 hours, even
if you only report that you are working to get what the
customer wants. The returned call itself signifies volumes!
2) “I filled out their online questionnaire and heard nothing.”
This really bugs your customers… and rightly so. This is
how the customer reckons: “you posted a questionnaire on
your web site. I took the time and trouble to complete it. Then
nothing, absolutely nothing, from you.” Oh, yes, you can be
sure the customer will tell the people he knows with a “can
you believe this?” slant to a tale which you may be sure
will lose nothing in the telling.
3) “They promised to send me… but never did!”
Customers are literal. They expect you to do what you
say you’re going to do… and they will shout it from the mountain
tops when you don’t. So, do.
If you can handle the customer’s request today, do so.
If you can’t, then explain to the customer when she may expect
to hear from you.
Don’t just promise action, however; deliver it. Otherwise, in the
words of the song “why do you try to make me feel so blue? I
ain’t done nothing to you.” Believe me; they will start doing
something, something you won’t like, if you don’t come through!
4) “They never told me what was happening.”
When a customer says this, what they are really saying is this:
“Can you believe this? Can you believe that those yahoos would
treat ME like this… ME the all-important customer?” In short, the
customer will make it clear to everyone who will listen that you
are little better than a jerk and certainly far from delivering the prompt
professional service they have every right to expect. Ouch!
Solution? If you want to impress your customer, instead of
providing the fuel for the fire that ends up scorching you, then
follow-up and keep the customer in the loop. Always.
5) “I waited and waited for service while the staff gossiped
about what they did over the week-end.”
Want your customers to see red… and tell the world? Then
ignore them. Don’t bother to show your staff how to treat
customers; don’t treat them properly yourself. Just continue
to ignore them while chatting away. This is an absolutely
sure-fire way to lose a customer and launch a stream of
comments, the worse because they are absolutely true.
You and your staff do gossip in front of customers.
Indeed, you seem to not even see the customers, much less
regard them.
As a result, thoughtless, avoidable rudeness by rudeness you
are helping your customers create the negative image that kills your
profits and enriches your competitors. Ouch again!
6) “He was texting his girl friend while I waited for assistance!”
Inappropriate and untimely text messaging has become a worldwide
problem and a sure-fire way to get your customers to bad-mouth
you and your business.
Be assured that if you text message in front of customers,
particularly about personal matters, you will tap into the
rich, inexhaustible vein of customer irritation, exasperation,
and rage. Text in front of customers, and you can be sure the
customer will retaliate in ways that hurt your bottom line. Count on it!
“cause I can beat you doing what you’re doing to me!”
7) “He left for a break right in the middle of ‘helping’ me!”
More avoidable customer exasperation and disbelief. OK, so you want
your break! OK, you “need” that cigarette… or that sugar high RIGHT NOW.
But must you make your feelings about your acute boredom with
and disdain for customers quite as clear as you do by walking away
from them when you’re supposed to be assisting?
We live in rude, vulgar, selfish, acute me-centered times. These are getting
worse and worse as general acceptance of boorish behavior grows.
Customers, however, continue to expect businesses like yours to
exhibit service and civility… the more so since they get so little of it otherwise.
Last Words
So, WHY do you do your customers like you do, do, do when they are
the life blood of your business? WHY do you allow behaviors and actions
which not only irritate customers but hurt yourself and your business? You
see, every negative situation cited above is entirely avoidable. Instead of
doing things which infuriate customers, start singing them Rudy Vallee’s
greatest hit — “My time is your time” . With that as your focus, they’ll stop
moaning “How come you do me like you do, do, do?” and start whistling
a tune you’ll like a whole lot better.
Vallee (and his Connecticut Yankees band) had the nation
humming along with the catchy rhythm of his latest hit:
“How come you do me like you do, do, do?”
The legions of liberated “flappers” who followed
Vallee everywhere (unleashing a national debate
about the “new woman”) sang along with America’s
boy next door:
“Why do you try to make me feel so blue?
I ain’t done nothing to do!”
“You better treat me right, or let me be!
’cause I can beat you doing what you’re doing to me.”
It was a phenomenon, and a golden marketing model
was born that in due course produced Crosby, Como, and
Sinatra.
The flappers, and Vallee himself, are now history… but
the song’s lyrics carry on as insistent questions customers
ask business owners worldwide:
“WHY do you do me like you do, do, do? WHY do you
do me like you do?”
Your customers are talking about you. Do you like
what they’re saying?
Now hear this: EVERY customer who steps through your
door, calls you on the telephone, writes or emails you is
going to talk about what happened. Were they treated
properly, professionally, promptly…. or was it a case of
“Why do you do me like you do, do, do?” Remember,
what they say is a direct result of what you do. Thus, you
have it in your power to ensure that they never say — and
you never suffer from them saying — ANY of these:
1) “They never returned my call!”
Not so long ago, every business made it a point to
return calls promptly and have the information the customer
needed readily at hand when they did. No longer. Now, there
is not even the pretense by most businesses that they return
every telephone call… much less promptly and thoroughly.
Yet, let’s be clear, customers WANT their calls returned…
and they are certain to complain to friends and family
when YOU don’t!
Make it a point to return all calls within 24 hours, even
if you only report that you are working to get what the
customer wants. The returned call itself signifies volumes!
2) “I filled out their online questionnaire and heard nothing.”
This really bugs your customers… and rightly so. This is
how the customer reckons: “you posted a questionnaire on
your web site. I took the time and trouble to complete it. Then
nothing, absolutely nothing, from you.” Oh, yes, you can be
sure the customer will tell the people he knows with a “can
you believe this?” slant to a tale which you may be sure
will lose nothing in the telling.
3) “They promised to send me… but never did!”
Customers are literal. They expect you to do what you
say you’re going to do… and they will shout it from the mountain
tops when you don’t. So, do.
If you can handle the customer’s request today, do so.
If you can’t, then explain to the customer when she may expect
to hear from you.
Don’t just promise action, however; deliver it. Otherwise, in the
words of the song “why do you try to make me feel so blue? I
ain’t done nothing to you.” Believe me; they will start doing
something, something you won’t like, if you don’t come through!
4) “They never told me what was happening.”
When a customer says this, what they are really saying is this:
“Can you believe this? Can you believe that those yahoos would
treat ME like this… ME the all-important customer?” In short, the
customer will make it clear to everyone who will listen that you
are little better than a jerk and certainly far from delivering the prompt
professional service they have every right to expect. Ouch!
Solution? If you want to impress your customer, instead of
providing the fuel for the fire that ends up scorching you, then
follow-up and keep the customer in the loop. Always.
5) “I waited and waited for service while the staff gossiped
about what they did over the week-end.”
Want your customers to see red… and tell the world? Then
ignore them. Don’t bother to show your staff how to treat
customers; don’t treat them properly yourself. Just continue
to ignore them while chatting away. This is an absolutely
sure-fire way to lose a customer and launch a stream of
comments, the worse because they are absolutely true.
You and your staff do gossip in front of customers.
Indeed, you seem to not even see the customers, much less
regard them.
As a result, thoughtless, avoidable rudeness by rudeness you
are helping your customers create the negative image that kills your
profits and enriches your competitors. Ouch again!
6) “He was texting his girl friend while I waited for assistance!”
Inappropriate and untimely text messaging has become a worldwide
problem and a sure-fire way to get your customers to bad-mouth
you and your business.
Be assured that if you text message in front of customers,
particularly about personal matters, you will tap into the
rich, inexhaustible vein of customer irritation, exasperation,
and rage. Text in front of customers, and you can be sure the
customer will retaliate in ways that hurt your bottom line. Count on it!
“cause I can beat you doing what you’re doing to me!”
7) “He left for a break right in the middle of ‘helping’ me!”
More avoidable customer exasperation and disbelief. OK, so you want
your break! OK, you “need” that cigarette… or that sugar high RIGHT NOW.
But must you make your feelings about your acute boredom with
and disdain for customers quite as clear as you do by walking away
from them when you’re supposed to be assisting?
We live in rude, vulgar, selfish, acute me-centered times. These are getting
worse and worse as general acceptance of boorish behavior grows.
Customers, however, continue to expect businesses like yours to
exhibit service and civility… the more so since they get so little of it otherwise.
Last Words
So, WHY do you do your customers like you do, do, do when they are
the life blood of your business? WHY do you allow behaviors and actions
which not only irritate customers but hurt yourself and your business? You
see, every negative situation cited above is entirely avoidable. Instead of
doing things which infuriate customers, start singing them Rudy Vallee’s
greatest hit — “My time is your time” . With that as your focus, they’ll stop
moaning “How come you do me like you do, do, do?” and start whistling
a tune you’ll like a whole lot better.
onlinemarketing: How to stay focused and make money on days you DON...
onlinemarketing: How to stay focused and make money on days you DON...: Did you lay in bed this morning unwilling, unable to get up? Did every fibre of your body demand more time in the sack? Was it a struggle ...
How to stay focused and make money on days you DON’T feel like it!
Did you lay in bed this morning unwilling, unable
to get up? Did every fibre of your body demand
more time in the sack? Was it a struggle to
open an eye… and get up?
Sure enough, if today wasn’t like this, some
of your many tomorrows will be. You need to be
prepared for such inevitabilities… because they
can and will occur and can and will sabotage your
ability to make money. Here are some suggestions
that’ll help you rise and shine… suggestions I use
myself when getting up and getting going are most
decidedly NOT my first priority!
1) Create a “to do” list before you go to bed.
The key to making tomorrow organized, efficient,
and profitable is what you do today. Make it a
rule before you retire for the night to draw up a
clear, clean, specific “to do” list. Write it, read it
over, put it next to the bed… then turn off the lights.
While you’re sleeping your subconscious mind
will be busily at work helping you organize and
implement the items on your list. Even when your
body is screaming for more sleep and all the
creature comforts it can get, the brain — and
your crucial “to do” list — will be helping you get
up and at ‘em.
2) Take a cold shower.
The British empire, the largest the world has ever
known, was practically built on a cascade of frigid
water. Its young men, pillars of the imperium, were
shipped off to prep schools and immediately
subjected to the jarring temperatures which will work
for you as well as it worked for them. Don’t stand
there and debate…. turn up the cold tap and plunge!
You’re about to be invigorated, rejuvenated, primed
to run your empire.
3) Do some exercise.
Are you huddling in a corner of your kitchen,
hands gripping a cup of joe, comfy in your bunny
slippers? Whoa! This isn’t helping getting your act
together. You need some brisk, bracing exercise…
the kind guaranteed to send vital oxygen to that all-
important brain.
