April 11, 2007
Death of Gary Halbert - Legendary Copywriter
Gary Halbert - copywriter whom I've never met has "left the building". He checked out peacefully in his sleep Sunday, April 8, 2007.
Why am I posting this message on my blog?
I'm not a copywriter. I struggle to put words on paper in an effort to influence prospects on the reasons why they will benefit from buying my products. I'm a novice! Being a novice or newbie to copywriting compels you to naturally research the subject. It was during my research that I came across the name Gary Halbert. I discovered many great copywriters dating back to the early twentieth century - great men who pioneered to art and science of persuasion.
Living in England and holding down a full time job I never got the opportunity to go to seminars in the US, the home of the world's greatest copywriters.
I could only buy their home study courses. That's the proximity of my 'experience' or knowledge of Gary Halbert.
I was broke, real broke and I wanted to market a product on the Internet to make some money. Naturally, I ended up at Gary Halbert's web site. Genuine to the core and helpful to others, Gary Halbert published sales letters that people, like me can draw inspiration from. I sure did!
Gary Halbert did a rare interview with Mark Joyner where he talked about his legendary "Coat Of Arms" sales letter that's the most mailed letter in the world. Man was I glad that I got that product! I'm thinking about sharing it with visitors to my web site in memory of the great man.
If you come across any sales material that Gary Halbert wrote, get it! Don't pass it by. Read every word of it and think clearly and deeply about what he's conveying to the reader (the prospect). In doing so you'll learn some of the wizardry of Gary Halbert, master copywriter who has finally "left the building".
Find more information below about Gary Halbert:
Gary Halbert's close friend and legendary copywriter John Carlton's Blog
Gary Halbert's Newsletter Web Site: The Gary Halbert Letter
David
Small Business Resource
P.S. About the secret to Gary Halbert’s “Coat of Arms letter. Keep your ears glued to my web site this blog. You will hear word for word and blow by blow why Gary’s “Coat of Arms" letter has been mailed over 600,000,000 times, making it one of the most successful direct mail pieces in the history of the world.
Posted by David at 2:14 PM | TrackBack
March 23, 2006
Big Ideas On How To Rescue Your Resolution Strategy
It's time for small Business owners to revisit their new year resloutions.
By April of the New Year, the resolutions made are in disarray, compromised, abandoned. And the resolute determination to make this year, finally, the year you stick to them, forgotten altogether.
The point of this essay is not to make you feel guilty. Instead, it is to identify the real reasons resolutions and the determination to achieve them are lost, year after year after year - and to help you get on track to systematically set and achieve your goals.
Big Idea #1: You Can't Achieve New Goals or Make Desired Changes Without Allocating Time to Do So.
Many resolutions never become reality, simply because no room is made for them on the daily schedule. If your days are already full and you resolve to get in a half-hour a day on the treadmill or writing your book, that half-hour has to come from somewhere. Something's gotta give! You have to find one or two or three things that you can cut 5 or 10 or 15 minutes from.
Big Idea #2: Priorities Should Govern Your Schedule.
The vast majority of business owners and entrepreneurs make the same mistake: They operate like workers instead of bosses and leaders. They report to a workplace, then they allow people and events and interruptions to take control of their day.
You have to wrest control away from the priorities of others and govern by your own.
Big Idea #3: Resolutions Aren't Resolutions Without Resolve.
Only you can decide what really matters to you. Don't bother with faux resolutions made to appease or satisfy others. Being honest with yourself is a pre-requisite for success.
Big Idea #4: Resolutions Require Resources.
Almost anything you decide to do ... any change you decide to make ... any goal you set out to achieve ... requires new or different resources. That might mean investing in a piece of home exercise equipment, stocking different food in the cupboard, or establishing a private workspace outside the office. You can't be serious about a resolution unless you have what you need to make it happen
Big Idea #5: The "Do One Thing Every Day" Rule.
In talking about how he built The Sharper Image from a college kid's coffee table start-up to a nearly billion-dollar business, founder Richard Thalheimer says he did it by taking "baby steps" - and still approaches every new project that way.
I used the same approach to write four books last year and four more this year ... putting in one hour a day to produce a handful of pages.
The idea is to refuse to end the day without doing something, no matter how small, that moves you toward your goal.
Big Idea #6: Who Motivates the Motivator?
Paul Meyer, founder of Success Motivation Institute, posed this provocative question: As an entrepreneur, as the leader, you may be doing a lot to motivate others. But who motivates you?
For the most part, you need to motivate yourself.
