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- Appreciate the Aura of a Voice: Lessons From Napoleon Hill About the Potential of Teleseminars [1 Update]
- For More Successful Word Play, Name Your Business For Both the Eye and the Ear [1 Update]
- Selecting the Best Name For Your Business: How to Research Word Connotations [1 Update]
- Renaming For Nonprofits and Community Organizations: Who Has a Stake in Your Name? [1 Update]
- To Select a Great Name For Your Product, Avoid Outlandish Pronunciation [1 Update]
- Overcome Brainstorming Blocks When Trying to Think Up a New Business Name [1 Update]
- Beware the Pitfalls of a Company Naming Contest [1 Update]
- Product Staying Power: Four Ingredients That Make Your Information Product Timeless [1 Update]
- Introverts and Product Development: A Match Made in Heaven [1 Update]
- Selecting a New Company Name: Can it Pass These Three Telephone Tests? [1 Update]
- Frustrated Because You Keep Getting the Wrong Clients? Five Possible Causes [1 Update]
- From Live Teleseminar to Recorded Lead Generator: Avoid These Common Mistakes [1 Update]
- Creative Branding Techniques For Introverts [1 Update]
- Proofread to Perfection: Typo Prevention Tactics For Copywriters [1 Update]
- Become More Believable and Trustworthy: Avoid These 6 Credibility Killers in Your Copywriting [1 Update]
- Become More Believable and Trustworthy: 12 Credibility Builders to Use in Copywriting [1 Update]
- Think Up Names and Grow Rich: Business Naming Lessons From Napoleon Hill [1 Update]
- Branding in Baby Steps: 7 Easy Ways to Get Started With Personal Branding [1 Update]
- Solopreneurs: Avoid These Ten Personal Branding Mistakes [1 Update]
- Branding From Your Back Pocket: Why Introverts Should Create an Exciting, Unique Business Identity [1 Update]
- Personal Branding For Introverts: It Keeps You Profitably in Your Comfort Zone! [1 Update]
- Copywriting Tips: Prevent Reader Boredom With Fresh Angles For Repeat Email Promotions [1 Update]
- 25 Ways to Make Your Marketing Copy Bolder and More Intriguing [1 Update]
- The Introvert's Guide to Marketing With Video [1 Update]
- Take a Bizcation! Four Ways to Enjoy a Tax-Deductible Business Vacation [1 Update]
- "Marcia Yudkin" <submissions@isnare.net> Apr 23 06:00PM +0800
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Article Title: Appreciate the Aura of a Voice: Lessons From Napoleon Hill About the Potential of Teleseminars
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 541
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Keeping me company on my long walks this week is a set of CDs by pioneering self-help author Napoleon Hill called "Your Right to Be Rich."
Unlike other audio recordings of Hill's works, this product features Hill himself lecturing to a live audience. While I find Napoleon Hill's written works and audiobooks narrated by professionals valuable, this series is especially compelling, at times electrifying. What is it about the author's own voice that creates such a powerful impact?
After pondering this question and trying to isolate the impressions received from Hill's voice from the content of his lectures, I can say this:
* Hill comes across as remarkably grounded. It's clear from his delivery that he knows who he is and what he believes. He has nothing on his mind other than the lecture he is in the process of giving. He is secure in communicating what he believes rather than trying to impress others.
* Hill obviously cares about his audience. He wants them to believe in themselves and improve themselves. In my opinion, this is something that cannot be faked. I'm now listening to CD #5 of nine, and the audience is responding much more than they did earlier in the series. They are definitely on his wavelength more and more. I know that if I were in his lecture hall, he would have 100 percent of my attention.
* I love his wry sense of humor, which comes across in the way he says things as well as what he says. He has a pleasant, well-modulated chuckle that can occasionally go on for quite a while when he has made a good-humored point about human nature.
Hearing his voice rather than an actor's deliver his ideas made me like Hill more and want to know more about him. In fact, I have had a biography of Hill in my "buy it later" cart on Amazon.com for more than six months. Today I actually ordered it.
Think now about the essential qualities your listeners pick up from you when they tune into your teleseminars, either by phone or recordings. Imagine how the impressions emanating from your voice influence people on the fence to want more from you - to hire you and purchase your products. Then resolve that it's time to start or improve your teleseminar programs so your perfect clients can be moved to action by your voice as well as your content.
The impact of the voice is all the more important when it's essentially you that someone is buying when they do business with you. For instance, if you're a coach, an attorney, a consultant, an architect, a financial advisor and so on. Are you egotistical or compassionate? Pleasant or severe? Tolerant or close-minded? Listeners pick up such qualities from your voice, often without consciously realizing it.
I'm not certain when the Napoleon Hill lectures I'm now listening to were recorded - perhaps in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Don't you want the opportunity to electrify people 50 or 60 years from now? That's another benefit in harnessing your voice. Yes, in producing teleseminars you may be creating a legacy.
About The Author: Veteran teleseminar presenter Marcia Yudkin specializes in high-ticket, high-value teleteaching courses. To find out more about your teleseminar options, download a complimentary copy of "66 Ways to Use Teleseminars to Promote Your Business or Your Cause" at http://www.yudkin.com/teleteach.htm .
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Article Title: For More Successful Word Play, Name Your Business For Both the Eye and the Ear
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 534
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Around the lake from where I live, someone painted the name of their cottage on a rock by their driveway: Happy Ours. The first few times I saw it while walking by, I couldn't help wondering if this was a pidgin version of the English phrases "Happy This is Ours" or "Happily Ours." The grammar of this two-word combination seemed weirdly off.
Then I said the name aloud to myself and realized it was a pun for Happy Hours.
I realize this is a summer cottage being named, not a product or company needing to attract the general public. Still, this name illustrates a pitfall I've run across occasionally in the business world – names that make sense when you hear them but bewilder you when you see them.
Ditto for an eating establishment in New Zealand called Deli ca Sea, which specializes in seafood. Until you stumblingly pronounce the restaurant name out loud, it baffles you. Another one with this weakness found in an online list of pun-named shops is Cute Ickle, a nail shop. What's an ickle? Visually this name is inexplicable.
On the other hand, some playful names make perfect sense when you see them but not when you hear them. A yarn store in Kentucky goes by the name With Ewe in Mind. Hearing that, you wouldn't realize it has anything to do with sheep or yarn. It's a pun for the eye only. Having the same limited success (unless you pronounce the name with an exaggerated Hispanic accent) is Juan in a Million, a Mexican restaurant in Texas. One of the worst of this type I've spotted is IndiviJewelistic, which sells jewelry supplies in Great Britain. Imagine having to spell that one repeatedly over the telephone or on the radio!
Names based on puns or wordplay need to make sense both when heard and when seen. Some successes on that score include Once Upon a Crime, a mystery bookstore in Minnesota, The Washing Well, a laundromat in California, I Feel Like Crepe, a restaurant in Toronto and Church of Cod, which appears to be a fish restaurant in Alaska.
Other successes include Pane in the Glass, a glass replacement service in Texas, What Ales You, a pub in Vermont, and Eggs Eggsetera, a deli in England. In these instances, if you heard but didn't see the name, you might not know it was a pun, but what you did hear and understand would make sense as the name of a glass service, a pub and a deli, respectively.
Avoid puns where someone misinterpreting what they hear understands something disreputable, such as Knit Wit, a women's clothing store, Going Pottie, a pottery shop, or Master Bait & Tackle, a fishing supply shop.
If you're considering a name and you find you have to spell it out for people hearing it, or say it for people looking at it before they "get it," then you have a name with a significant weakness. As we do at our naming company, eliminate it from your list of candidates, then brainstorm more if necessary.
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, which brainstorms catchy tag lines, company names and product names according to the client's criteria. To generate a compelling new name or tag line, download a free copy of "19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name": http://namedatlast.com/19steps.htm
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Article Title: Selecting the Best Name For Your Business: How to Research Word Connotations
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 578
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Suppose you're not sure whether a word or phrase you want to use in a name or tag line is appealing or distasteful. I was thinking about this dilemma the other day when a client replied to my thumbs down on a word he liked with "There isn't anything about those negative connotations in the dictionary."
In that instance, the dictionary did not settle the matter. Are there other authoritative indicators?
If you aren't naturally sensitive to the associations that surround and accompany words, or if you're tempted by a particular word you don't encounter much, here are excellent ways to research its aura or ambience.
Six Ways to Research Word Connotations
1. Consult the dictionary. Sometimes dictionary definitions do indicate positive or negative implications. For example, every dictionary I've consulted states that "notoriety" is an unfavorable version of "fame." Likewise, any dictionary will alert you that "holocaust" refers to mass murder or genocide and is therefore not a word to use lightly.
2. Consult an encyclopedia. If you were thinking of building a name for an environmental monitoring company around the mythical prophetess Cassandra, Wikipedia informs you that Apollo cursed her so no one would ever believe her predictions. Not an appropriate role model for a monitoring company.
Taking this step saved me from humiliation when I was considering dubbing myself The Poohbah of Publicity. I wasn't sure what it meant but liked how it sounded. According to Wikipedia, however, "Poohbah" comes from a Gilbert & Sullivan musical where it applied to a bombastic character who elevated himself in a ridiculous fashion. Glad I checked!
3. Look up images. In Google, click the "Images" link after putting your uncertain phrase into the search box. Are most of the first couple of dozen pictures that come up pleasant or horrifying to look at? Do this for "Extra Servings," and most of the pictures that come up don't exactly stimulate one's appetite. Hence this would not be a propitious name for your new restaurant.
4. Look in the news. In Google, click the "News" link and see what comes up in a search on your phrase. Doing this for the word "sweetheart" turns up the disreputable idea of a "sweetheart deal," which might be enough of a reason for vetoing its use. Similarly, looking up "moose" in Google News reveals that in Canada, these large hooved mammals have caused so many fatal car accidents that this is no longer an animal with affectionate connotations.
5. Ask people. Whether in the formal setting of market research or just informally posing a question like "Would you rather be safe or secure?" to friends, you'll discover that "safety" has much more emotional resonance than "security," which is a colder, more abstract concept.