Put the steaming liquid down and kick up your
heels… or quick-step around your back yard or
up and down your street. With every step your
brain will exult. The key isn’t coffee… it’s oxygen.
Move bristly and infuse it where it must go for
maximum good.
4) Give yourself an easy, immediate success.
Don’t feel like doing anything? Then give yourself
an easy, immediate success. This should, of course,
have been indicated on your “to do” list. Before you go
to bed be sure to post on your list an easy thing,
a thing that will start today’s sequence of successes.
Once begun, as we say in New England, is half done.
What could this “easy” thing be?
It could be calling a long-time customer to get
a nice re-order or following up with a new customer to
whom you’ve already sent a proposal and quote.
One success engenders another. Even a small
success is sufficient. Start successful, remain successful.
It all begins when you least feel like it.
5) Put on your head phones and engage with
some stirring music.
Still need help getting into gear? Go to the play list
on your computer and choose something rousing.
What? You don’t have such a play list? Start it
today. I can assure you, you are going to need it.
Here are some of my sure-fire upbeat selections,
guaranteed to get you going:
Wake up Little Suzie by the Everly Brothers (most
appropriate, don’t you think?)
Think by Aretha Franklin.
Natalie Cole’s version of Pink Cadillac, and
J.P. Rameau’s always motivating Tambourins I-II
from Dardanus.
Your list may well be different from mine; the
important thing is to have a list you can access at
once. Turn up the sound… and move your body.
Your uplifting selections are moving you towards
another successful day.
6) Visualize what you’ll get when you turn this day
into a success.
All too often we work without conceptualizing why.
We work today because we worked yesterday.
This is not nearly good enough.
Remind yourself just why you’re working and what
special thing today’s successes will help create.
In my case, for instance, I have a pile of auction
catalogs stacked high next to my computer. I motivate
myself on days when such motivation is needed by
looking at the things I want from auctions coming up
quickly. Getting myself focused and together is a
precondition for maximum acquisition. Visualize
success; then do what’s necessary to achieve it.
7) Still not alert and moving? Then take the day off
formally and properly.
Like most people these days, you are working
more and longer than either your parents or grand
parents. We are the most leisure-challenged
generation ever.
The plain fact is, you may be unable to get up and
resolutely face the day because you’re just worn
out. If so, take the day off… sleep in, sleep properly,
sleep, relax and goof off without guilt. You’ll be the better
tomorrow if you take what is necessary and do not
regard it as an indulgence but physical need. Enjoy!
to get up? Did every fibre of your body demand
more time in the sack? Was it a struggle to
open an eye… and get up?
Sure enough, if today wasn’t like this, some
of your many tomorrows will be. You need to be
prepared for such inevitabilities… because they
can and will occur and can and will sabotage your
ability to make money. Here are some suggestions
that’ll help you rise and shine… suggestions I use
myself when getting up and getting going are most
decidedly NOT my first priority!
1) Create a “to do” list before you go to bed.
The key to making tomorrow organized, efficient,
and profitable is what you do today. Make it a
rule before you retire for the night to draw up a
clear, clean, specific “to do” list. Write it, read it
over, put it next to the bed… then turn off the lights.
While you’re sleeping your subconscious mind
will be busily at work helping you organize and
implement the items on your list. Even when your
body is screaming for more sleep and all the
creature comforts it can get, the brain — and
your crucial “to do” list — will be helping you get
up and at ‘em.
2) Take a cold shower.
The British empire, the largest the world has ever
known, was practically built on a cascade of frigid
water. Its young men, pillars of the imperium, were
shipped off to prep schools and immediately
subjected to the jarring temperatures which will work
for you as well as it worked for them. Don’t stand
there and debate…. turn up the cold tap and plunge!
You’re about to be invigorated, rejuvenated, primed
to run your empire.
3) Do some exercise.
Are you huddling in a corner of your kitchen,
hands gripping a cup of joe, comfy in your bunny
slippers? Whoa! This isn’t helping getting your act
together. You need some brisk, bracing exercise…
the kind guaranteed to send vital oxygen to that all-
important brain.
Put the steaming liquid down and kick up your
heels… or quick-step around your back yard or
up and down your street. With every step your
brain will exult. The key isn’t coffee… it’s oxygen.
Move bristly and infuse it where it must go for
maximum good.
4) Give yourself an easy, immediate success.
Don’t feel like doing anything? Then give yourself
an easy, immediate success. This should, of course,
have been indicated on your “to do” list. Before you go
to bed be sure to post on your list an easy thing,
a thing that will start today’s sequence of successes.
Once begun, as we say in New England, is half done.
What could this “easy” thing be?
It could be calling a long-time customer to get
a nice re-order or following up with a new customer to
whom you’ve already sent a proposal and quote.
One success engenders another. Even a small
success is sufficient. Start successful, remain successful.
It all begins when you least feel like it.
5) Put on your head phones and engage with
some stirring music.
Still need help getting into gear? Go to the play list
on your computer and choose something rousing.
What? You don’t have such a play list? Start it
today. I can assure you, you are going to need it.
Here are some of my sure-fire upbeat selections,
guaranteed to get you going:
Wake up Little Suzie by the Everly Brothers (most
appropriate, don’t you think?)
Think by Aretha Franklin.
Natalie Cole’s version of Pink Cadillac, and
J.P. Rameau’s always motivating Tambourins I-II
from Dardanus.
Your list may well be different from mine; the
important thing is to have a list you can access at
once. Turn up the sound… and move your body.
Your uplifting selections are moving you towards
another successful day.
6) Visualize what you’ll get when you turn this day
into a success.
All too often we work without conceptualizing why.
We work today because we worked yesterday.
This is not nearly good enough.
Remind yourself just why you’re working and what
special thing today’s successes will help create.
In my case, for instance, I have a pile of auction
catalogs stacked high next to my computer. I motivate
myself on days when such motivation is needed by
looking at the things I want from auctions coming up
quickly. Getting myself focused and together is a
precondition for maximum acquisition. Visualize
success; then do what’s necessary to achieve it.
7) Still not alert and moving? Then take the day off
formally and properly.
Like most people these days, you are working
more and longer than either your parents or grand
parents. We are the most leisure-challenged
generation ever.
The plain fact is, you may be unable to get up and
resolutely face the day because you’re just worn
out. If so, take the day off… sleep in, sleep properly,
sleep, relax and goof off without guilt. You’ll be the better
tomorrow if you take what is necessary and do not
regard it as an indulgence but physical need. Enjoy!
Monday, January 23, 2012
onlinemarketing: Putting the most powerful word in marketing to wor...
onlinemarketing: Putting the most powerful word in marketing to wor...: There’s a word — a single word — which can fill your coffers day after day. Smart marketers triumph with it… while the also-rans scratch ...
Putting the most powerful word in marketing to work for you!
There’s a word — a single word — which can fill
your coffers day after day. Smart marketers
triumph with it… while the also-rans scratch
their heads looking for the formula which
invariably yields those golden results.
You’ve simply got to know the word…and how
to use it ….] to make sale after sale and expand your
profits, even in dismal economic times.
Tah-dah! The all-powerful word is “free”!
Smart marketers know that the power of free
NEVER diminishes. People have always wanted…
and they will always want … free stuff.
Your task is to use the power of free to make
sales and increase profits… while not fatally turning
into merely a dispenser of free stuff and nothing more.
Brain storm all the things you give away already
The truth is, right now you’re probably already doing
and/or giving away one thing after another… while not
getting any credit for them whatsoever. Whoa! This is
because you have not brain stormed what you do in
your business. In other words, you are now doing things
that could be leveraged into more sales… but you
either don’t know what they are…or haven’t even begun
to consider how to use them.
Here are some examples:
* free shipping.
* free product use instructions
* free customer service
* toll-free number
* free web site with all kinds of product use
instructions and examples
* free recipe booklet
* free articles
* free newsletter
* free catalog
* free ebook
* free blog
To create this list, you must be thorough and
take pains. This list will alter the way you do
business. You will no longer just do something…
you will do something and leverage it to make
more and faster sales. In short, you’ll market
the most intelligent way!
Sleuthing for List #2
In business to make money? Of course you are! That’s
why you need to start researching how other businesses
use the word “free.”
The great thing about business is that you can learn
from what others are doing, starting with but not
limited to people in your particular field. Of course
you want to know what your competitors are giving
away… but don’t think of limiting your researches to
them. Your task is to discover the best uses of “free”
by any company or organization whatsoever.
Keeping everything you find
Question! If you knew that doing something in your
business would produce constant profits, would
you treat that thing with the utmost care? You’re nodding
your head, aren’t you? “I’m no dummy. Of course I would.”
But the truth is… despite the fact that you KNOW
“free” works… your “free file” with all the pertinent
examples is still in your head and no where else,
right? Mistake!
Your free file is one of, if not the most important,
file in your business. No wonder! It contains exactly
what you need to profit… whenever you want to
profit. In short, your file and what’s in it are pure,
unadulterated magic.
Use “free” liberally
My dentist has a memorable poster on his wall.
Under a photo of a mouthful of decaying teeth it
says: “floss only the ones you want to keep.” Let’s use
the sense of this message to improve your marketing
prowess:
“Use ‘free” only on days you want to profit”; in other
words, on every single day you’re in business.
Where should you put these offers?
* top of all marketing/sales letters
* email subject lines
* post script on all correspondence
* on business cards
* in brochures
* in your shop windows
* on bags and packing containers.
Get the picture? Use them EVERYWHERE and ALL
the time. You see marketing never stops, and that means
your use of “free” never stops either.
Keep tabs on what works…. and what doesn’t.
It’s important that you know what works… and what
doesn’t… in your marketing. This means always
coding offers and/or (where you cannot tell yourself)
asking folks what they’re responding to. Always ask them!
Have your staff ask! Ask with a smile and get a million-dollar
response, the response that helps you determine what
to do and where to spend your time in future.
And, friend, start now. Don’t wait a single day to increase your
“free” repertoire and your use of this essential and
always special word. Remember, every day you use “free”
is golden!
your coffers day after day. Smart marketers
triumph with it… while the also-rans scratch
their heads looking for the formula which
invariably yields those golden results.
You’ve simply got to know the word…and how
to use it ….] to make sale after sale and expand your
profits, even in dismal economic times.
Tah-dah! The all-powerful word is “free”!
Smart marketers know that the power of free
NEVER diminishes. People have always wanted…
and they will always want … free stuff.
Your task is to use the power of free to make
sales and increase profits… while not fatally turning
into merely a dispenser of free stuff and nothing more.
