How to Create Your Own Information Product Even If You Are a Hopeless Writer!

You have been longing to have your own information product in your own name. However, you learn that you are just plain hopeless when it comes to writing that you are ready to resign to accept the fact that you just don’t have the flair for writing!

Maybe writing is not your forte. Or maybe English is not your first language. Perhaps, you’ve been living the life of a jack of all trades; you have almost every skill but for once, you wish you were a master of something.

Whatever the reason is, creating your own information product is a plain mission impossible. Or is it? What if I tell you that you can still create your own information product even if you are NOT an expert of any kind and above all, you DON’T have to write?

No, I’m not talking about being an affiliate or reseller here. We are going to get you an information product with YOUR name on it. Comforting to know there is a door to possibility all wide open now?

Great! And I’m just about to tell you how you can do just that! Here are three fantastic ways you can have your own quality information product WITHOUT having to write and in some cases, not even a single word!

The first two ways cost money. The last way can be done free.

1. Hire a ghostwriter

Quite simply, you hire a ghostwriter to create the information product on a subject or topic of your choice (or more accurately, on demand!) but it the product would appear under your name. Normally, ghostwriters don’t take any credit at all and hence the term “ghostwriting”.

Hiring a ghostwriter to write for you can be costly. However, if you have the money to compensate your inability to write a good report, this is for you.

You can go to http://www.elance.com/ and search for a writer who can help with creating your own information product.

2. Buy Private Label Rights to a collection of articles or product.

Quite simply, you buy raw contents (which can come in the form of articles or .doc files which you can edit in Word program) from the original authors or authorized resellers. You can then edit them anyway you like and most importantly, put your name on them and claim authorship!

Private Label Rights seem to be the “in-thing” in Internet Marketing now, though Private Label Rights, in nature, has been on Earth for a very long time, which I suspect dates way back to very long time ago.

This method costs money, too, but it does not cost near as much as hiring your own ghostwriter to get the task done in most cases.

The drawback however, is that if the Private Label Rights to the products or articles are being sold in large numbers, it can dilute the value and quality of the same products or articles as there would literally be many purchasers using the same content at the same time.

If you have limited writing skills, you can still make substantial changes to the raw contents. You will do well to also choose Private Label Right to articles or products on sale with limited copies on sale.

3. Get someone else to write for you… through an interview!

The above two methods cost money on your part. Now, here’s the third and free method. You get someone else to create the product for you.

Sounds hard? No, it sounds impossible! Not only are you going to get other people to write for you, you are also not going to pay them! How? Easy. Conduct an interview. It’s free, and it puts your interviewees in the limelight. More often than not, people are glad to be interviewed, even if it’s free.

If you are planning to create an information product on copywriting, you can approach practicing copywriters for an interview. You can remind them that it won’t take much of their time and you may name some benefits from working with you on this project.

If you know of any experts offline, you can arrange for a verbal interview in person or by phone and sell your information product in BOTH text and audio format!

In return, you can thank your interview candidates for participating by giving them some free valuable gifts. Maybe you can get your interview candidates to strike up a Joint Venture with you in selling the complete information product created by everyone with you being the compiler and facilitator. Perhaps you can convey special Resell Rights to the information product just for your candidates if they are marketers.

At least and above all, you’d better be successful with marketing your product!

With three powerful methods to choose from, creating your own information product without having to write on your part is now possible, even for a hopeless writer like you!

When you make your first bucks from your Internet Business, you may want to take me out for a meal if we happen to be nearby.

Britney Spears Branding

How would you like to sell as much in one year as Britney sells in one day or in one hour? Have you put much thought into how marketing empires are created? If you're selling anything then you're a marketer and you should study the biggest successes to follow in their footsteps.

We've all heard of branding, but do you do it? Have you branded yourself? If you have, are you expanding your marketing opportunities with your brand?

Once you've created a name, built successful marketing campaigns and gotten people to know and like who you and your company are don't stop there.

The real money is in building multiple streams of income. Once your brand begins to build you can diversify to create your own franchise. Think Star Wars, Harry Potter, the books for "Dummies." You don't have to be a celebrity or an acclaimed author to cash in, but we can definitely learn from them.