6. Consult an expert. A naming expert typically has zillions of facts and references crammed in her head. Ask me about "money changer," and without any research I'll tell you it calls up the literary villains Scrooge and Shylock and a historically hated profession. In the same way, off the top of my head I'd advise against adopting a raccoon as a company mascot, because it has a reputation as a pesky marauder in suburban garbage cans.
Do a little poking around or asking to prevent a red-faced mistake in naming your company.
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, which brainstorms catchy tag lines, company names and product names for clients. For a systematic process of coming up with a great name or tagline, download a free copy of "19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name": http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm
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Article Title: Renaming For Nonprofits and Community Organizations: Who Has a Stake in Your Name?
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 557
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Look up "name change" in news archives, and two types of stories dominate. First, you'll find thinly disguised press releases announcing the renaming of a product, stadium, college or company, with an upbeat rationale for the change. Second, you'll find reporting of complaints and controversy about a renaming, because people loved the old name so much or are heaping scorn on the new name.
The other day, a front-page article in my local paper fell into the latter category. Alumni of the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts, which dates back to 1867 and counts Alexander Graham Bell and Calvin Coolidge as former trustees, were voicing criticisms of its renaming as "Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech."
Two issues stood out in the comments from upset alumni. First, they felt removing the word "deaf" from the school's name cheats graduates of a key element in their identity and may even imply that deafness no longer exists. And second, they complained that alumni had not been adequately included in the renaming deliberations.
Without getting into the pros and cons (and identity politics) of the new name, I'd like to highlight the second complaint.
In renaming projects, emotions can run high, with intense reactions coming from parties far removed from those responsible for the decision. During planning and execution of a name change, always ask, "Who else might care about our new name?" Think about their concerns (legitimate or not in your eyes), and be prepared to address their feelings and objections head on.
For example, besides the owners of a downtown cafe, whose livelihood directly rises and falls with the fortunes of the shop, customers may have strong feelings about its name. They might feel affirmed or snubbed with certain new names. And other downtown merchants may feel a stake in the name insofar as it helps attract elements they regard as either desirable or unwanted.
Among the most easily accepted reasons for a name change are that the new name corrects misunderstandings and that it enables the organization to garner greater support for its core mission. Similarly, when the new name appears to be a minor linguistic shift, as when Federal Express rebranded itself as FedEx or the American Association of Retired Persons shifted its official name to the acronym AARP, the name change generally goes well. However, when an organization's mission has gradually evolved over the years, or the renaming is part of a major shift in emphasis, a name change is more likely to stir up controversy.
If it's feasible and appropriate, include in the renaming process representatives from groups who feel involved. Set up a process for input from interested parties, but don't run a contest or subject renaming to a popular vote.
Even more important, prior to or alongside public announcements of the new name, communicate the name change and the reasons for it to all the stakeholders. Do that not with just rosy cheering but with acknowledgements of their concerns. Show how the new name both relates to the past and makes possible a better future.
Although articles about warmly accepted name changes rarely hit newspaper front pages, that would definitely be the preferable story line!
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, which brainstorms catchy tag lines, company names and product names for clients. For a systematic process of coming up with a compelling new name, download "19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name or Tag Line": http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm
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Article Title: To Select a Great Name For Your Product, Avoid Outlandish Pronunciation
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 585
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In a health magazine to which I subscribe, a full page ad showing a woman in hat, sweater and mittens stopped me cold. "Find relief this cold and flu season. Look to Xlear," read the headline and subhead.
Not only did this pitch seem badly timed for April, I wondered why in the world would someone name a cold and flu remedy what would most logically be pronounced "ex-lear." The only associations that came up for me for the "lear" portion of the name were Lear jets and King Lear of Shakespeare fame, neither of which seemed like a plausible reference.
My wondering turned to incredulity when I read on: "Xlear (pronounced "clear") is the only saline nasal spray with Xylitol, clinically proven to..." Pronounced "clear"?!
In the name Xylitol, the letter X is obviously pronounced like a Z, following the pattern of "xylophone." Normally a brand using an unusual first letter would want users to mimic the sound of the key ingredient in the sound of the brand name. This would make Xlear sound like "zlear" - odd, but with a rationale and precedents.
Yet the company tells us to pronounce the initial X in Xlear like a K! I pulled the American Heritage College Dictionary down from my shelf and confirmed, as I suspected, that not one of the English words listed there as beginning with X had a recommended pronounciation of K.
("Xhosa," the name of a Bantu tribe, is pronounced "Kosa," and it has an alternate spelling of "Xosa," but not one in 10 million English speakers would ever have run across that usage.)
Imagine telling someone over the phone "Clear - spelled with an X." Where could the X go? It would be as weird as telling them "Gear - spelled with a S" or "Year - spelled with an M."
Don't hobble a product with a pronunciation that mismatches the spelling so wildly that no one would ever guess how to say it correctly. A good rule of thumb is that if you need to tell customers how to say the name, it's a poor choice. People who can't pronounce a name are often reluctant to ask for the product, and when they barrel on ahead and get it wrong, those serving them may not recognize what they're looking for. And any weirdly spelled name, pronounceable or not, certainly cuts down on word-of-mouth recommendations.
Other examples I've run across in recent years include Cuil, an Internet search engine that claimed the name was an old Irish word for "knowledge." Every press release noted that the name was pronounced "cool." They had to say that, or people would have been talking about "coo-eel." Unsurprisingly, the site quietly disappeared from the Net after about two years.
Also ill-fated was a company called K-III Communications, which people were never sure how to pronounce. Should it be said as "K – I – I – I," or even "Kill"? The firm's fortunes lifted when it renamed itself Primedia.
Still not convinced? Do a Google search to see how much ink has been devoted to the question of how to pronounce "Touareg," a car model from Volkswagen. You do not want the buzz about your product to be about its pronunciation! Avoid that with a name that is intuitive, easy and unambiguous to say out loud when seeing it for the first time.
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, which brainstorms catchy business or product names and tag lines. For a systematic process of coming up with a snappy new name, download, free, "19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name or Tag Line": http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm
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Article Title: Overcome Brainstorming Blocks When Trying to Think Up a New Business Name
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 562
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"Help! We're stuck!" That's a lament I often hear from entrepreneurs who have tried to come up with a product or company name they like, that has some sort of available domain and that can be trademarked.
In many cases, the stuckness comes from limited ideas about how to brainstorm name ideas and elements. Prime yourself for fruitful naming with these crucial brainstorming tips.
1. Brainstorm many parts of speech. When I watch people brainstorm for names or look at their brainstormed lists, I can see that they primarily think up nouns, less often adjectives and very rarely verbs. Yet verbs can lead to strongly original names, as in GoDaddy (the domain name company), Hooked on Phonics (learn-to-read products) and Volvo (Latin for "I roll"). Even prepositions can trigger great ideas - for example, In Time For Christmas for a holiday-theme retail shop or Always After Four for an upscale bar. So consciously work on brainstorming as many parts of speech as you can.
2. Aim at quantity. In seminars, when I have asked individuals or groups to generate at least 50 words or phrases related to their naming theme, I can clearly see from their lists that they're just getting started. Professional namers develop enormous clusters of syllables, ideas and naming elements – hundreds – before they turn on their critical brain and begin plucking out the most promising one or tweaking ideas into names. You should do likewise.
3. Consider cultural references. For an educated clientele, go hunting for phrases in Shakespeare. That is where the investment information company Motley Fool got its name. For a mainstream audience, look at lists of popular movies, songs, slang, cartoon strips, TV shows and pastimes. This can prompt something like Play It Again, Pam for a game store, a play on a famous line from the film Casablanca. For a high-minded non-profit, searching the Bible might lead to resonant naming elements, such as Mustard Seed Farm Aid. This name comes from the Bible verse, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you."
4. Get help. When I've asked people to brainstorm independently, then compare their lists, I rarely see much overlap. Because we all have unique experiences, personalities and interests, our minds travel along different routes and in divergent directions. Bring in people from different generations, ethnic backgrounds and social classes for naming ideas. According to Google's Press Center, the renowned search engine company's name "is a play on the word googol, which refers to the number 1 followed by one hundred zeroes. The word was coined by the nine-year-old nephew of mathematician Edward Kasner."
5. Try again. Put your brainstorming notes aside, let them sit overnight, then start again afresh, letting what you've already thought up suggest new options. I find that with at least three separate sessions, I've gone way farther along creative pathways than in just one sit-down. Furthermore, multiple brainstorming sessions help your subconscious mind get in on the hunt, kicking up names and ideas while you're in the shower, checking your email or walking the dog.
Follow those guidelines and you'll be rewarded with an abundance of name-worthy ideas.
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, which brainstorms catchy tag lines, company names and product names according to the client's criteria. Download a free copy of "19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name or Tag Line" at http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm
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Article Title: Beware the Pitfalls of a Company Naming Contest
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 557
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Need a new company name or new product name quickly on a small or non-existent budget? Many business owners and non-profits believe the hands-down answer to that dilemma is a naming contest.
In some instances, a naming contest generates so many brilliant entries that it's hard to choose the best one. Sometimes, however, the contest leads to an embarrassing disaster.
Avoid the pitfalls of naming contests by structuring yours with these pointers in mind.
Naming Contest Pitfall #1: Making competitive information public. To facilitate on-target names, you must provide strategic information about your company or product – how it differs from the competition. Are you certain that you want to put on the public record the advantages and disadvantages of your offering vis-à-vis other companies, products or organizations? If you think this kind of openness might turn around and bite you later, do not run a contest. Hire a naming company instead, confidentially.
Naming Contest Pitfall #2: Insufficient entries. If you already have tons of followers on Facebook, Twitter and Linked In, as well as the capacity to get the media and colleagues interested in spreading the word about your contest, terrific! But if not, be aware that you might not generate the buzz needed to inspire sufficient high-quality entries. A small reward or simple glory does not necessarily get smart people putting on their creative caps for you in all seriousness. And of course, if you had the resources to offer a large reward, you'd be much better off hiring an expert for your naming challenge.
