PLEASE TELL OTHERS!
Please tell all your business associates and friends about this newsletter. It's for anyone who wants to attract more customers, close more sales, earn more revenue, boost their bottom line, and drive their competitors crazy.

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IN THIS ISSUE

1. Wouldn't it Be Cool to Have Your Own Holiday?
2. Getting Paid for Your Services
3. Help This Brainy Marketer
4. More Help Needed
5. New Articles to Read
6. Teleseminar Schedule
7. Quote of the Week
8. Resources for Marketers & Entrepreneurs
9. A Little Fun
10. Smell the Coffee

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1. Wouldn't it Be Cool to Have Your Own Holiday?

I think it would be fun to have my own holiday. Although I learned how to create one a few years ago from Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound, I've never taken the time to do it for myself. After all, it does take a bit of creativity, especially if you want to make it fun and interesting. I always seem to have much more time and creativity for my clients than for myself.

For example, I created a fun holiday for my client, Rowena's, a gourmet foods producer in Norfolk, Va . Rowena's makes DELICIOUS pound cakes, including some fabulous sugar-free cakes that are only 5 points per BIG slice on the Weight Watchers program!

Why did I think "fun" when I created Rowena's special holiday? Well, besides the fact that it's FOOD, and everyone loves dessert, you can't help but think about fun when you visit the company's retail store and tearoom. Before you enter the store you are greeted by Rowena's mermaid, elegantly attired in her red-and-white polka-dot dress and offering you some "cake." Rowena's mermaid is part of Norfolk's "Mermaids on Parade" exhibit that you'll find all around the city. It's a fun city to visit.

As you enter Rowena's store, you'll see wonderful teapots, cups, aprons, books, miniature tea sets and lots more, including free samples to taste. Rowena's Tearoom is delightful, too, with a six-foot white rabbit to greet you, red checkered tablecloths, and a lovely, whimsical mural on the wall.

By now, I know you can picture Rowena's, so you understand why the holiday I created for this client HAD to be fun. Now, during the week of May 1-7, when your mom says, "Clean up your plate or you'll have no dessert!", you can say, "Sorry, Mom. Don't you know it's EAT DESSERT FIRST WEEK?"

If you'd like to learn how to create your own national holiday, join Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound, and me tomorrow when we discuss "How to Use the Media to Market Your Expertise." Even if you can’t attend the live event, you can still buy the MP3, CD and full transcript! Read more about it and sign up here.

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2. Getting Paid for Your Services

Last week, Cindy Van Vreede of Cindy V Video, LLC asked, "People just don't want to pay for services. And many people think they can do videotape production themselves. The results can be pretty bad. How can I get clients to understand the value of my work?"

"If the results of homemade videos are bad, I’d show them," says Tracey Welsh of S.M.WelshDirect Inc. "Show prospective clients clips from amateur productions, and then clips from ones you have done. If your prospects won’t grant you a presentation, ask if you can email them a mini 2- to 4-minute outline of what you do as an attached video clip. It’s an easy thing for them to say yes, and out of curiosity, I think most would watch it. Create a really short teaser that shows how an amateur video looks versus what you produce. Close it with some question(s) that ask them how a poorly produced video would affect their project. Then ask a few questions about how this differs from a well-made video, hinting at what that value might be for them. (I suggest posing the negatives, as well as the solution to the negative—that you produce their video—as questions rather than statements because this gets the prospect involved in defining the value, and reduces their defensiveness.) If you try this, I’d love to hear the feedback you get.

Jim Zaccaria of the "Loving Touch" Foundation writes, "People DO want to pay for services! They simply need to understand what it is they're paying for and why they're better off doing so. I think Lois would agree. Show them examples.....right in their email. Examples of what others have done (or make your own bad examples) AND examples of what YOU do. They'll SEE for themselves! Educate, Educate, EDUCATE...."

And Lois says...as with all products and services, the client needs to know how your service will BENEFIT them. What will happen if they DON'T hire you? What's the experience going to be like when they are in the middle of their wedding and the videotape runs out or their friend doesn't show up on time to film the bride and bridesmaids in the dressing room? How worried are the bride and groom going
to be? I'd look at it not as if I sell videotape services, but that I sell peace of mind. "I help the bride sleep better the night before the big day."

I do wonder about your format, however, Cindy. Are you still using videotape when most people have converted to DVD? If you're using DVD, can you sell the "technology" aspect of it? That is,can you record it, edit it, set it to music, and duplicate it within X hours, and when will the client ever get around to doing all that? It will take them hours to do it right.

Jim Wilson and I cover this in our ebook,"Sales Success! Strategies for Women," Chapter 32. You can download this and 51 other sales tips that you can put to work for you right away. Read all about it here.

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3. Help This Brainy Marketer

Cheryl Bricker at Brickers Realty asks, "Can you give me advice/support so I can overcome my fear of success?"

I have a few ideas, but I know our Brainy readers will have lots of great ideas for you. How about it, Brainy marketers? What can Cheryl do to overcome her fear of success? Send your comments here.

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4. More Help Needed

Stacey Hunt at Visions, Ink., asks, "I'm wondering if I could get some help from you and your readers. I'm researching CD/DVD duplicators and printers and trying to find the best option. I was wondering if you or any of your readers use/own one of these machines and if they can make any recommendations. Like all technology, there is so much out there, so many options!"