Here are some examples:

Britney Spears makes money on CD's, concert sales, posters, books, movie appearances, TV appearances, videos, Pepsi commercials and other endorsements.

Paul Newman makes money on movies, and makes money for charity on salad dressing, pasta sauce, popcorn, salsa, lemonade, steak sauce, cook books, T-shirts, hats, and sweatshirts.

Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield (The "Chicken Soup For The (fill in a lucrative target market here) Soul" authors make money on a series of books and tapes so large and profitable that they have their own book rack at Barnes and Noble stores everywhere. There are over 35 titles and 53 million copies in print in over 32 languages. What if they would have stopped with the first title and not bothered to expand the money making potential of their brand?

Talk about branding! ...and they get other people to send them stories for free so they don't even write the books. Beyond this, they make money from other books and tapes, public speaking, joint ventures, and seminars.

Robert Kiyosaki (author of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad) makes money from books, tapes, board games, public speaking, seminars, an affiliate program, game events, teleconferences and real estate.

There are limitless possibilities of where you can go in expanding or capitalizing on your brand. Mark and Jack have used their "Chicken Soup" fame to sell unrelated products that are also directed at helping people live the lives of their dreams. Paul Newman is using his fame as an actor to sell food and sauces that have nothing to do with the movies he's been in.

So don't limit yourself. As your success builds over time continue to write down new and bigger goals. Imagine what you would do and what products you would create if you were already famous in your field. What would you sell? How would you market? How would you expand your empire?

You are a brand and so is your company. Even before you had a business everyone you came into contact with had an idea of who you were (your brand) because of how you presented yourself. Now it's time to be aware of the brand your building and make the most of it.

Hey, we can't all be Britney, but we're missing the boat if we don't learn from watching her cash in.

Co-Branding For More Traffic

The opportunity to promote your web site on the internet grows daily. Unfortunately, so do the number of sites that compete for product placement and web traffic. As a response to this increased competition, many savvy marketers are turning to co-branding to provide them with an edge over their competition. By participating in co-branding programs, these web marketers can provide more tools, resources and "sticky" content than their competitors.

A co-brand program is usually an arrangement where a web page, company, or organization allows a licensee or participant to include the licensee's logo or brand on the product offered by the licensor. The benefit to the licensee is increased brand exposure, and the ability to offer a product that would otherwise be unavailable to their clients. The benefit to the licensor can be increase advertising revenue, or in many cases on the internet, increased web traffic. An example of this type of co-branding would be syndicated stock ticker that could be posted on your site, and branded with your logo. An example of this can be found at the Wall Street Trader Co-brand site

The opportunities to co-brand on the internet are expanding from content to actual software and products. IP Ware real estate software (link) offers free co-branding and co-branded web links on the software's start page so that consumers are exposed to co-branding every time they start the software. The Internet Toolpad will actually insert your logo into a host of freeware for a small charge. There are also a number of organizations that will accept co-branding in exchange for cross promotion and increased traffic.

Regardless of the type of co-branding, the benefit in increased traffic and site "stickiness" is apparent. By using the branding and promotional resources on the internet wisely, the internet marketer can offer more options, better solutions, and more attractive content
than their competition.

Twitter Tools

Here are some twitter tools that could help manage your twitter account

1. Buzzom - Grow your number of followers, Reciprocate those who follow you, Flush those who does not follow you



2. TrueTwit - Stop Wasting time on spammers, let true twit verify your followes

3. thewin - Automatically unfollow anyone that stops following you

Selling Effortlessly by Numbers

My whole world changed once I realised that selling was really not hard to do. You don't need any fancy scripts. Neither do you need any clever closing phrases such as "which color would you prefer blue or green?" Every sales training school I ever attended failed to make me into a salesman. All those clever closing techniques probably work for some, but they just did not click with me.

Most newcomers to selling are actually scared rigid at the thought of face-to-face selling. They just cannot survive the constant rejection. You can never expect everyone to say "yes" and the emphatic word "no" just destroys many good souls who might otherwise have made their fortune from a career in selling. The same thing happened to me, and this is why I desperately want to tell you about it so that you too might become a real whiz at selling.