Naming Contest Pitfall #3: Unwise selection procedure. Do not under any circumstances promise to award the name to the suggestion that gets the most number of votes. Why? Because the voting process is highly susceptible to irrelevant influences. When NASA requested name ideas for a new room on future American space stations, Stephen Colbert told his fans to suggest it be called "Colbert." The comedian actually received 40,000 more votes than the next most popular name. NASA then had a public relations problem on its hands. Remember: Those entering or voting in a contest do not have the best interests of your organization in mind. Judges are the better option for a contest.
Naming Contest Pitfall #4: No vetting process. Also remember that contest or no contest, names generally have to be pronounceable, spellable, distinct from names that are already trademarked or used by close competitors, meaningful to your core customers and unlikely to offend them, and more. Avoid getting carried away by enthusiasm for a clever name that is overly trendy, obscure or legally troublesome by setting out a clear, explicit internal set of steps and criteria for screening name suggestions prior to launching the contest.
Kraft Foods Australia fell into the last of these traps in 2009 when it asked the public to suggest names for a new Vegemite spread. (Vegemite is an extremely popular food paste that Australians spread on toast or biscuits.) The company selected the entry "iSnack 2.0" as the winner from some 50,000 submissions, then had to retract their announcement four days later because it caused a national uproar of fierce derision.
Carefully sidestep the pitfalls above, and you may be in for positive publicity when your contest culminates with an appealing, well-chosen winner.
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, a company that brainstorms catchy business names, product names and taglines. Learn to come up with a snappy new name or tagline from a free copy of "19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name or Tagline": http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm
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Article Title: Product Staying Power: Four Ingredients That Make Your Information Product Timeless
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 644
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Recently I listened raptly to a 9-CD course on the principles of personal success recorded by Napoleon Hill in the 1950s. The content was as relevant to me as any more recently created self-help material and totally riveting because of Hill's captivating presentation style.
Perhaps you have your eye on generating current income, so that the idea of creating something that can still be sold in 10, 20 or even 50 years from now with minimal updating seems like a luxury. If so, I would encourage you to rethink your attitude. Consciously creating information products that can last means you can keep on earning from your past labors without having to remove your products from circulation or redo them every couple of years.
Create it once, sell it for years and years.
Ingredients That Make Your Information Product Timeless
1. An evergreen goal. Focus your product on something that your customers wanted to achieve 10 or 20 years ago and will undoubtedly want to achieve 10 or 20 years from now. The logic is that any topic that couldn't have been discussed in the past will probably change so much in the future that whatever you say now may no longer apply then. Here are some examples. Improve your search engine traffic: no. Increase repeat business: yes. Keep your kids safe from Facebook predators: no. Keep your kids safe: yes. Master the art of online dating: no. Understand your compatibility as a couple: yes. Delicious recipes using your Weber grill: no. Recipes for low-salt diets: yes.
2. Big-picture thinking. Spend the bulk of your energy within the product on broad-brush strategies rather than little details. For instance, I created a course on how to create a system of information products. The first lesson of seven talks about the thinking and procedures required for long-term success. These will never change. A submodule discusses the psychology of preventing refunds. This too will not go out of date. Where I talk about writing marketing copy, the principles concern the overall ingredients needed for persuasion, which are unchanging. I do discuss how-to's for specific steps, such as setting up a merchant account and a shopping cart, but in a side document that's more easily updated than the course as a whole.
3. Ruthless editing. Most blogs will not stand the test of time because they're interlaced with references to current events and personal histories that will be as hard to wade through as stale newspapers. Before recording your program or turning your manuscript into the final "to-print" version, get rid of references like "next week" or "last month" and cut mentions of sports events, political happenings, TV or music fads and even large-scale natural disasters. Although you may be right to assume most people know what you're talking about now, this will not be true down the road. Napoleon Hill did so well keeping his course timeless that I had a hard time figuring out during which decade he recorded this series. Only his biography provided enough clues to place it during the 1950s.
4. Historical depth. Instead of referring to a current president or prime minister, use examples from earlier eras. A phenomenally successful lecturer on storytelling illustrates his points with examples from Homer's Odyssey as well as classic films and novels like Citizen Kane and Jane Eyre more than this year's blockbusters. He's been teaching his seminar for more than 25 years now, and this approach means he doesn't need to reinvent it.
I once asked a colleague who have amassed a significant product line whether or not he deliberately tried to make his content timeless. He sighed. "I wish I had," he said. "I've had to pull a couple of items because I didn't have time to update them."
About The Author: The author of 15 books and eight multimedia home-study courses, Marcia Yudkin has been selling information since 1981. Download a free recording of her answers to commonly asked questions about creating and selling information products at http://www.yudkin.com/infomarketing.htm .
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Article Title: Introverts and Product Development: A Match Made in Heaven
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 717
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According to both my own surveys and published research, introverts by and large excel at listening, cherish creativity and feel comfortable planning. We are good at working things through in our heads or in private. Consequently, we shine as product developers. We don't just enjoy the process of creating and packaging; we have what it takes to do it well.
Product development is a continuation of what introverts did as a kid: tinkering in the basement, writing up a storm, obsessively learning about computers or comic book art, drawing all the plants in the woods, thinking up a new language or writing songs for a best friend.
Do you recognize yourself in this description? If so, here are a few additional reasons why developing some information products can be a perfect way for an introverted service provider, professional or expert to develop a clientele and boost your annual earnings.
1) It's a great way to get potential clients over the trust hump to hire you. Just as the ice cream store gives you a little spoonful of an unfamiliar flavor before you commit to a full ice cream cone or dish of it, your information product provides a sampling of your intellect, talent, knowledge and writing flair. Having someone read or listen to your infoproduct to get to know you is much less time consuming on your part than giving a free introductory consultation.
One copywriter who is active on the Warrior Forum says that his copywriting career was going nowhere until he developed and sold a few infoproducts. Then instead of chasing down clients (unsuccessfully), they came after him and said, "Hey, your copy is pretty good. What would you charge for a sales letter? I'd like to hire you." Why? Because the product elevated his standing in their eyes.
2) It's something to sell to do-it-yourselfers who'd rather save money or think they can't afford you. Interestingly, they believe they are buying a report or a home-study course to save money and learn how to do something themselves. But often they learn what's involved to the point where they sort of understand it, then realize they don't have the time to do it. Or they're concerned they'll mess it up, and since you know so much more than they do (they've just seen the proof), they end up hiring you to do it. I've seen this happen in my own business again and again. It turns a $29.95 product sale into a client worth thousands of dollars.
3) Infoproducts provide additional income. One colleague of mine revealed that reports she's created have brought her more than $100,000 while she continues coaching as her main source of revenue. If you find it hard to imagine on that scale, you might be thinking of products as inevitably low-priced affairs - $10 to $30 each. Your products can cost lots more than that, however. In fact, with the right strategies in place for the right audience, you can charge $97, $295 or much more for content that is smaller in bulk than what's in a paperback book. My most expensive home-study course costs $1297, and while I don't sell one of those every day, it's certainly nice when I do.
4) Infoproducts enable you to earn while on vacation, when the economy slows down or in retirement. If you feel you're on a treadmill of nothing but work in order to keep money flowing in, developing products offers an escape. Some years back, I developed some higher-priced products so that I could take a road trip from Massachusetts to Alaska and back. I did not do any client work at all for three months and yet the money kept flowing into my bank account from products that I had set up for sale before we left.
As I said, product development matches your introverted personality strengths and talents. Your creativity gets an enormous workout. Your listening skills can ensure you produce something that people want. Hook up with someone to show you the steps that didn't exist when you were playing around as a kid, and the process becomes easier and smoother than you ever imagined.
About The Author: A bookworm as a child, Marcia Yudkin is the author of more than a dozen books, including 6 Steps to Free Publicity and Meatier Marketing Copy. To learn more about making it in business as an introvert, download Marcia's free Marketing for Introverts audio manifesto: http://www.yudkin.com/introverts
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Article Title: Selecting a New Company Name: Can it Pass These Three Telephone Tests?
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 546
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The other day I listened to a lament from an executive coach for women who had misnamed her business. (I've disguised her story here slightly, but the problems are real.) She thought she'd been so clever to name her company Queen B Coach – QueenBCoach.com on the web – as this was a pun on several levels. First, she coached women executives who, like queen bees, were the singular stars of their hives, with hundreds of worker bees toiling below them. Second, her first name was Barbara, so she was obviously Queen B of her own company. And third, not just her logo but her entire web site and all her printed materials employed bee imagery extensively.
Alas, her creativity backfired. At least once a week she'd get frantic phone calls from clients saying their emails to her were bouncing, or someone would claim that her web site was down or had been hijacked, although none of this was the case. Unfortunately, few could remember that the "B" in the middle of her company name was just a capital letter rather than the three-letter word that sounded the same. Even when she patiently spelled it out, people often wrote down the name or domain with the logical spelling rather than the correct one.
Barbara had made the mistake of selecting a name that worked visually but not auditorially. When it came to hearing, spelling and remembering what was heard, this name did not work. Indeed, her creativity in making the most of the B/bee pun made it more difficult for clients, vendors and colleagues to render her company name accurately. And in the digital age, where computer addresses that are spelled wrongly go astray, that guarantees lots of communication foul-ups.
To avoid Barbara's problem, make sure your proposed new company name can pass all three of the following tests. I call them "telephone tests" because the telephone is the most challenging medium for communicating a name with this sort of problem. But the problem can crop up even when a speaker and listener are together in the same room, relying on speech, auditory comprehension and memory to do their jobs without error.
Telephone Test #1: Can someone hearing the name over the phone, without seeing it written down or hearing it spelled, understand the name and repeat it correctly?
Telephone Test #2: Can someone hearing the name over the phone, without seeing it written down or hearing it spelled, write it down correctly?
Telephone Test #3: Can someone who has heard the name pronounced and spelled over the phone remember it accurately?
Before investing in a company name that you spell differently than most people would expect, think about the fact that over the phone you will never be able to simply say the name. You will always also have to spell it, as in "My company is Queen B Coach – that is, Queen B, the letter B, not 'bee,' Coach." And even then, as Barbara will attest, plenty of people will still misremember it.