Brain storm all the things you give away already
The truth is, right now you’re probably already doing
and/or giving away one thing after another… while not
getting any credit for them whatsoever. Whoa! This is
because you have not brain stormed what you do in
your business. In other words, you are now doing things
that could be leveraged into more sales… but you
either don’t know what they are…or haven’t even begun
to consider how to use them.
Here are some examples:
* free shipping.
* free product use instructions
* free customer service
* toll-free number
* free web site with all kinds of product use
instructions and examples
* free recipe booklet
* free articles
* free newsletter
* free catalog
* free ebook
* free blog
To create this list, you must be thorough and
take pains. This list will alter the way you do
business. You will no longer just do something…
you will do something and leverage it to make
more and faster sales. In short, you’ll market
the most intelligent way!
Sleuthing for List #2
In business to make money? Of course you are! That’s
why you need to start researching how other businesses
use the word “free.”
The great thing about business is that you can learn
from what others are doing, starting with but not
limited to people in your particular field. Of course
you want to know what your competitors are giving
away… but don’t think of limiting your researches to
them. Your task is to discover the best uses of “free”
by any company or organization whatsoever.
Keeping everything you find
Question! If you knew that doing something in your
business would produce constant profits, would
you treat that thing with the utmost care? You’re nodding
your head, aren’t you? “I’m no dummy. Of course I would.”
But the truth is… despite the fact that you KNOW
“free” works… your “free file” with all the pertinent
examples is still in your head and no where else,
right? Mistake!
Your free file is one of, if not the most important,
file in your business. No wonder! It contains exactly
what you need to profit… whenever you want to
profit. In short, your file and what’s in it are pure,
unadulterated magic.
Use “free” liberally
My dentist has a memorable poster on his wall.
Under a photo of a mouthful of decaying teeth it
says: “floss only the ones you want to keep.” Let’s use
the sense of this message to improve your marketing
prowess:
“Use ‘free” only on days you want to profit”; in other
words, on every single day you’re in business.
Where should you put these offers?
* top of all marketing/sales letters
* email subject lines
* post script on all correspondence
* on business cards
* in brochures
* in your shop windows
* on bags and packing containers.
Get the picture? Use them EVERYWHERE and ALL
the time. You see marketing never stops, and that means
your use of “free” never stops either.
Keep tabs on what works…. and what doesn’t.
It’s important that you know what works… and what
doesn’t… in your marketing. This means always
coding offers and/or (where you cannot tell yourself)
asking folks what they’re responding to. Always ask them!
Have your staff ask! Ask with a smile and get a million-dollar
response, the response that helps you determine what
to do and where to spend your time in future.
And, friend, start now. Don’t wait a single day to increase your
“free” repertoire and your use of this essential and
always special word. Remember, every day you use “free”
is golden!
onlinemarketing: Of earmuffs, sissies, bone-chilling cold, and warm...
onlinemarketing: Of earmuffs, sissies, bone-chilling cold, and warm...: Author’s program note. Winter. What a revoltin’ development this is. I often wonder on days so ridiculously cold like this one is why the ...
Of earmuffs, sissies, bone-chilling cold, and warm ears; thanks to young inventor Chester Greenwood.
Author’s program note. Winter. What a revoltin’ development this is. I
often wonder on days so ridiculously cold like this one is why the
Puritans stayed here after arriving and sampling the depths of a
Massachusetts winter. I suppose it had something to do with their land
grants and, of course, their pertinacious natures and obstinacy. For
they were of the variety of folks who say they’ll do a thing and then —
do it, never mind that their friends and fellow Pilgrims are dropping
like flies all around them.
I often think of such folks on days like this, in winters like this. Excuse me if I get too intimate too fast, but I wonder, yes and for long periods of time, too, for I like to be thorough in my cogitations and day dreams, I wonder… about the socks those Puritans wore, what undergarments and undies they fashioned, how they made vests and sweaters… scarves and hats, each and every item needed… and especially the focus of today’s ruminations, how they kept their godly ears from freezing and falling off, tangible victory tokens for Winter itself, who likes you to remember who is boss around these parts once the December solstice occurs.
Theocracies, autocracies, aristocracies, ideas on this and that, may all come and go but one fact of human history remains constant and insistent: if you live in a frigid climate, your ears will get plenty cold… and must be taken care of right away, whatever your other priorities for the day.
Meet the patron saint of warm ears…. Chester Greenwood.
For just such days, Chester Greenwood and his first epochal invention were born. And today we sing his praises…. while capering amidst snow and ice. Because of Master Greenwood we are safe and warm, ready for anything.
Because Chester Greenwood, whom I guarantee you never heard of until just this moment, is the man who invented earmuffs… and he hailed not so very far from where I’m writing you today, in Farmington in the State of Maine, where laconic residents know the answer to this ancient question, “Cold enough for you?” And then laugh their thin, silent laugh, the one that keeps their human heat within, not cast profligate like into the too brusque air. Mainers are like that, and we like them just that way, especially young Chester and his ear-saving invention.
Just 15.
Like everybody else in Farmington, Chester’s young ears got cold and turned all the colors of distress, first chalky white, then beet red, and finally the deep blue that signifies danger for the continued use, indeed existence of the ears he rightly prized and cherished. And being a practical lad, and caring, too, for the ears of his family and friends, he did what all folks of inventive disposition do… he began to dream up a solution, and fast, for his ears were big and therefore even colder than most.
As every true inventor knows, the solution to a pending problem — that “eureka!” moment — can occur anytime, anywhere. And you must always be ready when it happens. For that industrious young Greenwood boy it occurred one day when he was out having fun — or trying to –at Abbot Pond where he was breaking in a new pair of skates.
This was a very big deal for him, because he came from a poor family (as most Mainers did) with six kids… and new skates were like gold, for all that they had to be shared. Greenwood was anxious to try out those babies… but the wind whipping off the pond was just too much, even for this hardy lad. He raced home to his “Gram”, found in her proper place in the farmhouse kitchen and asked her to see what she could come up with to cover his ears. It was the kind of practical question every real Grammie expects, is glad to get, and can always do something about.
Chester didn’t just stand and watch as his Grammie worked; that was not his way, and so they worked together. Chester supplied the idea and the materials; Gram, proud of her inventive grandson, supplied the artistry and experience of her nimble fingers, and so they got on like a house afire.
Chester wanted beaver fur on the outside, black velvet on the inside to shield his ears. Wool would never do; too itchy.
Once the materials had been selected and approved, it was time to fashion the device that kept them secure and in place. To solve this problem, they chose a soft wire known as farm wire, a precursor of bailing wire. Some later accounts say the resulting device was then attached to a cap.
So readied for the elements, Chester returned to the pond where, with the warmest ears in the county, he astonished his shivering buddies with the joyous dexterity of unremitting youth.
Soon, this 15 year old whiz kid was in the business of crafting earmuffs for old and young alike; for Mainers know a good deal when they see it. And as Chester worked… he, like every inventor before him, made adjustments, improvements, corrections, never satisfied, always in pursuit of the perfect muff, which he called Greenwood’s ear protectors and which, like Henry Ford’s auto, you could have in any color so long as it was black.
In due course, in 1873, and just 18 mind, he was awarded U.S. patent number 188,292 thereby launching a business which kept 20 or so of his neighbors in Farmington gainfully employed for nearly 60 years. At its height in 1936, he produced some 400,000 muffs a year, doing well while doing good… which is or at least should be the objective of every inventor and entrepreneur.
Greenwood, by now a celebrity in the State of Maine and beyond, died in 1937, aged 79. He had lead the most beneficial of lives, finding needs and filling them, the time honored path to usefulness and wealth. Amongst his 130 patents are such devices as improvements on the spark plug; a decoy mouse trap called the Mechanical Cat; his own shock absorber, a hook for pulling doughnuts from boiling oil, the Rubberless Rubber Band, and the Greenwood Tempered Steel Rake.
But of all his many worthy and practical ideas, I still prefer his first achievement, those earmuffs in beaver and black velvet, for you see like Chester, and such great celebrities as Clark Gable, I have big ears, too; so big that in the Alphabet Poll in my high school year book, my ears were photographed after my discerning classmates had voted mine the most notable, and so they were. Delicious.
And thus, with ears like Greenwood’s, I had Greenwood’s problem; that is until I discovered Greenwood’s solution in a pair of Greenwood’s muffs, in black, of course. They were a statement, that I was a practical boy myself, always desirous of keeping these pristine ears in fine working order. Besides, I don’t mind tellling you, I looked killing in mine, arresting, handsome, cute to boot. Not like Christopher Ninnis, that wag, who made derisory comments about sissies in earmuffs, keeping his in a box. But then… look how he turned out.
Note: In 1977, Maine declared December 21st “Chester Greenwood Day” to honor the king of warm ears whilst the City of Farmington, Maine kept employed by Greenwood’s genius, throws him an annual birthday bash, complete with parade where police cruisers are decorated as giant earmuffs. It’s the first Saturday in December. He deserves it, all of it, don’t you think?
## We invite you to submit your comments below on this article.
I often think of such folks on days like this, in winters like this. Excuse me if I get too intimate too fast, but I wonder, yes and for long periods of time, too, for I like to be thorough in my cogitations and day dreams, I wonder… about the socks those Puritans wore, what undergarments and undies they fashioned, how they made vests and sweaters… scarves and hats, each and every item needed… and especially the focus of today’s ruminations, how they kept their godly ears from freezing and falling off, tangible victory tokens for Winter itself, who likes you to remember who is boss around these parts once the December solstice occurs.
Theocracies, autocracies, aristocracies, ideas on this and that, may all come and go but one fact of human history remains constant and insistent: if you live in a frigid climate, your ears will get plenty cold… and must be taken care of right away, whatever your other priorities for the day.
Meet the patron saint of warm ears…. Chester Greenwood.
For just such days, Chester Greenwood and his first epochal invention were born. And today we sing his praises…. while capering amidst snow and ice. Because of Master Greenwood we are safe and warm, ready for anything.
Because Chester Greenwood, whom I guarantee you never heard of until just this moment, is the man who invented earmuffs… and he hailed not so very far from where I’m writing you today, in Farmington in the State of Maine, where laconic residents know the answer to this ancient question, “Cold enough for you?” And then laugh their thin, silent laugh, the one that keeps their human heat within, not cast profligate like into the too brusque air. Mainers are like that, and we like them just that way, especially young Chester and his ear-saving invention.
Just 15.
Like everybody else in Farmington, Chester’s young ears got cold and turned all the colors of distress, first chalky white, then beet red, and finally the deep blue that signifies danger for the continued use, indeed existence of the ears he rightly prized and cherished. And being a practical lad, and caring, too, for the ears of his family and friends, he did what all folks of inventive disposition do… he began to dream up a solution, and fast, for his ears were big and therefore even colder than most.