Here's What Happened To Me:

I had made some progress as a salesman in the retail trade. It is much easier when prospects actually walk through the front door of a store as they expect to be sold a product otherwise they would have kept walking. My feelings of success in retail where grossly overrated, because I truly believed that I could sell anything to anyone - I was in for a big shock. The world of selling on a commission-only basis is far removed from selling in a store. It's the toughest place to break ground, and usually only the truly hard-nuts crack it.

My initial success in retail came from selling fridges powered from an internal heated element and not a motor. Therefore, it seemed natural to stay in that product field to progress my sales career as a commission-only sales person. What that means is that you do not get paid a salary, you only get a predetermined commission on the actual sales you make yourself. It's a tough field for most.

However, I took such a job selling upright food freezers on credit terms door-to-door. I worked solidly for a two whole days and sold . . . nothing.

Every door that opened when I rang the bell, was slammed in my face once the prospect knew I had called to sell them something. I was just simply demoralised and had to admit defeat to myself. I took my sales kit back to the company sales office to quit the job, but was called into the Sales Manger's office.

"Okay, so you want to quit?" He asked

"Yes. I'm sorry but this job is heart-breaking for me. No one wants to listen to the pitch, and every door is shut in my face". I explained.

"How many calls did you make today then?" He enquired

About thirty in all. I covered four blocks but not a single taker.

"Okay". He continued. "So you got 35 people who said "NO" is that right?"

"Yes that about the size of it. I responded".

"Will you do me a favour? Go out tomorrow morning and find 95 people who say "NO". That's all I am asking you to do. You will not be trying to make a sale, I just want you to mark down in your call sheet, 95 people who say no to the deal. That's all. Will you just do that for me tomorrow, before you finally quit and before I can return your kit deposit?" He suggested

"Well I don't quite understand why, but I need the sales kit deposit desperately now so I suppose there's no choice". I replied.

The following day I trudged around the streets knocking on doors as he had suggested, and marking off every "NO" on my call sheet. Late into the afternoon I had made about 70 calls and just about had enough of it all. I went into a small cafe for a hamburger and coffee feeling completely dejected, but I still had 30 calls to make, and I needed to get my kit deposit back, so there was no real choice unless I chose to be dishonest and mark the sheet as completed.

However, for some reason I decided to be honest and complete the remaining calls. That was at just past 4pm and found myself still on the patch at 8.20pm having made eight sales.
I just could not believe that I had cracked it.

With a spring in my step I walked into the Sales Office the following day with eight signed orders complete with initial payment checks.

"You made it then?" Asked the Sales Manager knowingly.

"If you did as I asked you should have five orders". He continued.

"No, not five, but eight orders signed and paid". I said with pride and not without a little arrogance.

"You've done well" He said. "The average is five percent of calls made and that's what selling is all about. For every 95 No's there will be five Yes's. That's how it works." He continued.

My commission amounted to $125 per deal. So with eight orders I had earned a thousand dollars for a day's work. From that point forward I never looked back, my career in sales was only just beginning.

There is a certain way to sell door-to-door which I had also learned and which requires no actual "selling" as such. The method is ideal for non-sales people and those who were like myself - scared stiff of being constantly rejected. I call it "The Drop-Card and Search Method". If you would like a complimentary copy of the eBook just fill out the enquiry form at my website at http://www.themartuk.com and I'll be happy to send you a download link for the complete book.

I would also love to hear from other sales people who have a story to tell, or a technique they have used. Selling can be a lonely job, but immensely rewarding. Sales people are the most interesting people I have ever had the pleasure to be associated with. Good pitching and good luck.


Article by Harry S Richards. Founder of Beauforts PC Trading.

How to market your Home Business

Marketing, as contrasted with advertising, is a long-term enterprise. It takes a substantial amount of time compared to other efforts but is likely the most important aspect of your business. The first step in your marketing efforts should naturally be a plan. And the foundation of your marketing plan is a very specific goal that your Home Business is trying to achieve. This goal should be as vivid and well thought out as possible. Marketing is the force which will launch your Home Business toward your goal and make the best possible use of your budget in addition to the most effective use of your time, which is really your mosr precious assett.