Far better to have a name that ranks a little lower in cleverness but gets heard, spelled and remembered with greater accuracy and ease.
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, which brainstorms catchy tag lines, company names and product names. For a systematic process of coming up with a compelling new name or tag line, download "19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name or Tag Line": http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm
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Article Title: Frustrated Because You Keep Getting the Wrong Clients? Five Possible Causes
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 799
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Once upon a time there was a shopkeeper who sold bicycles. However, everyone who stepped into the store or called on the phone was looking for kayaks. As you can imagine, he felt frustrated. He couldn't figure out why this kept happening.
You're probably thinking that there had to be some reason why people kept approaching this shop expecting to buy kayaks instead of bicycles. Perhaps a kayak shop used to be in that location. Perhaps a Yellow Pages ad mistakenly referenced his shop as selling kayaks.
I agree with you that there probably was a logical explanation for the bicycle/kayak misfire. There probably are good (though hidden) reasons when something like this is happening for you, as well. Here are some of the dynamics I've observed affecting my clients and colleagues when unsuitable customers keep showing up and appropriate ones remain nowhere in sight, or they come by and don't seem to "get it."
1. You vs. them. It's easy to forget that you have a different psychological and motivational profile from those in your target market. For example, an adventurous friend of mine leads packaged tours to spiritual sites in South America and Asia that he had discovered on his own. Until I pointed this out, he never realized that those signing up for his tours would inevitably be less adventurous than he just by the fact that they were going with a group. Accordingly, it was important for his marketing to discuss how well they'd be taken care of on his trips instead of making it seem like they'd be marching off into the great unknown.
2. Old habits. Many times you grow out of an earlier emphasis and neglect to update your language and imagery for your new focus. This happened with a consultant I know who started off serving low-budget startups and then shifted her aim at mid-sized, more established businesses. "Why is it that online, all I get are freebie seekers and yet through my local networking I am easily getting million-dollar companies as clients?" she once asked me in frustration. (She would have preferred not to do the networking.) When I looked at her home page, I saw that, like the bicycle shop owner, she was getting leads from the wrong people because she was talking about marketing methods that cost little or nothing. She eliminated the word "low-cost" from her entire web site and stated on the top of her home page that she consulted with owners of businesses with $2 million or up in annual sales. Her problem was solved.
3. A vicious circle. Someone I know has been working for years to build her coaching practice, keeping her fees far lower than her credentials deserve. While listening to her teleseminars, I was struck by how often she aimed at creating rapport with her listeners by recognizing that they are "struggling." That's exactly why she mainly gets clients who can't afford higher fees. Those who are doing well don't respond to such a pitch. It probably seems simply a fact to her that "people are struggling today." However, her attitude and word choices help create, then reinforce her perception. A different attitude and word choices would attract a different clientele.
4. Resentment of reality. Some highly ethical business owners lament the mentality of typical clients, feeling that they often want the wrong things, have ridiculous expectations or fall too easily for their competitors' scams. These entrepreneurs feel hog-tied, unable to voice their true thinking to customers, not believing that any honest messages would work. Here you have two viable options: Either accept the way most people actually think as your starting point or go after the few who think differently and get them excited about your high-minded approach.
5. Following the crowd. Many companies and individuals mimic the marketing they see from others in their field, without giving thought to whether or not that fits their offerings and talents. For instance, one chiropractor used imagery of a spine in his logo, despite the fact that he actually spent more time running a wellness practice than "cracking backs." Likewise, someone who had just graduated from a life coaching training program billed herself as a "life coach," like her classmates, even though this phrase didn't capture the fact that she wanted to help parents of troubled teenagers.
Don't beat yourself up if you have one of the above blind spots. Ask for help in diagnosing the reason kayak seekers keep showing up at your door when you are selling bicycles – or no one is coming at all. Change the circumstances causing the mismatch and enjoy greater prosperity and satisfaction.
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is a renowned marketing expert and small business coach who works especially with introverts. She is the author of 6 Steps to Free Publicity, Meatier Marketing Copy and 13 other books. Download her free audio manifesto on marketing for introverts: http://www.yudkin.com/introverts.htm
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Article Title: From Live Teleseminar to Recorded Lead Generator: Avoid These Common Mistakes
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 735
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The other day I landed on the web site of a marketer who runs special programs that overlap with but don't duplicate those that I run. So to learn more about her approach, I filled in my name and email address to request her two-audio freebie. I started listening that very afternoon during a four-mile walk.
Now if you were face to face with an important prospect who might leave or shut you down at any moment, wouldn't you lead with a strong opener, something that draws that person in so she wants to know more? Instead what came first were awkward preliminaries in which the presenter invited people to say hello. Just one person did and spoke about the cold she was suffering with. There were long silences and administrative comments from the presenter.
When she finally got going, I looked at the time counter on my audio player: two minutes and 20 seconds.
This was a horrible start. Obviously she had recorded this from a live telephone session, but she had neglected to edit out the junk in the beginning. People don't mind various preliminaries before a live event, especially if they have dialed in early. However, it is annoying and completely unnecessary for a recording.
If you have audio editing software (which is available free), it takes about three minutes of effort to make such a cut. Do not skip this editing if you are turning a live telephone event into a recorded lead generator.
About two-thirds of the way through the recording, the presenter invited listeners to see an illustration of her points on a certain web page. Since I was walking, I could not watch while she was speaking – which was fine. However, I carefully jotted down the web address and looked up that page when I returned to my office. This yielded a "page not found" error message. This was not fine at all.
I now had the impression of someone paying poor attention to detail and thoughtlessly assuming something created for one purpose would suit another purpose – not someone I would want to learn from or conduct a joint venture with.
Apparently the page she had people view during her telephone presentation was a promotion for an upcoming or recent program. After that program took place, she removed the page, not remembering that she had referenced it during her teleseminar. She again did not pay attention to ensure that those listening to the recorded teleseminar later would be able to follow along.
She could have solved this problem easily by leaving the page up with a note on top that registration was closed.
A third pitfall emerged as I thought back on her presentation. The content became extremely useful and specific about three-quarters of the way through the program. I took notes and felt at that point that I had learned enough to make my listening time worthwhile.
Since I listened during a long walk with no other listening material available, I was predisposed to keep her audio on unless it was downright objectionable – in which case I would have listened to the birds and the wind rustling leaves on the trees for the rest of my walk. However, if I had been listening in my home or office, I might have ended my listening well before she got to the good part.
The moral: Plan your content so you have compelling points to share in the beginning, the middle and the end.
You may be thinking that I'm too demanding in this instance, that the average person has a more charitable attitude while listening to a live teleseminar that was recorded and is now serving as a lead generator. No, not by a long shot. The average person is busy, distracted and pulled in a lot of directions at once. You may have just one chance to earn a prospect's respect and trust.
When offering free audio material, take full advantage of that opportunity by editing it appropriately, making sure everything referred to is still accessible and distributing your content so you start strongly, have rich content in the middle and end on a high note that encourages your potential client to take that all-important next step.
About The Author: Veteran teleseminar presenter Marcia Yudkin specializes in high-ticket, high-value teleteaching courses. Download a free copy of "66 Ways to Use Teleseminars" at http://www.yudkin.com/teleteach.htm . Discover how to plan, promote and deliver profitable teleseseminars related to your business.
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Article Title: Creative Branding Techniques For Introverts
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 663
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Introverts are people who live on the quiet side of life, who would rather sit at home and draw or read than go to a party. They're not the ones who readily schmooze a meeting, shaking hands and nudging shoulders with everyone or squeeze their way into a huddle of strangers at a business conference.
Instead, introverts thrive by making the most of their talents, such as creativity. Whether this is visual or verbal creativity, it means developing catchy concepts that attract the attention, interest and engagement of perfect clients. When used on the Web, in printed promotions and in publicity materials, these creative elements work their magnetism without requiring introverts to become an outgoing pretender. They create a delightful, memorable business image by packing a little pizzazz around a kernel of truth.
Here are seven creative branding tools that can fit the bill for introverts. Of course, extroverts are free to use them as well!
Seven Creative Branding Tools
1. Moniker. Concoct an imaginative name for yourself, one that's fun to encounter, easy to remember and dramatizes a talent you have or the value you deliver to customers. Examples: Patrick Snow, the Dean of Destiny; Diane Armstrong, Queen of Plan Be; Lynda Falkenstein, Dr. Niche; David Leonhardt, the Happy Guy; Carolyn Scarborough, the Book Whisperer.
2. Creative job title. Saying you're an accountant or an interior designer can make people's eyes glaze over, because they think they already know what such a professional does. On the other hand, if you introduce yourself as a sales-from-the-podium expert (Lisa Sasevich), a soul mate magician (Catherine Behan) or a belief change alchemist (Tad Hargrave), you'll see people lean toward you and want to know more.
3. Promise or claim. What you do, phrased as a pledge or a vow, can capture people's imagination. Two instances of this that have caught my eye are Suzanne Falter-Barns' "Get Known Now" and Chris Guillebeau's "I write, travel, and help people take over the world."
4. Signature photo. An eye-catching photograph can not only attract interest but also convey a quality that belongs to your essence. Holistic psychologist Dr. Doris Jeanette, who teaches people how to be grounded and emotionally balanced, has an astonishing yet characteristic photo of herself carrying her groceries home from the supermarket on her head. Sean D'Souza introduces himself online in a full-body, off-kilter pose, which summarizes his irreverent attitude toward marketing and presentations.
5. Photo caption. Sometimes the arresting quality of a photo lies in a clever caption. For example, on its Contact page, the Hawaii Web Group shows someone surfing, accompanied by this: ""If we don't get back to you right away, we're probably in an important board meeting and will contact you when we get out." ("Board meeting" is a pun… Surfboard, get it?)
6. Slogan or rallying cry. Arouse customers with an inspiring, exciting or stirring statement. Leslie Irish Evans does this with "Mommy Martyrs No More!" My favorite example is actually the phrase on New Hampshire license plates, "Live Free or Die."
7. Proverb or quote. You can make someone else's saying or a legendary adage your own, when it summarizes the philosophy underlying your enterprise. John Hutson, who helps present and defend insurance claims, prominently uses a quote by John F. Kennedy, "The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining." Diana Schneidman named her business of helping freelancers launch themselves and thrive after a Japanese proverb, "Fall down seven times, stand up eight."