As every true inventor knows, the solution to a pending problem — that “eureka!” moment — can occur anytime, anywhere. And you must always be ready when it happens. For that industrious young Greenwood boy it occurred one day when he was out having fun — or trying to –at Abbot Pond where he was breaking in a new pair of skates.
This was a very big deal for him, because he came from a poor family (as most Mainers did) with six kids… and new skates were like gold, for all that they had to be shared. Greenwood was anxious to try out those babies… but the wind whipping off the pond was just too much, even for this hardy lad. He raced home to his “Gram”, found in her proper place in the farmhouse kitchen and asked her to see what she could come up with to cover his ears. It was the kind of practical question every real Grammie expects, is glad to get, and can always do something about.
Chester didn’t just stand and watch as his Grammie worked; that was not his way, and so they worked together. Chester supplied the idea and the materials; Gram, proud of her inventive grandson, supplied the artistry and experience of her nimble fingers, and so they got on like a house afire.
Chester wanted beaver fur on the outside, black velvet on the inside to shield his ears. Wool would never do; too itchy.
Once the materials had been selected and approved, it was time to fashion the device that kept them secure and in place. To solve this problem, they chose a soft wire known as farm wire, a precursor of bailing wire. Some later accounts say the resulting device was then attached to a cap.
So readied for the elements, Chester returned to the pond where, with the warmest ears in the county, he astonished his shivering buddies with the joyous dexterity of unremitting youth.
Soon, this 15 year old whiz kid was in the business of crafting earmuffs for old and young alike; for Mainers know a good deal when they see it. And as Chester worked… he, like every inventor before him, made adjustments, improvements, corrections, never satisfied, always in pursuit of the perfect muff, which he called Greenwood’s ear protectors and which, like Henry Ford’s auto, you could have in any color so long as it was black.
In due course, in 1873, and just 18 mind, he was awarded U.S. patent number 188,292 thereby launching a business which kept 20 or so of his neighbors in Farmington gainfully employed for nearly 60 years. At its height in 1936, he produced some 400,000 muffs a year, doing well while doing good… which is or at least should be the objective of every inventor and entrepreneur.
Greenwood, by now a celebrity in the State of Maine and beyond, died in 1937, aged 79. He had lead the most beneficial of lives, finding needs and filling them, the time honored path to usefulness and wealth. Amongst his 130 patents are such devices as improvements on the spark plug; a decoy mouse trap called the Mechanical Cat; his own shock absorber, a hook for pulling doughnuts from boiling oil, the Rubberless Rubber Band, and the Greenwood Tempered Steel Rake.
But of all his many worthy and practical ideas, I still prefer his first achievement, those earmuffs in beaver and black velvet, for you see like Chester, and such great celebrities as Clark Gable, I have big ears, too; so big that in the Alphabet Poll in my high school year book, my ears were photographed after my discerning classmates had voted mine the most notable, and so they were. Delicious.
And thus, with ears like Greenwood’s, I had Greenwood’s problem; that is until I discovered Greenwood’s solution in a pair of Greenwood’s muffs, in black, of course. They were a statement, that I was a practical boy myself, always desirous of keeping these pristine ears in fine working order. Besides, I don’t mind tellling you, I looked killing in mine, arresting, handsome, cute to boot. Not like Christopher Ninnis, that wag, who made derisory comments about sissies in earmuffs, keeping his in a box. But then… look how he turned out.
Note: In 1977, Maine declared December 21st “Chester Greenwood Day” to honor the king of warm ears whilst the City of Farmington, Maine kept employed by Greenwood’s genius, throws him an annual birthday bash, complete with parade where police cruisers are decorated as giant earmuffs. It’s the first Saturday in December. He deserves it, all of it, don’t you think?
## We invite you to submit your comments below on this article.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
‘Hey, look me over’ as two-timin’ Newt stops Romney’s coronation coach in South Carolina.
Author’s program note. There can be only one song peppy enough,
bouncy enough, irresistible enough, a song that is the very essence of
what is best about America… that we get hit and hit again and hit again…
yet get up, dust ourselves off and do what’s necessary to win, thank
you very much.
That song is “Hey, look me over,” from the 1960 musical “Wildcat” (book by Richard Nash; lyrics by Caroline Leigh; music by Cy Coleman); and it fits the mood today at the headquarters of Newt Gingrich, the man who squeezed the bitter lemon of his contorted and messy relations with women into a lemonade sweet enough even the good Christian folk could drink by the gallon.
Thus, go to any search engine now. Find this tune and play it loud and proud… For, in the final analysis, we love the people Teddy Roosevelt described as “the man in the arena,” the people who have to win because losing is unthinkable. Even if we have to hold our noses when we get too close, we just can’t help admiring them, getting off our posteriors and cheering them to the echo. And the GOP citizens of South Carolina did just that.
They decided to vote for an idea… the idea that it is “we, the people” who make presidents… not pollsters, not handlers, not pundits and prognosticators… and if you don’t like it, that’s your problem. Not theirs. Thus did Romney get his gourmet, tax- deductible lunch handed to him… his contrived designer jeans ripped, torn, muddy, and a black eye to boot. This doesn’t mean he won’t be nominated, but it most assuredly means he will not be, cannot be nominated the way he’s gone about the job so far. South Carolina has dictated that if nothing more.
Prize day.
To sketch this influential event in a way that even third-graders could understand, consider this: Mitt Romney is the school kid we all hated; hated with our heart, soul and brain, for we knew — and could see evidence every single day, every day he raised his hand and knew the answer — that he was the kid the teachers idolized, the one they could with abiding pride point to and say, “That’s our boy.” Whereupon the boy would beam… and our hatred would grow… and we’d dream delicious ways of taking him down a peg or two… the faster, the sooner, the most abashing, the better.
Then one day one of the kids couldn’t take it take it anymore… and he pops, goes nuts. It’s the day school prizes are awarded; Mitt getting the lion’s share. It was the day something must be done… the time for mere rage gone; the need for action this day nigh.
Thus does this kid (call him Newt) see picture-perfect, not-a-hair-out-of-place Mitt coming to school in his chauffeur driven car and goes postal; he decides enough is enough… that Mitt (whose very name he abominates and loathes) must be taken out… but without of course implicating himself. Thus with a “sorry, man” at the ready scruffy, incorrigible Newt maneuvers Mitt into the nearest, stinkiest, festering mud, thereby rendering the apple of every teacher’s eye an unholy mess when he walks into class…
How much sympathy does ol’ Mitt get, for all that he’s the victim? None, absolutely none at all… and they elect Newt Student Body President in a landslide… because, because… Mitt makes them sick, every last one of them.
And, friends, this is what happened yesterday in South Carolina… the state oh-so- clearly indicated that they want candidates who fight for their favors, including the ultimate favor of getting to whack on their behalf, the man each and every one of them despises… Barack Obama, president of the Great Republic… for make no mistake about it, the fractured, snarling, uncooperative members of the Grand Old Party want brother Barack’s head on a platter… this is and has been since Inauguration Day 2009, their first and preeminent desire.
And they aren’t convinced Mitt can bring home the bacon… stinging the incumbent, slashing the incumbent, wounding the incumbent, humiliating the incumbent, for that’s what they insist their candidate deliver… like Salome with the head of John the Baptist, a reference every Evangelical knows and savors.
So, what has the great Palmetto State, home of nullifier John C. Calhoun and war profiteer Rhett Butler, the state that lobbed the first treasonable shot, thereby launching a war anything but civil, what has this state said?
First, that the Romney Coronation is off. That the carefully contrived, minutely controlled candidacy of Massachusetts’ least popular governor has ended. Mitt is going to have to do what Mitt hates: engaging in a bare-knuckles brawl that must show the GOP he is their boy; a man who can deliver the red-meat the much challenged and riven party craves. For these folks, rabid revolutionaries all and Constitution-hugging patriots as they are, are not about to go gentle into this good-night; they insist upon a candidate who can turn their white hot rage about the wrongful direction of the Great Republic into a lifetime lock on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the nation’s agenda.
They look at Mitt and want to puke… What kind of American is he, they wonder, who wants the most precious of their gifts, their vote for president; but who, they feel in their gut, not only does not like or understand them, but faces them with incomprehension and even disdain? They know that a dinner-party with Mitt and his dutiful, adoring wife (a role model impossible for today’s woman) would be proper, dull, an unhappy memory for all… for all that Mitt might say just the right things with gestures approved by his stable of handlers.
And so while Republican hosts may yet dine with this stiff, control freak and paragon, they are afraid, and rightly so, that there won’t be any pleasure in it, no fun, no grandiose joys and memories; worst of all, no White House.
And this is why the GOP has gone through the long, exhaustive, often abjectly humiliating process of vetting one potential presidential nominee after another, all ardently desired and even adored at the outset; all found wanting and disquieting in so very many ways.
Will these folks be happy with Newt, his many wives, his inexplicable financial arrangements, his blatant self-service and prevarications? Maybe not. But he is serving their purposes right now — forcing Mitt out of his bubble, demanding he get real on why his association with Bain Capital unnerves so many at a time when he has so egregiously mishandled the matter of his tax returns. We all know, and Romney knows we know, that what we will find when he at last makes them public — no evidence of illegality but a text-book case of how the super-wealthy gain and use loop-holes on which they build their empires.
Newt has all of Romney’s many inadequacies going for him… and he has, mirabile dictu, brigades of Southern women for him, too. They already knew that men are lyin’, cheatin’, low-down scoundrels. But now it’s official. Messin’ around with women is no big deal, no sin at all, whatever the Good Book says… just keep our taxes low, hold our Founding Fathers high, make us as special as we see ourselves, and above all love us… something Mitt Romney just cannot do…
That song is “Hey, look me over,” from the 1960 musical “Wildcat” (book by Richard Nash; lyrics by Caroline Leigh; music by Cy Coleman); and it fits the mood today at the headquarters of Newt Gingrich, the man who squeezed the bitter lemon of his contorted and messy relations with women into a lemonade sweet enough even the good Christian folk could drink by the gallon.
Thus, go to any search engine now. Find this tune and play it loud and proud… For, in the final analysis, we love the people Teddy Roosevelt described as “the man in the arena,” the people who have to win because losing is unthinkable. Even if we have to hold our noses when we get too close, we just can’t help admiring them, getting off our posteriors and cheering them to the echo. And the GOP citizens of South Carolina did just that.