I'm sure my readers can help you with this. How about it, Brainy readers? Send in your suggestions, and I'll print the responses next week.

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5. New Articles to Read

Brainy readers tell me how much they enjoy my in-depth articles about marketing. I've recently added several new ones to my Article Bank—some are mine and some are written by other experts.

Do You Need a Mentor? And How Do You Find One?
A mentor can help you get ahead, whether you are self- employed or working for a company, government agency, or nonprofit. Learn more by reading this article.

Get Your News Releases Through the S*PAM Filters in 11 Easy Steps
Do your emails get rejected? Are you sure they're getting delivered? Find out how to get through the email system here.

Avoiding the Question: How Much Do YOU Charge Per Hour?
Is this a question that your customers ask you? Wouldn't you like to get out of the piecework business? Find out how here.

Never Sell Again: Get Repeat Business and Avoid the Need to Prospect
These seven ideas can help you improve your relations with your customers so you don't have to prospect as often. Get repeat business instead! Read it here.

Niche with Passion
Learn how to create a niche and make more money. Read it here.

Linking Strategies to Skyrocket to the Top of Google
Improve your search-engine rankings and Google page rank with these useful ideas.

20 Ways to Convert Visitors to Subscribers
If your conversion rate is down, perhaps you need a few new ideas. Get some here.

Or, check out all our articles here.

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6. Teleseminar Schedule

TOMORROW! March 23: Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound, "How to Use the Media to Market Your Expertise." Read More!

April 6: Paulette Ensign, "How to Promote Your Business with Booklets." Read More!

April 27: SURPRISE! I am pretty sure I have a famous Internet marketer scheduled, but I'm still waiting for confirmation, so you'll just have to wait until next week to learn about her. (Details coming soon)

May 11: Dan Janal, "How to Use Teleseminars to Enhance Your Reputation and Build Your Business." (Details coming soon)

Check out our whole list of teleseminars here.

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7. Quote of the Week

"Success can make you go one of two ways. It can make you a prima donna, or it can smooth the edges, take away the insecurities, let the nice things come out."

~Barbara Walters

What's your definition of success? Email your comments.

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8. Resources for Marketers & Entrepreneurs

Free Workshop from Janet Switzer

It's rare that Janet makes public appearances, but as part of a new joint venture, she just negotiated to build as many information empires as possible, she'll be delivering LIVE and IN PERSON her complete system for turning your book,
training module, successful business system or smart idea into a multi-million dollar information empire.

The entire event is F*REE, too, and will take place Thursday, April 14, at the Westin Los Angeles Airport...the evening before the Mark Victor Hansen Mega Book Marketing event begins.

To register for limited seats, please click.

 

4 Tips to Build Traffic to Your Blog

Christopher Knight of Ezine Tips has written an excellent article about building blog traffic, and why you would want to do that. You can read it free here.

 

 

Want to Add Audio to Your Website and Emails?

It's very easy to do with AudioGenerator. You just call in on the phone, record the clip and AudioGenerator will send you an email with the code for your website or email. Then you just paste it in. And you can try it for only $1 a day with unlimited use for an entire week!

 

Directory of Women Business Owners

If you're a woman business owner, you may want to add your contact information to the Woman Business Owner Directory, here.

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9. A Little Fun

Advertising slogans translated...

From "American Demographics" magazine, here’s a look at how shrewd American business people translate their slogans into foreign languages.

When Braniff translated a slogan touting its upholstery, "Fly in leather," it came out in Spanish as "Fly naked."

Chicken magnate Frank Perdue’s line, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken," sounds much more interesting in Spanish: "It takes a sexually stimulated man to make a chicken affectionate."

When Pepsi started marketing its products in China a few years back, they translated their slogan, "Pepsi Brings You Back to Life" pretty literally. The slogan in Chinese really meant, "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Grave."

When Coca-Cola first shipped to China, they named the product something that when pronounced sounded like "Coca- Cola." The only problem was that the characters used meant "Bite the wax tadpole." They later changed to a set of
characters that mean "Happiness in the mouth."

A hair products company, Clairol, introduced the "Mist Stick", a curling iron, into Germany only to find out that mist is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the manure stick.

Help keep the smiles coming...please send me your marketing, PR or sales jokes. I'll be happy to give you credit and list your website! Email me.

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10. Smell the Coffee...

The daffodils and hyacinths are beginning to bloom and the irises are peeking up, too. I can hardly wait to see what our yard looks like because we planted hundreds of flower bulbs last fall.

It's even been nice enough to get me to walk my dog once or twice a day. I'm sure glad I live in Virginia instead of Wisconsin! Brrr. It's too cold in my home state for me.

My middle sister, Judy, will be 50 years old on Friday. Happy birthday, Judy.

We've had some challenging times with our youngest child lately. She's a crabby person, determined to have her own way all the time. Sometimes I think she's 2 instead of almost 15! A friend recommended that we all take a "strengths" test online at Authentic Happiness to find out what the strengths for each person in the family are. I haven't had Nessa do it yet, but I'm hoping it will bring some positive vibes into our relationship. My husband, daughter Erin and I all took it, and we didn't find anything surprising, but it was interesting. Why don't you try it,
too?

Peace & Light,
Lois

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