When you work as an independent consultant or home business, you yourself are totally responsible for marketing your entity. In essence, there is not really a team to call upon for your marketing requirements. But you seek precisely the same result, which is enhaced awareness of the product or service offered by your specific Home-based Business. This being the case, then of course a certain quantity of salesmanship is needed in this hyper-competitive and global marketplace that we currently find ourselves in, regardless of the nature of your business.

Likely the single most overlooked element of this marketing and salesmanship is in the follow-up and follow-thru. There is follow up with your current base and also with your potential customers. The fact is that many businesses simply don't follow up enouph with their customer base(don't ask me why). When following up with your potential customers you should get a much better success ratio compared to when you initially contacted them. And by no means should you not follow up more than one time if needed.

You will need to choose the time intervals that you would like to follow up with your customers/prospects. You want your prospect to not forget about you and to have sufficient time to look over your offer. You also should have a tracking system of some style already in place. Be ready to send in more information when asked for it.

It is so very important to retain your customers since it generally costs a lot of time and/or money for every new customer. Cross selling or back-end selling is also crucial for this reason.

There are actually many ways you can go about marketing your Home-based Business which are either free or ultra low cost. A good place to start is in Jay Conrad Levinsons' Guerrilla Marketing series of books. It is no secret that a key to growing a business, and especially a new Home Business, is marketing. The internet, for example is full of these free or low cost methods.

Offline marketing methods that are low cost include distributing newsletters with your product or service and contact number listed inside, trade shows, brochures and bulletin boards to name just a few.

Finding a Niche

If you don't find a niche market for the product or service you offer, you will have a difficult time being successful. Most newcomers who wish to do business on the Internet often market to everyone they can find with the expectation that everyone will do business with them. This is the same as throwing mud against the wall and hoping some of it will stick. They have not yet found their niche market.

What is niche marketing?
A niche market is composed of individuals and businesses that have similar interests and needs, which can be readily identified and that can be easily targeted and reached.
Finding a niche for your business means finding a great product or service for a highly targeted audience.

Here's the process to find your niche business:
1. Find a niche product or service you are passionate about. This will greatly improve your chances of being successful. Why? Because it's the only way you're going to be able to devote the kind of time and effort to create a meaningful web site, build up the right traffic, generate worthwhile income, and enjoy what you're doing.

2. Choose a niche product you are knowledgeable about. Reflect on what skills, hobbies or products you know the most about. If you don't have the knowledge yet, then choose a niche product that you would love to promote, and then spend the necessary time to research it, so you can eventually become an expert in your marketing field.

3. Define your niche market - do the necessary research to see if there is a market for your niche product. To create a profitable business for your niche product, you need to ask yourself these questions:

a) Is there sufficient demand for it? - If you choose a field that is too broad it may be hard to stand out from the competition. For example, camping equipment could be your niche product. Well, unless you are a large corporation such as Sports Authority (a large retail store in my town), you won't stand out from the crowd. However, a more highly targeted niche product could be Coleman Camping Equipment.

b) Keyword research - use keyword tools such as the overture suggestion tool (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion) or word tracker (wordtracker.com) to find how many people are searching each month on keywords related to your niche product.


Here's an example:
According to overture (at the time of writing this article), the keyword phrase "camping equipment" was searched 76164 times in one month. If you do a search on Google.com for camping equipment you will find 1,610,000 web sites show up - heck, that's too competitive.
However "Coleman camping equipment" generated 1242 searches in one month according to overture. Google.com shows 93,200 competing websites. That's much better though still somewhat competitive.

Tip: Notice there are not many web sites (even the top ones), that have "Coleman camping equipment" in their titles. This is just one of the ways to obtain a high ranking on the search engines for your newly targeted web site. This will then provide lots of targeted traffic to your site.

c) Take a survey - you may already have products or services that you selling to your customers. If so, ask questions within your survey about what product or service would help your customers business. If it can help them save time by gaining more knowledge or automating tasks, you could have a winner.

d) Create Your Own Unique Selling Position (USP) - study your competition to find out what they emphasize about the product which makes them stand out from the crowd. Then decide on something that will make your business unique from the others. It could be something unique about the product (i.e. discount Coleman camping equipment) or you could choose a more highly defined target market (i.e. Boy Scout organizations and clubs throughout the USA that use Coleman's camping equipment).