They decided to vote for an idea… the idea that it is “we, the people” who make presidents… not pollsters, not handlers, not pundits and prognosticators… and if you don’t like it, that’s your problem. Not theirs. Thus did Romney get his gourmet, tax- deductible lunch handed to him… his contrived designer jeans ripped, torn, muddy, and a black eye to boot. This doesn’t mean he won’t be nominated, but it most assuredly means he will not be, cannot be nominated the way he’s gone about the job so far. South Carolina has dictated that if nothing more.
Prize day.
To sketch this influential event in a way that even third-graders could understand, consider this: Mitt Romney is the school kid we all hated; hated with our heart, soul and brain, for we knew — and could see evidence every single day, every day he raised his hand and knew the answer — that he was the kid the teachers idolized, the one they could with abiding pride point to and say, “That’s our boy.” Whereupon the boy would beam… and our hatred would grow… and we’d dream delicious ways of taking him down a peg or two… the faster, the sooner, the most abashing, the better.
Then one day one of the kids couldn’t take it take it anymore… and he pops, goes nuts. It’s the day school prizes are awarded; Mitt getting the lion’s share. It was the day something must be done… the time for mere rage gone; the need for action this day nigh.
Thus does this kid (call him Newt) see picture-perfect, not-a-hair-out-of-place Mitt coming to school in his chauffeur driven car and goes postal; he decides enough is enough… that Mitt (whose very name he abominates and loathes) must be taken out… but without of course implicating himself. Thus with a “sorry, man” at the ready scruffy, incorrigible Newt maneuvers Mitt into the nearest, stinkiest, festering mud, thereby rendering the apple of every teacher’s eye an unholy mess when he walks into class…
How much sympathy does ol’ Mitt get, for all that he’s the victim? None, absolutely none at all… and they elect Newt Student Body President in a landslide… because, because… Mitt makes them sick, every last one of them.
And, friends, this is what happened yesterday in South Carolina… the state oh-so- clearly indicated that they want candidates who fight for their favors, including the ultimate favor of getting to whack on their behalf, the man each and every one of them despises… Barack Obama, president of the Great Republic… for make no mistake about it, the fractured, snarling, uncooperative members of the Grand Old Party want brother Barack’s head on a platter… this is and has been since Inauguration Day 2009, their first and preeminent desire.
And they aren’t convinced Mitt can bring home the bacon… stinging the incumbent, slashing the incumbent, wounding the incumbent, humiliating the incumbent, for that’s what they insist their candidate deliver… like Salome with the head of John the Baptist, a reference every Evangelical knows and savors.
So, what has the great Palmetto State, home of nullifier John C. Calhoun and war profiteer Rhett Butler, the state that lobbed the first treasonable shot, thereby launching a war anything but civil, what has this state said?
First, that the Romney Coronation is off. That the carefully contrived, minutely controlled candidacy of Massachusetts’ least popular governor has ended. Mitt is going to have to do what Mitt hates: engaging in a bare-knuckles brawl that must show the GOP he is their boy; a man who can deliver the red-meat the much challenged and riven party craves. For these folks, rabid revolutionaries all and Constitution-hugging patriots as they are, are not about to go gentle into this good-night; they insist upon a candidate who can turn their white hot rage about the wrongful direction of the Great Republic into a lifetime lock on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the nation’s agenda.
They look at Mitt and want to puke… What kind of American is he, they wonder, who wants the most precious of their gifts, their vote for president; but who, they feel in their gut, not only does not like or understand them, but faces them with incomprehension and even disdain? They know that a dinner-party with Mitt and his dutiful, adoring wife (a role model impossible for today’s woman) would be proper, dull, an unhappy memory for all… for all that Mitt might say just the right things with gestures approved by his stable of handlers.
And so while Republican hosts may yet dine with this stiff, control freak and paragon, they are afraid, and rightly so, that there won’t be any pleasure in it, no fun, no grandiose joys and memories; worst of all, no White House.
And this is why the GOP has gone through the long, exhaustive, often abjectly humiliating process of vetting one potential presidential nominee after another, all ardently desired and even adored at the outset; all found wanting and disquieting in so very many ways.
Will these folks be happy with Newt, his many wives, his inexplicable financial arrangements, his blatant self-service and prevarications? Maybe not. But he is serving their purposes right now — forcing Mitt out of his bubble, demanding he get real on why his association with Bain Capital unnerves so many at a time when he has so egregiously mishandled the matter of his tax returns. We all know, and Romney knows we know, that what we will find when he at last makes them public — no evidence of illegality but a text-book case of how the super-wealthy gain and use loop-holes on which they build their empires.
Newt has all of Romney’s many inadequacies going for him… and he has, mirabile dictu, brigades of Southern women for him, too. They already knew that men are lyin’, cheatin’, low-down scoundrels. But now it’s official. Messin’ around with women is no big deal, no sin at all, whatever the Good Book says… just keep our taxes low, hold our Founding Fathers high, make us as special as we see ourselves, and above all love us… something Mitt Romney just cannot do…
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Are you an entrepreneur? Check these crucial attributes and see if you really measure up. (You probably don’t.)
Author’s program note. This is an article about bold, visionary, business
risk- takers called “entrepreneurs”. Such people, by their intelligence,
diligence, and shear bravado, overawe movie and sports stars in public awareness
and regard and dwarf any renown which may come with mere public office, even the
most high.
Entrepreneurs are the heroes of our age; never have they been more discussed, emulated, venerated and even worshipped as they are right now. On campuses around the nation and the world, the giants of entrepreneurial fame draw standing room only crowds while mere authors, statesmen, and musicians take second place, or worse.
Oh, yes, these are the heady days for entrepreneurs. It is no wonder you wish to enroll yourself amongst their ranks. But are you really cut out to be an entrepreneur? This article will make that clear, one way or the other.
To put you in the right frame of mind, I’ve selected the theme music for the hit television series “Star Trek”, which celebrates those who boldly go where no man has gone before. This music was composed by Alexander Courage for the series which debued in 1966. It is highly suitable for those who don’t merely move into the future… they create it. You can easily find it in any search engine. Get it now… turn up the volume… and closely follow the points in this article which will make it clear whether you will captain your own Starship Enterprise, or not…
What is an entrepreneur? Let’s start with the definition.
Entrepreneur was originally a French word taken over lock, stock and barrel by the English speaking world, much to the dismay of the Academie Francaise, official guardian of the French language. Its definition is “One who undertakes to start and conduct an enterprise or business, assuming full control and risk.” Now let’s see if you are this person.
1) Entrepreneurs see the world not just as it is… but as it should be. From this fundamental fact about entrepreneurs all other facts derive.
Scratch an entrepreneur and you’ll find a person who is not just tinkering with human reality today… but has been tinkering with it right from the get-go, even from the cradle. They never see just what is… in their mind’s eye they see each and every situation as it can be… must be; they have only to do their bit.
2) Entrepreneurs say with Harry S. Truman, who proved as president of these United States to have the soul and inclinations of an entrepreneur, that “You can’t have anything worth while without difficulties”. And, “Mistakes would be made. No one who accomplished things could expect to avoid mistakes. Only those who did nothing made no mistakes.”
Those without the blood and fiber of an entrepreneur live their lives in chagrined remembrance for all the mistakes, errors, miscalculations and bonehead decisions they have already made… and are sure, given the chance, they will make again. This paralyzes them… for they are sure that when they decide, that decision will be wrong. On this destructive basis no progress is ever possible.
Entrepreneurs are very different.
Each and every decision made opens the possibility for error. This is the real world in which entrepreneurs live and flourish… accepting whatever transpires as yet another valuable learning step, as they walk the road to improving the human condition.
3) Entrepreneurs are “people-people”. They understand their work, all their work, is for people, unlike those without the entrepreneurial wherewithal who, in this withering phrase, “love humanity but hate people.”
An entrepreneur looks at a given situation and sees people unable to fulfill their God- given potential because of a condition, an obstacle which can, given the idea, the desire, the resources, and their own time and energy, be changed, improved, or even eradicated, sent to the scrap heap of invidious, enfeebling circumstances that the collectivity of entrepreneurs and their active, can-do ways have removed as obstacles to the perfectibility of mankind.
In short, while others immerse themselves in fallibilities and dismay, the entrepreneur activates Teddy Roosevelt’s celebrated recommendation to “do the best you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.”
They know to the depths of their being that there is nothing so wrong that cannot be righted by the sum and substance of their parts, their humanity, their problem-solving capabilities… and that je ne sais quoi that distinguishes them from the run of mankind which sees obstacles as finalities… not challenges which they can meet… with grace, joy, and gratitude that they had the chance to serve.
4) Entrepreneurs crash, burn, hurt… and get up to try it all over again.
In the international best-seller “Zorba the Greek” (published 1964), author Mikis Theodarakis writes of a young English entrepreneur who gets entangled with and wiped out by the bad advice and worse assistance of Zorba, who is at best a con man. He follows Zorba’s catastrophic advice… and in a memorable scene watches as the Rube Goldberg machine Zorba has created collapses, costing the entrepreneur every cent he has… and more. For an instant, stunned by the implosion of all his prospects, every dream and expectation, he is stupified, angry, lost. Then he shows the true grit of even the grieving entrepreneur, “Teach me to dance,” he asks Zorba, not at all the line we expected… but should have. It is what a real entrepreneur would say… and dance the sirtaki.
This is how entrepreneurs face catastrophe… for as Thomas Alva Edison, revered of American entrepreneurs, said, â??I haven’t failed, I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t workâ?, commenting on what he learned from the exasperation of years of “failure.” Sublime.
5) Entrepreneurs uplift, never cast down.
No one knows better than an entrepreneur how difficult the improvement of the human condition can be; certainly those without the entrepreneurial disposition and experience cannot.
Thus, on any opportunity, wherever they happen to be, entrepreneurs lift up, encourage, and ease the way. Thus they administer in friendship and human solidarity essential truths and elements which have benefited them and from which hopeful others may benefit, too.
Entrepreneurs carry with them at all times, truths and insights derived from their unique vantage points, practical advice and admonitions, steady advice, always utilitarian, on what to do… and what not to. They never think, as those without entrepreneurial proclivities do, that to give to others is to diminish yourself. Their point of view is radically different — and always helpful.
And one more thing…
Entrepreneurs, however much they have managed to achieve alone, know that their success is always predicated upon the dedicated assistance and endeavors of the crucial people who constitute their team. It is their honor, their pride and responsibility to recognize and thank these sinews of their success, and they are glad to do so.
When was the last time you did as much for the good people who have helped you? Isn’t it time you did, you who aspire to be an entrepreneur?
Entrepreneurs are the heroes of our age; never have they been more discussed, emulated, venerated and even worshipped as they are right now. On campuses around the nation and the world, the giants of entrepreneurial fame draw standing room only crowds while mere authors, statesmen, and musicians take second place, or worse.