It's a big help to create a structure for yourself by breaking down your goal into monthly, weekly, and daily objectives. But you can also get into a coaching group or tele-coaching program, hire a one-on-one coach, or just pair up with a like-minded buddy. That way, there will be somebody to hold you accountable ... somebody to report your progress to. And as any professional sports coach will tell you: Measurement automatically improves performance - and measurement monitored by someone else improves performance even further.
Big Idea #7: Build Up to Change.
I neglected the treadmill for six months, but on January 1st, I went back to it.
My goal was to do 30 minutes a day. But I knew if I tried doing that out of the starting gate, I'd be a goner. So I started with a measly 5 minutes a day for the first half of January, 10 minutes a day for next 15 days, 15 minutes a day for all of February, then 20 minutes a day in March. I'll be up to the full 30 minutes in another week - and, as of right now, I haven't missed a day.
Easing into goals like this is a good way to make them more achievable. Say you resolve to get up an hour earlier every morning to work on an idea that you hope to turn into a side business. Start by getting up 15 minutes earlier for two weeks. Then 30 minutes earlier for a month. Then 45 minutes earlier for two weeks. And so on ...
D Kennedy
Posted by David at 5:38 PM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2006
Why The Key To Succeeding In Business Is Inside Of You And Not In A Success system
If you're in a Vicious "loop" looking for a success system that will transform your situation this could be the best news you'll read all year.
I received this article from a guy who is 100 per cent down to earth and rock solid when it comes to helping people with their business. There is something about the tone of his language that you might find some encouragement in. If you're looking for answers to the question such as how to be successful, this article could help you to finally start stepping in the right direction.
By Perry Marshall
When I was in my 20's I was loaded with ambition and roiling with energy. "Full of vim and vinegar" as they say. Which led me to both my greatest failure as a young man and most profound lesson of my 20's.
At the time I was, like, totally drinking the motivational Pink Koolaid. I drove all over the country in my little green
Toyota Tercel with a stack of motivational tapes on the passenger seat and empty tape cases crunching beneath my feet, and I was becoming Mr. Sales Machine. I had a chip on my shoulder from all the no-show appointments (4 hour drive each way, I'd get there and call the guy, he'd say "Oh sorry, I forgot, can we reschedule?) and I was going to change the world with will and brute force.
I even had a little sign in my office that said "Massive Action Solves Every Problem" (a phrase I'd picked up somewhere, I thought it sounded good) and I actually believed it was true.
Ah, the foolishness and conceit of youth.
Funny thing, reality has a way of eventually fixing those misconceptions. Doesn't it?
When I was about 25 I went to a little workshop and this guy was talking about giftedness. He was explaining that there are some things we're naturally wired for, naturally gifted for.... and there are a whole bunch of other things we shouldn't be attempting to do at all.
He said that if you design your work around your gifts, talents and passions, life will be vastly more rewarding, easier, less stressful and productive. He said if you try to "force it" in a non-talent zone, you'll just frustrate
yourself.
I really liked this idea. In fact I liked it so much I got some extra training to teach this to other people.
But... I didn't actually believe it applied to me.
What I thought was, all I need is passion. If I've got enough passion and motivation, the gifts and talents will sort of take care of themselves.
So on I went, rolling down the road, saying my positive affirmations with the pedal to the metal.
Fast forward about 3 years...
-I've got NOTHING to show for my efforts, except about $40,000 of debt.
-I've just gotten demoted in my job, from sales to office manager, I've taken a pay cut and I'm swimming in a sea of humiliation and disappointment.
-My resume looks horrible because I haven't accomplished hardly anything in the last couple of years
-I've got a wife and a baby girl at home, mounting debts, and deep concerns about the future (deep concerns, in fact, about how we're going to buy the next set of diapers)
-Laura (nothing short of a saint) is patiently waiting for me to bash my head against brick walls enough to finally start to 'get it.' And she's wise enough to *not* say, "Perry, I've been putting up with your silly schemes for about 5 years now and it's time for you to pull your head out of...." But believe me, the lesson is finally starting
to sink in.
-One day she looks up in surprise as I walk in the door at 9:15am on a Tuesday morning.
"I got fired today."
I go down in the basement and get out my notes and exercises from that workshop. It's got a list of gifts and talents I've been completely ignoring for the last few years. I begin to sketch out what the right job, the right business, the right career would actually look like for me. Based on what I'm really good at. Based on what people close to me observe, what I uniquely contribute to the world.
Other people are usually better at recognizing our talents than we are.
After years of trying to bash through brick walls with the soft skin of my nose, I have finally woken up and begun to approach my work in a sensible way.