4. Build and promote your web site - to develop a profitable web site for your niche product you need to create a number of informative pages that will not only attract visitors from the search engines, but inform and move them to purchase from your site.

Niche marketing is the key to developing a profitable business that will make you stand out from the crowd. By doing the necessary research and building an informative web site, you will become an expert in your niche marketing field.

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The power of thinking small online!

I know what you're thinking.

There must be a typo error, because everyone's talking about the power of thinking big online.

Obviously, thinking big is good. But do not under estimate the power of thinking small.

Here's what I mean:

If you want to make $100,000.00 in a year online, is it easier to achieve it from one source of income, or 10 online source of incomes that can give you $10,000.00 each a year?

The answer? Both are correct. But I'd rather take the second choice by thinking 'small' of creating 10 income streams from the internet to achieve that.

My justification?

It's easier for me to create an income stream that can generate $10,000.00 a year online for me than thinking 'big' to create ONE income stream that generates $100,000.00.

If I can create ONE income stream easily, what's stopping me from creating another 9 similar income streams from the internet to make $100,000.00 a year?

You might disagree with me because you probably say that staying focused on one income stream is easier. That's fair and I absolutely agree.

But, I'll still choose to create 10 income streams because my risk of failure is 10 times less.

Assuming I choose the first choice to make $100,000.00 using ONE income stream.

What happens if I fail? Simple. I lose everything in that one year.

But if I create 10 income streams, I can afford to fail as much as 50% of my income streams and yet, I'll achieve 50% of success. Sounds ironic, yes?

Don't get it wrong. I'm not preaching to be negative of preparing to fail, but I'm preaching reality on how to minimize risk to be successful.

Taking small steps is always easier than taking big steps.

Exercise
1. Calculate the Cost of the Lifestyle that you want (Don't forget to add up savings and inflation)
2. Thinking in small business. How many small business would it take to make that sum up that amount of money (have a time constraint or a deadline on when you want to achieve that specific amount of money)
3. Take Action, Set up your small businesses

Can you use hypnotic like statements to sell more products?

As I become more successful with my internet business I have become interested in ways to move my business to the next level.

Besides pumping more money into advertising it occured to me that increasing my closing percentage on my websites to the visitors I am getting would be a free way to make more money without spending more money to do it.

Writing better copy in my ads and on my websites itself surely would help me reach this goal.

I know in off-line sales that it is not only what you say, but how you say it. To achieve the same results without the benefit of voice inflection will require getting my prospective customer into an almost hypnotic state of mind.

First let's define what an hypnotic state of mind is.

"A trance like state in which a person responds readily to suggestions. Attracting and holding an interest as if by a spell."

O.K. But how do I do that?

If you can tell your readers what they are probably thinking, feeling or doing as they read your ad copy their thoughts will usually trigger their own subconscious mind to bring out these feelings or actions.

O.K. How do you do that?

One way is to add hypnotic sentences into any ad copy. You may have to change one or two words so it relates more to the product or service you're selling.

Here are 10 hypnotic like sentences that you can use to get your prospect more into a buying mood.

If after reading these you feel the urge to go and buy something check out my make money at home website Team-Schuman.Com here:
http://www.team-schuman.com

Just kidding. O.K. here are the 10 hypnotic sentences.

1. As you're scanning over this ad copy, you are beginning to imagine using our product and enjoying all the benefits it brings.

2. After you read this short ad you will feel like your problems are almost completely solved, all you will have to do is order.

3. As you're skimming through this, you're beginning to think you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying out our product.

4. The more you understand just how valuable our product could be to your life, the less you think about delaying this important purchase.

5. As you keep reading this ad copy you are feeling more and more compelled to experience all the benefits of our product.

6. As every word you read on our website you start to understand just how much our product could benefit your life.

7. The more you keep reading the more you feel it would be a waste to let this opportunity slip by.

8. You don't know it yet but, at the conclusion of this ad, you will feel driven to order and experience all the benefits of our product.

9. The more you review our website the more you begin to find yourself getting very excited about our product and starting to feel the urge to buy now.

10. You don't realize it yet but, in a few short minutes you'll realize that you can't put off this vital purchase and then you'll be yanking out your credit card.