Oh, yes, these are the heady days for entrepreneurs. It is no wonder you wish to enroll yourself amongst their ranks. But are you really cut out to be an entrepreneur? This article will make that clear, one way or the other.
To put you in the right frame of mind, I’ve selected the theme music for the hit television series “Star Trek”, which celebrates those who boldly go where no man has gone before. This music was composed by Alexander Courage for the series which debued in 1966. It is highly suitable for those who don’t merely move into the future… they create it. You can easily find it in any search engine. Get it now… turn up the volume… and closely follow the points in this article which will make it clear whether you will captain your own Starship Enterprise, or not…
What is an entrepreneur? Let’s start with the definition.
Entrepreneur was originally a French word taken over lock, stock and barrel by the English speaking world, much to the dismay of the Academie Francaise, official guardian of the French language. Its definition is “One who undertakes to start and conduct an enterprise or business, assuming full control and risk.” Now let’s see if you are this person.
1) Entrepreneurs see the world not just as it is… but as it should be. From this fundamental fact about entrepreneurs all other facts derive.
Scratch an entrepreneur and you’ll find a person who is not just tinkering with human reality today… but has been tinkering with it right from the get-go, even from the cradle. They never see just what is… in their mind’s eye they see each and every situation as it can be… must be; they have only to do their bit.
2) Entrepreneurs say with Harry S. Truman, who proved as president of these United States to have the soul and inclinations of an entrepreneur, that “You can’t have anything worth while without difficulties”. And, “Mistakes would be made. No one who accomplished things could expect to avoid mistakes. Only those who did nothing made no mistakes.”
Those without the blood and fiber of an entrepreneur live their lives in chagrined remembrance for all the mistakes, errors, miscalculations and bonehead decisions they have already made… and are sure, given the chance, they will make again. This paralyzes them… for they are sure that when they decide, that decision will be wrong. On this destructive basis no progress is ever possible.
Entrepreneurs are very different.
Each and every decision made opens the possibility for error. This is the real world in which entrepreneurs live and flourish… accepting whatever transpires as yet another valuable learning step, as they walk the road to improving the human condition.
3) Entrepreneurs are “people-people”. They understand their work, all their work, is for people, unlike those without the entrepreneurial wherewithal who, in this withering phrase, “love humanity but hate people.”
An entrepreneur looks at a given situation and sees people unable to fulfill their God- given potential because of a condition, an obstacle which can, given the idea, the desire, the resources, and their own time and energy, be changed, improved, or even eradicated, sent to the scrap heap of invidious, enfeebling circumstances that the collectivity of entrepreneurs and their active, can-do ways have removed as obstacles to the perfectibility of mankind.
In short, while others immerse themselves in fallibilities and dismay, the entrepreneur activates Teddy Roosevelt’s celebrated recommendation to “do the best you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.”
They know to the depths of their being that there is nothing so wrong that cannot be righted by the sum and substance of their parts, their humanity, their problem-solving capabilities… and that je ne sais quoi that distinguishes them from the run of mankind which sees obstacles as finalities… not challenges which they can meet… with grace, joy, and gratitude that they had the chance to serve.
4) Entrepreneurs crash, burn, hurt… and get up to try it all over again.
In the international best-seller “Zorba the Greek” (published 1964), author Mikis Theodarakis writes of a young English entrepreneur who gets entangled with and wiped out by the bad advice and worse assistance of Zorba, who is at best a con man. He follows Zorba’s catastrophic advice… and in a memorable scene watches as the Rube Goldberg machine Zorba has created collapses, costing the entrepreneur every cent he has… and more. For an instant, stunned by the implosion of all his prospects, every dream and expectation, he is stupified, angry, lost. Then he shows the true grit of even the grieving entrepreneur, “Teach me to dance,” he asks Zorba, not at all the line we expected… but should have. It is what a real entrepreneur would say… and dance the sirtaki.
This is how entrepreneurs face catastrophe… for as Thomas Alva Edison, revered of American entrepreneurs, said, â??I haven’t failed, I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t workâ?, commenting on what he learned from the exasperation of years of “failure.” Sublime.
5) Entrepreneurs uplift, never cast down.
No one knows better than an entrepreneur how difficult the improvement of the human condition can be; certainly those without the entrepreneurial disposition and experience cannot.
Thus, on any opportunity, wherever they happen to be, entrepreneurs lift up, encourage, and ease the way. Thus they administer in friendship and human solidarity essential truths and elements which have benefited them and from which hopeful others may benefit, too.
Entrepreneurs carry with them at all times, truths and insights derived from their unique vantage points, practical advice and admonitions, steady advice, always utilitarian, on what to do… and what not to. They never think, as those without entrepreneurial proclivities do, that to give to others is to diminish yourself. Their point of view is radically different — and always helpful.
And one more thing…
Entrepreneurs, however much they have managed to achieve alone, know that their success is always predicated upon the dedicated assistance and endeavors of the crucial people who constitute their team. It is their honor, their pride and responsibility to recognize and thank these sinews of their success, and they are glad to do so.
When was the last time you did as much for the good people who have helped you? Isn’t it time you did, you who aspire to be an entrepreneur?
Of polar bears. As the water rises, their prospects fall.
Author’s program note. What music is appropriate for the undoubted decline
and possible demise of one of the grandest creatures on earth — Ursus maritimus
— the polar bear? I have selected Edvard Grieg’s 1867 masterpiece “From the hall
of the mountain king”, for this is the story of a race of kings, sovereigns all,
ruling over a land of snow and ice… a land now melting, imperiling these princes
of the North… whose prospects for survival wane as the sea waters around them
rise, a rise which threatens human kind, too. This is their story… and we must
heed it for they are not threatened alone. You’ll find Grieg’s suite in any
search engine. Find it now… and listen to its evocative, enigmatic sound. This
sound will endure…. but will the polar bears whose tale I tell this day?
The seas at the top of the world are rising, rising…
While politicians argue about cause and effect, the undeniable fact of global warming and rising seas is beyond cavil and dispute. Sea level has been rising significantly over the past century, according to a newly released study that offers the most detailed look yet at the changes in ocean levels during the past 2,100 years.
Researcher Benjamin Horton, director of the Sea Level Research Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, found that since the late 19th century — as the world’s industrialization intensified — sea level has risen more than 2 millimeters per year on average. That’s a bit less than one-tenth of an inch… a small amount that signals death for polar bears… and chaos for seaside humans, drip by inexorable drip. It’s all about rising temperatures.
Rising sea levels are among the hazards that rightly concern environmentalists and progressive governments with increasing global temperatures caused by greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels like coal and oil over the last century or so.
The heat generated works to steadily melt some of the millions of tons of ice piled up on land in Greenland, Antarctica, and elsewhere. Such melting raises ocean levels and this, in turn, raises the possibility of major flooding in highly populated coastal cities and greater storm damage in oceanfront communities.
Polar bears must swim further and further for food…
Researcher Anthony Pagano, a US Geological Survey biologist, at the International Bear Association Conference, has, in his newly released study, made it clear what happens to polar bears as the snow melts and the seas rise. He identified and studied 50 long- distance swims by adult female polar bears between 2004 and 2009 in the southern Beaufort and Chukchi seas.
“Climate change is pulling the sea ice out from under polar bears’ feet, forcing some to swim longer distances to find food and habitat,” said Geoff York, a polar bear expert at the World Wildlife Fund who coauthored the study.
And the cubs simply fall off…
York said polar bears, tracked by satellite devices, routinely swim 10 miles or more for food, principally the seals they dote on and devour. But as the seas rise, these distances increase. Twenty bears in the survey swam more than 30 miles at a time. The longest-distance swim was 426 miles; the longest-lasting swim was 12.7 days, with a few brief breaks on drift ice. All this is bad enough, but here’s the tragic element: eleven of the bears that swam long distances had young cubs when researchers attached the tracking collars. Five of those mothers lost their cubs while swimming… and thus the breed and its prospects are diminished…
Facts about the threatened polar bears, majestic, now vulnerable.
The polar bear, universally admired, is the world’s largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak bear, which is approximately the same size. An adult male weighs around 350-680 kg (770-1,500 lb), while an adult female is about half the size. Although it is closely related to the brown bear, it has evolved to occupy a narrower ecological niche, with many body characteristics adapted for cold temperatures, for moving across snow, ice, and open water, and for hunting the seals, which make up most of its diet.
The polar bear is classified as a vulnerable species, with eight of the 19 polar bear subpopulations in decline. Researchers estimate there are 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears worldwide; they are listed as threatened under the US Endangered Species Act.
“Nanook of the North.”
Over the course of uncounted centuries, the intricate, necessary symbiosis between the polar elements, the polar bear, and Inuit and other indigenous peoples of the North has slowly, carefully evolved. The Northern people revered the bear whose flesh they enjoyed… they called the polar bear “nanook”… and took the name proudly for themselves.
In 1922, Robert J. Flaherty made one of the most celebrated documentaries of the silent film era, “Nanook of the North”, calling it “A Story of Life and Love In the Actual Arctic.” In the tradition of what would later be called “salvage ethnography”, Flaherty captured (and some critics said staged) the struggles of the Inuk Nanook and his family in the Canadian arctic. In 1989, this film was one of the first 25 films selected for preservation in the United States Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
But the human Nanook, though most assuredly a predator of the ursine Nanook, was never a problem, for he took only what he needed… and was never wanton. He never forgot he needed nanook. No, he is not the problem, though human kind as a whole most assuredly is. For we as a genus are thoughtless, careless always anxious to shift the guilt, the burden, the responsibility to others for what we have done.
And what’s terrible about this so sad situation is this: we know what to do and when and how to do it. We don’t need more learned studies; for studies about the future of the polar bear and its irrevocably changing environment are frequent, thorough, detailed, and unanswerable. We need action… before this matter becomes, like the histories of so many other species, academic.
But, for now, let us end as we began, with Edvard Grieg, master of unsurpassed, haunting melody. A creature of the North, knowing Winter well, he cherished the fleeting glories of Spring. In this spirit, he composed something so beautiful it is painful to listen to. He called it “Last Spring”, and you must go to any search engine now to play it. Let it fill your heart with compassion for the great creatures now completely at the mercy of their greatest predators, us. Let us pray that this song of soul by Grieg remains great music only and that there is no “Last Spring” for Ursus maritimus, beloved of man, dying through the works of man.
For where shall we find your like again; You who thrilled us so?
Where shall we look when you are gone you who have been made by God?
When you are gone who will care for why when your great heart beats no more?