Naturally such branding techniques serve you well only when all the other aspects of your business take great care of customers. As history's greatest showman, PT Barnum, put it, "Large stores, gilt signs, flaming advertisements will all prove unavailing if you or your employees treat your patrons abruptly." Introverts also should heed his point.
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is the author of 15 books, including 6 Steps to Free Publicity and Meatier Marketing Copy. She mentors introverts so they discover their uniquely powerful branding and marketing strategies. Download her free Marketing for Introverts manifesto: http://www.yudkin.com/introverts.htm
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Article Title: Proofread to Perfection: Typo Prevention Tactics For Copywriters
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 555
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It once happened to me: the word "pubic" in my book where it should clearly have been "public." And in an expensive mailing, I once caught my fax number where my phone number should have been, just before the piece went to the printer.
Typos can foul up your message, offend your client or readers, damage credibility, trigger unnecessary costs and prevent interested people from being able to respond. Ensure that your message conveys the correct, intended information by following these nine steps.
1. Proofread on paper, not on a computer screen. Point a pen at words on the page to slow down your eye, so you see what is actually there rather than what you expect to be there.
2. Let your printouts sit overnight before finalizing them. Rereading after time has lapsed helps you spot glaring errors.
3. Actually dial all phone numbers to make sure you haven't transposed digits or worse. Test all URLs by clicking on them, and carefully examine zip codes and street numbers.
4. In a recurrent publication, like a newsletter, or an email you're adapting for a new occasion, make sure you've appropriately changed all dates, program titles and no-longer-relevant information that occurs deep in the piece.
5. Is it LexiConn or Lexicon or some other variation? Confirm the spelling of all place names, company names and people's names. Things like Colombian coffee but Columbia University are tricky to remember.
6. Look up any unusual words in the dictionary to check their meaning, connotation and spelling. I was once embarrassed by having half a dozen subscribers to my newsletter inform me that I had written "inertia" where I meant "entropy."
7. Don't forget to look carefully at headlines and subject lines. I'm not sure why, but the larger the font size, the harder it can be to catch mistakes that in retrospect appear to be staring one right in the face.
8. Read your copy out loud. This often helps you catch instances where you've omitted a word, changed things incompletely between drafts or inadvertently dropped a line or paragraph.
9. Take a close look at stated prices. Missing decimal points, the wrong number of zeroes, switched numbers, shipping costs updated in one spot and not another and so on are common errors.
Above all, do not assume anything. Some years back, a famous mail-order company barely averted disaster when its back-to-school catalog arrived in millions of homes. The catalog invited shoppers to call a phone number that belonged to a much smaller company instead of them. The mega-retailer had to pay the other company an unnamed sum of money (surely six figures) to immediately take over the misprinted phone number. The misprint's cause was an employee who "knew" a toll-free number starting with 877 should really have started with 800.
And that doesn't begin to top out the monetary harm that typos can cause.
In my files, I have a case where a misplaced comma in a contract triggered $2.13 million dollars in additional payments owed by one of the parties and another where an investment firm lost more than $18 million because of a typo in an order for a stock trade.
Details matter!
About The Author: Veteran copywriter/marketing consultant Marcia Yudkin is the author of Meatier Marketing Copy and 14 other books. She runs a one-on-one mentoring program that trains copywriters and marketing consultants in 10 weeks. Participants learn no-hype marketing writing: http://www.yudkin.com/become.htm
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Article Title: Become More Believable and Trustworthy: Avoid These 6 Credibility Killers in Your Copywriting
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 522
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When it comes to hiring you with their hard-earned cash, many people behave like the proverbial Missourians: hands folded across their chests, they demand "Show me!" "Prove it!" You must earn their trust not only with what you say, but also in how you present your case.
To polish up a winning pitch, eliminate all the credibility killers below.
6 Common Credibility Killers
1. Typos or factual mistakes. According to seven studies performed by the Stanford University Persuasive Technology Lab, even the smallest mistakes affect people's willingness to trust what you have written. Although errors have been known to slip by even professional proofreaders, you must do your best to eliminate typographical and spelling mistakes to maintain the trust of readers.
2. Appearing out of date. When a blog or web site obviously hasn't been touched in months, the individual or organization behind it becomes less credible. Why? Because the world changes as time moves along, and we tend to trust those who keep in step. Something that implies that "October 2008" lies in the future or that cites Tony Blair as the current UK prime minister is jarring to us and takes the whole surroundings down a notch.
3. Exaggeration or hyperbole. I once spotted a company claiming to be the only healthy eating franchise. That was so grossly unlikely that I couldn't possibly believe anything else they wrote. Take special care with dramatic adjectives like "revolutionary" or "unique," because when someone realizes you are actually offering the same-old same-old, your credibility tumbles into the gutter.
4. Ungrounded accolades. Google Adwords does not allow advertisers to use the words "best" or "#1" unless some third party, such as a magazine or contest, attests to that top status. Can your language pass that test? If you have superlatives and self-praise floating around in your copy without any grounding in "who says so," discerning consumers sense something shifty or unreliable about you.
5. Seemingly too good to be true. Here you may have something provably true that surpasses what your audience is willing to believe. If so, you may need to understate the case so you don't confront reader resistance. The firm Marketing Experiments, for example, reports a situation where a business-to-business marketer had to stop claiming a 638 percent improvement in return on investment because prospective clients did not believe that was possible, even though in fact it had taken place.
6. Asterisks or "small print." Don't put out something bold and outrageous only to take it back with a mealy-mouthed asterisk or legalistic small print. For instance, "free" means something costs nothing – zilch, literally. You slam enthusiasm and respect to a halt when you explain later that people need to pay $19.99 shipping and handling for the "free" item.
In most markets, people skeptical, whether they already know you or are encountering you for the first time. People also prefer doing business with those who are above board, reliable and honest. Follow the credibility building best practices above, and you're more likely to be perceived as trustworthy.
About The Author: Veteran copywriter/marketing consultant Marcia Yudkin is the author of Meatier Marketing Copy and 14 other books. Besides mentoring marketing departments in copywriting, she runs a one-on-one mentoring program that trains marketing consultants in 10 weeks: http://www.yudkin.com/become.htm
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Article Title: Become More Believable and Trustworthy: 12 Credibility Builders to Use in Copywriting
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 938
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When people discover your offerings for the first time, they consciously or unconsciously go through a process of wondering whether or not to believe that you will deliver what you promise. Can they trust that they'll be happy having bought from you?
Credibility is also at stake when established customers need to decide whether or not to purchase something new you're dangling in front of them. You say they need it, you explain that it's a must-have, but will they believe what you say about its value?
Use this checklist to make sure you've bolstered your credibility with either group to the greatest extent possible.
12 Credibility Builders
1. Provide background information. A marketing company tried to get me to attend a webinar on a new law, but they didn't tell me enough for me to know whether or not the law would affect me. A link to the law would have settled my question – either because it showed that the law would or would not have an impact on me or because I would see that the law was definitely too complicated for me to decipher on my own.
2. Offer the source of any data, numbers or statistics you mention. Providing facts is never as helpful as also saying who established those facts. When you state that your numbers come from a 2010 University of Calgary study or the Centers for Disease Control, you bolster your overall trustworthiness, not only the believability of those stats.
3. Include third-party commentary. Did legendary management expert Peter Drucker originally make your point? Can you quote clients of yours on the results they have achieved from your work? Has a major media outlet sung your praises? The more respected and numerous those third parties, the more readers are willing to trust you.
4. Anticipate objections. "But, but, but…" is often running through people's minds as they consider your sales pitch. To the extent you counteract those concerns and quiet half-baked doubts, you increase the likelihood of prompting the eventual response you want.
5. Document the consequences of not acting. Had the marketer of that webinar laid out in gory detail the fines and jail terms in store for those breaking the new law, I would have been more persuaded by her claim that I had to inform myself about it. Gunning for donations? Show a photo of a turtle who's doomed unless donors save its habitat. When you're selling an automated web service, explain how much time a non-user spends needlessly and list the hassles he needs to deal with.
6. Describe the credentials of those involved. Too many times, I've read vague bios containing fluffy marketing-speak instead of solid degrees, documented achievements and number of years in business. Venture capitalists say they invest as much in the people leading their projects as in the ideas, and ordinary customers often think the same way.
7. Show examples of what you mean. The other day while I was listening to a Napoleon Hill lecture, I wasn't sure I believed him when he claimed he could do or get anything he set his mind to – anything. But then he told a story about how he obtained a Rolls Royce within a week when he did not have the $250,000 needed to buy it. Then I nodded my head, persuaded.
8. Provide evidence of your success. In Internet marketing circles, screen shots of dated earnings and payment checks were de rigueur for a long while, until people realized how easily they could be faked. Even so, photographs of you rubbing shoulders with the mayor or lugging the day's outgoing packages to the post office can help make your story come to life believably.
9. Demonstrate it. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video demonstration is worth a hundred thousand. You've probably noticed that the kinds of products you see advertised in TV infomercials again and again are those where dramatic footage proves the product works as advertised. In other situations, before-and-after photos can sometimes equal the "show me" power of a video.
10. Be specific. When you say that 61 out of 62 beta testers improved their typing speed with your program, that is far more credible than saying "most," "the vast majority" or even "nearly everyone." Non-rounded numbers, such as 98 rather than 100 or 467,000 instead of "half a million" are always more convincing because people assume they derive from counting rather than estimating.
11. Add a guarantee. The fact that you're willing to back up your promise with a guarantee often cuts off doubt at the knees. Note that your guarantee need not promise the customer's money back if they are not satisfied. "The mice will be gone or we'll re-treat your house until they are" or "You're completely satisfied with your haircut or the next one is free" are two other types of guarantees that boost confidence.
12. Be consistent. As reported in Target Marketing magazine in August 2010, the Mayo Clinic had to dial back techniques recommended by consultants, such as carnival-barker headlines or garish colors, because they clashed with their image as a prestigious medical institution. Though such techniques worked for other organizations, they lowered the Mayo Clinic's response rates. Besides the overall tone and approach, check for consistency in details, too.