Does this stuff actually work? The only way to know for sure is to give it a try in your ad copy and on your website pages.

If people really do start breaking out their credit card more often or even a few extra times then it is worth the effort to learn how to use hypnotic sentences to sell more of your products.

Time Management Tips for Solo Entrepreneurs

Does it seem like everyone and everything is vying for your attention all at once? It can be hard for solo entrepreneurs to know what to do first, let alone try to find the time to get caught up. Here are some time management tips that will help you to stay on top of it all:

1. Put your to-do list in writing and prioritize it. Studies show that people who write their lists down are 90% more likely to complete their list than those who do not.

2. Be realistic about how long it takes to get things done. Block out a reasonable amount of time on your planner, especially if it’s an appointment where there’s driving time to consider.

3. Schedule time with yourself, without interruptions. If that means closing your office door and letting your voicemail take
phone messages, then that’s what you need to do. Do this at your most productive time of the day. Are you a morning person? Start your day out with some quiet time by yourself, when you’re the most productive and focused.

4. Don’t multi-task. That’s right! These days, people have found that they’re much more productive when they’re allowed to focus on one task at a time, rather than constantly juggling a dozen different projects at once. Think about it ¬ don’t you feel like you’ve actually accomplished something when you can cross things
off your list?

5. Are you a “yes” person? Learn to say no. Sometimes adding just one more thing to your to-do list means staying at work an extra hour. Ask yourself if you really have the time and energy to handle one more task. Don’t guilt yourself into it, especially if you’ll feel resentful later, for having done it.

6. Do you work at home? Don’t let common distractions sidetrack you. That basket of laundry will still be there at the end of the day.

7. Try to combine like tasks. If you have lots of phone calls to make and emails to respond to, make all of the phone calls first, then tackle the emails.

8. Keep all your contacts in one place, within easy reach. Do whatever works for you, whether you keep an address book in your day planner, in Outlook, or in your Palm. You need to have fast and easy access to phone numbers and email addresses.

9. Use waiting time productively. When waiting for an appointment or traveling, catch up on reading trade magazines, writing correspondence, or jotting down creative ideas for marketing your business.

10. At the end of each day, plan for the next day. Write down tomorrow’s to-do list, prioritize it, and then clean off your desk.

Outside The Box

Thinking "outside the box" or as it is sometimes called, "coloring outside the lines" is a popular idea in the business world today. People and organizations are told to think outside the box or color outside the lines as a way to stimulate creativity when they need to solve problems like streamlining production, establishing a new product, or developing a new process. And it's true that creativity and innovation often arise from unexpected and unconventional thinking.

But there is a serious problem with trying to apply such thinking too broadly.

For instance, creativity is valued in art and advertising, but not in banking and accounting. An accounting firm recently ran an ad suggesting that it could think "outside the box." Do you really want your business to be associated with creative accounting? Aren't accountants supposed to put the numbers in the right box? Wasn't creative accounting a serious problem for Enron?

In reality, clear thinking and the creativity that it produces are rarely a matter of thinking outside the box. And coloring outside the lines is for the most part just sloppy workmanship. The art of clear thinking is a matter of putting thoughts in to the right boxes or categories. Clear thinking is a matter of mental organization. Conversely, sloppy thinking involves the confusion of categories, of putting ideas into the wrong boxes or not putting them in order at all. Is a child who will not straighten his or her room creative or just sloppy? There is a significant difference. While creativity sometimes looks sloppy to an outside observer, it does not issue from sloppiness.

Picasso was a creative artist.

But his creativity was not a matter of the art he produced. In reality his abstract work is technically sloppy. It looks like the work of a child. Picasso could sell his abstract art only because he had previously established himself as an artist who could color inside the lines very well. Had he not first proven his artistic talent in the traditional way, his abstract art would have been worth much less. He used his reputation as a traditional artist to establish a new direction in art. He didn't so much color outside the box, as he expanded the boundaries and definition of the box. But the point is that his abstract creations were valuable only because of his proven abilities in the traditional arts.