A year later my career has made a complete 180, I'm feeling great about what I'm doing, it's working, I'm making more money, and there's light at theend of the tunnel.
There's been no looking back since.
OK, so why am I telling you this story?
Because there's no such thing as THE success formula, as though there were just one. Now yes, there are unchanging eternal principles of relationships and business. But I'm not talking about those things. I'm talking about finding YOUR unique place in the world.
See, everyone's selling success systems and what not and that's fine. I sell those too. But those are not the thing. Success systems, marketing systems,marketing techniques, business strategies, those are not the real key.
The real key is finding YOUR unique, God-given talents, gifts, abilities and passions, and matching them to unmet needs and desires out there in the world.
When you do that, your life becomes SO much easier.
The most important thing I ever talk to people about in phone consultations and 1-on-1 sessions is their USP, their Unique Selling Proposition. USP is square one on the marketing game board. You get USP right, everything is easy. You get USP wrong, everything is hard.
The tricky thing about USP is that nobody can hand it to you on a silver platter. Nobody can dictate to you what it should be. You have to discover it for yourself. In fact it's something that grows and develops over time, just like you do.
If I could tell you anything about succeeding in business, it would be to stop trying to fight your own limitations, stop trying to "fix" your weaknesses, and start working in your strength areas. If you spend your life strengthening your weaknesses, all you end up with is a bunch of weak strengths. If you spend your life strengthening your strenghts, you are strong. You are mighty.
I can absolutely promise you, you have talent zones where you really shine, things completely natural to you, yet seemingly impossible for most people. Skills people want and need. These are the skills you most take for granted.
And That - that's the business you should be in. Not the business you hear some motivational speaker talking about.
The cool thing about that is, every day when you get out of bed, your gifts energize you instead of depleting you. And you're also more competition proof, because you've designed your world around your talents, and nobody else is like you.
Posted by David at 1:42 PM | Comments (0)
November 4, 2005
Life's Ups And Downs Of A Small Business Entrepreneur
As the working week grinds to an end, I cannot help but reflect on the ups and downs of being a small business entrepreneur.
Like most weeks, you start out each Monday morning wishing you had another day to catch up on chores or ease your tiredness. You go through the motions of getting ready and traveling to work. Perhaps, you belong to the work from home "crowd" who stay in their pajamas while eventually deciding to sit at the computer, click you mouse, check your emails and most important of all, check how much money you made while you was fast asleep.
My week has been a mixed bag. It's started out with reading an email from John Reese. Who?
Just an Internet Marketer who made over $1 million dollars in one day from selling his "Traffic Secrets" course over the Internet.
John’s emails are normally greeted with high expectation because he is renown for testing advertising outcomes. John knows what works and what doesn't on the Internet. But this time his email was nothing to do with Internet marketing. As I read his email I was filled with "sad emotions".
John Reese, this "Internet Guru" guy, who was there when the Internet started and has made millions since then, wrote passionately about the reality of being human and coping with the trauma of illness and the death of people close to him; ex girl friend, brother and his grand mother.
Despite his passion for the Internet, John's experience of human fragility almost overwhelmed him. He considered selling all his web sites and everything he has built on the Internet.
After receiving an email from a woman who bought his traffic secrets course thanking John for making a real difference to her life, John decided not to quit, on the grounds that if he can make a difference to one person's life then maybe he can help many more.
Next, I received an email from an Internet Marketer who said how sorry he was that he did not find the time to say good-bye to an aunt that had died.
Next, I heard the news of Ken Gidden's death.
Here’s the link to a seminar that might have been Ken’s first:
By now I started to reflect on my own life and how fragile it was. It was then that I reinforced the promise that I have made to myself. Continue reading and I'll tell you what that is.
Next, I read an article about the fears that young people have about starting their own business and that because of stress many felt it was better to work 9-5 for the establishment instead.
Today is Friday and what a week it has been so far. I hope next week will be less emotional and that your week will go the way you want. Perhaps I should say instead, "be good to others". Because in doing so you'll heap a pile of gold on your head that is worth more than gold.
If you've read this far you're probably asking, what promise I made. Well it's simple!
This morning I read this article, here's the link:
It's about a young man; a young entrepreneur who developed a small business idea and in doing so, has won prizes and has received free publicity. Good on him!
My promise is to put my brain to developing an income that will give me, in the short time I have left, time to spend with my family and to help people instead of slaving my time away. I don’t want to have regrets because of lack of time!
Have a happy week next week.
David
Small Business Resource
Posted by David at 10:45 AM | Comments (0)