Always assume that your audience is skeptical, regardless of whether or not they already know you. Earn trust with credibility, and the sales follow.
About The Author: Veteran copywriter/marketing consultant Marcia Yudkin is the author of Meatier Marketing Copy and 14 other books. Besides mentoring marketing departments in copywriting, she runs a 1-on-1 mentoring program to train copywriters and marketing consultants in 10 weeks: http://www.yudkin.com/become.htm
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Article Title: Think Up Names and Grow Rich: Business Naming Lessons From Napoleon Hill
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 542
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Many years ago, pioneering self-help author Napoleon Hill was struggling to name his forthcoming book. It was all set to go except that both he and the publisher were not satisfied with their working title, The Thirteen Steps to Riches. Hill had thought up more than 500 other titles, none of they liked any better.
Finally the publisher, losing patience, called Hill and said, "If you can't think of anything better by tomorrow, I'm going to call it Use Your Noodle and Get the Boodle." Napoleon Hill hated that flippant title and went to bed determined to have a better title by the next day.
At two o'clock in the morning, he awakened knowing that he had it: Think and Grow Rich. He called the publisher, who agreed immediately that this was the million-dollar title they had both been aiming for. Since its first publication in 1937, Hill's masterwork has sold more than 60 million copies worldwide. We can only speculate how many copies Use Your Noodle and Get the Boodle might have sold!
This story illustrates four important points about the process of naming.
1) Very often it takes loads of brainstorming before landing on the name that fully fits the bill. Inexperienced namers frequently stop too soon, before the best ideas come into view. When you are working on the creation of a name, jot down every idea and every fragment of an idea. Keep going, in several distinct sessions if necessary, until you have at least 100 possibilities in your notes.
2) Bringing other people into the naming process is productive, because everyone's mind works in different directions. Hill would never have thought up Use Your Noodle and Get the Boodle on his own. Some people I know have gotten terrific name ideas from small children, janitors, colleagues and friends in a completely different line of work.
3) Horrible ideas may lead to great ones. Do you see the remarkable resemblance between the publisher's awful title and Hill's final, great one? Don't censor yourself as you are brainstorming. Write down even the ideas that are clearly totally unsuitable. If you get stuck, look over all the ideas generated so far and let them suggest additional possibilities. Consider whether the names that make everyone wince might have a kernel of creativity in them that you can tweak.
4) You need to know how to recognize the name that fits exactly what you are looking for. Hill wanted something elegantly simple, suggestive and dignified. His winner combined four common, one-syllable words in a phrase that continues to resonate and sell today. When my company generates names for clients, we spend a lot of effort to learn their goals and preferences so we can draw up a list of criteria for the naming project. So should you, so you can recognize your winner. Without a list of criteria, you are in the position of waiting for a thunderbolt from heaven that may never come.
Use these guidelines to produce a boatload of possibilities and select the one that best gets the job done.
May you think up a one-in-a-million name – and see it make you a millionaire many times over!
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, which brainstorms catchy tag lines, company names and product names according to the client's criteria. Download a free copy of "19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name or Tag Line" at http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm
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Article Title: Branding in Baby Steps: 7 Easy Ways to Get Started With Personal Branding
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 625
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Many people think of branding as an all-encompassing phenomenon where every way in which a company interacts with customers is consistent with a certain image and message. That certainly is something we can all aspire to, especially if we wish to avoid getting lost amidst fierce competition.
However, you can also take baby steps in personal branding – thoughtfully cloaking just a couple of things you do with style and meaning – and still create an impact. Use this list of branding touch points to identify fun, significant, inexpensive ways to get started in coming across as someone special.
1. Phone message. Instead of boring old leave-me-a-message voice mail, imbue your messages with energy and some sort of memorable element. For instance, if you are a gardening consultant, you could greet phone callers who miss you with an upbeat "It's a great day for cultivating a garden! Let me know how I can help you."
2. Email signature. Unusually, an out-of-office message from one of my newsletter subscribers the other day caught my eye: "I'll be back on Monday… unless I get enlightened and become one with the Seattle rain." This prompted me to look more closely at who would have written this whimsical missive and to click to her web site. Many people include a motto or quote in their email signature – if you do this, make sure it's something unexpected and yet somehow tied into your business.
3. Product title. If you're not ready to commit yourself to comprehensive branding, you can still jazz up the title of a report, white paper or teleseminar recording you are giving away. Instead of "Guide to Overcoming Procrastination," for example, call it "The No-More-Mañana Handbook."
4. Business card. Years ago, I did not have a logo or a company color, but when I went networking, I always had the coolest business card in the room. It had black type on a transparent card made of some type of high-tech material. Brainstorm ways to elevate your business card above the ordinary.
5. Tweets. I once performed a Twitter audit for a client, looking through his most recent 20 tweets and asking, "Do these communicate his strengths as a software consultant?" They did not. Consider what you want to be known for, such as irreverence, knowledge or compassion, and ensure that most of your tweets fit with and foster your desired image.
6. Accessibility. Do you prefer to come off as the distant sage who can be reached only by slogging up a mountain or as someone who's reachable by phone most hours of the day or night? Whichever you choose, make sure your "contact us" page conveys that message consistently, and your actual reachability conforms with the message.
7. Behavior. How you respond – as well as how quickly you respond – to email requests, questions, fan notes, blog critics and so on likewise contributes to how people in your target audience think of you. Imagine the difference, for example, between someone slugging back with everything he's got at someone disagreeing with him on his blog and someone thanking the commentator graciously for taking the time to post her opinion.
Except for the business card suggestion, the baby-step branding moves outlined above cost nothing. Even so, implementing just a few of them can get you started building a strong, noteworthy, memorable personal brand.
A bookworm as a child, Marcia Yudkin grew up to discover she had a surprising talent for creative marketing. She now mentors introverts so they discover their uniquely powerful branding and most comfortable marketing strategies. Download her free Marketing for Introverts audio manifesto: http://www.yudkin.com/introverts.htm.
About The Author: A bookworm as a child, Marcia Yudkin later discovered her talent for creative marketing. She now mentors introverts so they discover their uniquely powerful branding and comfortable marketing strategies. Download her free Marketing for Introverts audio manifesto: http://www.yudkin.com/introverts.htm
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Article Title: Solopreneurs: Avoid These Ten Personal Branding Mistakes
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 865
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Be bold! Grab attention!
Yes, that's great advice when it comes to personal branding. The trouble arises when the advice gets implemented carelessly, thoughtlessly or inappropriately. Then there's a lot of flash and dash, but little response. Those targeted get confused or turned off instead of attracted.
Avoid these ten mistakes I've repeated seen solo entrepreneurs make in their personal branding efforts.
1. Too timely. Don't use something that seems very appropriate today but might become obsolete in a year or two. For example, being known as the "Recession Rescuer" might have worked really well in 2009. It is beginning to seem passé in 2011 and may appear totally out of step with the times in 2013. Adopt a branding element only when you have every reason to believe it can remain relevant for at least five years.
2. Obscure. A client of mine wanted to brand himself with a phrase that came from an old Sufi story that he loved. However, no non-Sufi (which included 99.9 percent of his clients) would understand the phrase without a long explanation. Effective branding makes a strong and immediate connection and doesn't require exegesis.
3. Vague. Prospective clients don't want to know that you've helped companies in "a variety of industries." Instead, be specific. For instance, speaking expert Susan Berkley is "The Voice of AT&T." Jay Abraham quantifies his client base: He's worked with "clients in more than 400 industries worldwide." Instead of saying I work with people in a huge range of professions, I say "from software publishers and ecommerce startups to media companies, associations and independent educational programs."
4. Derivative. Some people think that if a certain phrase worked for a billion-dollar company, it can perform magic for them, also, if just tweaked a little bit. So they use a slogan like "sponsorship has its privileges" (a riff off American Express's tag line from years ago). Unfortunately, rather than coming off as brilliant, or even a prestigious echo, it seems simply like a lazy failure of imagination. Be fresh and unique.
5. Encroaching. Much more dangerous than derivative branding is wording or visuals that are imitative to the point that another company takes legal action. For example, there are cases where a designer knowingly copied another company's logo and the unwitting client got sued. Likewise, a little restaurant in my rural area of Massachusetts was forced to change its name because it chose a name identical to that of a well-known New York City eatery. Work with reputable consultants who help you avoid this pitfall.
6. Inadvertently negative. Always, always, always look up the dictionary meanings of unusual words used in your branding statements and go back to the drawing board if they are negative. I once thought I might call myself the "Poohbah of Publicity" because I liked the way it sounded. However, I dropped this idea when a quick check on Wikipedia revealed that "Poohbah" is a "mocking title for someone who is self-important." Yikes!
7. Overly confessional. Today's trend of telling all on Twitter and blogs can trip you into divulging things that others judge you harshly for. I was really taken aback, for instance, when one expert revealed that she graduated from college by cheating and another blithely discussed his own marital infidelity. Unless you're deliberately cultivating an outlaw image, don't talk about (much less celebrate) acts others may regard as illegal, immoral or unethical.
8. False. A client once told me that she owned the largest operation of her kind in her state, then later told me she'd simply made up that claim. Don't allow any such lie or fabrication anywhere near your branding. You'll inevitably be found out, sooner or later, and your reputation will slide into the gutter. It happened with a dean at MIT, the CEO of Radio Shack and many others.
9. Arbitrary. Never let someone who hasn't gotten to know you deeply talk you into branding that seems logically, objectively to make sense. Without the personal connection to your own beliefs, values, experiences and personality, inconsistencies tend to come out and make either you or potential clients (or both) feel uncomfortable with it. It's a recipe for disappointment. I wish I could cite examples of this kind of disaster for you, but all the ones I've witnessed close up are confidential.
10. Mismatched. I've seen people get caught up in the fun of branding possibilities and then select a characterization they like that they forget is utterly wrong for their audience. For instance, you don't want to promise that you help people find "their inner rock star" if paying clients for this service tend to be reclusive or avoid glamour. Similarly, you shouldn't dub yourself "the zen of" anything if customers usually are hard-driving achievers who don't slow down for spirituality.