Contrast my own efforts to establish myself as an abstract artist. My art has gone unnoticed because I have not been able to prove myself as a traditional artist. Not that I actually tried to do so, but I am using myself as an example to make the point. The creativity of a novel idea requires the discipline of order and structure to be valuable. Picasso's art is valuable because he was an accomplished painter who intentionally colored outside the lines. My art is not valuable because I am not an accomplished painter and I accidentally color outside the lines. While the two products may look similar, the difference is critical.

Creativity is more than breaking the rules.

Similarly, Joseph Heller was able to break the rules of English grammar in his book, Something Happened (Scribner, 1974), only because he was intimately familiar with them. Having taught English at the University of South Carolina, he was a master of grammar. And only out of his expertise could he creatively exploit, expand and redefine the boundaries of grammar. And so it is with regard to thinking outside the box.

Thinking outside the box apart from being able to think inside the box is worthless.

Such thought is just plain sloppy. Thus, the suggestion that creativity lies in the ability to think outside the box is mostly nonsense. Creativity issues from talent, ability and discipline. Talent must be forged and shaped on the anvil of discipline in order to develop ability. Great ability is always the result of study, discipline and practice.

Creativity is more a matter of seeing that the boxes themselves are inadequate and suggesting a better arrangement or a better definition. Creativity doesn't simply discard the boxes, it redefines and/or rearranges them after becoming intimately familiar with them. Real creativity is always the fruit of discipline and order. Creativity, in order to be genuinely creative and not simply sloppy disorganization, must emerge out of discipline and order as an intentional effort.

While a creative idea often comes unbidden out of unexpected places, it requires discipline, study and order to make something of it. Apart from discipline and order, what passes for creativity is nonsense, and to suggest otherwise actually undermines and/or weakens the creative process.

What does this mean for our industry? Distributors and suppliers should apply themselves to mastering the basics before attempting to break the rules in the name of creativity. Don't start outside the box. First, establish your ability to think within the box. Master the rules before you suggest breaking them. For example, before a distributorship presents a wild, innovative concept to a client for a campaign, it should first establish its expertise with campaigns and/or ideas that have a track record of yielding good ROI. Designers, artists, and copy writers should establish their mastery of basics before experimenting outside the box. For the most part the important stuff is inside the box.

The 12 Reasons Why Most Ads Fall Flat On Their Face, Costing You A Fortune Instead of Making You The Money You Deserve!

1.You think you need ‘Image’ or ‘branding’ advertising because that’s all the so-called ‘top guns’ use in their advertising. You don’t use direct response advertising they don’t and you’d think they know best.

2.You never offer compelling benefits that cause your prospect to want to do business with you of your competitor.

3.You don’t use powerful, benefit driven headlines that literally stop your prospect in their tracks and draw them into the body of your ad.

4.You don’t tell your prospect what’s in your offer from them. But you do ramble on about your image, your business and what you are trying to sell him.

5.You don’t talk to your prospect like you know him. You don’t get specific and don’t motivate him.

6.You don’t address your prospect needs, wants and desires in your opening headlines. You’re to busying thinking about yourself or your company image! Remember, your prospect is thinking of one thing only WIIFM (What’s I It For Me?)

7.Your ads are boring and dull and look like all the other hundreds of ads. You don’t motivate your prospect to take ACTION. You don’t use energetic, exciting, action words! Your about as exciting as wet paint!

8.Because you copy what everyone else is doing, or do as the ad agency suggests, your ads are full of “white space” which leaves little room to add any benefits. (The only thing your prospect is looking for) You never have ads with a lot of copy. It’s the copy your prospects want. Information is King!

9.You don’t give specifics in your ads. Your prospects want exact numbers, percentages, results and testimonials. They want all the facts before they will make the decision to move towards a buying decision.

10.You don’t give your prospects any reason to act on your offer NOW. Tell them how to in a step by step process. Unless you tell them, them may not know what the next step is?

11.You don’t see your marketing, sales and advertising as a total system. It’s this total system that can either make or break you as a profitable business. They are not separate functions, with separate goals.

12.You focus on YOU, YOUR COMPANY, YOUR LOGO, YOUR CREDENTIALS, instead of focusing on what all of this can do for your prospect. What BENEFITS will them get if they buy with you?

Now you know the 12 reasons why maybe, some of the ads you are running are not pulling any responses at all! In fact they will be costing you and your company money EVERY TIME YOU RUN THEM!

