The most careless approach to building your business is to decide what your marketplace really wants or needs without first talking to them about it. You owe it both to them and to yourself, because what you think is important to your prospects and customers may in fact be totally unimportant. What you could ignore may actually be all-important.
Win more customers by asking the right questions
Million Dollar Copywriting Tips
These million dollar copywriting tips are so simple and easily applied, yet can dramatically improve your marketing and advertising effectiveness. Not one in a hundred people gets this right. But grasp these simple ideas and it can dramatically improve your marketing and advertising effectiveness. It can also give you a emphatic edge over most of your competition […]
What Picasso can teach you about pricing
This post is about charging what you’re worth, with a great lesson on pricing from the Late Pablo Picasso. Too many products or services are seen as being very similar to others and as a consequience are treated as commodities. When that happens your prospects and customers will shop around and whoever charges the best price for that product or service tends to win the business. But if you can set your product or service apart from all the others out there, you can charge what your product or service is really worth […]
How to write emails that give you no choice but to read on
America’s No.1 sales authority Jeffrey Gitomer recently received an email from me. He says the email gave him no choice but to read on. His interest had to do with the subject line, the headline, the design of the content, and the copy. He liked the email so much that he wrote a widely syndicated article spelling out the 11 factors that compelled him to respond. He kindly allowed me to reproduce the article here, and he makes some great points as he analyses what made the email work […]
Why bookstores have coffee shops and what that means for your website
Can you imagine trying to persuade Lady Gaga of anything? She is, after all, a clearly determined and opinionated individual. You would be facing up to a fairly formidable personality – you don’t get to be an international superstar by being quiet and open to persuasion. Maybe the reason that Lady Gaga is successful is she prefers tea to coffee. Lady Gaga is one of several […]
The Power of Persuasion
The ability to influence and persuade others is a critical skill if you’re in business. Some people seem to have an inborn ability to influence others. Those lucky few, who appear able to very skilfully and elegantly engage others are often unable to explain how they have come to possess such an important and essential business skill. But if we consider influence as a science, something else happens: something much more empowering and efficient.
The Influencing Skills of Barack Obama
The seven critical skills that make the US president so influential. Barack Obama is undoubtedly one of the greatest influencers of modern times. His accomplishment in going from a relative unknown to the most talked about person on the planet in less than 18 months provides a lot of valuable lessons to anyone marketing a product, service or person
Is your brain damaging your business?
Why do so many senior people struggle to delegate key tasks even when they know they are limiting growth by being the bottleneck in their business? The latest scientific evidence shows that it’s not only down to skill; it’s their brain getting in the way. There is always a lot more to be done in a day than you can achieve by yourself, and the key to success is knowing what to let go of. But letting go creates uncertainty, and your brain hates uncertainty almost more than anything else.
The Perplexing Nature of Generation Y
If you’re in business you need to understand the nature of the people born between the early 1980’s and the mid 1990’s, who now make up approximately 20 per cent of the workforce and are vital to our economic future. This fascinating article on Generation Y was written by Dr Charles Woodruffe of business psychology consultancy Human Assets Ltd
An Unusual But Highly Effective Marketing Technique
The story that follows shows you what phenomenal results you can achieve once you start to truly appreciate yourself and/or your products and services. It comes from Bernadette Doyle, Ireland’s leading marketing maven. I liked it so much that I asked her permission to reproduce it here in its entirety for you to read, and
Opportunity in adversity: Steve Jobs delivers an inspiring talk
Want to know what makes Apple CEO Steve Jobs tick? Here is a fascinating insight. It was an address he famously gave on June 12, 2005 to a graduating class at Stanford University. This talk greatly inspired me when I first came across it, and still does. At a time when so many businesses and individuals are