All in all, branding has to be taken seriously so it's consistent with who you are, who clients want you to be and the other essential factors outlined above.
About The Author: A bookworm as a child, Marcia Yudkin grew up to discover she had a talent for creative marketing. She's the author of Meatier Marketing Copy and 14 other books. She also mentors introverts so they discover their uniquely powerful branding. Learn more: http://www.yudkin.com/introverts.htm
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Article Title: Branding From Your Back Pocket: Why Introverts Should Create an Exciting, Unique Business Identity
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 546
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Recently on the entertaining and educational TV show "Shark Tank," two young entrepreneurs pitching their portable audio speakers were making little headway with five high-profile millionaires as potential investors. Indeed, one of the "sharks" had just declared herself out of the running. Then one of the entrepreneurs mentioned in passing that they'd sold their item on the QVC shopping channel.
"What, you've been on QVC? When were you going to mention this?" asked one of the investors, his eyes wide open.
The momentum picked up sharply and bidding ensued. The entrepreneurs soon walked off the set with a promise for the $150,000 they were seeking.
In another segment of the same show, a firefighter pitched his device that connected hoses to hydrants in two seconds instead of nine. Although he already had orders from fire departments and claimed convincingly that his invention would save lives, the millionaires were leery of investing until their questions prompted the firefighter to pull a consumer version of his invention from his pocket.
One of the "sharks" got so excited about the potential of an easy-to-use connector for garden hoses at home that he practically jumped out of his chair. Just before making his offer to buy all the rights to both the firefighter and home garden hose versions of the product for $1.5 million, he asked, "Do you have anything else in your back pocket?"
All too often I discover my own clients unwittingly keeping million-dollar facts about themselves hidden in their back pockets. Under my questioning, an achievement, attitude, idea or image casually emerges and, like the investors on "Shark Tank," I can hardly sit still as I think about its potential. It holds the key to a dramatically higher level of appeal for the client's ideal customers.
This is especially, though not exclusively, true for introverts. Introverts have a lousy business image in our culture, and many parents and business coaches believe there's something wrong with someone who would rather read a book or build a boat in their basement than socialize. As a result it can be especially difficult for quiet, reserved people to claim their personality strengths and highlight them in a positive way.
In a survey I did last year, the personality strengths of introverts mentioned most often were creativity, good listening, trustworthiness, critical thinking and attention to detail. Clients are definitely looking for these traits in their service providers! And yes, to many clients these qualities are much more important than any superficial friendliness or ability to make small talk.
Summon your courage to say who you are and what you have to offer in a punchy, pithy way. Clients who seek exactly what you provide will find that more appealing than a conventional presentation. Those who are a mismatch with you go away. You experience fewer conflicts with clients, more long-term business relationships and increased referrals.
If you need help with this, get it so you can identify the powerful items that deserve to come out of your pockets, those that make ideal clients sit up and hire you, excited to have found you. Your reward: easier earnings and way more job satisfaction.
About The Author: A bookworm as a child, Marcia Yudkin grew up to discover she had a talent for creative marketing. She now mentors introverts so they discover their uniquely powerful branding and comfortable marketing strategies. Download her free Marketing for Introverts audio: http://www.yudkin.com/introverts.htm
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Article Title: Personal Branding For Introverts: It Keeps You Profitably in Your Comfort Zone!
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 527
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Mention personal branding to someone who lives on the quiet side of life, and their first associations may be of flash, pretense and puffery. That's not how I look at it. Branding offers a powerful opportunity to help people understand your strengths and talents, to hear your distinctive story and to grasp your values and preferences so they can come forward or go away according to how well you and they match.
You put a lot of candor together with a little drama and pizzazz, and you get the reward of working with clients who appreciate you, respect the way you work, admire your credentials and experience, pay when and what you ask for, and stick with you for years. Less stress, more satisfaction. Better matchups with clients, a more profitable professional practice.
Let's say, for example, that you're a financial advisor for business owners. You help them figure out their best exit strategies – how they can readily sell their business when the time comes, pass it along smoothly to the next generation or simply shut it down and retire. Over the years you've realized that you offer an unusual combination of realistic, big-picture thinking about finances and emotional savvy in helping clients identify their wants, wishes and concerns.
When clients expect just the numbers from you, they don't like the questions you ask. Or you get upset because you see that their understanding of their options is clouded by emotional hang-ups they're not willing to discuss. On the other hand, the work also has a tendency to go off the rails when clients approach the issues purely emotionally, as if you were a therapist.
Your solution: adopting the slogan, "Hard numbers with compassion." You use this phrase prominently on your web site, on your business cards, when you network or introduce yourself at parties, even framed on your office wall where you meet with clients. This attracts those who want exactly what you want to give them. It also alerts people and reminds them of what to expect from you.
The result: clients who perfectly match your talents and temperament, and a happier you.
Adopting a slogan is only one method of branding. Your ideal-client-attracting identity can also come out in your company name, the photos you select to portray you and illustrate your offerings, the tone of your writing (brash and irreverent or warm and friendly, for example), a carefully slanted bio, characteristic behaviors, an "is this you?" portrait of who you work with, a "how we work" page, and a good many other options.
Approached this way, branding spotlights your key values, unique gifts and idiosyncratic masteries, conveys what customers can expect from you and portrays your personality strengths in a positive light. You use verbal and visual techniques to dramatize those ideas, yet there's essential honesty and consistency underlying this clear, sparkling business image. Best of all, the wrong people – those you'd inevitably disappoint or run into conflicts with – don't like your branding and go away. The right people respond.
About The Author: A bookworm as a child, Marcia Yudkin is now the author of 15 books. She mentors introverts so they discover their uniquely powerful branding and most comfortable marketing strategies. Download her free Marketing for Introverts audio manifesto: http://www.yudkin.com/introverts.htm
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Article Title: Copywriting Tips: Prevent Reader Boredom With Fresh Angles For Repeat Email Promotions
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 776
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When you have an upcoming event you hope people sign up to attend, you can't just keep sending the same promotion twice or three times a week for a month. Ditto when you have a new product or service to promote. Somehow you must vary the subject line and message and keep those on your list opening your emails, reading and reconsidering the commitment to your offering that they haven't yet made.
But how?
Here are 12 techniques to use when you must keep promoting the same thing to the same people. Yes, they'll figure out what you're up to, but because you're earning their attention every time in a different way and engaging them with relevant content, they will not object. These techniques increase your open rate, prevent opt-outs and boost sales for whatever you're repeatedly promoting.
1. Hit on a different benefit in each message. Instead of piling on all the benefits of your offering in your initial promotion and then having nothing else to say, devote separate emails to the benefits, one at a time: one email on how they will save time, another on how they will save money, another on how they can prevent legal tangles, and so on.
2. Elaborate on different content points. Similarly, instead of simply listing bullet points of what they'll learn from your webinar or home-study course, develop these at greater length, one per email.
3. Tie in to something ultra-timely. If floods, blizzards or earthquakes are in the news, connect your product, service or event to what's on people's minds. This can be a superficial opening comment or a deeper point about the benefit of buying what you're selling. Just make sure you make the connection relevant to your topic.
4. Provide a little sample. Quote several paragraphs from what you're selling. Offer free data from a research report. Or give away a widget that's built into your software.
5. Highlight a testimonial or case study. Promote indirectly by talking about what a specific customer or client gained from your item. Talk about how they implemented your solution and the difference it made for them. Or quote them at length on why they were delighted with what they purchased from you.
6. Describe the fit with a specialized situation. Prospects often wonder: "But will it work for me?" When you can identify a common sub-niche or two on your list, such as beginners/experienced people, nonprofits, women/men, address their specific questions and concerns.
7. Relate to something in a book, article, blog or movie. You can either refer to something that's burning on the best-seller list or at the box office, or you can tie your offering to something classic. If you sell heavy-duty industrial equipment, it can be a children's book. If you're pushing politics, you could riff off a scene from a sit-com, then elaborate on the point. The more unexpected, the better!
8. Offer tips or resources. Usefulness earns attention. Make sure the tips or resources stand on their own and can be implemented whether or not people buy. This builds your credibility and suggests the value customers get after handing over their credit card.
9. Discuss a common objection and counter it in depth. You probably have a sense of what can keep people from signing up – money, lack of time, uncertainty about your item's importance or quality, etc. Choose one or more of these doubts and address them as credibly and strongly as you can.
10. Invite questions from those on the fence. Simply asking for people's questions midway through a series of emails can be a powerful way to convert maybes into yesses. Either send personal replies or summarize answers to the questions received in the next email in the series.
11. Report related studies or survey results. When I'm out of ideas, I often go searching in Google News for recently released research or surveys that prove the need for what I'm selling or illustrate a particular point in my pitch. Science Daily is another great source for such tidbits.
12. Warn against a common mistake. For instance, if you're selling propane, tell customers why they shouldn't wait until their indicator dial goes into the red to reorder. If you're promoting new software, explain why companies will get into trouble by trying to make do with what they already have.
Go forth now and keep those readers interested!
About The Author: Veteran copywriter/marketing consultant Marcia Yudkin is the author of Meatier Marketing Copy and 14 other books. She trains marketing departments and runs a one-on-one mentoring program that develops the skills of copywriters and marketing consultants: http://www.yudkin.com/become.htm
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Article Title: 25 Ways to Make Your Marketing Copy Bolder and More Intriguing
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 611
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Clients have asked me for help because they feel stuck in a rut when it comes to getting the attention of their audience. Many feel they know only a limited number of techniques and seem to use the same strategies and angles over and over again. They're bored and frustrated trying the same-old, same-old repeatedly and are pretty sure recipients on their lists feel the same way.
To the rescue is this list I created of bolder approaches you can try to freshen up emails, web pages, ads and other venues for promotional copy. Along with each idea, I've provided an example illustrating how you might put it to work.
I. In headlines, subject lines and elsewhere
1. Ask a weird or provocative question.
Whoever Heard of 77,000 Opt-ins From a Single Email?
2. Play up an emotion.
Take Command of Your Email Inbox.