Understanding The Power Of Network Marketing

Terms such as Network Marketing, 'MLM', and Multi Level Marketing all refer to the same type of business model. This industry has had more than it's share of scumbag crooks and con artists that have used and abused the concept. However, if you do your homework and get involved with a legitimate network marketing organization, this business model has exceptional income potential.

Network Marketing can produce outstanding results if you know a few simple concepts, the understanding of which is critical to your success.

Network Marketing, MLM, and Multilevel Marketing are unlike franchises or conventional businesses in that they take advantage of all three of the important, yet misunderstood principles of:

1) Leverage (of Time and Money)

2) Residual Income

3) Geometric Growth Through Duplication

Unfortunately these principles are not well understood by many of the people that undertake network marketing. And that's just one of many reasons why so many fail at network marketing. There are lots of other reasons, and it would take volumes to cover them all. But this is one of the more common ones. Because if you don't comprehend and believe in these principles, it's impossible to help others fully understand and appreciate them.

First, lets look at LEVERAGE:
Every successful person or business takes advantage of leverage. There are only 24 hours in a day and no matter how talented you are or how much you get paid per hour, if you don't take advantage of leverage you're limited by the number of hours in a day. As a side note, I have heard of cases where an occasional lawyer was billing more than 24 hours per day...but, I guess that's another story. By learning to leverage your time, you can also benefit from a percentage of other people's efforts, and dramatically increase your income while creating more free time for yourself.

The unique and wonderful thing about the Network Marketing business model is that everyone has the same opportunity to become the 'owner' of his or her own business - with a fraction of the investment of time and money of a franchise or traditional business.
In network marketing the people at the top definitely have a vested interest in helping others on their team succeed.

Would you rather receive 100% of one person's efforts, or 5% of the efforts of 100 people?
Obviously 100% of one is always only ONE. But 5% of 100 is FIVE.

Not only will the total result with leverage almost always be amplified, but your income is not dependent on only one person. If your income is produced by the activities of many, it is much more dependable. Even if something unexpected or negative happens to one or more of those people, it only has a minor effect on the TOTAL production.

It's great to get paid while you're sleeping or away on vacation. That's one of the many advantages of leveraging your time.

Now, lets consider RESIDUAL INCOME:
When someone mentions residual income many people automatically think of actors or musicians.

Residual income is recurring income that you continue to receive long after the work you've done to produce it has ended. There are lots of ways to produce residual income. However, many people don't understand it, and still others have never thought about or been exposed to it.
A very simple example of residual income is interest earned on money in the bank or investments. You continue to receive this income without having to invest any more time to produce it.

Suppose you had the choice of doing a job and earning $1,000 once, or getting paid $50/month for the rest of your life...which would you choose? If you chose the $50/month you obviously "get" the concept of residual income.

Clearly, $50/month will surpass a single payment of $1,000 relatively quickly. And if it lasts for a few years, or better yet - the rest of your life - it will really be a blessing.
Residual income is certainly not about "getting rich quickly", even though with the right opportunity it's possible to produce a substantial residual income stream in a relatively short time.

Most people who fail at network marketing either choose the wrong network organization or just give up too soon and quit because they expect overnight results. It is important to recognize that the real beauty of residual income is on the back end, not the front, and that once you build it you have the financial security and time flexibility to do just about anything you desire for the rest of your life!

Last, but not least, lets address GEOMETRIC GROWTH (DUPLICATION):
The classic illustration of geometric growth is the frequently used penny-a-day example.If you save one penny on the first day, and double it every successive day, (day two you have 2 pennies and day three you have 4 pennies, and so on) how much will you have at the end of 30 days?

The answer, to the astonishment of many, is $5,368,708! Amazing, but true.
That's a simple and dramatic illustration of how networking can work. If I can teach you, I've doubled myself. If we each teach someone else, we've doubled again. As this duplication or geometric growth process goes on and on, it can produce some amazing results in a relatively short period of time, just like the penny example above.
So there you have it, understand and apply these three principles

1) Leverage (of Time and Money)

2) Residual Income

3) Geometric Growth Through Duplication and, given sufficient time and effort, you should enjoy a successful and financially rewarding network marketing experience.