God will know… … but He will not say for we who were bade to cherish failed you.
So now we lament… too late Now we shall know you not and nevermore.
Never to play again under the great northern lights once your heaven.
Where then have you gone? You whom we loved, and failed…
The seas at the top of the world are rising, rising…
While politicians argue about cause and effect, the undeniable fact of global warming and rising seas is beyond cavil and dispute. Sea level has been rising significantly over the past century, according to a newly released study that offers the most detailed look yet at the changes in ocean levels during the past 2,100 years.
Researcher Benjamin Horton, director of the Sea Level Research Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, found that since the late 19th century — as the world’s industrialization intensified — sea level has risen more than 2 millimeters per year on average. That’s a bit less than one-tenth of an inch… a small amount that signals death for polar bears… and chaos for seaside humans, drip by inexorable drip. It’s all about rising temperatures.
Rising sea levels are among the hazards that rightly concern environmentalists and progressive governments with increasing global temperatures caused by greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels like coal and oil over the last century or so.
The heat generated works to steadily melt some of the millions of tons of ice piled up on land in Greenland, Antarctica, and elsewhere. Such melting raises ocean levels and this, in turn, raises the possibility of major flooding in highly populated coastal cities and greater storm damage in oceanfront communities.
Polar bears must swim further and further for food…
Researcher Anthony Pagano, a US Geological Survey biologist, at the International Bear Association Conference, has, in his newly released study, made it clear what happens to polar bears as the snow melts and the seas rise. He identified and studied 50 long- distance swims by adult female polar bears between 2004 and 2009 in the southern Beaufort and Chukchi seas.
“Climate change is pulling the sea ice out from under polar bears’ feet, forcing some to swim longer distances to find food and habitat,” said Geoff York, a polar bear expert at the World Wildlife Fund who coauthored the study.
And the cubs simply fall off…
York said polar bears, tracked by satellite devices, routinely swim 10 miles or more for food, principally the seals they dote on and devour. But as the seas rise, these distances increase. Twenty bears in the survey swam more than 30 miles at a time. The longest-distance swim was 426 miles; the longest-lasting swim was 12.7 days, with a few brief breaks on drift ice. All this is bad enough, but here’s the tragic element: eleven of the bears that swam long distances had young cubs when researchers attached the tracking collars. Five of those mothers lost their cubs while swimming… and thus the breed and its prospects are diminished…
Facts about the threatened polar bears, majestic, now vulnerable.
The polar bear, universally admired, is the world’s largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak bear, which is approximately the same size. An adult male weighs around 350-680 kg (770-1,500 lb), while an adult female is about half the size. Although it is closely related to the brown bear, it has evolved to occupy a narrower ecological niche, with many body characteristics adapted for cold temperatures, for moving across snow, ice, and open water, and for hunting the seals, which make up most of its diet.
The polar bear is classified as a vulnerable species, with eight of the 19 polar bear subpopulations in decline. Researchers estimate there are 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears worldwide; they are listed as threatened under the US Endangered Species Act.
“Nanook of the North.”
Over the course of uncounted centuries, the intricate, necessary symbiosis between the polar elements, the polar bear, and Inuit and other indigenous peoples of the North has slowly, carefully evolved. The Northern people revered the bear whose flesh they enjoyed… they called the polar bear “nanook”… and took the name proudly for themselves.
In 1922, Robert J. Flaherty made one of the most celebrated documentaries of the silent film era, “Nanook of the North”, calling it “A Story of Life and Love In the Actual Arctic.” In the tradition of what would later be called “salvage ethnography”, Flaherty captured (and some critics said staged) the struggles of the Inuk Nanook and his family in the Canadian arctic. In 1989, this film was one of the first 25 films selected for preservation in the United States Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
But the human Nanook, though most assuredly a predator of the ursine Nanook, was never a problem, for he took only what he needed… and was never wanton. He never forgot he needed nanook. No, he is not the problem, though human kind as a whole most assuredly is. For we as a genus are thoughtless, careless always anxious to shift the guilt, the burden, the responsibility to others for what we have done.
And what’s terrible about this so sad situation is this: we know what to do and when and how to do it. We don’t need more learned studies; for studies about the future of the polar bear and its irrevocably changing environment are frequent, thorough, detailed, and unanswerable. We need action… before this matter becomes, like the histories of so many other species, academic.
But, for now, let us end as we began, with Edvard Grieg, master of unsurpassed, haunting melody. A creature of the North, knowing Winter well, he cherished the fleeting glories of Spring. In this spirit, he composed something so beautiful it is painful to listen to. He called it “Last Spring”, and you must go to any search engine now to play it. Let it fill your heart with compassion for the great creatures now completely at the mercy of their greatest predators, us. Let us pray that this song of soul by Grieg remains great music only and that there is no “Last Spring” for Ursus maritimus, beloved of man, dying through the works of man.
For where shall we find your like again; You who thrilled us so?
Where shall we look when you are gone you who have been made by God?
When you are gone who will care for why when your great heart beats no more?
God will know… … but He will not say for we who were bade to cherish failed you.
So now we lament… too late Now we shall know you not and nevermore.
Never to play again under the great northern lights once your heaven.
Where then have you gone? You whom we loved, and failed…
You SAY you’re in business, but that proposition is dubious, as this article reveals in shocking detail.
Author’s program note. One of Broadway’s happiest and most enduring musicals
is “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.” Written by Frank Loesser;
it was released in October, 1961 to immediate acclaim — and a Pulitzer Prize to
boot. Most recently it was revived with Daniel Ratcliffe — famous for his
eponymous role in the Harry Potter films — starring in the lead role originally
done to mischievous perfection by Robert Morse, simultaneously menace and
mastermind.
I have selected one of the lesser tunes from the production for the occasional music to this article. It’s called simply “Coffee Break”, and you should go to any search engine now to listen to it. It’s about how the absence of coffee — and therefore the coffee break — raises more anxiety and lamentation than a plague of locusts and completely stops the whole company, convinced that the end of the world as they know it is at hand. Oh, my! So much grief for one missed cuppa. However, the real shock is not that the coffee was late for the company coffee break, no indeed; the real shock is that more time, trouble, energy, irritation, and anger was expended on this event than on anything else that entire day… including the company’s business they were hired to transact…until the outrage about the coffee break was surpassed by certain stale items on the lunch menu… thereby diverting everyone’s outspoken attention to this even greater snafu.
The sad part is that this kind of ludicrous “crisis” and massive waste of time does not occur solely or exclusively on Madison Avenue or in Broadway shows… it is most likely the way you are running your “business” and why it doesn’t prosper.
That’s why today, I am going to put you and your “business” under the most minute scrutiny, the better to help you understand that your business, as you currently organize and run it — cannot make the desirable profits of your imagination… until such time as you rethink everything — absolutely everything — so that the focus of your energy and action every day is NOT the coffee break… but actually doing BUSINESS. And as this analysis develops right before your very eyes, you are most likely to be chagrined, embarrassed, and horrified – and that’s just for openers.
On the acute need to perceive what you are really doing every single day.
You say you are in business, correct? You say you want substantial, increasing profits, correct? You say you are a hard worker; indeed that the sun never sets on all the work you do, the tasks done, the challenges confronted, correct?
In short you are about as swift, intelligent, able and valuable a business person as business has ever seen and that your DNA should be donated to the nation so that generations yet to come may have the benefit of you and your unmatched business expertise and execution.
You, of course, are even now nodding your head in sage agreement with this flawless description of you and your business acumen. Modest though you are, you cannot but admit that you are the very paragon and model sketched above… just like Kansas City, you’ve gone about as far as you can go.
It is this proposition swallowed hook, line and sinker by the overwhelming majority of business owners of every kind that keeps you trapped in a business that doesn’t grow, expand, prosper and that does not make and will never make the profits you consistently and repeatedly say are the reason you are in business to get and enjoy.
YOU and your business under our microscope.
Now, it’s time to knuckle down to the important, sure-to-be-shocking analysis of what you do during your “business hours”… for you cannot improve your business until you know precisely what you do and precisely when you do it.
Business is about two things and two things only…
Quick! Can you guess what they are? The correct answer is 1) the generation of qualified prospects and 2) contacting these prospects, making them the most lavish, persuasive offer ever, then closing the deal forthwith. This is the two- step dance that keeps you in business, expands your business, and leads to money, money, money… yours, all yours.
Now let’s see just what percentage of your average day focuses on these two key points… and what percentage of your business day goes to anything but these two essential tasks.
You’ll need a pad, a watch, and total honesty.
To make this crucial scrutiny work, you will need to be clear about what you do, when you do it, and how long it takes to do it. In other words, you must start by creating a detailed picture of your average business day… and why it either works to produce the prospect leads and orders you need… or why it doesn’t. Give this essential project which can launch the most profitable epoch for your business your fullest attention. Nothing will come of this project unless you are careful, thorough, and complete.
Your first task is to list all the things you do during your average business day. These will include but will certainly not be limited to
* all breaks, kind and duration;
* non-business related telephone and other communications;
* time spent “surfing” the Web, especially at sites unsuitable for visits during business hours;
* gossip with friends and co-workers;
* writing ad copy;
* creating offers that make sales;
* time on the telephone etc where you connect with prospects, and either upgrade them to be qualified prospects, or close them by making sales.
Get the picture? What you’re trying to do is this: show yourself in unanswerable detail what you do on the average day that has absolutely nothing to do with the identification and closing of prospects… and how much time and effort you expend generating prospects and closing them.
Reforms must follow identification of what you are doing wrong, over and over again.
Chances are, you will be shocked and abashed by what you discover, for instance now seeing that you spend far more time surfing the Web and gossiping on the phone than you do on that same phone contacting prospects and closing deals. Such pernicious reality must be dealt with at once, for it is costing you money every single day.
Start today.
Do you care whether your business succeeds or fails? Do you care whether you make more money than less? Do you care whether the limited time you have on this planet is transformed into the maximum amount of coin of the realm, and so serenity, security, satisfaction?
That is why you must do this necessary exercise, and do it today. For you see, succeeding in business without really trying makes a dandy theme for a witty musical… but can in no way be regarded as a truth to build your ever more prosperous business by. That truth will be vividly apparent to you as you implement the recommendations of this important article.
*** We invite you to post your comments to this article below.
I have selected one of the lesser tunes from the production for the occasional music to this article. It’s called simply “Coffee Break”, and you should go to any search engine now to listen to it. It’s about how the absence of coffee — and therefore the coffee break — raises more anxiety and lamentation than a plague of locusts and completely stops the whole company, convinced that the end of the world as they know it is at hand. Oh, my! So much grief for one missed cuppa. However, the real shock is not that the coffee was late for the company coffee break, no indeed; the real shock is that more time, trouble, energy, irritation, and anger was expended on this event than on anything else that entire day… including the company’s business they were hired to transact…until the outrage about the coffee break was surpassed by certain stale items on the lunch menu… thereby diverting everyone’s outspoken attention to this even greater snafu.
