Business and Personal Development

Passion: Be passionate and enjoy the ride.

Invariably, the highly successful love what they do. They combine passion and vision with the ability to shrug off temporary setbacks along the way. This means they exude confidence that rubs off on the people they work with.

Startups That Work

Clayton Makepeace, the best billion-dollar copywriter the world has seen has just given special permission to Daniel Levis, copywriter extraordinaire, access to his vault of all his billion-dollar generating copy he’s written for hundreds of companies over the last few decades.

Since the opening of this vault (and it really is a vault!) is a secret that has been passed around only to those on the inside of the copywriting business, including myself, I’m probably going to get either kicked out of the inside circuit or get black-listed for giving you this link publicly on my website. But what have I got to lose? I have access to everything I need to know for a lucrative future, so why wouldn’t you?

Here’s a bit of what’s in store:

Last April, when more than 100 success-obsessed direct marketers joined me for our first annual Power Marketing Summit, I gave them the keys to the kingdom.

At that once-in-a-lifetime, never-to-be-repeated event, I delivered hundreds of secrets I’ve used to create grand-slam, world-beating direct response promotions for 35 years.

For 16 solid hours and with a staggering 614 Power Point slides, I opened my files for them … I revealed the tips, tricks and techniques I use to write stronger copy faster and create bigger winners, more often … and I even led them, step-by-step, through my unique personal process for creating world-beating controls.

In those 16 hours, I revealed the copywriting and marketing secrets it took me 35 long years to learn.

I’m not (yet) the billion-dollar copywriter that Clayton is, so better read about the offer straight from Daniel rather than from me, here: Steal These Secrets.

One of my favorite copywriter gurus, Bob Bly, has come out with some cool new stuff. Bob Bly is one of the best copywriters out there. If you do any marketing or advertising of your own, make sure you read everything Bob Bly is written, as he’ll be in your local bookstore too.

According to Bob,

Through Google, you can literally access 100 million people on the Internet … in less than 10 minutes … with an ad budget of under $100.

But using Google AdWords is a little bit trickier than it looks.

My friend Perry Marshall is the leading Google AdWords expert today.

On Wednesday, January 24 at 9pm EST, Perry and I will be giving a 1-hour tele-seminar on using Google pay-per-click ads to get more leads, subscribers, and orders online.

In this fast-paced session, you will discover:

** Rosser Reeves’ “lost” 3-part formula for creating a winning Unique Selling Proposition … and how to
convert your USP into a click-generating Google ad.

** How Michael Masterson’s “BDF” formula enables you to get into your customer’s head … and write ads that have almost psychic pulling power.

** How to steal killer headline ideas from the best marketing geniuses in the world - without paying them a
dime.

** A proven method for selling to skeptics, technical specialists, and other audiences who generally resent
marketers and marketing techniques.

** How to use white papers, special reports, and other “bait pieces” to double your conversion rates … and earn the buyer’s trust.

This free tele-seminar will last exactly ONE HOUR. To get the call-in details, register here:

http://hitech.adwordstactics.com/

Bob’s throwing in a few extra goodies which definitely gives you more bang for your buck:

Register today and you get my 55-page Special Report, ‘Secrets of Successful Software and Technology Marketing: How to Sell to Engineers, Programmers, and other Techies and their Managers,” absolutely FREE.

In this free report, you will discover:

* 6 things I know for sure about marketing to engineers. Page 45.

* 10 steps to successful software marketing. Page 3.

* Selling technology to non-technical buyers. Page 24.

* How to write effective sales literature for high-tech products. Page 12.

* And more…

To enroll in the Google AdWords tele-class … and get your FREE Bonus Report … click below now:

http://hitech.adwordstactics.com/

For WP publishers out there, there is good news for getting better support in the languages you use your blog in. Ryan Boren describes how this is done at his blog. Since I do a lot of business with Chinese and Americans, it will be nice to know how characters can always be displayed correctly in the blog.

I’ve tried setting up UTF-8 support both in the database and on this blog, but for some reason, sometimes the Chinese output gets scrambled in what is known as 亂碼 (luà nmÇŽ). A minor inconvenience for the time being and I expect it to get resolved soon.

Unique Offering: Make your offering unique and then brand it.

To give your startup some momentum, make whatever you offer high quality and unique. Once you’ve done that, you can then set about branding your offering so people won’t forget.

Most entrepreneurs start new companies to build and then sell better products or services than those currently available. That’s fine, but successful product development is never done in a vacuum. Startups need to get to customers as soon as possible and get some input on their reaction to the products under development and to explore product options. It’s the testing of the business concepts in real-world settings that helps a company develop producst customers value.