3. Refer to current events.
Avoid Being Blindsided by a Blizzard.
4. Issue a challenge.
Can Your Widgywidget Pass the Steamroller Test?
5. Use a line of dialogue.
Pssst, Your Benchmarks Are Outdated.
6. Cite a specific number.
Here's Why 45,682 Managers Trust Us.
7. Confess something.
We're Embarrassed to Admit It, But…
8. Present a quiz.
Take the Readiness Roadmap Quiz.
9. Highlight case study results.
How Apoxya Achieved 458% ROI.
10. Quote a client.
"Helpful. Hard-nosed. Hassle-free."
11. Say what the reader is probably thinking.
Why Can't Metrics Be Simpler!
12. Guarantee something.
Quicker Payback – Guaranteed.
13. Connect to social trends.
Help Green Your Marketing Department.
14. Promise to get rid of an annoyance.
No More Compliance Hassles.
15. Compare before and after.
Before: 25½ Passwords. After: Just One.
16. Name the exact audience you're targeting.
For the Manager Not Confident About Reaching This Year's Targets.
17. Create suspense.
To Be Unveiled at the TTT Tradeshow…
18. Invoke imagination.
Imagine All Your Emails Effortlessly Organized.
II. Within your copy
19. Use un-businesslike language.
Time to cut the crap, wouldn't you say?
20. Use vivid metaphors or similes.
When your to-do list feels like Grand Central Station.
21. Include surprising but true facts.
Only one government contractor in five knows that...
22. Compare costs/other factors to everyday items.
Solve your IT headaches for less than it costs to treat everyone on your team to a double latte.
23. Make predictions.
Prevent next year's biggest risk now.
24. Tell a story.
When one of our clients took our new RXV234 back to the office, his IT manager at first refused to install it. Two days later he became an evangelist for it. Here's why.
25. Write from an unexpected perspective – for example, from the night cleaning crew or the daughter of someone who now gets to go home from the office at a reasonable hour.
One fairly conservative corporate client surprised me at the number of items on this list he became excited about trying. Remember, the goal is to wake up the reader from their slumber of disinterest and to get them paying attention. Unexpected language, suspense, mysteries, relevance and promises are just a few of the techniques that belong in your expanded bag of tricks. Try being different, informing and entertaining without giving offense, and you'll not only awaken your prospect, but also re-energize your own excitement about your product.
About The Author: Veteran copywriter/marketing consultant Marcia Yudkin is the author of Meatier Marketing Copy and 14 other books. She runs a one-on-one mentoring program that trains copywriters and marketing consultants in 10 weeks, concentrating on no-hype copy for a variety of markets: http://www.yudkin.com/become.htm
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Article Title: The Introvert's Guide to Marketing With Video
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 801
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The other day while watching a training video created by another marketer, I missed the whole beginning of the program. The guy stood facing the camera, lecturing in a friendly manner and gesturing smoothly at some props behind him. I couldn't take in his words because my mind was shouting, "That's something I could never do!"
In truth, I probably could do it, but only with weeks of practice. And I probably wouldn't feel happy about the effort. Creating a marketing piece with the camera focused on my face much or all of the time feels uncomfortably egotistical to me as an introvert. I've heard similar sentiments from introverted clients who get freaked out about video and TV but enjoy performing on radio and can manage public speaking, where they focus on the experience of their audience.
Yet does that mean introverts can't comfortably use video as a promotional tool?
Not at all.
Appearing as a talking head is only one method of using video, and it's probably the very most challenging video mode for introverts. Here are five alternate ideas for producing video content without forcing yourself into activities that feel alien and frightening.
1. How-to videos. If you're good with your hands or have a physical skill to demonstrate, have someone shoot video of you showing the step-by-step performance of what you know how to do. For instance, a video of how to knit a cable stitch is going to focus on your hands, not your face, which makes the filming much less intimidating. Likewise, when you demonstrate a walking meditation, you naturally focus on your posture and pace, rather than the camera. Keep in mind that you can either describe the steps verbally as you perform them or add your spoken commentary to the video later.
2. Storytelling videos. Here you have an opinion to share or a story to tell, and you illustrate it with video scenes edited together. For example, I created a popular 2 1/2 minute YouTube video about my remote-living Internet marketing lifestyle by first writing the script, then having a friend shoot planned-out footage illustrating what I was talking about. A scene near the beginning showed me sweeping snow off the satellite dish through which I connected to the Internet. Another pictured me looking around from the dock overlooking our lake. My friend matched the content in my recorded audio to the scene changes. This was painless for me to create because I never had to speak directly to the camera. You might think of this video option either as a music video with speaking replacing the music or as an illustrated audio commentary of the sort they often feature on US public radio.
3. Narrated slide shows. My next video, to promote my vacation rental condo in Maui, is going to orchestrate still photographs, instead of video footage, while my voice offers lively remarks and descriptions of the island lifestyle. If you're a consultant, you could use this technique to show photographs of yourself helping clients or of your clients' successes while you explain your services in the voiceover.
4. Interviews. Most people feel less self-conscious when they're answering someone's questions rather than reciting memorized text or extemporaneously talking to the camera. Knowing that you can reshoot an answer where you flubbed it is a huge comfort, too. So consider a Q&A video format in which you explain important points or provide background about yourself or your company. You might decide to leave the questions in the video or edit them out and weave together your answers on their own.
5. Screencasts. Here you go off camera altogether. A screencast, also called a video screen capture, shows the viewer what a process looks like on a computer screen as it proceeds step by step, with the accompaniment of a verbal soundtrack. You can also create a screencast by compiling a Powerpoint presentation and merging it with an audio voice recording. For example, some introverted experts read their articles out loud while their Powerpoint illustrates the content.
Whichever alternate video format you choose, keep it short. Less than three minutes is ideal for video posted online. Edit it so it looks professional, as we all tend to measure video quality by broadcast TV standards. End your video piece with a call to action – what you want viewers to do next, such as opt in to your newsletter or contact you for an introductory meeting. Finally, post your creation on sites like YouTube as well as your own web site. And give yourself a big pat on the back for completing something many introverts would not dare to do!
About The Author: A bookworm as a child, Marcia Yudkin grew up to discover she had a surprising talent for creative marketing. She mentors introverts so they discover their uniquely powerful branding and comfortable marketing strategies. Download her free Marketing for Introverts audio: http://www.yudkin.com/introverts.htm
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Article Title: Take a Bizcation! Four Ways to Enjoy a Tax-Deductible Business Vacation
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 782
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If you're not sure you can afford a traditional vacation, and the idea of a "staycation" (staying close to home or at home) bores you, consider the "bizcation" - a combination of work and leisure that enables you to relax in a pleasant setting while pursuing some legitimate business goals, though not to the extent of stressing yourself.
When you plan your bizcation while keeping in mind the IRS guidelines for what counts as tax-deductible business travel, you may be able to deduct all or nearly all of your transportation, lodging and eating expenses for your trip as business expenses, while enjoying most of your time away from home as leisure.
According to IRS taxpayer publication #463, a crucial rule in what counts as deductible is this: "Count as a business day any day your presence is required at a particular place for a specific business purpose. Count it as a business day even if you spend most of the day on non-business activities."
Consequently, a valid bizcation plan includes something taking place Monday through Friday that could plausibly happen only at the vacation location. The weekends before and after can often be justifiably tacked on to enable you to recover from jet lag and take advantage of lower air fares or lodging specials.
(Note that you should check with your own tax advisor to be sure your situation conforms to all relevant guidelines for deductible business travel.)
The following four concepts illustrate ways to show a convincing business reason for traveling and staying at a wonderful location for a week or two.
1. Attend a conference. Events with educational and/or business networking components should qualify you for tax deductibility. The conference topic doesn't have to be central to your line of business, just somehow relevant.
However, for the purposes of a bizcation, this option is a bit tricky. Conferences tend to pack as many meetings as possible into a relatively small number of days, such as three or four. You want to be able to attend a few sessions scattered from Monday through Friday without spending a fortune for a conference fee, and you want there to be plenty of time for sightseeing, golf, beach bumming or whatever else relaxes you.
2. Arrange an extended consultation. Many veteran consultants offer special deals for lengthy consultations on their own turf, which might be Chicago, Las Vegas, Phoenix or - in my case every winter - Maui. As with option #1, you want to stretch out the schedule of meetings to as many days as you can, rather than cram the whole consultation into just a day and a half.
My bizcation schedule for clients meeting with me in Maui is three hours on Monday and one hour a day Tuesday through Friday, as well as an hour before and an hour after their visit to the island. Feel free to suggest this plan to your favorite guru who lives someplace you'd like to hang out.
3. Plan a working retreat. This can be solo or involve your top team members. Either way, a retreat provides an opportunity to engage in strategic planning or sustained project work away from the distractions of the office.
Writers, musicians and creative entrepreneurs have taken and justified solo retreats to the tax authorities for ages. The corporate retreat likewise has a long, respectable history. To fulfill the bizcation idea, just make sure you don't turn into a taskmaster with respect to yourself or others.
4. Meetings with clients. Finally, can you find a cluster of professional colleagues or folks on your client list in a place you want to visit? If so, plan a series of meetings with them that span the period of your visit. These can be one-on-one meetings or small-group get-togethers.
One American consultant I know who visited Australia as a tourist invited newsletter subscribers to a round-table lunch in Sydney during her visit. From what she wrote about the session afterwards, it was genuinely productive for her in keeping her abreast of business conditions around the world and in building closer relationships with her followers. You might be able to extend and tailor this idea to fit the requirements for a tax-deductible bizcation.
According to 2010 research by Homewood Suites, combining business travel with leisure is increasing in popularity. Of 540 travelers they surveyed who took three or more trips of four days or more a year, two-thirds sometimes or frequently combined a business and leisure trip. That number was up 16 percent from 10 years earlier.
Ready to join the trend?
About The Author: In winter, veteran marketing consultant/author Marcia Yudkin hosts warm and productive week-long bizcations on Maui with clients working on their strategic marketing, publication projects, web site makeovers or product launches. For more information, visit http://www.yudkin.com/maui.htm.
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