The sad part is that this kind of ludicrous “crisis” and massive waste of time does not occur solely or exclusively on Madison Avenue or in Broadway shows… it is most likely the way you are running your “business” and why it doesn’t prosper.
That’s why today, I am going to put you and your “business” under the most minute scrutiny, the better to help you understand that your business, as you currently organize and run it — cannot make the desirable profits of your imagination… until such time as you rethink everything — absolutely everything — so that the focus of your energy and action every day is NOT the coffee break… but actually doing BUSINESS. And as this analysis develops right before your very eyes, you are most likely to be chagrined, embarrassed, and horrified – and that’s just for openers.
On the acute need to perceive what you are really doing every single day.
You say you are in business, correct? You say you want substantial, increasing profits, correct? You say you are a hard worker; indeed that the sun never sets on all the work you do, the tasks done, the challenges confronted, correct?
In short you are about as swift, intelligent, able and valuable a business person as business has ever seen and that your DNA should be donated to the nation so that generations yet to come may have the benefit of you and your unmatched business expertise and execution.
You, of course, are even now nodding your head in sage agreement with this flawless description of you and your business acumen. Modest though you are, you cannot but admit that you are the very paragon and model sketched above… just like Kansas City, you’ve gone about as far as you can go.
It is this proposition swallowed hook, line and sinker by the overwhelming majority of business owners of every kind that keeps you trapped in a business that doesn’t grow, expand, prosper and that does not make and will never make the profits you consistently and repeatedly say are the reason you are in business to get and enjoy.
YOU and your business under our microscope.
Now, it’s time to knuckle down to the important, sure-to-be-shocking analysis of what you do during your “business hours”… for you cannot improve your business until you know precisely what you do and precisely when you do it.
Business is about two things and two things only…
Quick! Can you guess what they are? The correct answer is 1) the generation of qualified prospects and 2) contacting these prospects, making them the most lavish, persuasive offer ever, then closing the deal forthwith. This is the two- step dance that keeps you in business, expands your business, and leads to money, money, money… yours, all yours.
Now let’s see just what percentage of your average day focuses on these two key points… and what percentage of your business day goes to anything but these two essential tasks.
You’ll need a pad, a watch, and total honesty.
To make this crucial scrutiny work, you will need to be clear about what you do, when you do it, and how long it takes to do it. In other words, you must start by creating a detailed picture of your average business day… and why it either works to produce the prospect leads and orders you need… or why it doesn’t. Give this essential project which can launch the most profitable epoch for your business your fullest attention. Nothing will come of this project unless you are careful, thorough, and complete.
Your first task is to list all the things you do during your average business day. These will include but will certainly not be limited to
* all breaks, kind and duration;
* non-business related telephone and other communications;
* time spent “surfing” the Web, especially at sites unsuitable for visits during business hours;
* gossip with friends and co-workers;
* writing ad copy;
* creating offers that make sales;
* time on the telephone etc where you connect with prospects, and either upgrade them to be qualified prospects, or close them by making sales.
Get the picture? What you’re trying to do is this: show yourself in unanswerable detail what you do on the average day that has absolutely nothing to do with the identification and closing of prospects… and how much time and effort you expend generating prospects and closing them.
Reforms must follow identification of what you are doing wrong, over and over again.
Chances are, you will be shocked and abashed by what you discover, for instance now seeing that you spend far more time surfing the Web and gossiping on the phone than you do on that same phone contacting prospects and closing deals. Such pernicious reality must be dealt with at once, for it is costing you money every single day.
Start today.
Do you care whether your business succeeds or fails? Do you care whether you make more money than less? Do you care whether the limited time you have on this planet is transformed into the maximum amount of coin of the realm, and so serenity, security, satisfaction?
That is why you must do this necessary exercise, and do it today. For you see, succeeding in business without really trying makes a dandy theme for a witty musical… but can in no way be regarded as a truth to build your ever more prosperous business by. That truth will be vividly apparent to you as you implement the recommendations of this important article.
*** We invite you to post your comments to this article below.
Friday, January 20, 2012
New biography of Mitt Romney claims to deliver ‘The Real Romney’… but will anyone really care?
Last night, January 19, 2012, The Boston Globe, the biggest and most influential newspaper in New England, pulled out all the stops for two of their best and brightest reporters; Michael Kranish, deputy chief of the Washington bureau of The Boston Globe and Scott Helman, staff writer at The Boston Globe. The occasion was the release of their new biography of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential nominee.
First, my compliments to The Boston Globe. The special reception before a panel on der Mittster was nicely done and gave us all the opportunity to meet the authors and chat with them. The helpers were all efficient, polite, unobtrusive. Perfect.
It looked like a long evening until….
I sought out Michael Kranish first; he seemed like the senior member of the team and I try to get what I need for my article out of the way as soon as possible, so that I can sit back and enjoy the event. I told Kranish I had three brief questions for him.
First, would Romney ever be president? His unpromising answer: “It’s possible. It could happen.” This was not the incisive, insightful comment I was looking for… and suggested the possibility of a very long evening in the making, one to be ditched as soon as I’d eaten more of their fine brie.
Question 2: will Mormonism be an issue in the campaign? “In some places it could be,” he answered. OMG! It was indeed going to be a very long evening.
But I said I wanted to ask him three questions… and it wasn’t over until it was over. I ventured my third query. “What was the most unexpected thing about Romney you discovered in your research”? Then the intriguing answer, “What happened at Stanford University” when he was a student there during the Vietnam War, the war that derailed his father’s presidential campaign. Ok, this was something promising… at last.
Of father brainwashed and campaign imploded.
Mitt Romney (born 1947) had as his dad a human dynamo called George Romney, celebrated as the rescuer of American Motors (which gave me my push button Rambler in high school), governor of Michigan, member of the Nixon cabinet; a man who rightly thought he had a superb shot at being president of the Great Republic… until…
… he went to Vietnam, where he got star treatment and massive misinformation about how the war was going, how we’d win, how the people loved us, and enough manure to fertilize Connecticut. He came back to America feeling like a fool; then shot himself through the head when he claimed the military had “brainwashed” him. His presidential campaign ended the minute the words were out of his mouth. Nobody wanted as president a man who could be controlled by the military or anyone else. And so George Romney’s career ended… providing his son with a lifetime of lessons about what not to do… including the vital necessity to avoid the media whenever possible.
On his way back from Vietnam, Pere Romney stopped to visit Mitt at Stanford… where this devoted son got the opportunity to talk to his father about Life, War, God… of winning, losing, what’s important and what isn’t. It’s the kind of conversation one has with a parent once in a lifetime… and Mitt took it all in and to heart. He would, he vowed, revenge what had happened to his father… being sure to derive all the proper lessons from this seminal event, including the absolute need in his life for God, the God of the Mormons…
God.
To understand Mitt Romney, you must appreciate the importance and influence of his Mormon faith. It has provided the sinews of his life while isolating him from other people; people who often disdained his religion, calling it a “cult” and worse. Mitt learned to be private, very private, about his religion…letting very few people into that side of himself. Privacy, particularly privacy about his faith, became an obsession… something that may have connected him with God… but most assuredly estranged him from his fellow men, the people he’d need if he was ever to run for president.
Money.
What further separated him from the run of mankind was money… he made awesome amounts of it, largely through what are called leveraged buy-outs. This is a practice whereby investors buy a company, with the intention of doing everything they can to make it as profitable as possible, as quickly as possible; so they can sell the whole or its parts, often for staggering return on investment. This almost always involves the firing of employees in an attempt to decrease expenses and increase efficiency. Here Mitt Romney was king; a paragon who knew the delights that come when making only millions in a day was “bad” compared to the brilliant days, and plenty of them, when you made tens, even hundreds of millions lickety-split. Such days did absolutely nothing to connect him with mere mortals… and presented a problem he has still not been able to solve. Every time he got richer, Mitt got more disconnected… and less electable.
So, here we’ve got a candidate with a perfect marriage, 5 sons made by Disney, nary a scandal to be had… richer than God Himself… super bright… the hardest worker on the planet… but a loser for all that, because he just cannot connect with people and their everyday concerns to save his life.
Thus as I roamed the thin crowd talking with people, who were very keen to be asked their opinion about Mitt and his prospects, the temperature never rose above “tepid.” Yes, right smack dab in the middle of Boston, capital of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that Mitt had reigned over as governor (2003-2007), he couldn’t have thrown off less heat. And so, the people whom he needed so desperately to make him president evinced absolutely no excitement at all, much less any abiding glow.
And you could see this puzzled authors Kranish and Helman because their unauthorized biography (without a single interview with Mitt), into which they had poured time, life and commitment could only go as far as its subject, and not an inch more. If he sailed into the White House, their book (which I made sure they both autographed) would have the legs most political books never do, but if the world was as lukewarm as the folks in their audience, their $30 book (praised though it was by the usual East Coast media suspects) was DOA…
That’s why they came back to this point several times: awkward and disconnected as Mitt was in public, he was in private something of a cut-up (of the wonk variety), a man who could tell a story, give a hug, engage… even (and this arrested my attention for sure) moon walk while singing tunes from the Grateful Dead, tunes like “There’s Whiskey In The Jug”, an odd favorite for a tea-totalling Mormon:
“Mush-a ring dum-a do dum-a da Whack for my daddy-o. Whack for my daddy-o There’s whiskey in the jar.”
But this, though it made me smile and nod my head in wonderment was not the highlight of the evening. That was the rapt attention and joy in Aime Joseph. You see Mr. Joseph is my driver, a Haitian by birth, obsessed with American politics, always quizzing me about political people and their measures. He dressed up for this event, and imbibed every word with the utmost focus and concentration. “We have nothing like this in Haiti,” he said as I gave him the present of a lifetime, an autographed copy of the book. And when he saw me about to drop it, he grabbed it from my hand, the better to ensure it did not fall; chiding me for lack of care with this valuable artifact.
And I saw so clearly what was the best part of all: the fact that this kind of forum, this kind of book, this kind of open dialogue and honest conversation still was foreign to most of the world… and the thing we should be most proud of, our gift to the world and our collective future.
Now, go to any search engine and find “Whiskey in the jug,” and imagine Mitt moon walking to it… If there’s enough whiskey in the jug, that should be no problem.
*** What do you think? I invite you to post your comments below.
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