Too many startups function in a virtual “stealth mode” — where they refuse to share their concepts with customers for fear of having their ideas stolen. This is especially counterproductive, because customer feedback is a very valuable source of product research. Once the proudct gets into the hands o fthe customer and a conversation is initiated, the real product development work can then being. You can get alongside customers and mold what your firm is developing to meet the actual needs of people in the marketplace. Customers can also suggest how an dwhere they would anticipate being able to buy this kind of product, and what level of backup support will give them confidence. All of these feforts will help you develop an offering with a feature set that is truly unique.

Note also that startups always need to demonstrate revenue generation quickly if they are to have any hope of achieving future rounds of financing. Investors frequently balk at throwing more and more money into developmental projects that have not progressed beyond the lab. If you can show that you appreciate the balance between perfecting your product and actually getting it into the marketplace as rapidly as possible, more startup funding will become available.

Most companies are not anxious to be seen as one-hit wonders. For this reason, the product development vision often incorporates future versions or product extensions. This gives the company an opportunity to ramp up sales across multiple niche markets. Consistent with this expanded view of the future, it also makes good business sense to develop a brand that will be used right across the range. A good brand can become a company’s most valuable asset when it underpins and strengthens a potential customer’s purchase decision.

Startups That Work

Anticipating Skepticism

Most consumers will doubt anything a marketer says to them. They have been conditioned through experience to be skeptical of everything they hear. The best marketers understand that and don’t try to change the consumer’s initial mind state. Instead, they arm themselves with enough evidence to win people over, and then present that factual information carefully and deliberately.

Ultimately, by overwhelming the customer with demonstrations of results, credibility can be established. The more variety in those elements of proof that are presented the better, but the simple principle involved is that ultimately, the marketer has to produce so much solid evidence of results that the customer is forced to set aside his or her natural skepticism and accept the results. Precisely how much evidence will be required to achieve this will vary according to a large number of factors, but be prepared.

The Ultimate Marketing Plan

Tailoring the Message

Successful marketing is always developed with the target market in mind. In other words, the message is tailored and massagecd to match the preferences of the consumers to whom it will be delivered. Which means that marketing doesn’t exist in a vacuum but in relation to the marketplace.

Those businesses that carefully tailor and then systematically deliver the right message to the right target market will succeed. Different businesses can and do choose different target markets but the real source of success lies not in the selection of the target market but more in the ability to customize and deliver the right marketing message.

The Ultimate Marketing Plan

Asking for the Order

Marketing lives or dies solely on the basis of the results generated. Smart marketers know this — therefore, they take every opportunity available to ask for the order. Or to put that another way, savvy marketers have the guts to ask for action in every presentation.

Why is this important? Simply because marketers who are afraid of asking for the order for whatever reason (like being afraid of offending the prospective client) never generate comparable results to those marketers who present the facts and ask for action. In marketing, presenting the message well is useful and a great preliminary step, but it’s only in the asking for the order that the real payoff is found.

The Ultimate Marketing Plan

Eliminating Assumptions

Many novice marketers make the mistake of assuming the public already know they have a genuine and pressing need for the products or services being offered. And because of that, novice marketers usually assume people will be instantly and automatically interested.

By contrast, good marketers take nothing for granted. They walk customers through all the steps needed to make a sale every time they come into contact with them. Good marketers also take the time to test and optimize every individual element of their marketing message systematically. They never assume the entire package is performing at its optimum level until they robustly test their assumptions in the marketplace.

The Ultimate Marketing Plan

Building a Board: Build a board who actually solve problems.

Put together a board of directors who will work as partners in your startup’s success. You want people who will provide ideas, let you access their personal networks, solve the management’s thorniest problems — and then get out of the way and let your people work.

In startups, private equity investors have an influential role, especially when they sit on the board of directors of the new business. Successful startups tend to have boards made up of people who take an active role in growing the business.

A good board of directors for a startup should:

Find the resources the company will need

Provide financial stability by putting in place robust financial reporting systems and processes

Provide assistance in developing a viable business strategy

Provide the introductions to other key entities that will lead to the formation of strategic alliances

Give hands-on assistance with the later rounds of financing

Be a great ongoing source of advice, wisdom, customer contacts, financial insights and support

Know when they have worn out their welcome and sense when it’s time to bring in a fresh set of directors with different skill sets who can guide the future growth of the firmIn all, the chances of success are significantly enhanced when a startup’s board of directors is able to work hand in hand with the management team to solve problems and address the key issues. When the directors are aligned with what the management are attempting to achieve, great things can and often do happen.

Startups That Work